welcome to the first publication of the journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability oliver, o. (2011). editorial. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 2 (1), 1. 1 editorial welcome to volume 2 of the journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, which operates on a continuous publication basis: articles will be published as soon as they successfully complete the peer-review process. we welcome submissions on a continuous basis on any aspect of teaching and learning for graduate employability. within an increasingly accountable and evidence-based higher education environment, graduate employability remains a priority for industry and the professions, students and graduates, and of course, universities and higher education providers. increasingly, stakeholders want to be assured not only that graduates have the capabilities that count for professional readiness and safe practice, but they have them at the agreed minimum standard. ardent conversations are in train in many parts of the world on this very matter: what level of achievement is required for employability and engaged citizenship, how might we measure it, and how might we—students, graduates, institutions—provide the evidence for it. this is one of the issues of interest to the readers of this journal. on behalf of our editorial board, the journal’s deputy editor, ms beatrice tucker, and our administration officer ms linda lilly, i encourage you to participate, through this journal, in scholarly reflection on how we might teach and learn effectively for enhanced graduate employability. professor beverley oliver editor director, teaching and learning, curtin university, australia fellow, australian teaching and learning council oliver, b. & tucker, b. (2013). editorial. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 4(1), 1. 1 editorial welcome to volume 4 of the journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability. the journal provides a scholarly forum for the dissemination of research and exemplary evidence-based practice in higher education teaching and learning for graduate employability. identifying the skills which facilitate graduate transition to professional life continues to be a priority in the higher education sector, nationally and internationally. it is now well recognised in the discourse surrounding ‘work readiness’ that this goes beyond the specific discipline knowledge and skills to encompass the more generic non technical abilities and understandings which enable graduates to participate effectively in the workforce. however, determining a common understanding of these generic capabilities and how to embed them in the curriculum is still the subject of considerable debate. a search of the literature reveals the development of a range of frameworks to capture and organise the relevant capabilities. in australia, the australian qualifications framework (aqf) articulates a taxonomy of the knowledge, skills and the application of knowledge and skills expected of graduates for each of the qualifications across all educational sectors. incorporated into the aqf are four broad categories of generic learning outcomes which include fundamental skills such as literacy and numeracy, people and communication skills, thinking skills and personal skills. the office for learning and teaching (previously australian learning and teaching council) has supported a number of projects which have focussed on graduate capabilities across a range of discipline contexts. many of these have also developed frameworks to provide a basis to the thinking, conversations and innovations in curriculum design which are necessary to enhance graduate employability. more recently, in december 2012, the department of education, employment and workplace relations commissioned the development of a cross-sectoral employability skills framework. the resulting employability skills framework stage 1 presents three clusters of skills as it attempts to provide a common language for describing generic skills, making them visible and facilitating the transfer of skills into the workplace. such frameworks can provide not only a basis for the development of assessment strategies relevant to generic skills, but can also provide a valuable curriculum development tool using a backward design model. given the current climate of ‘efficiency dividends’ to higher education funding coupled with the expectation that institutions will continue to meet the aqf standards and other benchmarks, frameworks for generic capabilities may provide a valuable reference point as universities respond to the ongoing scrutiny of the quality of their graduates. it is therefore timely that our first issue for 2013 invites us to engage with a systematic approach for evaluating skills outcomes for graduates. on behalf of our editorial committee, we encourage you to participate in the scholarship of teaching and learning for effective graduate employability. professor beverley oliver and ms beatrice tucker editor and deputy editor tucker, b. (2012). editorial. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 3 (1), 1. 1 editorial welcome to volume 3 of the journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability. this web-based journal is an open access publication of peer-reviewed publications disseminating research and best practice in higher education teaching and learning for graduate employability. in response to contemporary global trends, higher education institutions are exploring innovative ways to transform teaching and learning. these trends include the rapid increase in the availability of interactive learning technologies and development of new frameworks for credentialing skills and achievements gained by learners outside formal educational institutions. learners are increasingly embracing independent learning opportunities through free, online educational offerings. new approaches to teaching and learning will need to be developed to connect the learner across settings, technologies and activities. innovative approaches and pedagogies will ensure that higher education institutions achieve their aim to transform students by providing them with the skills and abilities to actively contribute to our rapidly changing world. graduate employability will continually be a priority for universities and higher education providers, employers, professions, students and graduates. new solutions will enhance and change the way students learn and undoubtedly, the way graduate capabilities are developed within and beyond the formal curriculum. universities and higher education providers are focusing on assuring and evidencing their institutions’ espoused capabilities in their graduates. the development of agreed minimum standards graduates need to achieve to be employable, and how these standards are measured, continues to be a priority and source of much debate in the sector. new challenges include the assurance of credentials and academic integrity in the rapidly changing technological environment that includes massive open online courses (moocs). key to these challenges are how we evidence and assure student achievement, and much of this is strongly related to how we assess students. there is general acceptance within the sector that the development and assessment of graduate capabilities is most effective when contextualised within the discipline. numerous approaches to assessment have been proposed including: exit interviews, capstone assessments, an outcomes-based approach using portfolios, standardised tests such as the collegiate skills assessment and performance based assessment tasks. increasingly e-assessment technologies are being proposed to facilitate the submission, workflow and marking of assessments and for diagnosing plagiarism. nevertheless the challenges related to academic integrity, whilst not new, are likely to be greater when learning occurs online and assessments are not invigilated. it is likely that the design of valid authentic assessments to enable successful learning and for assuring graduates capabilities lies with the pedagogy rather than the technology. on behalf of our editorial board, the journal’s editor, professor beverley oliver, and our administration officer ms linda lilly, i encourage you to participate, through this journal, in scholarly communication, debate and scholarship in learning and teaching for effective graduate employability. beatrice tucker deputy editor oliver, b. (2021). micro-credentials: a learner value framework. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(1), 4851. 48 the journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability issn: 1838-3815 (online) journal homepage: https://ojs.deakin.edu.au/index.php/jtlge/ provocation subject to editor review, provocations are intended to be short and showcase thought leadership and expert commentary on the future of credentials for work in a disrupted world. micro-credentials: a learner value framework beverley oliver1 corresponding author: beverley oliver (b.oliver@deakin.edu.au) 1deakin university, melbourne, australia. orcid: 0000-0002-2971-714x introduction much has been made of micro-credentials, and the ‘craze’ (ralston, 2021) and ‘hype’ (roy & clark, 2019) they generate. one of the barriers to their success is that a definition of micro-credentials has not been widely agreed (kato, galán-muros, & weko, 2020). however, to succeed, micro-credentials need not just a definition, but a way to ensure they are valued, and bring value to key stakeholders: particularly learners, employers1 and providers. to this end, this provocation proposes a microcredential value framework that sets out their key benefits and costs for learners. gallagher asserts that a “more standardised taxonomy and a common language for naming, describing and communicating new forms of credentials would be helpful in accelerating adoption and ensuring value for both students and employers” (2016, p. 170, emphasis added). some relevant micro-credential frameworks have been suggested: oliver (2019) offers a simple typology to elucidate the main elements of micro-credentials (what they are intended to signify, where they are offered, and so on). taxonomies of micro-credentials were investigated in ifenthaler et al. (2016); however, these are predominantly concerned with badges, digital portfolios and interactive gaming. on the topic of value, rossiter and tynan state that the micro-credential learner [first] enters a period of discovery, information gathering and understanding, exiting with a good grasp of the value proposition of the micro-credential (2019, p. 8, emphasis added). however, little research has been done to understand the common elements of such a value proposition, or indeed the actual value derived from a micro-credential. this provocation draws on the marketing literature: if a customer value proposition is a strategic tool that is used by a company to communicate how it aims to provide value to customers (payne, frow, & eggert, 2017, p. 467), then for micro-credentials, such a 1 not all micro-credentials are employment-related, but those that are need to be understood and valued by potential employers. https://ojs.deakin.edu.au/index.php/jtlge/ mailto:b.oliver@deakin.edu.au https://orcid.org/orcid oliver, b. (2021). micro-credentials: a learner value framework. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(1), 4851. 49 definition might be reworded as ‘a strategic tool that is used by an education provider to communicate how it aims to provide value to learners’. the framework the micro-credential learner value framework proposed here is based on the assumption that value is derived when the benefits of a credential are equal to or outweighed by the costs incurred in its attainment: that is, the value of a micro-credential equals benefits realised minus costs incurred. however, for learners, benefits and costs depend to some degree on an individual’s motivation, circumstances and preferences: what one learner sees as a benefit (for example, challenging assessment), another might see as an imposition. to ensure they deliver expectations, providers should know and understand as much as feasible about the target learners’ motivations, previous education, and circumstances, as shown in table 1. table 1: learner motivation, education, circumstances and preferences that influence perceptions of credential value motivation seeking to credential new skills or prior skills seeking a credential for career advantage (finding or securing work), or for personal interest education previous educational qualifications quality of previous educational experiences eligibility re pre-requisites prior knowledge and experience circumstances life stage career stage capacity to pay or secure funding capacity to invest time in learning capacity to engage in the mode of delivery (eg online, onsite) competing obligations preferences preference for mode of delivery, assessment type, peer engagement notwithstanding learner differences, this provocation proposes a framework (set out as table 2) that maps the principal learner benefits and costs of engaging in micro-credentials. learners are categorised as those seeking career advantage and those seeking personal interest learning (not all benefits and costs will apply equally to both types, and sometimes personal interest leads to career advantage and vice versa). the framework sets out eight headline benefits of micro-credentials: outcomes, certification, signalling power, interoperability with other credentials, quality and standards (including industry endorsement or accreditation, if relevant), assessment and feedback, engagement and convenience (whether the micro-credential can be achieved on demand, or not). these are weighed against the two costs: money and time (effort required, time lost in travel, and whether the learner could have been using their time more effectively). comments and questions prompt the reader to understand what each of these might entail. oliver, b. (2021). micro-credentials: a learner value framework. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(1), 4851. 50 table 2: the micro-credential learner value framework learners seeking career advantage personal interest explanatory comments and questions about a micro-credential b e n e f it s outcomes knowledge/skills includes new knowledge skills or insights that are validated employability includes recruitment, promotion, salary, job security certification type of attestation includes paper, digital certificate, badge or a combination portability is it recognised elsewhere (professionally, geographically)? security is the certification tamper proof and verifiable? signalling power provider brand what is the standing of the provider including in industry? partner brand if there is a partner provider, what is their standing? interoperability microcredentials does it lead to other micro-credentials? macrocredentials is it a (credit) pathway or supplement to a qualification? quality and standards quality assurance is the provider accredited and quality assured? industryaccredited is it recognised and accredited by industry? assessment and feedback assessment what is the quantum and quality of assessment? identity verification is academic integrity assured? main assessor is assessment mainly by educators, peers, technology? feedback is formative feedback provided? engagement with educators is there meaningful engagement with educators? with peers is there meaningful engagement with peers? with industry is there engagement with industry? career advice? convenience flexibility scheduled or on demand; synchronous or asynchronous? c o s t s financial course fee financial cost, loan, scholarship or sponsorship? payment method is cost upfront or is delayed payment available? temporal effort what is the likely quantum of effort required? travel time fully onsite; mostly onsite; mostly online, fully online? opportunity could the learner use this time more effectively elsewhere? this provocation aims to be a conversation starter with regard to what a micro-credential learner value framework might entail, and more importantly, how it might be refined and used by providers to ensure maximum value, and thereby success, through micro-credentials. oliver, b. (2021). micro-credentials: a learner value framework. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(1), 4851. 51 references gallagher, s. r. (2016). the future of university credentials: new developments at the intersection of higher education and hiring. cambridge: harvard education press. ifenthaler, d., bellin-mularski, n., & mah, d.-k. (eds.). (2016). foundation of digital badges and microcredentials. switzerland: springer international publishing. kato, s., galán-muros, v., & weko, t. (2020). the emergence of alternative credentials. paris: oecd publishing. oliver, b. (2019). making micro-credentials work for learners, employers and providers. melbourne: deakin university. available at: http://dteach.deakin.edu.au/microcredentials/ payne, a., frow, p., & eggert, a. (2017). the customer value proposition: evolution, development, and application in marketing. journal of the academy of marketing science, 45(4), 467–489. ralston, s. j. (2021). higher education’s microcredentialing craze: a postdigital-deweyan critique. postdigital science and education, 3, 83–101. doi:10.1007/s42438-020-00121-8 rossiter, d., & tynan, b. (2019). designing and implementing micro-credentials: a guide for practitioners. commonwealth of learning: knowledge series roy, s., & clark, d. (2019). digital badges, do they live up to the hype? british journal of educational technology, 50(5), 2619–2636. http://dteach.deakin.edu.au/microcredentials/ i foreword future work and learning in a disrupted world: ‘the best chance for all’ professor sally kift1 1pfhea faal altf gaicd, queensland university of technology https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0014-7905 a global grand challenge this special issue, devoted to micro-credentials and qualifications for future work and learning in a disrupted world, is a welcome and critically timed contribution to educational theorising and practice internationally. covid-19 has accelerated industry 4.0’s pervasive labour market disruption. digitisation’s efficiencies have been rapidly embraced and broadly up-scaled as a matter of necessity. many industries and professions have fast tracked digitalisation to transform pre-pandemic business models for current and future sustainability. we have seen all education sectors – kindergarten to year 12 (k-12), vocational education and training/ further education (vet/fe) and higher education (he) – digitise and digitalise to varying degrees in their rapid move to emergency remote teaching (hodges et al., 2020). robust evaluation will be needed to assess the efficacy of that pedagogical triaging – our well-intentioned ‘panic-gogy’ (kamenetz, 2020) – to inform the quality and fitness-forfuture-purpose of that online pivot. in the meantime, he’s students and graduates emerge from 2020 wanting to support and apply their studies in a challenging job market that was already weakening pre-pandemic and has now worsened (for example in the australian context, social research centre, 2020), especially for young people. if that was not enough, significant and underlying issues of climate change, reconciliation with first nations, demographic change and globalisation continue to have implications for equal and equitable participation in the full range of life opportunities, including in meaningful paid work. in brief, the context for this special issue is an international grand challenge writ very large. given the enormity of the challenge, this introductory piece will focus primarily on australian examples as a mechanism to identify issues central to evolving post-secondary/ post-18 education and training responses. it will suggest that addressing the future of learning and its credentialing requires policy coherence and holism for nation (re)building. as an agentic collective, actors across a range of political, social and economic institutions and systems must agree and articulate an overarching vision and strategy for inclusive ‘learning in a disrupted world’, built on two new educational entitlements. first, that lifelong learning must become a practical reality for [all] (noonan et al., 2019, p. 8; alphabeta, 2019; united nations, 2020) and, secondly, that future economic productivity is grounded in a universal entitlement to tertiary education as foundational to workforce entry (business council of australia, 2017; monash commission, 2018; noonan et al., 2019). this latter picks up consistent advice from government that more than 90% of new jobs expected to be created in australia by 2024 will require a post-secondary qualification (department of employment, skills, small and family business, 2020). https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0014-7905 ii if we are to assure coherence, diversity and flexibility in learning provision, its sites and types (formal, non-formal, informal, macro, micro or other), learners’ needs over their lifespans must be central to the joining-up of currently disparate policy forays. continuing fragmentation of the education and training agenda is not in the national interest for recovery and levelling-up, nor will it realise individual learner potential for active citizenship in a fair and enterprising democracy. employers and workers, young and adult alike, must have a well-informed appreciation of the purpose of different qualifications and the relationship between [them] as they proceed to post-secondary education and training and go on to upand/or re-skill as necessary (noonan et al., 2019, p. 8). particularly, qualification outcomes [must] be relevant, understood, and trusted (noonan et al., 2019, p. 8). australia is not even close to such policy coherence. nonetheless, how we re-imagine our educational infrastructure for a more effective and equitable lifelong learning ecosystem is now the pressing social and economic imperative. fairness and prosperity must proceed hand-in-hand. no person, community or region can be left behind. as the national centre for student equity in higher education (ncsehe) sets out in its long-term strategic vision for student equity 2030 titled the best chance for all (zacharias & brett, 2019, p. 6) australia’s future depends on all of its people, whoever and wherever they are, being enabled to successfully engage in beneficial lifelong learning. consensus for transformational change, with learner equity at the centre significant change is required. and the consensus of multiple recent national examinations, when an attempt is made to stitch them all together, is that nothing less that transformational, rather than incremental, change will suffice. for example, an expansive and inclusive agenda has been canvassed in recent reviews: of the australian qualifications framework (aqf) (noonan et al., 2019); of vet (department of the prime minister and cabinet, 2019); of senior secondary pathways (department of education, skills and employment, 2020); and for a regional, rural and remote tertiary education strategy (napthine, 2019)). industry reports such as those from the australian industry group (2019) and the business council of australia (2017) have called for bold re-visioning. think tank contributions abound, such as those from: the mckell institute (biddle & cavanough, 2019); the mitchell institute (dawkins, hurley & noonan, 2019); the monash commission (2018); and the melbourne centre for the study of higher education (locke & french, 2019). more recently still, we have seen jointly conceived visions, shared across select tertiary education and employer bodies (for example, australian industry group et al., 2020). in 2021, much in these discussions is not new, though the urgency for integrated and coordinated action has escalated. certainly, the centrality of equity and equality to educational opportunity as the bedrock of socially cohesive, inclusive and flourishing societies has been long encapsulated as a global common good (united nations, 2020, p. 3). what is new, or at least freshly presented, are three matters. first, as the necessity for lifelong learning is understood and accepted, the language of rights has emerged, with lifelong learning being elevated to a fundamental human right (united nations, 2020, p. 3), if not also worthy of safeguarding as a statutory right (independent commission on the college of the future, 2020, p. 14). secondly, as is so often the case in disrupted times, the burden of the pandemic (on top of industry 4.0) has not fallen equally. educational inequality has been exacerbated by covid-19 and the consequent loss of learning due to online delivery in schooling for example (lamb et al., 2020), and especially for disadvantaged students, will not be easily mitigated (hanushek & woessmann, 2020). long-standing educational inequities and system vulnerabilities have been accentuated, chief amongst them the compounding impact on participation and attainment of digital poverty, financial precarity and fragile mental wellbeing. there is now a new covid generation of learners and workers experiencing extreme and exacerbated disadvantage. the third matter, the specific focus of this special issue, is that the pandemic has accelerated a shift in focus and rhetoric, from macro-qualifications (workforce entry-level degrees and certificates) to shorter form credentials, to aid the upand/or re-skilling of displaced workers for their return to iii employment. in response to covid-19, there has been a dazzling array of free and low cost short courses offered by vet/fe and he providers, frequently with government support. also on offer is a range of other opportunities, in what oliver (2020, p. 6) describes as a learning for earning marketplace that takes industry-integrated education to a new level. pointing specifically to coursera’s professional certificates and google’s career certificates, oliver (2020, p. 6) cautions that traditional providers should take note, particularly if they plan to compete through microcredentials. at their best, shorter, stackable (micro)credentials should allow for flexibility and learning pathways for those who do not necessarily want or need an expensive and [inflexible] formal qualification. in that spirit, in september 2020, uk prime minister boris johnson committed to creating a ‘lifetime skills guarantee’ to provide flexible loan funding for four years of post-18 education, permitting learners to break up their study into segments, transfer credits between colleges and university, and enable more part-time study… rather than having to study in one three or four year block (united kingdom government, 2020, n.p.). if implemented effectively and efficiently, this is good news for our uk brethren, particularly if flexible entry and credentialed exit points are enabled for stackable qualifications that are recognised and portable across providers. in australia however, absent an integrated ecosystemic approach, caution should be exercised to assure meaningful outcomes for already disadvantaged learners who might otherwise be encouraged to forego trusted macrocredentials in favour of the untested promise of stackable micro-learning. as unesco has identified, the risk is that the stacking to form a macro-credential will not be conceptually sound and… will not be recognizable by employers. hence stacking… may not always lead to coherent qualifications (chakroun & keevy, 2018, p. 37). identifying another ecosystemic issue, moodie and wheelahan (2020, p. 12) also observe that micro credentials are the most recent attempt to improve the match between education and work by changing education, while leaving work [again] unchanged. the collective will for a connected lifelong learning ecosystem it seems almost impossible to overstate the urgency for collective endeavour to pursue the topics canvassed in this special issue. all education sectors – k-12, vet/fe, he and connected tertiary, both public and private – must come together with government, business, industry, professions, communities, workers and learners, to ensure that lifelong learning is actuated as a universal entitlement and is supported by portability of learning across multi-directional pathways over the lifespan. but there are many challenges to delivering on such a complex change agenda in a post-pandemic world. our education sectors from high chair to higher education and beyond are siloed and disconnected. post-secondary pathways are opaque – linear and hierarchical (noonan et al., 2019, p. 8) – stymied by unbalanced funding arrangements, inadequate financial support for students, and the absence in australia of strong intergovernmental cooperation between the commonwealth, states and territories for funding and policy coherence. to take the australian example again, participation in vet has fallen dramatically in tandem with its reducing funding. this has fueled a decline in tertiary participation overall that the mitchell institute says is expected to continue well into the 2020s (dawkins, hurley & noonan, 2019). real flexibility for learners is nascent at best. there is little support to enable, let alone inform, choice as to the how, when, where and what of foundational learning and iterative skills’ acquisition, nor are there processes to facilitate easy credit transfer and recognition of prior learning and experience. critical, oft-cited contingencies remain in the unimplemented basket. these include: policy and pragmatic infrastructure to facilitate learner agency (for example, by way of universal access to quality careers advising and labour market literacy (oliver, 2020, p. 3)); languishing aqf reform; and the delivery of a ‘lifelong learning account’ (for example, as per the american workforce policy advisory board, 2019). we continue to struggle with widening participation and attainment goals for many underserved cohorts; most particularly in the australian context, for first nations and regional and remote learners (zacharias & brett, 2019). and connecting tertiary education to the workplace as a iv conjoint enterprise remains elusive and aspirational, though occasional bright spots appear (for example, australian industry group et al., 2020). the solutions to many of these challenges are interdependent and mutually reinforcing, further exhorting ecosystemic responses. for example: the life-wide aggregation of all learning by agentic learners in a lifelong learning account enables every citizen to track, credit and verify learning,… to learn, train and re-skill as their needs and circumstances change (monash commission, 2017, p. 16), incentivis[ing] lifelong curation of learning gain (oliver, 2020, p. 12). it cannot be beyond national wit and thought leadership to tackle this social and economic crisis. a number of jurisdictions are already quite advanced. for example, the scottish government has commissioned the scottish funding council to review that nation’s colleges and universities for coherence and sustainability. a phase 1 report has been delivered, identifying ten key themes for a more integrated, connected tertiary education and skills eco-system for learners and employers; one where students and equalities are positioned at the heart of everything we do and where long-term relationships between educational institutions and employers and industry are nurtured (scottish funding council, 2020, p. 5). this is hard and long-term strategising to build patient capital for real national transformation; the activating of rare collective will to progress thought and action beyond political short-termism and sectoral self-interest. if we are really dreaming large, we could do worse than look to the recent work of the unesco institute for lifelong learning (uil) (2020). the uil’s framing of a ‘culture of lifelong learning’ positions learning as occurring anytime (from birth to death) and anywhere (sites or types), being undertaken by anyone (all peoples) about anything. lifelong learning, enacted through deep cultural and societal transformation, is powerfully positioned as central to many critical policy goals. the uil speaks of: societies that understand themselves as learning societies (2019, p. 8); people who identify as learners throughout their lives (2019, p. 8); schools and tertiary institutions transformed into lifelong learning institutions (2019, p. 9) available to all community members; and the lifelong learning culture [being] rooted in the labour market, which means reengineering and revitalizing workplace learning (2019, p. 39). we can do this. these are global imperatives and much of the big thinking is quite advanced. as i have sought to illustrate with some australian context as the provocation, there are existing precedents for ecosystemic visioning and actioning that reimagine joined-up, age-agnostic, responsive education and training. but we must act collectively to co-design and implement long-term solutions and eschew the easy temptation to perpetuate existing siloed efforts. to do otherwise will not deliver ‘the best chance for all’, nor will it realise individualised success via supported learning journeys, regardless of background or circumstances. specifically, it will not deliver for future work and learning in a disrupted world. references alphabeta. 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(2021). micro-credentials for recognition of workplace learning. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(1), 52-57. 52 the journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability issn: 1838-3815 (online) journal homepage: https://ojs.deakin.edu.au/index.php/jtlge/ provocation subject to editor review, provocations are intended to be short and showcase thought leadership and expert commentary on the future of credentials for work in a disrupted world. micro-credentials for recognition of workplace learning professor elisa martinez-marroquin1 and professor sally male2 corresponding author: elisa martinez-marroquin (elisa.martinez-marroquin@canberra.edu.au) 1 faculty of science and technology, university of canberra, act, australia. https://orcid.org/ 0000-0003-0867-7908 2 faculty of engineering and it, university of melbourne, victoria, australia. https://orcid.org/ 0000-0001-9852-3077 introduction the concept of micro-credentials has emerged in recent years. the definition is not completely set yet, and the implementation is still a work in progress. the national qualifications frameworks in most countries do not include micro-credentials; probably because of this, micro-credentials still take various forms such as units or components of a unit within a qualification, massive open online courses, upskilling training programs, soft-skills assessment, and special purpose certificates. this variability makes recognition and portability of micro-credentials, within and across countries, difficult. in response, initiatives to introduce a level of standardisation are emerging, such as the recent guidance for portability of australian micro-credentials (universities australia, 2021). overall, micro-credentials are seen as the potential solution to a range of challenges, such as certifying competencies, developing employability, and widening access to higher education. there is an increasing number of publications about design of micro-credentials for advanced standing in higher education (mischewski, 2017; selvaratnam & sankey, 2021; universities australia, 2021; wheelahan & moodie, 2021), and a few on the use of micro-credentials for competency-based learning (berry & cator, 2016; matters, 2016; williams, 2019). however, while most of the existing literature presents micro-credentials in the context of the changing world of work and the need for workers to adapt and learn on the job (kift, 2021; oliver, 2019), little has been written about micro-credentials for recognition of workplace learning. in this provocation, we encourage the design of micro-credentials for greater recognition and portability of on-the-job learning, be it for credit into formal qualifications or not. we argue that https://ojs.deakin.edu.au/index.php/jtlge/ mailto:elisa.martinez-marroquin@canberra.edu.au martinez-marroquin, e., & male, s. (2021). micro-credentials for recognition of workplace learning. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(1), 52-57. 53 designing micro-credentials for alignment with formal qualifications in terms of volume of learning and learning outcomes may leave employers’ needs (beven, 2020) unmet and continue the disconnect between employers’ and education providers’ perceptions on graduates’ work-readiness. we argue also that micro-credentials give an opportunity to better embed workplace informal learning into formal qualifications. this differs and complements calls for standardization of microcredentials in terms of learning outcomes and duration of learning activities. micro-credentials could be described in terms of other outcomes related to employability rather than traditional learning outcomes and duration of learning activities. for our purpose, adapted from (kinash et al., 2016), employability is the set of attributes for a graduate to secure or enhance their work. industry calls for development of employability before graduation. higher education providers are moving towards greater integration of professional exposure to prepare students for professional practice, and contemporary workers need to actively keep up their employability and be prepared to adapt quickly. in this context, the line between workers and students blurs, and study and work intersect more closely than ever before. we embrace this new reality acknowledging the whole range of ways to engage with learning through professional experience, such as students enrolled at university while undertaking paid employment, workers who upskill through on-the-job activities, students at university who engage with work integrated learning, or individuals who seek recognition of their workplace learning for credit into formal qualifications. based on our background, we refer to the engineering discipline as an illustrative example to demonstrate the need that micro-credentials could address. background there is a growing need to rapidly upskill and reskill workers, as jobs become increasingly fluid and ever more complex (morisson & pattinson, 2021; rotatori et al., 2021). learning and development is of renewed interest to policy makers to enhance employability and organisational competitivity (garcía-peñalvo et al., 2014; morisson & pattinson, 2021; skule, 2004), and it has progressively secured a prominent position in organisations, topping corporate agendas (linkedin learning, 2021). current workforces are largely unprepared for the future of work, and new ways to facilitate on-thejob learning are required (volini et al., 2021). traditional formal ways of learning are not flexible and targeted enough to respond to this demand. the disconnect between structured learning and learning through work has been documented in previous research (lizier & reich, 2020). the findings suggest that for effective on-the-job learning the focus needs to shift away from structure and ‘towards the interplay of organisational complexity, fluidity of work, and experiences of learning primarily through work’ (lizier & reich, 2020). most of the learning that occurs in the workplace is largely informal and social, responds to new challenges at work and the learning process is continuous, self-regulated, integrated with work, and largely directed and mediated by the individual (littlejohn & margaryan, 2014). informal learning is intentional or deliberate, but it is not institutionalised (asced, 2014; unesco, 2011). it is typically not structured in terms of objectives, time or learning support, and may occur in the workplace, community, and daily life (asced, 2014). it is different from formal education, which is institutionalised and leads to a formal qualification. formal qualifications are designed based on learning outcomes and volume of learning. the learning outcomes describe what graduates are expected to know, understand and be able to do as a result of learning. academic programs are structured in units of study with a range of learning outcomes each, and constructive alignment is often used to ensure that the degree’s learning outcomes are mapped in the learning outcomes of the constituent units of study, following progressive scaffolding throughout the duration of the degree program. qualifications are meant to show employers and others what the holder is capable of and has achieved (noonan et al., 2019). however, the graduation documentation does not provide enough clarity and transparency (boud & jorre de st jorre, 2021); the award testifies the completion of the formal qualification, the testamur lists the units of study with the overall student’s grade for each, often without grading each learning martinez-marroquin, e., & male, s. (2021). micro-credentials for recognition of workplace learning. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(1), 52-57. 54 outcome, and the australian higher education graduation statement (ahegs) describes extracurricular activities. embedding micro-credentials related to professional practice, before or during the degree program, could improve the development and visibility of students’ employability. on the other hand, the volume of learning is the notional duration necessary for a typical student to undertake all learning and assessment activities that are required to achieve the learning outcomes (australian qualifications framework council, 2014). it is generally expressed in years of study although there have been recommendations to shift to hours for greater flexibility and granularity (noonan et al., 2019). although hours of higher education may be meaningful for school leavers, they are not as relevant in postgraduate studies, upskilling and on-the-job learning, including professional development. the volume of learning implies certain assumptions of uniformity in the students’ cohort, with an underlying requirement that all students need the same formal learning activities to achieve the expected learning outcomes. with more entry pathways and diversity in student cohorts, the notional duration or ‘seat time’ is harder to estimate and the concept of ‘typical student’ loses its meaning. micro-credentials could provide the mechanism to support students’ individualised learning, and to develop and recognise employability without the constraints of specified duration or teaching periods. taking engineering in australia as an example, a recognised gap between the outcomes of formal learning activities and the attributes necessary for practice has been tackled, in most universities, by requiring graduates to complete a period often 12 weeks of engineering-related work (male & king, 2019). the duration of the activity is prescribed. however, the nature of the activity and the learning outcomes are rarely described clearly. engineering faculties and the peak professional body, engineers australia, recognise that a better definition of the purpose and oversight of the opportunity provided to students is required. various mechanisms have been proposed, such as non-credit bearing hurdles involving a diverse array of industry-engaged activities that must be completed before progressing beyond nominated points in the degree program (kadi & lowe, 2018). lowe et al. (2021) analysed the opportunities for students to develop competencies from various learning activities claimed by students as preparation for professional engineering practice (lowe et al., 2021). they identified the activities that were least prescriptive about the approach to be taken by students (e.g., employment and industry-based projects) as providing opportunities for students to take responsibility and deal with complexity. however, structures to recognise, support, and report these mechanisms have been unwieldy. kadi and lowe reported offering multiple workshops to explain the expectations and processes to students (kadi & lowe, 2018). despite the workshops, they found further need to improve students’ understanding of the purpose of the program, and for enhanced instructions to students on claiming and providing evidence of their achievements. a recent study conducted on the development of professional skills within university curricula found a strong perception that professional skills are not successfully developed through the academic program and need to be learnt through workplace practice (willey et al., 2021). the same challenges are faced internationally in engineering curricula to embed professional practice (luk & chan, 2020). and, although the nature of professional competencies and employability are discipline-dependent (jones, 2009), other disciplines that require compulsory work integrated learning components could benefit from the approach to micro-credentials proposed in this paper as well. role of micro-credentials as common language to articulate the achievement of employability industry claims that competency and experience are more valuable to the employer than a formal qualification, and ‘seat time’ is not seen as guarantee to attain competency (gauthier, 2020; national skills commission, 2020). there is a need for competency based, shorter forms of credentials (williams, 2019) based on individualised demonstration of attainment, in experiential martinez-marroquin, e., & male, s. (2021). micro-credentials for recognition of workplace learning. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(1), 52-57. 55 settings, outside the traditional classroom, and that can provide pathways into or can be intertwined with formal qualifications, in addition to existing on their own right outside formal qualifications. this paper advocates for micro-credentials to provide development and recognition of employability developed outside the traditional learning system, through a range of activities such as co-curricular experiences and on-the-job learning, that may occur prior, after or during formal qualifications. in a rapidly changing work environment, individuals become life-long learners who need to track their current skills, certify them, assess learning needs for possible career paths, identify skill gaps, and develop and record new competencies. the above is meaningful for the individual but also for organisations. to future proof the workforce, organisations benefit from understanding the available expertise and skills in the current workforce, identifying gaps to pursue opportunities, and conducting targeted recruitment. the ability of organisations to identify skill gaps is of interest also to higher education providers, who can then adapt their programs to better meet industry needs. micro-credentials have the potential to become a common language for better communication and understanding among stakeholders and to assist learners in creating a career narrative (berry & cator, 2016; healy, 2021). in relation to the connection with higher education, we argue for the use of micro-credentials to better embed workplace learning practices in formal qualifications, not only for credit, but also to enhance work-integrated-learning (wil) in the curriculum. recognising professional ways of learning and embedding them in formal qualifications not only broadens the access to higher education but also trains students to become the life-long fast-learners required in today’s evolving workplace. using kadi & lowe’s engineering example above (kadi & lowe, 2018), the complicated structures that are currently necessary to support and recognize individualized student development of employability could be simplified by incorporating the flexibility of microcredentials in the tertiary education system. higher education institutions already have credit arrangements for recognition of prior learning (rpl), acknowledging that learning can take place anywhere anytime. learners gather and submit evidence of their competence for validation (e.g. portfolio, reflection, documentation of their learning by doing), which is assessed against units’ learning outcomes. however, current assessment remains often ad-hoc, with a range of different conceptions about rpl (andersson et al., 2013). for better utilisation of this pathway, a more standardised mechanism for assessment is required and micro-credentials may be instrumental for better integration and co-existence of formal and workplace informal learning. this provocation piece will serve its purpose if it initiates a conversation about the use of micro-credentials in ways that escape the current regulatory constraints that apply to formal qualifications. references andersson, p., fejes, a., & sandberg, f. 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(2012). the student voice in using eportfolios to address professional standards in a teacher education programme . journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 3(1), 17 25. 17 the student voice in using eportfolios to address professional standards in a teacher education programme lyn lewis 1 and philippa gerbic 1 lylewis@aut.ac.nz; pgerbic@aut.ac.nz 1 school of education, auckland university of technology, new zealand abstract electronic portfolios (eportfolios) are presented in the literature as a technological tool with significant potential for professional application. in new zealand the introduction of eportfolios is a recent innovation, and not much is known about the ways in which learners view this technology or the ways in which it might support their learning and development, particularly against professional standards. this paper reports on findings from a research project conducted in 2010 with a group of bachelor of education (primary) students at a new zealand university. the research project sought student perspectives of their learning through eportfolios and around graduating standards. three main findings are discussed: firstly authentic assessment related to graduating standards provides reassuring evidence to pre-service student teachers of their growth and development towards beginning teacher status. secondly, eportfolio activities can support a range of thinking skills linked to standards-achievement. thirdly, eportfolios and graduating standards are perceived by preservice students to have value for employability. the argument is made that deep learning through standards-based assessment is possible when eportfolios are conceptualized as both product and process. we make recommendations regarding eportfolio use for standards-based assessment which include developing authentic learning activities; supporting student-centred eportfolio pedagogy; and the articulation of deep learning outcomes. keywords: mahara, eportfolios, graduating standards, qualitative research, student voice. introduction electronic portfolios (eportfolios) are being described in glowing terms: “the next great innovation in education” (gathercole, crowe, karayan, mccambridge, maliski, love & mckean, 2007, p. 641) and the “potential to be transformational for colleges and universities” (stefani, mason & pegler, 2007, p. 2). the eportfolio is being evaluated in an increasing number of institutions as a tool for both formative developmental learning and for summative assessment and accreditation purposes. while a process/product tension was identified in eportfolios a decade ago (darling, 2001) there is now a wider view which recognises co-existence of, rather than tension between, product and process (jisc, 2008). eportfolios can be used for evidencing the achievement of standards, whether these are internal assessment criteria, graduate attributes or an external set of graduating or registration standards. with a summative focus on presenting evidence of achievement, the assessment or presentation portfolio is commonly identified with standards-based processes. however, embedded within such achievement, processes more closely associated with a learning or developmental portfolio may be present. while acknowledging that the presentation of artefact evidence and self-appraisal against standards may be demonstrated through eportfolios, we argue that a challenge exists for students to articulate their learning mailto:lylewis@aut.ac.nz lewis, l., & gerbic, p. (2012). the student voice in using eportfolios to address professional standards in a teacher education programme . journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 3(1), 17 25. 18 through this process. the purpose of this paper is to report on a research project which explored student perspectives of their summative (product) and formative (process) learning through using eportfolio for assessment of the graduating teacher standards (gts). literature review gts were introduced to new zealand pre-service tertiary education programmes in 2007 by the new zealand teachers council. programmes leading to teacher registration are required to show evidence of accommodating these standards. the us model differs in that it requires students themselves to demonstrate, via a portfolio to assessors, that they meet standards before gaining a teaching license (strudler & wetzel, 2005; milman, 2005). gathercole et al., (2007) argue that meeting standards through eportfolio use should be considered both a challenge and an opportunity. a challenge exists for lecturers to work with standards-based teaching which is engaging and meaningful for students. an opportunity exists in that portfolios, while having a summative appraisal purpose, can also be formative and focus on holistic professional learning. the authors contend that rather than being constraining “standards-based instruction can and should be a rich, integrated, informative and engaging process” (p. 644). electronic portfolios are an ideal vehicle for evidencing achievement of such standards through their potential to support the synthesis of theory and practice (strudler & wetzel, 2005), demonstrate professional growth and development over time (barrett, 2005) and facilitate reflective practice (stefani & mason, 2007; lin, 2008). jisc‟s definition of eportfolios (2008) integrates the development (process) and assessment (product) aspects of portfolios: “an eportfolio is the product, created by the learner, a collection of digital artefacts articulating experiences, achievements and learning. behind any product or presentation, lie rich and complex processes of planning, synthesising, sharing, discussing, reflecting, giving, receiving and responding to feedback. these processes referred to here as „eportfolio-based learning‟ are the focus of increasing attention, since the process of learning can be as important as the end product” (p.6). so, rather than a tick-box approach to achievement, an eportfolio pedagogy which emphasises the kinds of deep learning activities highlighted above can be valuable in standards settings. deep learning through use of an eportfolio associated with standards the pedagogy associated with a standards-based eportfolio is based on a constructivist approach to learning which involves meaning-making as a cognitive strategy. students selfappraise, reflect and evaluate upon their experiences and learning (gathercole et al, 2007). pelliccione and dixon (2008) found that the level of students‟ analytical skills deepened over time and their ability to articulate their transfer of learning to professional practice showed a more meaningful understanding of their holistic self. while reflection is strongly linked with personal and professional development processes over time, it is also a significant aspect of self-appraisal against standards. much of the literature reports on the eportfolio as a tool for promoting reflective thinking and reflective practice, consciously drawing on student‟s values and beliefs as they consider their personal and professional strengths and weaknesses (lyons, 1998; hallam & creagh, 2010). wetzel and strudler‟s research (2006) reported that reflection was a major benefit of eportfolio use. ring and foti (2006) talk of the personal authentication of practice through reflection. such an autonomous professional expression represents authentic transitioning between status as student and that of professional. lewis, l., & gerbic, p. (2012). the student voice in using eportfolios to address professional standards in a teacher education programme . journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 3(1), 17 25. 19 additional factors related to deep learning opportunities have been identified such as ring and foti‟s (2006) finding that students directly involved in working with standards reported a deeper understanding of the expectations and standards of their profession. independent learning, greater student engagement and more active learning are associated in the literature with effective learning activities using standards (wetzel & strudler, 2006). joyes, grey and hartnell-young (2010) identify maximized learning opportunities through the matching of design and support to the purpose and context. students also become more aware of their marketability and improved chances of employment (milman, 2005). while there is an increasing international research base on student responses to the introduction of eportfolios for standards-based assessment (milman, 2005; willis, gravestock & jenkins, 2006), only a few studies have focused on student perceptions of their learning during this period. studies by ring and foti (2006), pelliccione and dixon (2008) and wetzel and strudler (2006) were able to identify learning such as linking theory to practice, critical thinking, reflective thinking skills and analytical skill advancement. however, lopez-fernandez and rodriguez-illera (2009) in their study of eportfolio use to support learning and assessment found that the expected impact on learning was not as significant as anticipated. studies conducted in the australia/new zealand region have focused on the introduction of eportfolios which include the student experience (hallam & creagh, 2010; gerbic, lewis & northover, 2009; kardos, cook, butson & kardos, 2009) but do not focus specifically on student perceptions of learning. a gap exists in the literature in new zealand, around the study of student perspectives of learning through eportfolio use and around graduating standards. this research project is an attempt to start a discussion on meeting both the challenge and opportunity presented by such standards through eportfolio. the study the study was conducted in the bachelor of education (primary) in a new zealand university during 2010. eportfolios and the gts were introduced together into this programme in 2009 to support students‟ achievement of the professional standards which were embedded through a redesign of curriculum rather than an „add-on‟ to the existing course. the three practicum papers and the teaching technology paper were selected because they have a focus on theory into practice and include an incremental formative focus to the growth and development of students as professionals. learning activities included goal setting and weekly reflections during practicum periods, as well as assessment pieces directly linked to self-appraisal against specific gts. students were required to upload into their eportfolio a detailed reflection in which they appraised their achievement of a gts. for each standard, a variety of artefacts relating to professional knowledge, practice or relationships were provided and referenced as evidence of such achievement. in the case of the technology assessment, students created an eposter of a „design, make and appraise‟ project which evidenced, through uploaded files, their learning at the different levels of the project: personal, professional, theory-based and research-informed. the eposter contained a variety of media elements such as images, video and audio which expressed the experience. questions relating to eportfolio use for gts were not asked directly but were embedded in two research questions: 1. how does an eportfolio help students to learn? 2. how does the eportfolio contribute to growth and development of students as emergent professionals? lewis, l., & gerbic, p. (2012). the student voice in using eportfolios to address professional standards in a teacher education programme . journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 3(1), 17 25. 20 theoretical framework and methodology a qualitative approach was used which drew on conceptions of naturalistic inquiry (lincoln & guba, 1985) and situated activity (denzin and lincoln, 2000). the approach adopted was constructivist, where reality is not a single external truth but a complex, multi-faceted world where each person shapes their own understanding, both individually and within a broader social learning context. this was also insider research. an interpretive methodology provided an approach that was highly suited to presenting the student voice. fifty six students across two cohorts were invited to participate in the research study. data was collected from 14 participants over two semesters, 6 participants in the first semester and 8 in the second semester. two focus groups each with 3 members was held for each cohort and two participants in each group elected to be individually interviewed. discussions with the students centred around the value of eportfolios for their professional preparation, learning and employability. the challenges of working with an eportfolio, including issues such as the technology, assessment and time management, were also discussed. after data collection an inductive approach was taken to analysis. using nvivo, data was coded and categorized and initial nodes created. these were then refined into the broader themes of technology challenges; weekly practicum reflections; theory into practice; and professional growth and development over time results three main findings emerged from the data: 1. authentic assessment related to graduating standards provides reassuring evidence for pre-service student teachers of their growth and development towards beginning teacher status learning activities associated with the gts assignment received positive support and were valued by the participants as authentic links with professional practice and the broader programme aims. they appreciated the focus brought by the gts and saw the standards as verifying their practice and giving them a deeper connection with their aspirant profession as a result. they referred to their eportfolios as reflecting who they were as teachers and appreciated the confidence and reassurance this provided them. being able to… see the level of reflection that i started with and what depth i get now, then you can just … see development throughout my time at uni and being able to look back reinforces the idea that you have improved and you can see it and that makes you more… … yeah, you‟ve come from all the way over there. (student) the shift towards becoming an autonomous professional was raised in both groups. this was particularly well articulated by another student who talked of taking control of her eportfolio: i think it allows you to give more of yourself professionally. for example we‟ve just done a technology e-poster assignment….there‟s a lot of me in there… i wanted to talk about what working with that school meant to me… that gives me an avenue; whether it‟s useful to the lecturer, it was useful to me because it allowed me to explore some of those thoughts that i had about the assignment. lewis, l., & gerbic, p. (2012). the student voice in using eportfolios to address professional standards in a teacher education programme . journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 3(1), 17 25. 21 2. eportfolio activities can support a range of thinking skills linked to achievement of standards a range of thinking skills were identified associated with eportfolio use. purposeful goalfocussed thinking was expressed by several participants who were able to make links between the gts, their goals and the teaching context. such thinking has brought into focus for the participants the reality of their professional development. it‟s not just a goal or it‟s not just something they‟ve told you that you have to achieve. it‟s, well, i can see how you use that in the classroom and where it fits in the classroom (student). the new skills of evidencing and relating shifted the focus from a previous practice of seeking theory as supporting evidence, to looking now to include personal practice artefacts. this thinking reinforced the experience and link of student teaching with the programme‟s developmental path towards a beginning teacher status. the following conversation recorded in a focus group shows the type of thinking in evidencing and relating: student: that assignment makes you reflect on yourself a lot more…. being critical and…cause when you‟re relating it to theory and research, you‟re comparing what you‟re doing and experiencing to research and your reading. student: yeah, because … in our assignments, our evidence would be theory, the references to back-up what we said. but in this case here, we‟re using our own work that we‟ve produced, as our evidence. student: your reflections would tie in with your goals and so you‟re getting feedback towards your goals and that‟s helping you with your assignment. student: and you have your artefacts to show that this is what you‟ve achieved. student: even your feedback could be an artefact. the most easily identified thinking skill for participants was that of reflecting and appraising. the introduction of a new reflective model on practicum which included student accountability and immediate lecturer professional feedback explains the unanimous approval for what was perceived to be a very supportive, affirming and relational process. the lecturer posed questions and expanded my thinking instead of just leaving it there …. say you did your first week reflection and your lecturer was like „you‟re not going deep enough with this‟ or „you‟ve missed this point of view‟, then for your next week, you could improve and sort of become more reflective .. it taught me to go and discuss with my associate teacher and other teachers in the community about things i was wondering about… instead of just writing it and thinking „oh yeah, well that‟s that reflection done, on to the next (student). participants were able to articulate their learning through the reflective task while on teaching practice. however, they were not aware of embedded reflections in both the gts and technology assignments which clearly required students to self-appraise while linking theory to practice. while this was demonstrated in submitted work, all but one participant dismissed the eportfolio as a valuable vehicle for the synthesis of theory and practice. lewis, l., & gerbic, p. (2012). the student voice in using eportfolios to address professional standards in a teacher education programme . journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 3(1), 17 25. 22 3. eportfolios and standards are perceived by pre-service students to have value for employability and in supporting their transition to the workplace not only were participants aware of their increasing it skills, but the transfer of eportfolio skills to the classroom was perceived not as a possibility, but as an intended practice. participants were aware of the employment possibilities eportfolios presented and several were planning to give a view to prospective employers: when you‟re in an interview and they go „so how can you give us proof that you have met the standard‟ you have an artefact that you link and you can pull it up straight on e-portfolio and you can say „here is proof‟ (student). overall the participants were able to articulate how the standards-based assessment task extended them in terms of their ownership of professional knowledge and skills and even of knowing themselves as teacher. however, they perceived the role of eportfolio in this learning to be only at the superficial level of storage, rather than recognising its ability to enhance this learning and professional development. discussion the findings of this study illustrate that eportfolios can operate as both a product and process in a standards setting. the study supports the argument advanced by barrett and wilkerson (2004) that congruence between a constructivist learning philosophy and an alignment with national standards is possible. participants however, separated out the summative elements of the gts and technology assignments from the formative learning which they related to reflections during student practicum. despite probing by the researcher during the focus group discussion, the participants were resistant to acknowledge the gts and associated eportfolio as a medium for demonstrating process learning. discussions with participants about their learning through the eportfolio and the gts experience revealed a disconnect between their ability to make explicit their thinking about learning and the embedded evidence of such learning within participant responses. the achievement of learning associated with the gts was made explicit at the product or summative level, but participants had difficulty in identifying or articulating their learning at the process or formative level. it would seem that such deep learning remains hidden for most participants. our findings provide an australasian description of the ways students learn through standards-based eportfolio activities. we endorse blackburn and hakel‟s (2006) findings that goal-focussed thinking sets students up for success. in addition, our participants identified authentic links between the goals and professional classroom practice. the use of eportfolio for evidencing achievement through artefacts is readily accepted by new zealand students, as was the case in mason, pegler and weller‟s (2004) study. while learning through reflective activities has been identified in other studies (wetzel & strudler, 2006), our participants noted that it was the timely professional feedback provided by lecturers which provoked them to deeper learning. the use of graduating standards through eportfolio made visible the professional growth of participants over time and thus reinforced their development as autonomous professionals, confident to claim their professional status. increasingly, the participants are valuing the evidence the gts provide in their eportfolios as a support when seeking employment. this study indicates emergent evidence of some participants beginning to take control of their eportfolios and justifying personal learning reasons for doing so. this highlights the importance of developing autonomy and ownership of the eportfolio process, particularly in more mature eportfolio users (strudler & wetzel, 2005). these participants had been well grounded, prepared and supported through the gts assessment and reflective activities by lewis, l., & gerbic, p. (2012). the student voice in using eportfolios to address professional standards in a teacher education programme . journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 3(1), 17 25. 23 committed lecturers. the challenge is to encourage these users to become student-centred, self-regulated „owners‟ of their eportfolios; users who recognise the value of the eportfolio as a developmental tool for deep learning. the discussion and recommendations which follow need to be read in the light of the limitations of this research study. bearing in mind the theoretical perspectives of interpretivism and constructivism, and that each individual‟s contribution to the research is valid and meaningful as an expression of their experience, it must be acknowledged that the sample size was small. however, it did draw from two different cohorts of students. furthermore the positive findings around learning through reflection should be tempered by the fact that teacher education has a culture of reflection and students find it relatively easy to write in-depth about their professional practice. eportfolio reflections introduced in other disciplines are reported to meet strong student resistance (kardos, cook, butson & kardos, 2009). recommendations based on this research we offer the following recommendations:  standards-based assessment may stimulate deep learning and trigger professional growth, however, the focus should be on developing authentic learning activities where standards are embedded in curriculum and students are guided towards deeper learning, rather than viewing the standards as a tick-box goal. in the same way, the eportfolio itself needs to be viewed and used as pedagogy and process rather than product (jisc, 2008).  the role of the lecturer in the initial stages of implementation of eportfolio and standards is important. however, shifting locus of control from the lecturer to the student needs to happen once competency levels have been achieved. a shift towards a more student-centred, self-regulated and highly individual response is an important development of eportfolio pedagogy.  students need to be encouraged to think about and articulate the process or developmental learning that lies hidden beneath the more easily accessible explicit learning outcomes related to the product aspect of standards-based assessment. the reflective capacity of the eportfolio makes it an ideal vehicle for such metacognition. conclusion this report has focussed on student perceptions of their learning and professional development through eportfolios, linked to graduating standards. analysis of the data has revealed three findings. firstly, students find reassurance in the achievement of authentic assessments related to graduating standards which validate their emerging professional status. secondly, using eportfolios for standards-based assessments involve new thinking skills which are not always easily articulated by users and thirdly, eportfolios and standards are perceived by pre-service students to have value for employability through their evidential nature. it is important to recognise that it is not the eportfolio technology that has achieved this but the learning design which wraps around it as “it is the pedagogy, not the tool that comes first” (jisc, 2008, p. 17). this approach creates curriculum renewal and opportunities for transformation. deep learning related to achievement of professional standards can be supported by eportfolios particularly if the assessment and developmental aspects of eportfolios can be synchronized. in this way, eportfolios might enact their transformative potential. _________________________________________________________________________ a version of this paper was presented at the eportfolios australia conference 2011, perth, w estern australia, 17 – 18 october, 2011. lewis, l., & gerbic, p. 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(2007). the educational potential of e-portfolios. london, united kingdom: routledge. strudler, n. & wetzel, k. (2005). the diffusion of electronic portfolios in teacher education: issues of initiation and implementation. international journal of technology and design education, 37(4), 422-433. wetzel, k., & strudler, n. (2006). costs and benefits of electronic portfolios in teacher education: student voices. journal of computing in teacher education, 22(3), 69-78. willis, h., gravestock, p., & jenkins, m. (2006). throwing a pebble into the pond: eportfolios and student engagement. in who‟s learning? whose technology? proceedings of 23 rd annual ascilite conference, sydney, australia. http://www.ascilite.org.au/conferences/sydney06/proceeding/pdf_papers/p68.pdf http://www.teacherscouncil.govt.nz/te/gts/ http://www.ascilite.org.au/conferences/melbourne08/procs/pelliccione.pdf http://www.ascilite.org.au/conferences/sydney06/proceeding/pdf_papers/p68.pdf 1704 hamilton (final) hamilton, a. et al. (2023). the use of eportfolio in health profession education to demonstrate competency and enhance employability: a scoping review. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 14(1), 154–166. 154 the journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability issn: 1838-3815 (online) journal homepage: https://ojs.deakin.edu.au/index.php/jtlge/ the use of eportfolio in health profession education to demonstrate competency and enhance employability: a scoping review anita hamilton1, terry downer1, belinda flanagan2 and laine chilman1 corresponding author: anita hamilton (ahamilt1@usc.edu.au) 1 school of health, university of the sunshine coast 2 tasmanian school of medicine, university of tasmania abstract the use of an eportfolio to support the education of health and social care professionals is increasing in higher education. eportfolios support the educational journey of students; however, it is unclear how they are used to demonstrate competency or enhance employability. the aims of this study were to explore the literature to identify the use of eportfolios in health and social care higher education curricula to demonstrate competency or improve employability. three electronic databases were searched to identify papers using scoping review methodology. studies that were published between 2001 and 2019 were included. a total of 1530 articles were initially identified after duplicates were removed. nine studies were included in the final qualitative synthesis following a robust review. data were synthesised into themes that describe the role of eportfolios in demonstrating competencies in higher education or improving employability they were (1) self-directed learning, (2) deeper learning, (3) expanding literacies, (4) successful implementation. these studies highlight that eportfolio is both a product and a process. eportfolios support students to gather artefacts that demonstrate professional competency which can be applied in the job-seeking process. the eportfolio development process applies social constructionist approaches to learning which support lifelong learning and enhance employability. the findings also highlight the importance of providing students with clear expectations of the role of an eportfolio in their professional learning journey. keywords eportfolio; professional education; professional identity; employability; competency introduction an electronic portfolio (eportfolio) is a digital vessel that can be used to store, organise and exhibit a variety of digital assets, including text, video, images and audio (abrami & barrett, 2005). historically, the use of portfolios to enhance employability was mostly confined to the arts disciplines, however, since 2010 eportfolios have been increasingly used in the health and social science tertiary education sector to aid learning and assessment and to support the demonstration and assessment of professional competency (janssens et al., 2022a; kirby et al., 2022). consequently, eportfolios now have a breadth of applications for both students and health and social science professionals; these hamilton, a. et al. (2023). the use of eportfolio in health profession education to demonstrate competency and enhance employability: a scoping review. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 14(1), 154–166. 155 include but are not limited to supporting learning and assessment, developing, and demonstrating core competencies, career development, professional evaluation and collecting evidence for professional registration and to showcase strengths to future employers (downer & slade, 2019). one of the reasons that eportfolios have become increasingly popular in health and social care education is due to the adoption of competency-based education (janssens et al., 2022b). competency-based education is student-centred and guided by a social constructionist pedagogy supporting the development of professional competency and identity (hall et al., 2012; keengwe et al., 2014). eportfolios can provide a safe place for students to build their own representations of knowledge and professional identity by providing a safe space to reflect on and engage in active learning experiences that lead them to uncover inconsistencies between formal and informal learning experiences (hall et al., 2012; keengwe et al., 2014). informal learning includes the process of socialisation into the profession and the interprofessional team during practice-based learning (hall et al., 2012). an eportfolio offers both a technological and pedagogical approach to support learning as it can be used to structure learning, provide a place for reflection, archive evidence of learning, as a repository for feedback and showcase achievements in preparation for the job-seeking process (gerbic et al., 2009; janssens et al., 2022b; slade & downer, 2020). the evidence students collect provides the opportunity to demonstrate the acquisition of specific skills and abilities. by extension, an eportfolio may be used to evidence professional competency for a registering body, to address industry selection criteria for employment, or to showcase professional development in preparation for promotion or different employment opportunities (carter, 2021). the purpose of this review was to examine the use of an eportfolio in health and social care higher education curriculum to demonstrate competency or enhance employability. we believe that our findings will inform educators about the formal and informal ways that can be used to demonstrate competency and enhance employability. our scoping review methodology was guided by arksey and o’malley’s (2005) framework with modifications suggested by levac et al. (2010) and peterson et al. (2017). methods step 1 identify the research question focusing on higher education settings for both health and social care education, we sought to understand if eportfolio is being used to demonstrate the development of professional competency and/or to enhance students’ employability. the research question was developed by the review team through discussions, preliminary searches, and the development of a population – intervention – outcome (pio) framework. part of the initial search included existing systematic reviews. these were identified by searching prospero and cochrane library with ‘eportfolio’ or ‘electronic portfolio’ as key search terms. although review papers were not included, they informed the introduction to our project and this paper. table 1. population – intervention – outcome (pio) structured search strategy p 'health*care education' 'social*care education' 'health*care student*' or 'social*care students' i eportfolio*, e*portfolio*, electronic portfolio* o employ* competen* hamilton, a. et al. (2023). the use of eportfolio in health profession education to demonstrate competency and enhance employability: a scoping review. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 14(1), 154–166. 156 step 2: identify relevant studies search terms were used first individually and then in combination. the pio framework (table 1) guided our search for relevant information and formulation of further search strings that best matched the capabilities of database search engines. the electronic databases cinahl, scopus and pubmed were used to search for pertinent articles between 2001-2023. these databases were selected as they target health and social sciences literature. criteria for inclusion: (1) health professional competency or employability and (2) health industry (3) higher education or training and (4) eportfolio/portfolio/electronic portfolio and (5) published between 2001 and 2023 (6) published in the english language criteria for exclusion: (1) use of eportfolio in industry other than higher education (2) use of eportfolio by students studying non-health or social care disciplines (3) assessing competency using methods other than eportfolio (4) other types of portfolios (e.g., paper-based) (5) isolated use of eportfolio (6) e-assessment (not eportfolio) (7) book or book chapter (8) students’ perceptions of portfolio (9) assessing competency not via portfolio (10) technical development of eportfolio (11) how to use eportfolio (12) review papers step 3: study selection after the removal of duplicates (using endnote library), an initial review of titles and abstracts was completed to determine full-text articles for review. to determine suitable texts to be included in the synthesis, full texts were then reviewed and selected according to their relevance to the review question. one author (lc) read the papers to explore similarities and differences between the papers. a set of emergent themes were created through this process. this was confirmed by the remaining three authors (ah, td, bf), who each read a set of articles to interrogate the applicability of each paper to the research question and elucidate the themes. during this stage, a further six papers were excluded through this in-depth analysis, it became evident that they were not applicable to the research question. a total of nine articles were included in the review. hamilton, a. et al. (2023). the use of eportfolio in health profession education to demonstrate competency and enhance employability: a scoping review. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 14(1), 154–166. 157 figure 1. prisma flow diagram. step 4: chart, collate, summarise and report results the data that were extracted from each of the studies included key characteristics (authors, year of publication, country, study aims, design and participant details), contextual information (information about the components of an eportfolio and its purpose), key findings in relation to the previously determined themes and any new or emerging themes. figure 1. prisma flow diagram records identified through database searches (n= 2578) records after duplicates removed (n= 1530) records excluded after title/abstract screen, did not address inclusion criteria (n= 1450) full text articles assessed for eligibility and sub-themes developed (n= 80) full-text articles excluded, did not address inclusion criteria (n= 65) full-text articles excluded, did not contribute to sub-themes (n= 6) studies included in qualitative synthesis (n= 9) full text articles assessed, subthemes for eligibility (n= 15) sc re en in g in cl ud ed el ig ib ili ty id en ti fic at io n hamilton, a. et al. (2023). the use of eportfolio in health profession education to demonstrate competency and enhance employability: a scoping review. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 14(1), 154–166. 158 results overview of studies and emerging themes table 2 provides an overview of the 9 studies which were included. of these studies, four were completed in the us, (gaba, 2015; karsten, 2012; laux & stoten, 2016; patrick-williams & bennett, 2010) three in the uk, (david et al., 2001; rees et al., 2005; tailor et al., 2014) and two in australia (hume & hamilton, 2019; sidebotham et al., 2018). three studies focused on nursing students, (karsten, 2012; patrick-williams & bennett, 2010) three focused on medical students, (david et al., 2001; rees et al., 2005; tailor et al., 2014) one study was with dietetics students, (gaba, 2015) one was with midwifery students, (sidebotham et al., 2018) and one focused on occupational therapy stakeholders (hume & hamilton, 2019). three studies used survey design (gaba, 2015; patrick-williams & bennett, 2010; tailor et al., 2014) and one used survey within a delphi study, (hume & hamilton, 2019) one used survey and focus groups, (sidebotham et al., 2018) one used case study design (david et al., 2001) and one used focus groups while also looking at the reliability and construct validity of the assessment tool used to assess students’ eportfolios (rees et al., 2005). the remaining two papers did not describe a research design but described the eportfolio implementation process (karsten, 2012; laux & stoten, 2016). all nine studies described the purpose of their eportfolio as contributing to enhancing employability and/or demonstrating competency. five studies detailed the components of their eportfolio (david et al., 2001; hume & hamilton, 2019; karsten, 2012; laux & stoten, 2016; sidebotham et al., 2018) while the remaining four studies provided none or minimal details of the components of the eportfolio. the four key themes were self-directed learning, deeper learning, expanding literacies and successful implementation. these themes, and the related sub-themes are outlined in table 3, and further explored below using examples from the nine papers included in the review. hamilton, a. et al. (2023). the use of eportfolio in health profession education to demonstrate competency and enhance employability: a scoping review. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 14(1), 154–166. 159 table 2. summary of the included studies author(s) & year country aims design participants eportfolio components eportfolio purpose david, davis, harden, howie, ker, & pippard (2009) uk eportfolio for assessment case study medicine knowledge, skills, attitudes for competent and ethical practice in disease management and prevention as a doctor demonstrate competency for progression in degree gaba (2015) usa demonstration of competency over time survey dietetics not clear demonstration of competencies hume & hamilton (2019) australia explore purpose, content and development phases of eportfolio delphi study occupational therapy development and maintenance of professional knowledge and skills competency for entry to practice karsten (2012) usa benefit of eportfolio to employers not stated nursing course work, personal goals, academic goals, reflection on academic and clinical skills demonstration of competencies and employability laux & stoten (2016) usa how eportfolio is implemented in a teaching program not stated nursing storage of multi-mode, multimedia assignments, to evidence professional competencies demonstrate competency for progression in degree and to display academic work for employment patrick-williams & bennett (2010) usa eportfolio as part of the hiring process survey nursing illustrate the evolution of clinical practice (skills) demonstrate learning over time. rees, shepherd, & chamberlain (2011) uk process of using eportfolio as an assessment method focus groups medicine not stated reflection on personal and professional development sidebotham, baird, walters, gamble (2018) australia demonstrating preparedness for professional practice survey and focus groups midwifery repository for demonstrating continuity of care experiences, reflection, learning goals, learning outcomes demonstration of competencies and employability through selfassessment hamilton, a. et al. (2023). the use of eportfolio in health profession education to demonstrate competency and enhance employability: a scoping review. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 14(1), 154–166. 160 tailor, dubrey, das, (2014) uk use of eportfolio in workplace-based assessments survey medicine not stated repository for course assessments and records of clinical competencies table 3. chart of findings by themes and sub-themes self-directed learning deeper learning expanding literacies successful implementation author(s) & year flexibility & convenience organisation skills independent learning reflection & critical thinking active learning david et al. (2009) x x x x x gaba (2015) x x x x x hume & hamilton (2019) x x x x x x karsten (2012) x x x x x laux & stoten (2016) x x x x x x x patrick-williams & bennett (2010) x rees et al. (2011) x x x x x sidebotham et al. (2018) x x x x x tailor et al. (2014) x x x total 5 5 5 8 6 5 8 hamilton, a. et al. (2023). the use of eportfolio in health profession education to demonstrate competency and enhance employability: a scoping review. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 14(1), 154–166. 161 key theme 1: self-directed learning sub-theme 1.1: flexibility and convenience the theme flexibility and convenience was explored in five papers and depicts that eportfolios should be created in flexible and convenient sites that are accessible yet secure (gaba, 2015; hume & hamilton, 2019). flexibility includes providing ongoing access to the digital platform after graduation (hume & hamilton, 2019). furthermore, eportfolios provide a convenient and transparent digital repository for students to record their learning accomplishments and consolidate their learning (sidebotham et al., 2018). eportfolios are a repository where students can collect a compilation of their work (karsten, 2012), to build a showcase by presenting how they have demonstrated professional competencies (gaba, 2015; hume & hamilton, 2019). the eportfolio can also be used to support students in the 'pursuit of their professional career pathways' (laux & stoten, 2016, p. 275) and to showcase subsequent development during their career (hume & hamilton, 2019). sub-theme 1.2: organisation skills advancement of organisation skills using eportfolio was identified in five papers. in the research conducted by hume and hamilton (2019), 100% of the delphi study panellists agreed that an eportfolio could support students to practice routine record keeping and improve organisational skills. laux and stoten (2016) explained that an eportfolio provides an opportunity for students to learn how to organise and showcase their accomplishments. david et al. (2001) proposed that when students compile evidence in their portfolios, they demonstrate organisational and time management skills. examples included documentation of hours spent and projects completed and of observations and reflections (gaba, 2015). the study by rees et al., (2005) found that students reported that keeping a portfolio helped their organisational skills and 'encouraged them to focus on their academic progress holistically' (p. 8). furthermore, eportfolios provide students with 'opportunities [...] to maintain a professional web presence [...] as they go forward in their careers' (gaba, 2015, p. 1154). sub-theme 1.3: independent learning six papers addressed the theme independent learning. independent learning can be contextualised within an adult learning framework where self-directed learning and reflective practice (tailor et al., 2014) based on creative, flexible, learning experiences are integrated meaningfully into preparing for professional practice (laux & stoten, 2016). the concept of independent learning was evident through teaching strategies where students are encouraged to 'take responsibility for their own learning and personalise their learning experiences' (david et al., 2001, p. 535). eportfolios encourage students to take an active role in learning by prompting reflection on practice, supporting self-critique to acknowledge achievements and identify learning needs for future development in clinical, academic, personal and interpersonal domains (rees et al., 2005; sidebotham et al., 2018). in the study by sidebotham et al. (2018, p. 88), 94% of students confirmed that the eportfolio-based assessment item enabled them to identify personal learning goals and encouraged the development of independent learning, facilitating the 'dual function of learning as a process and a product'. key theme 2: deeper learning sub-theme 2.1: reflection and critical thinking dewey (1933) commented that reflection on individual experiences is critical for making meaning of the experience. eight papers identified reflective practice as an important part of an eportfolio (david et al., 2001; gaba, 2015; hume & hamilton, 2019; karsten, 2012; laux & stoten, 2016; rees et al., 2005; sidebotham et al., 2018; tailor et al., 2014). in a paper that highlights how some students use hamilton, a. et al. (2023). the use of eportfolio in health profession education to demonstrate competency and enhance employability: a scoping review. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 14(1), 154–166. 162 their eportfolios, karsten (2012) encouraged the use of eportfolio as an opportunity for students to reflect on clinical and academic experiences. commenting that this bridges the links between theory and practice and highlights critical thinking. five papers reported that eportfolios can be used to influence goal-directed critical thinking (david et al., 2001; hume & hamilton, 2019; karsten, 2012; rees et al., 2005; sidebotham et al., 2018). hume and hamilton (2019) explored the purpose, content and development phases of a graduate-entry eportfolio in occupational therapy. the study found that stakeholders preferred eportfolios which demonstrated critical thinking and clear goal setting to aid in the job recruitment process. karsten (2012) found that through reflective practice students were able to recognise the connection between theory and practice in the workplace, and were able to set appropriate personal goals. sub-theme 2.2: active learning active learning can be defined as a learning activity in which the students participate as opposed to passively taking in information (keengwe et al., 2014). in this theme six papers described a process of active learning (david et al., 2001; hume & hamilton, 2019; karsten, 2012; laux & stoten, 2016; rees et al., 2005; sidebotham et al., 2018). in their study of third year midwifery students sidebotham et al. (2018) found that completing an eportfolio as a capstone assessment helped students to prepare for graduation. sidebotham et al. (2018) found that students developed a sense of 'who i am and where i am going' (p. 87). while developing their eportfolio, students actively applied their learning to preparing for professional practice and were able to determine their own learning needs and learning plans. another example of active learning documented by laux and stoten (2016) was the use of eportfolio to demonstrate interprofessional education. in this example, students collaborated with their work colleagues outside of their discipline in the development and co-creation of an eportfolio. key theme 3: expanding literacies the papers reviewed revealed that eportfolio use can enhance a range of literacies including critical literacy (karsten, 2012), information literacy (hume & hamilton, 2019; karsten, 2012), and digital/technology literacy (gaba, 2015; hume & hamilton, 2019; karsten, 2012; laux & stoten, 2016). gaba (2015, p. 1155) explained that the 'degree of familiarity and comfort a student had with internet technology' influenced how easily students adopted eportfolio use and although the use of a digital platform for eportfolio was initially time consuming, the ability to access the platform from a variety of locations was the key benefit. similarly, hume & hamilton (2019, p. 50) found that in addition to digital literacy eportfolios encouraged graduates to 'develop skills in documentation, organisation and reflective skills', their research concluded that the process of building an eportfolio shapes professional identity and develops professional accountability as students prepare to enter practice. key theme 4: successful implementation eight papers identified that to successfully implement an eportfolio, the purpose and expected outcomes (product) need to be clearly articulated (david et al., 2001; gaba, 2015; hume & hamilton, 2019; karsten, 2012; laux & stoten, 2016; rees et al., 2005; sidebotham et al., 2018; tailor et al., 2014). three studies (gaba, 2015; hume & hamilton, 2019; karsten, 2012) suggested that educators can best support students through the creation of an exemplar eportfolio to provide clarity around the expectations of the eportfolio. gaba (2015, p. 1155) explained that using an exemplar eportfolio 'clarified and facilitated interns’ documentation of their work to meet specific learning objectives [… and …] facilitated demonstration of these for program accreditation by a national accrediting body'. several studies highlighted the importance of supporting students in the process of using eportfolio from a technological standpoint (gaba, 2015; hume & hamilton, 2019; karsten, 2012). gaba (2015, p. 1154) identified that '[o]ngoing technical support was provided as needed throughout the year by the program director and/or it staff.' hamilton, a. et al. (2023). the use of eportfolio in health profession education to demonstrate competency and enhance employability: a scoping review. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 14(1), 154–166. 163 although most papers provided some recommendations around the implementation of eportfolio, one paper described the steps taken during the implementation of eportfolio in a medical curriculum (david et al., 2001, p. 546). the competencies assessed in the eportfolio were authentic in that they are all directly linked with future practice as a doctor. the steps were: (1) defining the purpose [of the eportfolio] (2) determining competencies to be assessed [criteria to be assessed] (3) selection of portfolio material [evidence that demonstrates competency] (4) developing a marking system [summative/formative, outcome specifications] (5) selection and training of examiners [explanation of eportfolio purpose and examination process] (6) planning the examination process [assessment steps, duration] (7) student orientation [explanation of eportfolio purpose and examination process] (8) developing guidelines for decisions [standards of performance, inter-rater reliability] (9) establishing reliability and validity of evidence [pilot examination processes] (10) designing evaluation procedures [triangulate eportfolio assessment outcomes with students’ performance on other assessments] discussion the four themes and the respective sub-themes highlight that eportfolios have been successfully implemented in higher education to support student learning and to demonstrate professional competency in readiness for graduation and future employment. it was also clear from the literature reviewed that for students to be confident in the use of eportfolio, educators must provide support for students on the use of an eportfolio through clear instructions and exemplars (gray et al., 2019). while there is a broad acceptance of the use of eportfolios in higher education and some indication that employers may be interested in using eportfolios for recruitment (leece, 2005; patrick-williams & bennett, 2010; yu, 2011), the use of eportfolios as part of the recruitment process in health and social care is limited (gheris & fundaburk, 2008; leece, 2005; ward & moser, 2008). the limited use of eportfolios in recruitment is largely due to employers’ limited knowledge of their potential applications (leece, 2005; ward & moser, 2008), compatibility issues with existing recruitment platforms (gheris & fundaburk, 2008; leece, 2005), and concerns around the authenticity of evidence due to the potential for identity theft (hume & hamilton, 2019; leece, 2005; strohmeier, 2010). employers across multiple professions do appear to have some consistency in the information most useful to include in an eportfolio. resumes (hume & hamilton, 2019; ndoye et al., 2012), descriptions of employment and internship experiences (gheris & fundaburk, 2008), and certificates and licenses (hume & hamilton, 2019; yu, 2011) however, items that are generally seen as advantages of eportfolios, like examples of competencies or written samples (gheris & fundaburk, 2008; ward & moser, 2008), do not gain as much support in regard to recruitment (strohmeier, 2010). in the health and social care sectors there does not appear to be widespread use of eportfolios in relation to the recruitment process. currently eportfolios are used to develop skills, knowledge, and personal attributes that support employability (carter, 2021; mitchell et al., 2021). therefore, it appears that the benefit of eportfolios may not be derived from their use in hiring, but in their ability to develop students' ability to describe their knowledge and skills through continual reflective practice. by reflecting on and evaluating their experiences within each area, students are better able to identify the link between acquiring knowledge, developing understanding, and demonstrating skills, with the outcome being the enhancement of three personal attributes that demonstrate improved hamilton, a. et al. (2023). the use of eportfolio in health profession education to demonstrate competency and enhance employability: a scoping review. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 14(1), 154–166. 164 employability: self-efficacy, self-confidence, and self-esteem (dacre pool & sewell, 2007; strohmeier, 2010). limitations the limitations to our scoping review include the small number of studies available around the application of eportfolio in preparing of health and social care graduates for employment. furthermore, the almost non-existent research with industry, exploring employers’ experiences of and opinions on the use of eportfolio limited our ability to represent their viewpoints in this paper. to ensure that the opinions of appropriate stakeholders are accurately represented, particularly related to the use of eportfolio in the recruitment process, future research needs to explore the opinions and ideas of employers. a second limitation of this scoping review was the process of theme development during the process of screening studies for inclusion. the themes were developed by one team member, not the whole team, and this may have introduced biases which led to some relevant papers being excluded. conclusion our scoping review revealed that eportfolio is both a product and a process. as a product eportfolio is a repository for artefacts that represent the student learning journey and readiness for employment. as a process, developing an eportfolio applies social constructionist approaches to learning which enhance employability and support lifelong learning and in three key areas: self-directed learning, deeper learning, and expanding literacies. self-directed learning is enhanced because eportfolios promote the development of organisation skills and independent learning. deeper learning is supported through the continual use of reflection and critical thinking, and through the application of active learning approaches. eportfolios also contribute to expanding students’ literacies, particularly information literacy relating to the students’ profession and digital or technological literacy. we found that eportfolios can contribute constructively to preparing students for future employment however, employer unfamiliarity with the concept of eportfolio, and issues with compatibility with existing recruitment platforms help to explain the lack of use of eportfolios in recruitment (gheris & fundaburk, 2008; leece, 2005; mitchell et al., 2021; ward & moser, 2008; yu, 2011). therefore, eportfolios can best be promoted and supported as tools that support students in the development of knowledge, skills and personal attributes that support future employability. acknowledgements a commissioned learning and teaching grant was awarded from the university of the sunshine coast to help fund this project. references abrami, p., & barrett, h. 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(2020). students’ conceptual understanding and attitudes towards technology and user experience before and after use of an eportfolio. journal of computing in higher education, 32, 529-552 https://doi:10.1007/s12528-019-09245-8 strohmeier, s. (2010). electronic portfolios in recruiting? a conceptual analysis of usage. journal of electronic commerce research, 11(4), 268-280. https://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/document?repid=rep1&type=pdf&doi=30c0541f19c48afa08a9b05c507b0b4a 1859bd63 tailor, a., dubrey, s., & das, s. (2014). opinions of the eportfolio and workplace-based assessments: a survey of core medical trainees and their supervisors. clinical medicine, 14(5), 510-516. https://doi:10.7861/clinmedicine.14-5-510 ward, c., & moser, c. (2008). eportfolios as a hiring tool: do employers really care? educause quarterly, 31(4), 13-14. https://er.educause.edu/articles/2008/11/eportfolios-as-a-hiring-tool-do-employers-reallycare yu, t. (2011). e-portfolio, a valuable job search tool for college students. campus-wide information systems, 29(1), 70-76. https://doi:10.1108/10650741211192064 boud, d., & jorre de st jorre, t. (2021). the move to micro-credentials exposes the deficiencies of existing credentials. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(1), 18–20. 18 the journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability issn: 1838-3815 (online) journal homepage: https://ojs.deakin.edu.au/index.php/jtlge/ provocation subject to editor review, provocations are intended to be short and showcase thought, leadership and expert commentary on the future of credentials for work in a disrupted world. the move to micro-credentials exposes the deficiencies of existing credentials david boud1,2,3 and trina jorre de st jorre1,4 corresponding author: david boud (david.boud@deakin.edu.au) ¹ centre for research in assessment and digital learning, deakin university, melbourne, australia 2 faculty of arts and social sciences, university of technology sydney, australia 3 centre for research on work and learning, middlesex university, london, uk orcid: 0000-0002-6883-2722 4 senior lecturer, student achievement, deakin learning futures, deakin university, geelong. orcid: 00000001-7848-0305 the rush to short courses and use of micro-credentials prompted by responses to the pandemic has greatly accelerated a trend already underway. however, few studies have examined the impact of short courses or micro-credentials on skills or employment outcomes, and this hasty move draws attention to major problems in the ways in which higher education credentials macro and micro are designed and assessed. micro-credentials achieved through completion of short courses have emerged as a potential solution to the rapid up-skilling needed for economic recovery as organisations adapt to the ‘new normal’. for example, short online courses in ‘high-demand’ areas have been announced as a key strategy in the australian government’s higher education relief package which promises funding certainty to higher education providers and supports workers affected by covid-19 and who are looking to upskill or retrain (department of education, skills and employment, 2020). while degrees have been criticised as unreliable signals of employability, the return on investment attributable to them has been closely examined (e.g. tholen, 2017; tomaszewskei et al., 2019). degrees do not guarantee jobs nor ‘work-readiness’, but graduates have higher rates of employment than non-graduates. graduate employment outcomes have primarily declined in response to labour market congestion and competition between graduates, not reduced demand. so how are smaller, micro-credentials likely to stack up against these? as with any qualification, the use of micro-credentials as signals of employability in themselves, is dependent on the relevance of their learning outcomes and standards of achievement, the validity of judgements made and how convincingly they are communicated. digital means are increasingly https://ojs.deakin.edu.au/index.php/jtlge/ mailto:david.boud@deakin.edu.au boud, d., & jorre de st jorre, t. (2021). the move to micro-credentials exposes the deficiencies of existing credentials. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(1), 18–20. 19 being used to verify achievement of micro-credentials, which by design, focus on a limited set of learning outcomes. these features can enable more transparent communication of specific standards of achievement (jorre de st jorre, 2020). however, in reality digital credentials can be conferred by anyone for anything and few credentials macro or micro offer sufficient granularity to inform recruitment decisions. the australian higher education standards framework (commonwealth of australia, 2015) requires that all accredited courses must be described in terms of learning outcomes, and institutions responsible for conferring credentials must assure that appropriate standards of achievement are met. however, if we take a typical unit (i.e. subject) from most degrees, it has multiple learning outcomes which may or may not be well mapped against degree level learning outcomes. the unit is typically assessed and represented by a single mark or grade (often a weighted average of multiple assessment tasks). grades are generally not calculated or recorded for each learning outcome and even if they are, they do not necessarily indicate that all learning outcomes are achieved at a threshold level of performance. intrinsically, such an aggregate grade cannot indicate what a student has achieved, because a grade in itself cannot represent an explicit standard. micro-credentials are being promoted as potentially cheaper and more flexible opportunities for learners to gain macro-credentials. for example, some micro-credentials can be mixed and matched with conventional course units so that a qualification is constructed from a hybrid of the two modes of study. however, assembling micro-credentials in ways that assure or complement the achievement of learning outcomes associated with larger programs, requires soundness of the broader credential to which they become part or are stacked upon, and this is where the gross inadequacy of existing credentials and the ways in which they are structured becomes apparent. micro-credentials cannot be simply added into the mix. if assessment of current course units does not enable a determination that learning outcomes have been met, how will anyone know if the mixture of micro-credentials and normal course units adds up to meeting the requirement for a qualification when the learning outcomes of all parts cannot be assured? if existing course units do not assure learning outcomes then they cannot become micro-credentials because they do not meet the minimum requirements of adequacy. the increasingly common repackaging of existing units into micro-credentials must be regarded with suspicion. what can be done about this problem? firstly, we need to refrain from creating micro-credentials simply through unbundling existing credentials, until these are reformed to be transparent in meeting the minimum standards of achievement required, for each designated outcome. without this, flaws associated with macrocredentials will inadvertently undermine micro-credentials. learning outcomes need to be individually judged and reported on to enable inferences to be made about what learners are capable of doing. secondly, the relationship between each micro-credential and the program they are intended to fit into should be mapped and communicated to show how they build overall capability. whether or not micro-credentials fit within existing (reformed) credentials or new coherent programs, the relationships between the part and the whole needs to be clearly articulated to inform enrolment decisions and judgement of progression towards completion of the program they are nested within. thirdly, where micro-credentials are mapped against larger programs we need agreement on procedures through which micro-credentials can be assembled. this will involve some degree of standardisation of the quantum of achievement per micro-credential, which may vary by level of qualification. each micro-credential should be accompanied by a map which shows pathways into one or more recognised qualifications in, say, the australian qualifications framework. of course, any particular micro-credential may be placed within multiple qualifications, but a demonstration of boud, d., & jorre de st jorre, t. (2021). the move to micro-credentials exposes the deficiencies of existing credentials. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(1), 18–20. 20 legitimate possibilities is required for learners to be confident that they have not entered on to a path that leads them nowhere. fourthly, careful consideration is needed of how both micro and macro-credentials are assessed. over-assessment is a common trap in both cases, and is a particular problem with the micro as it is important to insure that there is a reasonable balance between learning and summative assessment and room for formative assessment in an activity that might be quite time-limited. there is an argument in favour of some micro-credentials being assessment of prior learning only, so long as they are part of a broader program of study. some digital units could of course be learning-only and a credential obtained only when several are assessed in a credentialing unit. conclusion in conclusion, the current move to micro-credentials has exposed the embarrassing fact that despite quite explicit legislation, it is often not clear how current qualifications meet basic standards: not all declared learning outcomes are assured, grades are not aligned with learning outcomes, and course units can be passed by superior performance on some outcomes compensating for poor performance on others. they are unfit at present to be used as the basis for micro-credentials. the impetus of micro-credentialling provides a useful prompt for completion of the major reform that for all courses, completion assures that all learning outcomes have been met. references commonwealth of australia. (2015). higher education standards framework (threshold standards). canberra: australian government department of education skills and employment. (2020). short, online courses available. retrieved from https://www.dese.gov.au/news/short-online-courses-available department of jobs and small business. (2019). australian jobs 2019. australian government retrieved from https://docs.employment.gov.au/system/files/doc/other/australianjobs2019.pdf jorre de st jorre, t. (2019). sharing achievement through digital credentials: are universities ready for the transparency afforded by a digital world? in m. bearman, p. dawson, r. ajjawi, j. tai, & d. boud (eds.), re-imagining university assessment in a digital worlds (pp. 277–288). switzerland: springer. tholen, g., & brown, p. (2017). higher education and the myths of graduate employability. in r. waller, n. ingram & m. r. m. ward (eds.), higher education and social inequalities: university admissions, experiences and outcomes (pp. 153-166). london: routledge. tomaszewski, w., perales, f., xiang, n., & kubler, m. (2019). beyond graduation: long-term socioeconomic outcomes amongst equity students. wa: national centre for student equity in higher education. https://www.dese.gov.au/news/short-online-courses-available https://docs.employment.gov.au/system/files/doc/other/australianjobs2019.pdf ‘personal literacy’: the vital, yet overlooked, graduate attribute ________________________________________________ rust, c. & froud, l. (2011). „personal literacy‟: the vital, yet often overlooked, graduate attribute. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 2(1), 28 40. 28 ‘personal literacy’: the vital, yet often overlooked, graduate attribute chris rust 1 and lorna froud 2 crust@brookes.ac.uk 1 head, oxford centre for staff & learning development, oxford brookes university 2 head, careers and employment centre, oxford brookes university abstract “there is no difference between academic skills and employment skills,” (jackson, 2011, p.1). this paper argues that there is often a false dichotomy in the minds of academics between employability, and the so-called „skills agenda‟, and the teaching of academic disciplines. and even in professional courses, the view of employability can be very blinkered, limited to getting a job and working in the specific profession – e.g. law, nursing, architecture. it is our argument that an explicit focus on the graduate attribute „personal literacy‟ – literally the ability to „read‟ oneself, to be critically self-aware – can unite the academic and employability agendas and reveal them as one, joint enterprise. we also argue that both the development of employability and the learning of academic disciplines can be significantly improved through the development of students‟ critical self-awareness and personal literacy. having made this case, we then go on to consider examples of how this might be achieved in practice. keywords: personal literacy, self-awareness, employability, graduate attributes attributes and skills we suspect there are few, if any, universities in the world that do not claim employability as a goal. at brookes, we claim “an appropriate curriculum for the 21 st century enabling graduates to develop the skills and „adaptive expertise‟ that will enable them to take up valuable and satisfying careers, and at the same time contribute to society and the economy”. in australia, for the last decade or so, attempts to define the curriculum have focussed on what have been called „graduate attributes‟ and this term is also starting to be used more widely now in the uk, and there was a brief attempt here in the 90s to try and decide what constituted „graduateness ‟. graduate attributes have been defined as “the qualities, skills and understandings a university community agrees its students should develop during their time with the institution” (bowden et al., 2000, executive summary, para. 2). as one might expect, when it comes to identifying graduate attributes (sometimes called graduate capabilities) australian universities don‟t completely agree but they have tended to produce fairly similar lists which are likely to include at least the majority of the following: communication skills, critical thinking skills, problem-solving mailto:crust@brokkes.ac.uk ________________________________________________ rust, c. & froud, l. (2011). „personal literacy‟: the vital, yet often overlooked, graduate attribute. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 2(1), 28 40. 29 skills, inquiry/research skills, team skills – but, interestingly, subject knowledge and capability does not always feature. in the uk we have had similar lists, certainly since the 90s, but under a variety of different titles as fashions, and nuances, have changed, including: transferable skills, life skills, enterprise skills, life-long learning skills, employability skills. problems with skills however useful the consideration of such lists of skills may have been in influencing learning outcomes and course design, one major criticism is that they have tended to be generic (i.e. not explicitly related to the subject discipline being studied), and ill-defined, and to have spawned ever more lengthy lists of atomised sub-skills. there is also an argument that many of these skills are by no means the sole preserve, or expectation, of graduates. communication skills, for example, would be seen to be a core aim of courses at „o‟ level, „a‟ level, further education, and post-graduate level. any „graduateness‟ in the development of these skills at university may come from the context in which they are developed and performed but they are not unique to graduates and therefore do not help to define what a graduate is or what makes a graduate distinctive or „special‟. two further, linked problems are that even when universities have these explicit lists, and courses have explicit learning outcomes, and assessment matrices, and the development of these skills is well designed into the courses, evidence suggests that, firstly, many students don‟t seem to realise or recognise the skills that they have developed and demonstrated and, secondly, they “find it difficult to identify the transferability of academic skills to the workplace” (johnson 2010, p2). and there are similar findings in other countries such as the us, even, in the example of the following quotation, with phd students: “insecurity, and a colossal underestimation of the value of their transferable skills, seem to be universal among the graduate students” (bryant, 2005). personal literacy and critical self-awareness within current skills development let us consider the issue of personal literacy and critical self-awareness, and identify some of the current problems with its development, from the following two examples of approaches to skills development at brookes. english subject centre‟s skills enhancement project a project designed and completed by oxford brookes university careers centre to address an english subject centre‟s skills enhancement programme for students of english, using recorded mock interviews, provides evidence that would support bryant‟s view (above). the qualitative evaluations completed by the students after the event highlighted the perceived usefulness and benefit of the exercise for students (and this was also supported by the observations of the university staff involved, including careers professionals.) the results also showed that the students were broadly happy with their levels of confidence, body language and the way they answered the questions. however, in addition, the student evaluation sheets show that, on reflection afterwards, these students felt they could (and should) have spent more time on some basic research – investigating the nature of the employer, etc. and on preparation for the ________________________________________________ rust, c. & froud, l. (2011). „personal literacy‟: the vital, yet often overlooked, graduate attribute. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 2(1), 28 40. 30 interview – this despite the fact that, on their applications, research was identified as one of the key skills that they had developed through their subject. this lack of any research also meant that the students had little idea as to what career paths were open to them as graduates, and some found it difficult to match their skills and work experience with the answers required in a job interview setting. these findings provide valuable evidence for careers professionals and academics, highlighting the contingent nature of skills acquisition and transfer. the english field students believed they had acquired identifiable skills on their academic course, especially research skills but in this context they failed to use them. they had also gained other skills through work experience outside their course, but they found it difficult to match their skills to good interview answers. embedded „employability‟ activities in many courses „employability‟ related activities are embedded. often these are in vocational subjects where there is an assumption, or presumption, that they lead to a named, identifiable job, or at least an obvious sector of the job market (publishing, nursing, hotel & restaurant management, business). ways in which they are taught and assessed vary but they often include, as part of the assessment, a presentation, written curriculum vitae (cv) and a reflective written piece. but the careers & employment centre at brookes have found little evidence that after these courses students are any more likely to be able to write reflectively, present effectively or write a cv that would stand the test of a graduate recruiter. (a key reason for this seems to be, but more research is required to be sure, that the context is inauthentic. students on these modules do not see the exercises as a „real‟ cv for a „real‟ job. they see themselves as students not jobseekers.) for example, in autumn 2009, it was decided that professional careers staff would „mark‟ the cv component of such a professional practice module. academic staff facilitated seminars on cv writing as part of the taught programme and students were given information on researching jobs, where to find information on job hunting, and writing applications, and help available from the university careers centre. each cv was given extensive written feedback on the document, along with a clear marking sheet. of the 112 submissions, only 6 were assessed as „very likely to gain an interview in a competitive market‟; the majority were assessed as „straight to bin‟. three students subsequently came to the careers centre, disappointed, but agreeing with the feedback and seeking help to improve. forty three complained in writing that the marking was „too hard‟. the rest did nothing, neither complained, nor sought feedback. students seemed, for the most part, to be acting instrumentally to get a grade, to pass a module. a different instrumentality is needed in the labour market, which uses different processes, different criteria and different outcomes. the problem with embedded careers education is that, unless the assessment mirrors that of employers, students can have a false belief that their cv, application form, interview or group exercise performance is adequate for employment purposes. in addition, students‟ readiness to engage with employment related activity is variable. for many students, engaging with careers education is not seen as relevant for their life now; they are not focussed on the future, but on their life in and outside of university, and they treat the assessment exercise instrumentally, as any other on their course – a hoop to be jumped through. ________________________________________________ rust, c. & froud, l. (2011). „personal literacy‟: the vital, yet often overlooked, graduate attribute. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 2(1), 28 40. 31 employability and learning it is an easy mistake for those on the edge of policy discussions and debates to assume that employability simply means the ability of a graduating student to get a job. but it does not. we agree with harvey‟s conception of employability, that it is “more than obtaining key skills” simply in order to get a job, but rather should be seen as “a range of experiences and attributes developed through higher-level learning. employability is not a „product‟ but a process of learning………. employability is, thus, more about ability than it is about being employed. it is about developing as a critical empowered learner.” (2003, p. 2). it is the central importance of critical self-awareness that means that our concerns about employability and concerns over the quality of learning should be recognised as essentially the same concerns. in addition, we should also acknowledge that employers explicitly express legitimate concerns about the lack of critical self awareness in the graduates they recruit. a useful example that separating academic and employability capabilities is a false dichotomy is provided by carl gilleard, chief executive of the association of graduate recruiters, speaking to times higher education: „a graduate today can fully expect to still be in the world of work in 2058. the one thing we can be certain of is that we will be applying skills that we haven‟t even thought of today. we will have to relearn and relearn and relearn… being able to think laterally, having good analytical skills, being an effective communicator… employers are beginning to ask „where are we going to find these skills?‟… philosophy in particular is one of those disciplines that employers have started to recognise as having more about it that links to the world of work than they might have imagined” (as quoted in fearn, 2009). and ironically, there is an argument that making the link (between academic and employability capabilities) explicit is even more important now than ever before given the evidence that students seem to increasingly view higher education in narrow terms of employability, and with an instrumentalism which arguably works against, and actually undermines learning (tomlinson, 2008). problems with learning but the problem of a lack of critical self-awareness and personal literacy is not just an issue of skills development. it is arguably an issue about learning itself, and the quality of that learning. newstead lays much of the blame on approaches to assessment, arguing, “the types of assessment we currently use do not promote conceptual understanding and do not encourage a deep approach to learning………our means of assessing them seems to do little to encourage them to adopt anything other than a strategic or mechanical approach to their studies.” (2002, p. 3) and “…students become more interested in the mark and less interested in the subject over the course of their studies.” (ibid, p. 2). it has also been argued (rust, 2000, p.126) that modular or unitised courses especially „compartmentalise‟ “the students‟ attitudes to what they are learning, „ticking off‟ modules as they are taken, and failing to see, or look for, a connection between them.” but whether or not they are modular, there are certainly a disquieting number of research findings indicating a declining use of deep and contextual approaches to study ________________________________________________ rust, c. & froud, l. (2011). „personal literacy‟: the vital, yet often overlooked, graduate attribute. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 2(1), 28 40. 32 as students‟ progress through their degree programmes (e.g. watkins & hattie, 1985; kember et al., 1997; richardson, 2000; zhang & watkins, 2001; lieberman & remedios, 2007). basically, all of these studies indicate that most university students increasingly take a surface approach to their learning over the length of the course. graduate attributes at oxford brookes in recent discussions about graduate attributes at oxford brookes university, we have advocated that focus should be kept on what should be distinctive, if not unique, to a graduate, that we keep the list short, and that we concentrate on attributes rather than contributory sub-sets of skills. and that rather than being seen as a distinct attribute, or set of skills, employability should be seen as an overarching, inevitable outcome of the combination of the graduate attributes. to this end we have identified five graduate attributes, and four of them will probably not surprise anybody (although the inclusion of the academic element of the course as one of the attributes is unusual, as has already been said). the four are: academic literacy disciplinary and professional knowledge and skills, understanding the epistemology and „landscape‟ of the discipline, and what it means to think and behave as a member of that disciplinary and/or professional community of practice. research literacy ability to be a critical consumer of research, and also, where possible, to design and undertake at least a small-scale research project in the discipline, using appropriate methodology. digital literacy the functional access, skills and practices necessary to become a confident, agile adopter of a range of technologies for personal, academic and professional use. to be able to use appropriate technology to search for high-quality information; critically to evaluate and engage with the information obtained; reflect on and record learning, and professional and personal development; and engage productively in relevant online communities. global citizenship knowledge and skills, showing cross-cultural awareness, and valuing human diversity. the ability to work effectively, and responsibly, in a global context. knowledge of global perspectives on how disciplinary knowledge is represented and understood within other cultures; cross-cultural capability beginning with an awareness of our own culture and perspectives and the development of the confidence to question one‟s own values and those of others responsibly and ethically; and responsible citizenship, actively engaging with issues of equity and social justice, sustainability and the reduction of prejudice, stereotyping and discrimination. but we are arguing for the fifth attribute of „critical self-awareness and personal literacy‟: understanding how one learns, the ability to assess the work of oneself and others, and to identify one‟s strengths and weaknesses. the ability to organise oneself and perform as an autonomous, effective and independent learner. the ________________________________________________ rust, c. & froud, l. (2011). „personal literacy‟: the vital, yet often overlooked, graduate attribute. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 2(1), 28 40. 33 ability to relate to other people and function collaboratively in diverse groups, including the development of appropriate interpersonal skills, emotional intelligence and adaptive expertise. it is this attribute, including the ability to select and present appropriate evidence, that is intended to bring the five attributes together both in terms of the students‟ awareness of the attributes and their understanding of their own personal development of the attributes. this attribute can be seen as similar to, and a development of, the “self -efficacy and personal qualities” component, combined with some aspects of the “metacognition” component of the employability framework developed by the enhancing student employability coordination team (esect) funded by the higher education funding council for england (yorke, 2010). it is also interesting to note that it clearly fits with the “interpersonal and intrapersonal competence” advocated in the us by the national association of student personnel administrators (naspa) and american college personnel association (acpa), and their recommendation that “all campus educators should ensure the establishment of reflection and other meaning making opportunities for students to examine the breadth of their learning,” (keeling, 2004, p. 29). personal literacy and academic learning human beings are not naturally good at estimating their own abilities, and in fact, there is evidence that those with weaker abilities are likely to overestimate while those with greater abilities will underestimate them (e.g. kruger & dunning, 1999; ehrlinger & dunning, 2003). there is also similar research evidence of a possible gender difference, with men overestimating and women underestimating their ability (e.g. beloff, 1992; bennett, 1996), and especially in what have been defined as „masculine tasks‟ (beyer & bowden, 1997). if students are to learn to the maximum of their potential, we believe that it is vital for students to have an accurate understanding of their abilities and their strengths and weaknesses. more recently, in connection with politics in both the us and the uk, opinion pollsters (e.g. alworth, 2009) have identified what they have called „cognitive dysphasia‟ – the ability of electors to express incompatible and contradictory desires at the same time. for example, being in favour of increased local democracy and decision-making but at the same time rejecting the notion of „post-code lotteries‟ and wanting consistent standards and provision across the country. (this is different to cognitive dissonance in that dissonance is caused when the individual actually does perceive there is a logical inconsistency or contradiction – usually between a belief and a behaviour). arguably, the existence of this „cognitive dysphasia‟ is a metacognitive problem and reflects a lack of critical thinking, reflection and self-awareness. there is also a strong case that students benefit from understanding how they learn and, in particular, from being „assessment literate‟ and that this improves assessed student performance (price et al., 2010). the more students know about what is being asked of them in assessments, and understand the standards that are being applied, the more effectively they are able to meet the requirements. but it is just not possible for these standards to be unambiguously articulated and communicated (o‟donovan et al, 2004). ________________________________________________ rust, c. & froud, l. (2011). „personal literacy‟: the vital, yet often overlooked, graduate attribute. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 2(1), 28 40. 34 the necessary tacit understandings of assessment standards and criteria those parts of understanding that we find difficult, if not impossible, to articulate in words (polanyi, 1998) can only be shared and understood through social processes, involving practice, observation and imitation (nonaka, 1991). alverno, a small, liberal arts college in milwaukee, has arguably led the way in this regard with its now well-established „ability-based curriculum‟ (see http://www.alverno.edu/about_alverno/ability_curriculum.html), which emphasises “learning the abilities needed to put knowledge to use” and deliberately makes significant use of both self and peer-assessment in the process. without ever, to our knowledge, using the term, we would argue that alverno offers an exemplary model of an institution developing their students‟ „personal literacy‟. these abilities not only help students get the most from their current courses of study, but are also essential if they are to be equipped as „lifelong learners‟ (boud, 2007) with „adaptive expertise‟ (schwartz et al., 2005). and we should not assume that very able, academically elite students necessarily have any greater personal literacy than other students. it is interesting to note that even the director of the careers service at the university of oxford was talking recently of the “challenge…to help students understand and make explicit the transferable skills they acquire during their degree.” (black, 2010) personal literacy and employability employers of graduates take individual personal development seriously. they want to see evidence that graduates have shown commitment to developing themselves during their studies and from extra curricular activities. graduates need to be able to know themselves and their strengths and be able to provide examples of how they have demonstrated these. examples of how they have changed their approach to something as a result of feedback, when they pushed themselves beyond what was required, when they have persuaded someone else to a different point of view, what skills they brought to a team, how they have motivated others, adapted to a new situation or group, being reliable: showing up on time, dealing with mundane tasks with enthusiasm, diffusing a difficult situation with tact and diplomacy, juggling priorities and implementing back up plans to deal with the unexpected, thinking quickly and using initiative, keeping an open mind, going above and beyond ones own expectations. the relationship between these requirements of employers and theories of emotional intelligence is clear: the ability to read ones own emotions and recognise their impact on others and make decisions, controlling ones emotions to adapt to changing situations, ability to sense, understand and react to the emotions of others and the ability to inspire, influence and develop others and manage conflict. so how might we best ensure the development of personal literacy? the challenge now facing us at brookes is how to move beyond the commitment to personal literacy to deciding on the best ways to ensure its development in the curriculum. the good news is that some other decisions that have already been taken should undoubtedly help. for instance, the university already has the policy that all undergraduate programmes must have an explicit „pathway‟ developing research skills and a commitment to „research literacy‟ as a core graduate attribute. and it is very much the intention that this will shape the staff/student relationship, with students seen (and http://www.alverno.edu/about_alverno/ability_curriculum.html ________________________________________________ rust, c. & froud, l. (2011). „personal literacy‟: the vital, yet often overlooked, graduate attribute. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 2(1), 28 40. 35 seeing themselves), from day one, as novice entrants to a community of practice embarking on the common enterprise of the production of knowledge. the university has also recently agreed an „assessment compact‟ (which can be downloaded at: http://www.brookes.ac.uk/services/ocsd/2_learntch/assessment.html) which includes a commitment to the development of the assessment literacy of students and recognition that the ability to assess the work of both self and others must be seen as an essential capability for all graduates. but even if successful, neither of these initiatives will specifically require, nor explicitly develop, critical self-awareness and personal literacy. so let us consider examples from a range of uk universities, including brookes, of different ways that they are explicitly trying to develop critical self-awareness and personal literacy. team and leadership programme at brookes in 2009 oxford brookes piloted a new, intensive, two-day team and leadership programme endorsed by the institute of leadership and management that explicitly focuses on self-reflection and enables students to practise working in teams on a range of problem solving real world tasks. the programme includes a mix of short, theorybased presentations and practical activities. teams are randomly selected and work together across the two days with an assessor giving continual individual and whole team feedback on performance. participants are also required to give feedback to each other and to other teams. at the end of each day, time is reserved for participants to reflect on what they have learned and to identify areas for development. based on the success of this pilot, the university is running four programmes in 2010 with 200 students. participant evaluations so far have revealed that engaging in the programme has enabled students to really understand themselves and their strengths, and given them confidence to apply those strengths in future academic work and employment, which does not appear to have been adequately developed previously, elsewhere in the curriculum. the programme is explicit in consolidating learning over the two days, and previous learning outside the curriculum, enabling students to recognise and explain their strengths with more confidence and self-knowledge. the only problems with this course are that it is optional, outside the curriculum, and currently only available for 200 students a year. „confident futures‟ at napier university confident futures (see http://www.napier.ac.uk/confidentfutures) comprises a menu of centrally provided workshops that include knowing yourself and others, manage yourself, manage your time, influencing others, assertiveness, networking, and dealing with setbacks. the university claims that this is an innovative programme of personal development designed to enable students to take responsibility for their own personal and professional development, enhance their approach to learning, engage more deeply with their programme, and relate these to their career and future aspirations. the programme is designed to: enhance students' ability to succeed, by helping them to develop their self-management skills and attitudes in order to be more successful in their academic studies; and increase their competitive edge with employers. although not compulsory, or directly assessed, module leaders can select appropriate workshops (customised if they want) to be delivered as part of the curriculum of their course. the total number of attendees at these workshops is now over one thousand students a year, and apparently a number of module leaders have reported statistically improved http://www.brookes.ac.uk/services/ocsd/2_learntch/assessment.html http://www.napier.ac.uk/confidentfutures ________________________________________________ rust, c. & froud, l. (2011). „personal literacy‟: the vital, yet often overlooked, graduate attribute. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 2(1), 28 40. 36 student performance in assignments, which they believe is a direct result of these workshops (westwood, 2011, personal communication). „world of work‟ initiative („wow®‟) at liverpool john moores the wow® programme claims to be „a model of higher education‟, rather than something „bolted-on‟. its stated aim is “to ensure that every student is equipped with the skills they need to stand out from the crowd and successfully engage in the world of work” (http://www.ljmu.ac.uk/wow). eight graduate skills have been selected, in consultation with employer partners, and are being taught, practised and assessed, with the support of faculty-based skills support officers, as part of every undergraduate degree programme, and all programmes have an element of work related learning. wow® also includes conventional careers advice and guidance with a “ready for work” programme workshops and training in a purpose built training and development facility called the graduate development centre. all students can gain the wow® skills certificate, validated by employers, which asks students to reflect and attend workshops to complete three written statements on self-awareness, organisational awareness and making things happen (project management). these statements are assessed using criteria agreed with employers. the programme is a labour market matching model designed, developed and delivered with employer partners. the wow® skills certificate is not part of the university modular framework and the certificate does not bestow academic credit as such. it is assessed against criteria developed by industry and the process ends with a 1:1 interview with an employer who decides whether the student has demonstrated evidence of being employable. currently 900 students convert their voluntary registration on the wow® skills certificate module into completing one or more parts of the certificate, and from 2012 the wow® skills certificate will be integrated into every course programme. „life-wide learning‟ at the university of surrey surrey has a history of 40 years of work-based training and describes all their courses as delivering “professional training”. all programmes, in all disciplines, provide opportunities for learners to develop their professional capabilities, either through year long work placements or a curriculum that integrates theory and practice throughout the period of study. fifty percent of students choose to undertake the one year industrial placement, irrespective of discipline, and in addition the university also offers the lifewide learning award (see http://sceptre2.drupalgardens.com). this comprises a portfolio that describes learning and personal development gained from at least 150 hours of extra curricular experiences. centre for career management skills (ccms) at the university of reading the university has included sessions on career management skills in all undergraduate programmes since 2002, helping students prepare for transitions to work or study after graduation. the university claims that ccms (see http://www.reading.ac.uk/ccms/about/ccmsabout.aspx) is building on the university's experience and expertise in this field to promote development and debate in careers education at reading and across the higher education sector. of course these five brief case-study descriptions can only offer details of curricula changes that have been made. they do not capture what, if anything, the institutions have done to address another major problem – the potential lack of personal literacy in http://www.ljmu.ac.uk/wow http://sceptre2.drupalgardens.com/ http://www.reading.ac.uk/ccms/about/ccms-about.aspx http://www.reading.ac.uk/ccms/about/ccms-about.aspx ________________________________________________ rust, c. & froud, l. (2011). „personal literacy‟: the vital, yet often overlooked, graduate attribute. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 2(1), 28 40. 37 the staff who are being asked to „deliver‟ these programmes, and the fact that they themselves may not be particularly critically self-aware. personal development planning and the development of ‘personal literacy’ in the uk, in addition to the case-study examples above, in many ways, personal development planning (pdp) would already seem to offer, at least in theory, a way of ensuring, within the curriculum, the necessary level of critical personal reflection for all students and to be a logical place for students to integrate, and make explicit, what they have learnt. “effective pdp improves the capacity of individuals to review, plan and take responsibility for their own learning and to understand what and how they learn. pdp helps learners articulate their learning and the achievements and outcomes of he more explicitly, and supports the concept that learning is a lifelong and life-wide activity” (qaa, 2009, p. 2). and as advocates of pdp have long argued, “if pdp is implemented in ways that learners find engaging, and can be related to real world experiences, it offers the promise of enabling them to develop and practice capabilities that are important to being an effective self-regulating professional.” (jackson, 2010, p. 1) however, in practice, we know that embedding pdp in the curriculum has been fraught with difficulties, with academics failing to see its relevance to „their‟ curriculum and feeling that it is being „shoe-horned‟ in (johnson, 2010). there are also legitimate questions about who is competent to advise and support students in their use of pdp. and for that reason, in many institutions, pdp has been seen as something of an optional add-on, left largely outside the curriculum, and often based on student engagement with a piece of software (although some can be quite imaginative and engaging, e.g. see www.arts.ac.uk/ppd). johnson (ibid), in discussing this problem, questions “if personal development planning can fit easily into the academic curriculum or whether it resides more comfortable within the employability agenda?” but, as we have argued through this paper, we believe this is the wrong question based on a false dichotomy. instead, we need to recognise and build on the similarities between the aims of academic learning and the employability agenda. and “the strength of pdp is that it is a method of creating knowledge about self” (jackson, 2010 p. 5). perhaps through the arguments for the importance of personal literacy offered above, both for employability and for learning, we can revisit (and possibly even rename) pdp, and its focus, and how it might be structured in the curriculum. certainly at oxford brookes university, our suggested „starter for ten‟ as to how this might best be done would be as a long, thin module running over the length of the undergraduate programme. this module could possibly borrow and adapt the best elements of some of the various institutional case-studies above, and some of the best good practice from existing pdp schemes, and it should be focussed very much on „the self‟ and a combination of employability and reflection on what has been learnt academically – in (our) other words, the development of „personal literacy‟. http://www.arts.ac.uk/ppd ________________________________________________ rust, c. & froud, l. 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(ed.), transfer of learning from a modern multidisciplinary perspective, pp. 1-51. greenwich, ct: information age publishing http://escalate.ac.uk/6853 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/journal_of_personality_and_social_psychology http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/02602930903512883 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/john_d._bransford ________________________________________________ rust, c. & froud, l. (2011). „personal literacy‟: the vital, yet often overlooked, graduate attribute. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 2(1), 28 40. 40 the quality assurance agency for higher education (2009). personal development planning: guidance for institutional policy and practice in higher education. 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(2001) cognitive development and student approaches to learning: an investigation of perry's theory with chinese and us university students. higher education, 41, 236-261. http://www.qaa.ac.uk/academicinfrastructure/progressfiles/guidelines/pdp/pdpguide.pdf http://jtlge.curtin.edu.au/index.php/jtlge/search/authors employability: aligning the message, the medium and academic values yorke, m. (2010). employability: aligning the message, the medium and academic values. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 1(1), 2-12. 2 employability: aligning the message, the medium and academic values mantz yorke, visiting professor, lancaster university, uk mantzyorke@mantzyorke.plus.com abstract for a long time, links have been made between higher education and economic activity. the relatively recent emphases on employability (in the uk) and graduate attributes (largely in australia) can be construed as contemporary variations. this article describes some of the developmental work that has taken place in the uk but which has obvious relevance to other higher educational systems. reticence to embrace employability in curricula may in part be due to the failure to present a convincing evidence-base: two initiatives in england have attempted with some success to rectify the weakness. the article concludes by outlining some of the challenges that face both institutions and the higher education sector if employability is to be taken seriously. keywords: employability, graduate attributes, capability, curriculum introduction the link between higher education and the economy is longstanding the desirability relationship between undergraduate education and the national economy has been acknowledged in the uk since at least the robbins report (committee on higher education, 1963). however, the other three aims of higher education that were expressed in that report have proved more durable in the memory of higher education – in brief, advancing learning; promoting the general powers of the mind; and transmitting a common culture (no longer entirely appropriate in what has become a more multicultural society) and standards of citizenship. ironically, the report placed instruction in skills for the economy first in the list because it did not wish for this aim to be overlooked. over the years, there have been many government-inspired initiatives and reports urging higher education in the uk to make a stronger connection with the needs of employers. the theoretical basis for such a connection is probably human capital theory (becker, 1975), though the pragmatic nature of policy-making regarding higher education in the uk renders this a speculation. there is now a world-wide acceptance of the need for nations to promote higher education of high quality in order to cope with the demands of knowledge-based economies. a persistent difficulty in the uk has been the governmental focus on ‘skills’ of various kinds. different adjectives (‘core’, ‘generic’, ‘transferable’, and many more) have been yorke, m. (2010). employability: aligning the message, the medium and academic values. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 1(1), 2-12. 3 used at different times to qualify the word, but the ad hoc nature of such terminology (exposed by wolf, 2002) has been a besetting problem for the academic world which expects some sort of rationale for them. the word ‘skills’ is used loosely in policy-related documents (e.g. leitch, 2006), seemingly more as a mantra than as anything more substantial. in the late 1980s the enterprise in higher education (ehe) initiative, which – tellingly – was sponsored by the employment department rather than the department of education and science, offered quite substantial sums to institutions. it was understandable that institutions should bid for funding for relevant projects. though opinions on the matter differ, it is probably fair to say that the intentions behind ehe – that higher education institutions would adopt a more employment-oriented approach to curricula – were to some extent subverted as academics ‘translated’ the instrumental intentions of the initiative into something rather softer and more aligned with traditional academic values. at around the same time, the royal society of arts, manufactures and commerce (an organisation that brought together employers and academics) sponsored a parallel initiative: higher education for capability (‘capability’, for short). capability should, arguably, have been more attractive to academics than ehe was, since it was less overtly instrumental and relatively few could be expected to object to undergraduate education as preparing students (especially school leavers) to become what could be summarised as ‘effective operators in the world’ – be they working for an employer or contributing in other ways to society. stephenson and weil (1992, p.2) set out the intentions of capability succinctly: capable people have confidence in their ability to (1) take effective and appropriate action, (2) explain what they are about, (3) live and work effectively with others and (4) continue to learn from their experiences, both as individuals and in association with others, in a diverse and changing society. capability is a necessary part of specialist expertise, not separate from it. capable people not only know about their specialisms, they also have the confidence to apply their knowledge and skills within varied and changing situations and to continue to develop their specialist knowledge and skills long after they have left formal education. one might however quibble with the last few words since they seem to pay insufficient attention to the idea of lifelong learning. the later definition of graduate attributes put forward by bowden, hart, king, trigwell and watts (2000) adopts a similar line with respect to fulfilment in the social arena: graduate attributes are the qualities, skills and understandings a university community agrees its students should develop during their time with the institution. these attributes include, but go beyond, the disciplinary expertise or technical knowledge that has traditionally formed the core of most university courses. they are qualities that also prepare graduates as agents for social good in an unknown future. (bowden et al, 2000, executive summary, para 2) yorke, m. (2010). employability: aligning the message, the medium and academic values. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 1(1), 2-12. 4 however, capability gained only a limited number of adherents, mainly in the uk but also in australia where, for example, southern cross university promoted learner-managed learning in connection with capability (see hase, 1998). whilst the general idea of capability was not anathema to the academic world, no strong base of theory and empirical findings was adduced in its support. hence many academics may have seen capability as reflecting ‘just another employers’ wish-list’ (it should be recalled that, contemporaneously with the launching of capability, margaret thatcher was prime minister in the uk, to the discomfiture of many in the academic world because of her strong support for business and her mistrust of professions). although a number of prominent employers wrote, or were interviewed, for the capability movement’s eponymously-titled journal, a broad base of practical support from employers was not forthcoming. one might surmise that a pitch presented according to the lights of academe might have been felt by employers to be rather waffly and lacking a sharpness of focus. i remember taking to an employer a four-page proposal for an institutionemployer linkage (pared as i thought to the bone) and being told it was about three pages too long. the aphorism about being divided by a common language came sharply to mind. one hears from time to time politicians saying that, rather than a policy proposal being flawed, its non-acceptance is because of a failure in presentation. be that as it may (and one can be forgiven for treating the politicians’ argument with some scepticism), it seems that capability did suffer from a weakness in presentation to the parties whom it most sought to influence1 the same can be said of the work on graduate attributes that has taken place in australia. barrie (2007) made a couple of fair points when he observed that academics’ understanding of generic attributes was very varied, and that they had not always appreciated the alignment that was possible between the generic attributes and traditional university values. responses from 15 academics from a variety of subject disciplines led him to identify six different approaches to the acquisition of generic attributes which can for present purposes be collapsed into two categories focusing on teaching (as some sort of ‘extra’ to the existing curriculum, and as embedded in some way into the ‘normal’ teaching), and one focusing on the student as being actively engaged in the acquisition of graduate attributes. it is not the purpose here to debate the detail of barrie’s research (developed progressively in a series of papers: see barrie, 2004; 2006; 2007): the point is that the research did not engage significantly with evidence that might have been adduced in support of promoting the development of graduate attributes. . it was a case of ‘right message, wrong presentation’. aligning the medium and the message the skills plus project, which began in 2000, ran for two years and involved 17 varied departments in four universities in england (knight & yorke, 2004, p.12). the project took a different tack from earlier projects relating to the development of graduate attributes, in that it sought relevant research to undergird the approach to employability (the term used by policy-makers in the uk at the time) that it was developing: for an account of this work, see knight and yorke (2004). the issue of presentation was addressed by pointing out the potential synergy between traditional academic views regarding learning and what was implied by employability. 1 the weakness is still present in the most recent writing on capability (cairns and stephenson, 2009). yorke, m. (2010). employability: aligning the message, the medium and academic values. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 1(1), 2-12. 5 the evaluator of skills plus fully appreciated this perspective: academics opposed to what they would consider an overemphasis on the utilitarian mission of he may be won over by a constant reminder that student learning is enhanced in … a scheme such as skills plus: it is not simply a sacrifice of traditional disciplinary goals to satisfy the demands of eventual employers. […] although there is the occasional reference to carefully selecting one’s terms and the vocabulary associated with departmental initiatives (so as not to offend the academic ‘purist’), academic department reports generally indicate that they have gone well beyond this initial debate. it is interesting to note that the gains stemming from involvement in the project apply in the traditional academic disciplines as well as in professional schools. that is, a history department as well as a nursing school can make sense out of skills plus. (wright, 2002, p.3.) the approach to employability taken by skills plus was influenced by capability. the work on skills plus was developed further by the enhancing student employability coordination team [esect] which was funded by the higher education funding council for england with the intention of engaging higher education more widely with the notion of employability and its implications for curricula and pedagogy. esect described employability as: a set of achievements – skills, understandings and personal attributes – that makes graduates more likely to gain employment and be successful in their chosen occupations, which benefits themselves, the workforce, the community and the economy. (yorke, 2006, p.8) this wording reflected the rather instrumental expectations of the policy-makers, but the underlying thinking went beyond narrow conceptions of employability to see students’ achievements in a wider, societal, perspective (the connection with capability is evident). care was taken to make the connection between employability and traditional conceptions of ‘good learning’. hence the esect approach was more attractive to academics than earlier governmental rhetoric about ‘skills’. the esect approach to employability was accompanied by a skeleton framework, given the acronym usem, of four inter-related components: understanding; skilful practices in context (deliberately so labelled in order to avoid the undesirable connotations of ‘skills’, and to acknowledge the situatedness of practice and performance); (self-)efficacy and personal qualities; and metacognition. a further attraction to academics was that usem’s skeleton constituted a facilitating framework rather than a prescription. it could be fleshed out according to the character of different subject disciplines, much as the overarching principles adopted by the european union can be interpreted, according to the concept of ‘subsidiarity’, in the light of national interests. as the evaluator of the skills plus project wrote: yorke, m. (2010). employability: aligning the message, the medium and academic values. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 1(1), 2-12. 6 … the academic departments involved in the project have shown that there are many valid avenues to skills development for employability springing from a common starting point. perhaps it is the essential richness of the diversity of valid approaches adopted at the departmental level which is to be celebrated … (wright, 2002, p.2.) implicitly, academics were being asked ‘how can your subject discipline respond to the implications of the four components?’ rather than being provided with a checklist of ‘skills’ to be covered in curricula. elaborating usem understanding and skilful practices in academic contexts are widely-accepted components of higher education, and need no further elaboration here. other aspects of the usem account of employability do need to be unpacked in order to indicate why they are important. self-efficacy and personal qualities higher education curricula have taken a rather performative turn in recent times, as is evidenced by aligned curricular designs which make explicit both what the student is expected to be able to achieve and the associated assessment criteria. the development of personal qualities (that serve graduates well in employment and life in general) has been backgrounded. perhaps the most extreme example of backgrounding (though in further education – roughly the equivalent of tafe in australia) was in the implementation in england of the system of national vocational qualifications where the route through which the student achieved competence was regarded as irrelevant. only the performance mattered. in the usem account of employability, the ‘e’ (self-efficacy and personal qualities) is deliberately shown as pervading all the other components. there are many psychological angles in play, encompassing motivation, agency, self-belief, emotional intelligence and so on: all these impact on student achievement in one way or another. hence in an employability-oriented curriculum they need to be fostered. skilful practices in contexts other than the academic graduate-level jobs imply the need to act as a professional worker, integrating ‘knowing that’ with ‘knowing how’ (ryle, 1949), with the latter further implying – where it is appropriate – drawing on what has been learned in social contexts as well as individually, and also the tacit knowledge that is picked up collaterally. to be effective as an ‘operator in the world’, one needs to tune into and respond to the interpersonal, the political (small ‘p’), and the custom and practice of ‘how we do things around here’. there is a corollary, in that achievements are context-laden and can only be judged against the particular circumstances of the performance. success, for a trainee teacher in a tough school, ought to be judged against a set of criteria that are given different emphases in comparison to where the student is in a less demanding environment. one size, as far as assessment is concerned, does not fit all. michael eraut, who has studied the education of young professionals for many years, emphasises that breaking assessment demands into small components misses the essential integrativity of professional performance. writing of medical education, but with much wider relevance, he observes: yorke, m. (2010). employability: aligning the message, the medium and academic values. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 1(1), 2-12. 7 … treating [required competences] as separate bundles of knowledge and skills for assessment purposes fails to recognize that complex professional actions require more than several different areas of knowledge and skills. they all have to be integrated together in larger, more complex chunks of behaviour. eraut (2004, p.804) metacognition following the pioneering article by flavell (1979), metacognition has become a significant feature of the pedagogical landscape. it covers a range of aspects of the student’s selfawareness regarding their learning, including: problem-solving; reflection on, in, and for practice; and self-regulation. problem-solving is a feature of many programmes in higher education, and can be taken for granted here (save to note that some claimed problemsolving can be relatively closed, and be more like puzzle-solving). reflection has gained traction in higher education because of the influence of schön’s advocacy of reflective practice by professionals (e.g. schön, 1983). professional jobs (graduate-level jobs in particular) require the incumbents to apply metacognition in various ways, and hence a strong case can be made that the teaching approach adopted should foster it. generic attributes and disciplines there is a fairly widely-held view that many attributes are ‘generic’ and applicable across all subject disciplines. in broad terms, there is a case that can be argued. the range of attributes that employers say they want (e.g. harvey et al, 1997) and lists of desirable aspects of employability (e.g. yorke & knight, 2006) imply as much. the argument can be pressed too far, however, as in the discussion paper on standards prepared by the australian universities quality agency (auqa, 2009, p.12) which put forward the idea that introducing standardised and understood methods of assessing and grading these [generic] attributes, at the level of difficulty appropriate to the stage of the learning process, ensures that students better understand why they must learn particular things and also provides meaningful evidence to use as part of their future career activities. it is when the suggestion is made that attributes are susceptible to standardisation that difficulties become apparent, since (as noted earlier) account has to be taken of the context within which the attributes are demonstrated. for example, ‘critical analysis’ will be manifested differently in the creative arts, business studies, sociology and engineering. barrie (2009, p.1) is right on target when he observes: australian universities have moved beyond understanding the outcomes of a university education as “discipline content + generic skills”, indeed the dominant model of graduate attributes (as statements of the core outcomes of a university education) are that these are contextualized differently by the disciplines. his point, of course, extends beyond the boundaries of australia. krause (2009, p.2) points to a problem that arises when the attempt is made to be all-encompassing: … the more general and generic standards descriptions become, the less useful they are for achieving the goals of ‘greater confidence’ and a ‘clearer picture’ of the meaning of final achievement grades. yorke, m. (2010). employability: aligning the message, the medium and academic values. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 1(1), 2-12. 8 in fact, there is some optimum (but difficult to define) level of utility with which learning outcomes or achievements can be specified: too broadly, and there is excessive room for interpretation; too narrowly, and the micro-management of detail obscures the bigger picture (figure 1). figure 1. a schematic illustration of the optimal level of specificity in assessing outcomes. where the programme involves work-integrated or work-based learning, the performance has to be judged in the light of the situation in which the student is located, and the possibility of standardisation evaporates. not surprisingly, a number of respondents to the document (e.g. krause, 2009; quin, 2009) demonstrated, in their comments on the infeasibility of standardising assessments, the powers of critical analysis. a pedagogy for employability during the 1970s, responsibility for vocational education for technicians in the uk was taken over by the newly-created, but subsequently superseded, technician education council (a parallel arrangement was also introduced for business). programmes were unitised, but the cognitive level of individual units tended not to get much higher than ‘application’ in the bloom (1956) taxonomy despite the aims for whole programmes implying higher levels. hence there was a paradox: the whole had to be more than the sum of the parts. the paradox could be resolved only through pedagogic methods that involved higher level cognitive functioning even though the unit objectives (and the assessment demands) were clearly set much lower. the promotion of graduate attributes or employability faces universities with the need to build them into curricula whilst at the same time not diluting academic content (indeed, whilst updating academic content). how can a litre be squeezed into a half-litre jar? not by adding extra curricular sessions focusing specifically on employability or graduate attributes. barrie (2009, p.2) points to the risks inherent in separating out graduate utility low level of specificity high yorke, m. (2010). employability: aligning the message, the medium and academic values. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 1(1), 2-12. 9 attributes from disciplinary knowledge: to artificially separate what are referred to as generic skills … from discipline knowledge ignores the more integrated understanding universities have developed as graduate attributes and undermines the adoption of innovative teaching approaches designed to foster these graduate attributes. the challenge might best be met by following the implications of a slogan that once was used by the telecoms company bt: work smarter not harder. if graduate attributes and disciplinary expertise are to be integrated, then curriculum encounters should reflect this. so-called ‘active learning’ approaches coupled with group-working are a response to the requirement. however, they have implications beyond a simple rejigging of teaching and learning activities, since the issue of the optimal use of academics’ and learners’ time becomes important (and at a time of economic stress, especially important). much higher education still relies on tried and trusted pedagogic methods such as lectures. the trust, however, is sometimes misplaced. bligh (1998) has shown that lectures are not very effective as vehicles when achievements other than the acquisition of knowledge are at stake. the increasing availability of material on the world-wide web and (in more restricted form) in institutional virtual learning environments makes a heavy reliance on lectures anachronistic. (this is not to attack all lectures, but merely to propose that they are used with greater judiciousness.) students can, as part of their curriculum, be set tasks that require them to collaborate in solving problems to which there is no readilyavailable solution, and/or where competing interests are involved. climate change; economics; food production, distribution and consumption; developments in medicine; and biological survival are all examples of ‘macro-challenges’ within which others more amenable to the scale of student work can be found. as one example of what can be done at the practical pedagogical level in respect of the last of these macro-challenge areas, meyers, whelan, mcnulty and ryan (2004, p.4) described some of the activities that required students on the course nrb270 to do rather more than rote-learn. they describe the setting of a stepped sequence of tasks: why didn’t long necked dinosaurs [faint] when they raised their heads, and conversely, why didn’t their heads explode as they bent down to drink? which animal would be best suited to a [specified] terra formed martian environment: a kangaroo, sheep or a cow? predict and describe how the environmental conditions on earth’s largest space station – [the fictional] valhalla 1’s dome will maintain or influence the physiological, morphological, structural and functional attributes of plants. based on these facts, you should explain and justify your selection of a plant(s) for trials in the domed environment. student feedback indicated that the course members had been stimulated and engaged by the tasks, to a greater extent than had been the case with the previous version of the course. one student wrote: it is such a change to be challenged to think outside the square, to … make connections … and apply my learning.. the rest of my subjects’ [sic] just want me to rote learn. (meyers et al, 2004, p.9) yorke, m. (2010). employability: aligning the message, the medium and academic values. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 1(1), 2-12. 10 the reporting of this initiative implies that the tasks were undertaken individually. there is no reason why such tasks could not be undertaken on a group basis – save for the consequences for assessment where there are difficulties in determining how much each individual contributes to the group effort. if institutions are serious about developing graduate attributes or employability (with their implications for interaction between students), then the challenges posed by assessment have to be addressed. the solutions traditionally used simply will not suffice – and the kind of standardisation proposed in the auqa discussion paper will not be possible. conclusion not a trivial challenge a commitment to the development of graduate attributes or employability implies, for many subject disciplines, a preparedness to rethink curriculum, pedagogy and assessment. (in some areas, the requirements of professional bodies – as in fields like healthcare and engineering – build in a substantial element of employability.) the severity of the challenge is greater for modular schemes because it is difficult to cater for those attributes that take longer than a component course to develop. some graduate attributes are slow-growing crops, in contrast to cash crops that can be grown and harvested quickly (hardwood rather than bio-fuel feedstock). the usem approach has some potential for aiding the rethinking. if the intentions of usem are used to frame thinking about what students are expected to achieve as a consequence of their programmes, than institutions and academic organisational units can give consideration to the practicalities of what needs to be done when, and how achievements should be assessed. perhaps the words used in respect of financial investment need to be borne in mind when thinking about investment in curricula oriented towards employability: past performance is no guarantee of future success. yorke, m. (2010). employability: aligning the message, the medium and academic values. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 1(1), 2-12. 11 references auqa (2009). setting and monitoring academic standards for australian higher education (discussion paper). retrieved 2 december 2009 from www.auqa.edu.au/qualityenhancement/academicstandards/discussion-paper.pdf barrie, s.c. (2004). a research-based approach to generic graduate attributes policy. higher education research and development, 23 (3), 261-275. barrie, s.c. (2006). understanding what we mean by generic attributes of graduates. higher education 51 (2), 215-241. barrie, s.c. (2007). a conceptual framework for the teaching and learning of generic graduate attributes. studies in higher education 32 (4), 439-458. barrie, s.c. (2009). setting and monitoring academic standards for australian higher education (memorandum to auqa in response to the discussion paper). retrieved 2 december 2009 from www.auqa.edu.au/qualityenhancement/academicstandards/responses/39.pdf becker, g.s. (1975). human capital. (rev.ed.). chicago: the university of chicago press. bligh, d. a. (1998). what is the use of lectures? bristol: intellect. bloom, b.s. (1956). taxonomy of educational objectives, handbook 1: cognitive domain. london: longman. bowden, j., hart, b., king, b., trigwell, k. and watts, o. (2000). generic capabilities of atn university graduates. retrieved 30 november 2009 from www.clt.uts.edu.au/atn.grad.cap.project.index.html cairns, l. and stephenson, j. (2009). capable workplace learning. rotterdam: sense publishers committee on higher education (1963). higher education (report of the committee appointed by the prime minister under the chairmanship of lord robbins, 1961– 1963). london: her majesty’s stationery office. eraut, m.(2004). a wider perspective on assessment. medical education 38 (8), 803-804. flavell, j.h. (1979). metacognition and cognitive monitoring: a new area of cognitive developmental inquiry. american psychologist 34 (10), 906–911. harvey, l., moon, s. and geall, v. with bower, r. (1997). graduates’ work: organization change and students’ attributes. birmingham: centre for research into quality and association of graduate recruiters. hase, s. (1998). work-based learning for learning organizations. in j. stephenson and m. yorke (eds.), capability and quality in higher education (pp.69-76). london: kogan page. knight, p. and yorke, m. (2004). learning, curriculum and employability in higher education. london: routledgefalmer. krause k.-l. (2009). griffith university response to the australian universities quality agency discussion paper setting and monitoring academic standards for australian higher education. retrieved 2 december 2009 from www.auqa.edu.au/qualityenhancement/academicstandards/responses/11.pdf leitch, s. (2006). prosperity for all in the global economy – world class skills (final report of the leitch review of skills). norwich: her majesty’s stationery office. http://www.auqa.edu.au/qualityenhancement/academicstandards/discussion-paper.pdf� http://www.auqa.edu.au/qualityenhancement/academicstandards/responses/39.pdf� http://www.clt.uts.edu.au/atn.grad.cap.project.index.html� http://www.auqa.edu.au/qualityenhancement/academicstandards/responses/11.pdf� yorke, m. (2010). employability: aligning the message, the medium and academic values. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 1(1), 2-12. 12 meyers, n.m, whelan, k.a., mcnulty, d. and ryan, y. (2004). enhancing the transition of first year science students – a strategic and systematic approach. proceedings of the 8th pacific rim conference on the first year in higher education: ‘dealing with diversity’. retrieved 3 december 2009 from http://www.fyhe.com.au/past_papers/papers04.htm quin, r. (2009). curtin university’s response to setting and monitoring academic standards for australian higher education: a discussion paper. retrieved 2 december 2009 from www.auqa.edu.au/qualityenhancement/academicstandards/responses/18.pdf ryle, g. (1949). the concept of mind. london: hutchinson. schön, d. (1983). the reflective practitioner: how professionals think in action. new york: basic books. stephenson, j. and weil, s. (1992). quality in learning. london: kogan page. wolf, a. (2002). does education matter? myths about education and economic growth. london: penguin. wright, a. (2002). foundations for change (final report of the skills plus project’s external evaluator). retrieved 30 november 2009 from www.heacademy.ac.uk/resources/detail/ourwork/employability/employability23 yorke, m. (2006). employability in higher education: what it is – what it is not. york: the higher education academy. also retrieved 3 december 2009 from www.heacademy.ac.uk/assets/york/documents/ourwork/tla/employability/id116_e mployability_in_higher_education_336.pdf yorke, m. and knight, p. (2006). embedding employability into the curriculum. york: the higher education academy. also retrieved 2 december 2009 from www.heacademy.ac.uk/assets/york/documents/ourwork/employability/id460_embe dding_employability_into_the_curriculum_338.pdf http://www.fyhe.com.au/past_papers/papers04.htm� http://www.auqa.edu.au/qualityenhancement/academicstandards/responses/18.pdf� http://www.heacademy.ac.uk/resources/detail/ourwork/employability/employability23� http://www.heacademy.ac.uk/assets/york/documents/ourwork/tla/employability/id116_employability_in_higher_education_336.pdf� http://www.heacademy.ac.uk/assets/york/documents/ourwork/tla/employability/id116_employability_in_higher_education_336.pdf� http://www.heacademy.ac.uk/assets/york/documents/ourwork/employability/id460_embedding_employability_into_the_curriculum_338.pdf� http://www.heacademy.ac.uk/assets/york/documents/ourwork/employability/id460_embedding_employability_into_the_curriculum_338.pdf� employability: aligning the message, the medium and academic values mantz yorke, visiting professor, lancaster university, uk mantzyorke@mantzyorke.plus.com abstract for a long time, links have been made between higher education and economic activity. the relatively recent emphases on employability (in the uk) and graduate attributes (largely in australia) can be construed as contemporary variations. this articl... introduction the link between higher education and the economy is longstanding the desirability relationship between undergraduate education and the national economy has been acknowledged in the uk since at least the robbins report (committee on higher education, 1963). however, the other three aims of higher education that wer... over the years, there have been many government-inspired initiatives and reports urging higher education in the uk to make a stronger connection with the needs of employers. the theoretical basis for such a connection is probably human capital theory... a persistent difficulty in the uk has been the governmental focus on ‘skills’ of various kinds. different adjectives (‘core’, ‘generic’, ‘transferable’, and many more) have been used at different times to qualify the word, but the ad hoc nature of su... in the late 1980s the enterprise in higher education (ehe) initiative, which – tellingly – was sponsored by the employment department rather than the department of education and science, offered quite substantial sums to institutions. it was understa... at around the same time, the royal society of arts, manufactures and commerce (an organisation that brought together employers and academics) sponsored a parallel initiative: higher education for capability (‘capability’, for short). capability shou... one might however quibble with the last few words since they seem to pay insufficient attention to the idea of lifelong learning. the later definition of graduate attributes put forward by bowden, hart, king, trigwell and watts (2000) adopts a similar line with respect to fulfilment in the social arena: however, capability gained only a limited number of adherents, mainly in the uk but also in australia where, for example, southern cross university promoted learner-managed learning in connection with capability (see hase, 1998). whilst the general i... although a number of prominent employers wrote, or were interviewed, for the capability movement’s eponymously-titled journal, a broad base of practical support from employers was not forthcoming. one might surmise that a pitch presented according to... one hears from time to time politicians saying that, rather than a policy proposal being flawed, its non-acceptance is because of a failure in presentation. be that as it may (and one can be forgiven for treating the politicians’ argument with some s... the same can be said of the work on graduate attributes that has taken place in australia. barrie (2007) made a couple of fair points when he observed that academics’ understanding of generic attributes was very varied, and that they had not always a... aligning the medium and the message the skills plus project, which began in 2000, ran for two years and involved 17 varied departments in four universities in england (knight & yorke, 2004, p.12). the project took a different tack from earlier projects relating to the development of gr... the approach to employability taken by skills plus was influenced by capability. the work on skills plus was developed further by the enhancing student employability co-ordination team [esect] which was funded by the higher education funding council ... employability and its implications for curricula and pedagogy. esect described employability as: this wording reflected the rather instrumental expectations of the policy-makers, but the underlying thinking went beyond narrow conceptions of employability to see students’ achievements in a wider, societal, perspective (the connection with capabili... understanding; skilful practices in context (deliberately so labelled in order to avoid the undesirable connotations of ‘skills’, and to acknowledge the situatedness of practice and performance); (self-)efficacy and personal qualities; and metacognition. a further attraction to academics was that usem’s skeleton constituted a facilitating framework rather than a prescription. it could be fleshed out according to the character of different subject disciplines, much as the overarching principles adopt... implicitly, academics were being asked ‘how can your subject discipline respond to the implications of the four components?’ rather than being provided with a checklist of ‘skills’ to be covered in curricula. elaborating usem understanding and skilful practices in academic contexts are widely-accepted components of higher education, and need no further elaboration here. other aspects of the usem account of employability do need to be unpacked in order to indicate why they... self-efficacy and personal qualities higher education curricula have taken a rather performative turn in recent times, as is evidenced by aligned curricular designs which make explicit both what the student is expected to be able to achieve and the associated assessment criteria. the de... in the usem account of employability, the ‘e’ (self-efficacy and personal qualities) is deliberately shown as pervading all the other components. there are many psychological angles in play, encompassing motivation, agency, self-belief, emotional in... graduate-level jobs imply the need to act as a professional worker, integrating ‘knowing that’ with ‘knowing how’ (ryle, 1949), with the latter further implying – where it is appropriate – drawing on what has been learned in social contexts as well as... michael eraut, who has studied the education of young professionals for many years, emphasises that breaking assessment demands into small components misses the essential integrativity of professional performance. writing of medical education, but wi... metacognition following the pioneering article by flavell (1979), metacognition has become a significant feature of the pedagogical landscape. it covers a range of aspects of the student’s self-awareness regarding their learning, including: problem-solving; reflec... generic attributes and disciplines there is a fairly widely-held view that many attributes are ‘generic’ and applicable across all subject disciplines. in broad terms, there is a case that can be argued. the range of attributes that employers say they want (e.g. harvey et al, 1997) a... it is when the suggestion is made that attributes are susceptible to standardisation that difficulties become apparent, since (as noted earlier) account has to be taken of the context within which the attributes are demonstrated. for example, ‘critic... his point, of course, extends beyond the boundaries of australia. krause (2009, p.2) points to a problem that arises when the attempt is made to be all-encompassing: in fact, there is some optimum (but difficult to define) level of utility with which learning outcomes or achievements can be specified: too broadly, and there is excessive room for interpretation; too narrowly, and the micro-management of detail obsc... where the programme involves work-integrated or work-based learning, the performance has to be judged in the light of the situation in which the student is located, and the possibility of standardisation evaporates. not surprisingly, a number of res... a pedagogy for employability during the 1970s, responsibility for vocational education for technicians in the uk was taken over by the newly-created, but subsequently superseded, technician education council (a parallel arrangement was also introduced for business). programmes w... the challenge might best be met by following the implications of a slogan that once was used by the telecoms company bt: work smarter not harder. if graduate attributes and disciplinary expertise are to be integrated, then curriculum encounters shoul... as one example of what can be done at the practical pedagogical level in respect of the last of these macro-challenge areas, meyers, whelan, mcnulty and ryan (2004, p.4) described some of the activities that required students on the course nrb270 to d... student feedback indicated that the course members had been stimulated and engaged by the tasks, to a greater extent than had been the case with the previous version of the course. one student wrote: the reporting of this initiative implies that the tasks were undertaken individually. there is no reason why such tasks could not be undertaken on a group basis – save for the consequences for assessment where there are difficulties in determining ho... conclusion not a trivial challenge a commitment to the development of graduate attributes or employability implies, for many subject disciplines, a preparedness to rethink curriculum, pedagogy and assessment. (in some areas, the requirements of professional bodies – as in fields like ... references wright, a. 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/hrv (za stvaranje adobe pdf dokumenata najpogodnijih za visokokvalitetni ispis prije tiskanja koristite ove postavke. stvoreni pdf dokumenti mogu se otvoriti acrobat i adobe reader 5.0 i kasnijim verzijama.) /hun 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(2021). digital badges: pinning down employer challenges. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(1), 24–38. 24 the journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability issn: 1838-3815 (online) journal homepage: https://ojs.deakin.edu.au/index.php/jtlge/ digital badges: pinning down employer challenges joy perkins1,2 and mary pryor1,3 corresponding author: joy perkins (j.perkins@abdn.ac.uk ) 1university of aberdeen, scotland 2https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8753-5694 3https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0880-7434 abstract digital badges hold considerable potential for employers and recruiters, as they evidence accomplishments of skills and competencies at a more granular level than a traditional degree certificate. badges are a validated, online graphical representation of an achievement, which is accomplished by undertaking criteria-based learning activities. despite the established educational benefits of badges in higher education, limited research has been conducted into employer awareness, acceptance, and use of digital badges in recruitment practices. to address this research gap, a mixed method study combining quantitative and qualitative data collection was conducted before and during the covid-19 health pandemic. approximately 700 employers were emailed and invited to complete the initial survey and 73 responded. one of the major survey findings is that 97% of respondents were unfamiliar with the concept of digital badges. significantly, however, despite the lack of employer awareness there was no widespread resistance to the concept of badges, but a strong appeal for further clarification of their value, credibility, and security. analysis of the data reveals stronger partnership working, between the higher education sector and employers, is pivotal to establish effective digital credentialing systems. recommendations for higher education institutions have emerged from this study, which aim to balance pedagogical digital badge practice with employer needs. such synergies are crucial to address the changing skills agenda, to prepare students to thrive in physical and virtual work environments. given the paucity of research in this field, further studies are warranted, to investigate the impact of digital badges on the employer community. keywords: digital badges, digital credentialing, employability, online learning, skills development, graduate recruitment, employment, microcredentials introduction and context what are digital badges? a digital badge (also referred to as an open badge or digital credential) is an online accreditation of an achievement, skill or quality, which has been accomplished by an individual who undertakes criteria-based learning activities (dyjur & lindstrom, 2017; gibson et al., 2015). the online badge is a visual representation and validation of the accomplishment. embedded metadata, within the badge image, includes the context, meaning, process and result of the learning activity (gibson et al., 2015; fields, 2015; risquez, cassidy, & o’suilleabhain, 2020). badges can be shared and displayed via https://ojs.deakin.edu.au/index.php/jtlge/ mailto:j.perkins@abdn.ac.uk https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8753-5694 https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0880-7434 perkins, j., & pryor, m. (2021). digital badges: pinning down employer challenges. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(1), 24–38. 25 linkedin, and other social media outlets, online cvs, email signatures, personal blogs and eportfolios, to present a digital record of an individual’s skills, knowledge, and achievements (janzow, 2014). digital badges may be used to signify the achievement of smaller units of learning and skills acquisition, so called ‘micro-credentials’. in this paper, it is important to emphasise that digital badges are not synonymous with micro-credentials, although the terms are sometimes used interchangeably in the educational literature (rimland & raish, 2019; fanfarelli & mcdaniel, 2019). digital badges and their educational benefits in higher education, digital badges afford an opportunity to scaffold students’ learning in both formal academic curricular modules and informal co-curricular learning environments, such as skills awards, volunteering, and student representation activities (glover, 2013; coleman, 2018). awarding badges offers students tangible evidence of their valuable learning accomplishments. the badges can also be shared with others to showcase skills and achievements (gibson et al., 2015). the real bonus of digital badges, however, is their flexibility, being contextualised within an increasingly digital environment, whether that be for campus-based, hybrid, or online learning; informal or formal education; modular, life-long, or life-wide. a digital badge approach, therefore, offers the potential to capture a more holistic, detailed reflection of a student’s learning experience and educational achievements (elliot, clayton, & iwata, 2014). integrative learning across the curriculum and the co-curriculum, enables leverage of a persuasive strategy for students to develop their digital identity (kehoe & goudzwaard, 2015). the educational literature reveals that universities are starting to appraise the purpose and value of badges, and badging systems, in higher education, mainly from a student learning perspective (carey & stefaniak, 2018). examples of published pedagogical practice include a research study by abramovich, schunn, & higashi (2013), which revealed that subjective evaluation of badges by students can be a key driver in their willingness to learn and their motivation to earn digital credentials. in the digital world, badges also provide visible identifiers for skills and attributes (roy & clark, 2019) and are a useful tool to reward and recognise students’ skills development (mathur, wood, & cano, 2018). digital credentials, which can be easily shared, enable students to communicate a mastery of skills. these skills include critical thinking, digital literacy, leadership and teamworking, which complement the traditional, paper degree certificate or transcript, where specific skills and attributes are not always obvious. students often overlook their competencies, so providing badges can be a useful aide-memoire to help them to track and to evidence their skills and graduate attributes (miller, de st jorre, west, & johnson, 2017). possessing this enhanced skills selfawareness augments students’ employability, as they transition through their degree programme and beyond university; enabling students to showcase their soft skills proficiency to potential employers (loughlin et al., 2016). glover (2016) offers insights into how digital badges have the potential to acknowledge students’ wider co-curricular learning, through encouraging their participation in informal learning activities. these additional achievements offer an important opportunity for students to reflect on their broader university learning and professional development. when used with points and a leader board, gibson et al., (2015) report how digital badges can encourage student competition and engagement, and become a gamification element within teaching and learning. other studies have evaluated the impact of academic skills badges on student retention and student adjustment to university-level study (mah, 2016; mah & ifenthaler, 2019). digital badge use in academic contexts during the last decade, much of the research across the globe, on the use of digital badging in higher education, has focused on the pedagogical role and value of badges. studies have focused on different academic contexts, to recognise and reward student learning. examples of badging practice, across academic subject areas, include the use of digital badges in a novel assessment perkins, j., & pryor, m. (2021). digital badges: pinning down employer challenges. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(1), 24–38. 26 approach at purdue university, usa. in their chemistry degree programmes, badges are used to recognise and improve students’ laboratory skills and practical confidence (hensiek et al., 2017). to earn the badges, students create videos of their practical chemistry techniques and share them with an assessor for feedback (hensiek, et al., 2016). at abertay university, scotland, students studying law can achieve the abertay division of law badge for successfully completing reflective tasks in a suite of five thematic workbooks. these learning activities facilitate student reflection on their professional competencies, which align with abertay graduate attributes themes, namely: resilience, social responsibility, active citizenship, leadership, and communication (anderson et al., 2017). in contrast, deakin university, australia, has implemented its own innovative approach: ‘deakin hallmarks’. the ‘hallmarks’ were developed and endorsed in partnership with employers, to ensure that they denote outstanding achievement, as valued and judged through professional life and workplace standards (oliver, 2016). ‘hallmarks’ function as recognition and reward of outstanding employability-related learning outcomes during a student’s degree programme (de st jorre, johnson, & oliver, 2016). students submit evidence of their achievement of ‘hallmark’ criteria and standards, including leadership or digital innovation skills, to be assessed by senior academics and employer representatives. successful student submissions are awarded a deakin-branded digital badge, or credential, with embedded metadata of their achievement. challenges and considerations for employers digital badges hold considerable potential for use with graduate employers and postgraduate recruiters, as they showcase students’ skills and achievements at a granular level to organisations outside the awarding university (devedžić & jovanović, 2015). to keep pace with the growing interest and implementation of digital badges in higher education, further empirical research is needed to understand wider stakeholder perceptions of badges, especially their practical use in the employer community. in 2020, hill et al. undertook a pilot badge study, the results of which suggest that undergraduates were often unlikely to be readily mindful of their skills development, unless prompted. the research also highlighted the need for students to understand the purpose and potential use of badges beyond university life. this aspect is particularly critical to maximise students’ career-readiness and employability. stefaniak & carey, (2019) have devised a useful higher education framework which covers three distinct categories: badge instructional design; badge system platform and badge programme implementation. key aspects proposed by stefaniak & carey include the significance of explaining the purpose and value of badges to students and other stakeholders. in addition, their framework is designed to help students to appreciate the embedded badge metadata, to ensure they fully understand the employability value and benefit of digital badges beyond university. according to hill et al. (2020) and other studies (glover, 2016), undergraduate students often have a limited knowledge, of how the metadata embedded in badges can provide employers with an understanding of an applicant’s skills, knowledge, and achievements. by extension, students and graduates may have only a limited perception of how the badge metadata might be used by employers, as part of recruitment short-listing and selection processes. the stefaniak & carey framework and research study calls for employers and businesses to recognise and value digital badges, acknowledging that there is often limited industry and business awareness of these digital credentials. soliciting internal and external stakeholder involvement during the implementation and roll out of a new badging system is, therefore, crucial to maximise digital badge understanding, acceptance, and willingness to espouse. digital badges and employers: an underexplored area a review of the literature reveals that only two preliminary studies have been conducted, which investigate employer perceptions and their use of digital badges in certifying student skills. the perkins, j., & pryor, m. (2021). digital badges: pinning down employer challenges. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(1), 24–38. 27 employer study conducted by raish and rimland, (2016) had a specific focus on information literacy skills, which provided initial insights into the value of digital badges outside academia. in contrast, another study in 2018, focused exclusively on human resource leaders in the usa (gallagher, 2018). this research explored a broader range of themes, including skills-based hiring approaches, online education qualifications and awareness of digital badges in hiring candidates. in gallagher’s study, hr leaders’ awareness of digital badges on a candidate’s cv were analysed and their awareness in this study was noted as low. in terms of further badge research, it would be useful to broaden gallagher’s human resource leaders practitioner study beyond hr recruiters, as smaller businesses do not always have bespoke hr personnel or hr departments. this approach would enable a more representative understanding of the role of digital badges in recruitment and selection practices. given the growth and interest in digital badges in recent years by higher education institutions, it is imperative that we start to better understand employer perspectives and acceptance of digital credentials. this understanding is especially pressing, as university qualifications and educational credentials play a central role in graduate recruitment, institutional esteem, and student employability. in 2017, a study of digital badges and employers was undertaken at the university of aberdeen, scotland. the research used an online survey to investigate employer awareness, perceptions, and potential use of digital badges, across a range of employment areas and organisational sizes. to address the shortcomings identified in the preliminary, employer-focused digital badges surveys (raish & rimland, 2016; gallagher, 2018), our study uses a broader range of organisational sizes, not solely hr recruiters, but employers involved in recruitment. it also explores a wider range of skills beyond the information literacy skills investigated in the research undertaken by raish and rimland in 2016. as a follow-up, prompted by the 2020 global covid-19 health pandemic, a further short, sister survey was launched, in june 2020. this survey gathered a snapshot of any changes in mindset regarding digital skills and skills acquisition, resulting from the altered working practices of lockdown. this sister survey investigated remote working, students’ digital credentials, and their preparedness for online working. both surveys were tailored to gather and analyse employer viewpoints, to support the launch and realisation of a potential pilot, institutional digital badging system. methodology an online digital badge snap survey was launched, to gather feedback from employers and organisations representing a variety of employment sectors and organisational sizes. the mixed method survey explored the following themes via specific free-text and closed-ended questions: organisational typology; digital badges and student competencies; digital badges, student employability and recruitment. the survey introduction also defined the term ‘open digital badge’ to avoid any respondent confusion during survey completion. an internal list of careers and employability contacts was used to invite circa 700 organisations via email to this voluntary study. the contacts were locally, nationally, and globally based employers. all organisations approached were sent information outlining the nature of the digital badge study, and the ethical aspects associated with the survey-based research. the quantitative survey data was analysed with snap software, and the qualitative survey data was analysed thematically to categorise responses into specific categories. the survey was anonymous, and any data collected was treated confidentially, in accordance with the uk data protection act 2018. data was collected for scholarly purposes only and was stored using a secure data platform. ethical approval was also secured for this collaborative, quality assurance agency (scotland) commissioned project. before the survey was launched, a pilot version of the 12 question, digital badge survey was released to four colleagues, to help avoid problematic and biased survey questions. all research conducted followed the quantitative and qualitative survey guidance and perkins, j., & pryor, m. (2021). digital badges: pinning down employer challenges. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(1), 24–38. 28 practice outlined in the higher education academy (hea) publication, ‘getting started in pedagogical research in the stem disciplines’ (grove & overton, 2014). a further follow-up survey, in june 2020, was also conducted with a smaller sample of eight respondents, who gave consent to be purposefully sampled following the initial, online snap survey. this short, five question free-text survey aimed to explore employer views on digital badges, in the time of rapid digitisation and remote working necessitated by the covid-19 pandemic lockdown. the questions sought to illuminate a sample of employers’ viewpoints for: the use of digital credentials in recruitment practices post-pandemic, the role of digital literacy skills in a more automated workplace, and the use of badges post covid-19 for students to evidence their skill-sets. to ensure a breadth of employment areas were investigated, hr recruiters (or equivalent individuals) representing the job sectors, as categorised by prospects (www.prospects.ac.uk/sectors), were approached to complete the initial online survey. 73 organisations responded to the survey. the distribution of employer respondents by employment sector comprise: accountancy, banking and finance 7%; business, consulting and management 6%; charity and voluntary work 9%; creative arts and design 1%; energy and utilities 14%; engineering and manufacturing 18%; environment and agriculture 4%; healthcare 1%; hospitality 3%; information technology 4%; law 15%; law enforcement and security 1%; leisure, sport and tourism 3%; public services and administration 4%; retail 1%; sales 1%; science and pharmaceuticals 4%; teaching and education 3%; transport and logistics 1%. the distribution of employer respondents by organisational size is shown in table 1. for this study, the size of each organisation has been categorised using the grouping presented in the house of commons small business enterprise and employment bill, 2014, namely: • micro business: a business with 1-9 employees • small business: a business with 10-49 employees • medium-sized business: a business with 50-249 employees • large business: a business with 250-1000 employees • super corporate: a business with over 1000 employees table 1: distribution of employer respondents by organisational size type of organisation % of respondents micro-business 8% small business 25% medium-sized business 23% large business 10% super corporate 34% results organisational typology a selection of comments and views is provided from the research data, to illustrate the emerging themes from the qualitative survey data, which was collected before and during the covid-19 global health pandemic in 2020. while quantitative survey data gathered is presented graphically. http://www.prospects.ac.uk/sectors perkins, j., & pryor, m. (2021). digital badges: pinning down employer challenges. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(1), 24–38. 29 the 73 survey respondents represented a wide range of employment areas and organisational sizes completed the digital badge survey, conducted in 2017. respondents who completed the survey were from a diverse range of employment sectors, representing 19 of the 24 areas of the economy, as categorised by the prospects job sector classification system (www.prospects.ac.uk/sectors). crucially, it is important to note, that all survey respondents were involved in the recruitment of students and graduates in their organisations. figure 1 presents respondents’ prior awareness of the concept of digital badges before the survey. it is clearly noticeable from the survey results, that most organisations had no knowledge of, and experience with, digital badges. given 97% of respondents noted that they were unfamiliar with the concept of digital badges. the only two organisations familiar with badges, in our survey, were a super corporate science and pharmaceutical organisation and a small charity. the employment areas as classified by prospects, and not captured in our survey responses are: marketing & pr; media; social care; property and construction. figure 1: organisational awareness of open digital badges prior to the survey organisational awareness of digital badges was explored further through an open-ended survey question, which provided respondents with the chance to add further insight and context to the data presented in figure 1. this approach also enabled respondents to express their interest and curiosity, in finding out more about badges, as visual indicators of skills and achievements. the majority who responded ‘no’ in figure 1 felt they needed more detailed information, as illustrated through a raft of similar comments, such as: potentially if given more information (information technology, small business). don’t know enough about badges but interested to find out more (energy and utilities, super corporate). yes would need further information before committing to anything (charity and voluntary work, micro-business). will have to discuss with human resources to understand if it is something, they will like to engage in (engineering & manufacturing, medium-sized business). digital badges and student competencies despite the surveyed organisations indicating their lack of digital badge knowledge and awareness, it was encouraging that businesses were keen to find out more. in the survey, respondents recognised the potential use of digital badges, as a mechanism for students and graduates to share their skills, accomplishments, and learning. survey participants were also able to indicate through selecting their top five, in-demand skills and competencies, the qualities, which their organisation most value in their employees (figure 2). http://www.prospects.ac.uk/sectors perkins, j., & pryor, m. (2021). digital badges: pinning down employer challenges. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(1), 24–38. 30 figure 2: skills and competencies most valued by the surveyed organisations the survey also explored employers’ views on the level of skills-preparedness shown by new graduates in their organisation. mixed views were gathered from the survey; respondents indicated that graduates lack specific skills and can sometimes be ill-prepared for the workplace. most require development in at least two of the competencies i listed (leisure sports and tourism, small business). written communication is often poor (engineering & manufacturing, small business). many still need to work on their business awareness (law, medium-sized business). those with internship experience have adequate preparedness, those without are wholly unprepared (engineering & manufacturing, medium-sized business). there were positive comments, too, although it is evident from the wide range of explanations in this survey that employers are arguing the need for more prepared and work-ready graduates. i believe that our most recent intake of graduates possess most of these skills to a very high level (energy and utilities, super corporate). they usually have the rudimentaries of these skills (law, large business). if they have no previous work experience then their skills are lacking (teaching and education, medium-sized business). it was noteworthy that several respondents highlighted and shared their organisation’s competency framework, and the skills and attributes already agreed for employees within their business. our core competencies are: passion; communication; leadership; teamwork; resilience; receptive; initiative (teaching and education, super corporate). digital badges, student employability and employment when employers and organisations were asked, specifically in the survey if they would be interested in using an applicant's digital badges in their selection and recruitment processes (figure 3), 62% of our survey respondents expressed a positive interest, in using digital badges to validate student skills. interest was noted across all employment areas, although a notable percentage, 29%, selected ‘maybe…’. those responding ‘maybe…’ expressed the need for more information before being able to answer, for example: we would need to know more (charity and voluntary work, micro-business). perkins, j., & pryor, m. (2021). digital badges: pinning down employer challenges. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(1), 24–38. 31 we would need educated on the value and recognition of them in business/industry (law, large business). it is encouraging to note the strong acceptance and interest by the surveyed organisations, in the use of digital badges to supplement traditional recruitment practices (figure 3). it is also positive that free text responses indicate that organisations are curious about digital badges and are keen to understand more about their purpose and their value in recruitment processes. figure 3: employer interest in open digital badge adoption for recruitment and selection practices in the survey, organisations were also asked to select the one most important factor for their business when recruiting graduates (figure 4). 56% of respondents selected generic skills and competencies for the workplace. interestingly, 32% of respondents also selected the degree subject studied, as important to employers in graduate recruitment. figure 4: factors considered most important in graduate recruitment in figure 5, 57% of the organisations surveyed reported that digital badges would be a useful addition to more traditional forms of student certification, so called macro-credentials. figure 5: employer interest in the use of badges to complement more traditional forms of educational certification those responding ‘maybe…’, felt they needed more information before being able to answer, for example: don't know enough about them to be able to answer this. open to new ideas though! several emerging quality assurance themes occur in responses: perkins, j., & pryor, m. (2021). digital badges: pinning down employer challenges. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(1), 24–38. 32 potentially if strict criteria are in place for achieving them (information technology, small business). if it could guarantee what other skills a graduate could bring to the workplace then yes (energy & utilities, super corporate). useful only if universally recognised/valued (law, large business). if they add to or expand on an academic record, then they may be useful (accountancy, banking and finance, medium-sized business). the comments indicate that organisations valued the granular and verifiable skills information. in addition, however, there are strong indications of the need to be reassured of the badge credibility, if they are to use it confidently to evaluate an individual’s achievements. figure 6: employer verification of digital credentials when questioned: would your organisation closely examine a candidate's 'digital badges' to verify the badge issuer, the activities carried out, the skills developed and the issue date, 59% of respondents indicated ‘yes’ (figure 6). this is not surprising, as it is not uncommon for employers to vet potential employees. free-text responses included: yes some badge issuers might carry less credibility (law, small business). would this competency check not be conducted by the university? (charity and voluntary work, small business). again, more education needed (law, large business). clearly, there are mixed views, and a lack of understanding and/or knowledge from some respondents, regarding the embedded metadata content in digital badges. as part of the survey, organisations were also asked for their views on how universities could use 'digital badges' for supporting students' employability. a plethora of ideas and takeaway suggestions were shared, covering areas such as career development learning, badge standards, skills verification and alignment with the key competencies requested by employers, as illustrated via the following responses: encourage extra-curricular activities to build their skills base and learn about career aspirations (retail, super corporate). encouraging students to achieve badges in areas that help make them more employable (business, consulting and management, micro-business). gaining industry recognition would allow badges to be used as a skills standard (engineering and manufacturing, super corporate). employers need to buy into the scheme to give credibility/validity and therefore encourage student uptake (charity and voluntary work, micro-business). perkins, j., & pryor, m. (2021). digital badges: pinning down employer challenges. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(1), 24–38. 33 students should be required to meet strict criteria to achieve them, otherwise they’ll be worthless (information technology, micro-business). make sure that the skills obtained are easily verifiable (science and pharmaceuticals, super corporate). digital badges can be displayed by students and graduates via digital cvs, social media platforms, such as the professional networking site linkedin, or other channels. organisations were asked for their preferences on how students might showcase their badges to employers and recruiters (figure 7). figure 7: employer preferences for reviewing applicants’ digital badges survey responses in figure 7, indicate that organisations are willing to review awarded badges via a range of channels, with a digital cv and linkedin profile being most popular. comments included via the ‘other’ category, include covering letter and several remarks from respondents about their uncertainty to answer this question. digital badges and remote models of working in our short, follow-up purposeful sampling, qualitative survey in june 2020, which was circulated during the global covid-19 health pandemic, respondents’ comments suggested digital credentials are here to stay. eight employers were asked for their views on digital credentials, digital literacy skills and the use of skills badges post covid-19. respondents remarked on digital badge use in identifying and nurturing future talent lines, as stressed in this quote: i think this will become more relevant as we seek out new ways of getting to know individuals before recruitment (education, micro-business). in addition to this use, a shift to more skills-based selection and digital recruitment processes was indicated: if linked correctly with technology platforms it will allow graduate employers to use online tools including linkedin and reed, to search with greater accuracy students/graduates who have demonstrated/ verified capability in specific skill sets (retail, super corporate). the significance of an effective student linkedin profile, online networking experience, and digital literacy skills were also stressed in a range of responses. all are key to help students transition to employment, as illustrated in this employer remark: get involved in discussions on professional social media. follow companies you are keen to joindon’t directly ask for a job but add meaningful comments or posts. embrace all digital literacy training seems intuitive and obvious when you’re a student but those in the workplace often struggle to keep up (energy and utilities, large business). perkins, j., & pryor, m. (2021). digital badges: pinning down employer challenges. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(1), 24–38. 34 in the evolving digital-driven employment landscape, workplace skills and competences can also shift and change. this follow-up survey revealed the sustained appeal of digital badges and their value in training, upskilling and personal development, as pointed out in this comment: challenging as it is, start with some self-assessment, ask yourself honestly, what are my strengths? where are my current opportunities to improve? it is not a new model, but the aim is always to turn opportunities into strengths. my advice would then be to look to upskill in both theoretical and practical terms (retail, super corporate). discussion with 97% of organisations in this study reporting their unfamiliarity with the concept of digital badges, the survey findings indicate that much more information and knowledge exchange, about the purpose and value of badges, is necessary to help increase awareness in the employer community. the findings of the 2017 and 2020 surveys give initial insights into employer perceptions, awareness, and acceptance of digital badges across a range of employment sectors and organisational sizes. key indicators from the survey data imply that overall, employers and recruiters are not sufficiently appraised of the existence, or value of these supplementary digital credentials/badges, and remain to be persuaded of their worth as authenticators of skills development. significantly, however, there was no widespread resistance to the concept of such in our research, but a strong appeal for further clarification of their value, credibility, and security. dyjur & lindstrom (2017), in their preliminary findings, in perceptions and use of digital badges for professional learning development in higher education, also indicate that individuals have mixed values about badges, do not always fully understand what digital badges are and how they might be used, thus underlining the need to engage actively with employers, to work in tandem and not increase misunderstandings. roy and clark (2018) also highlight, in their review, the lack of empirical evidence of badge understanding and relevance outside of the academic learning environment. holistically, there needs to be much greater dialogue between universities, policy makers, employers, professional bodies, and the higher education sector. this approach would facilitate tackling impending skills needs and trends, to prepare individuals for the future workplace. interestingly, the skills most valued by employers in our survey align well with the most valued skills found in the global skills gap report (2018). this report identifies the three skills most valued by employers as: problem-solving, team-working and communication. perhaps unexpectedly, the least valued skills in our employer survey were identified as numeracy, cultural awareness, enterprise, and language skills. language skills are also not ranked highly in the global skills gap report. it is, however, surprising that enterprise is not especially valued in our survey responses, not least as it has been identified as a premium and core business skill for the ever-changing employment landscape (ukces, 2014). the future of jobs report published by the world economic forum (2020) provides a timely update for in-demand skills and skill groups across jobs in the next five years. several of the competencies listed in this study, such as resilience and self-management, are predicted in the report to rise in importance, with the adoption of technology and emerging new job roles. in this current period of educational change and economic disruption, adopting some form of digital credentialing is key to support student employability and skills development. the way that learning and skills development is being undertaken is also evolving in universities. to ensure student workplace readiness, the higher education sector is shifting its focus to new digital delivery modes and establishing a more lifelong learning culture (maguire, dale, & pauli, 2020). beyond the university environment, employers are keen to upskill and re-skill employees to keep pace with digitisation and technological innovation (levine, 2018). micro-credentials are helping to address the demands and changes of education and business: short courses such as moocs, credit, or non-credit bearing courses, focus on building capacity in an individual’s knowledge and skills perkins, j., & pryor, m. (2021). digital badges: pinning down employer challenges. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(1), 24–38. 35 (oliver, 2019). digital badges are the visual exemplification of this on-demand, micro-credentialbased learning. digital badges afford the advantage for employers and recruiters of more detailed information than traditional degree certificates or academic transcripts, which typically present the subjects and grades achieved, or the overall degree classification (carey & stefaniak, 2018). it is clear from our study findings that with greater uptake, co-operation and standardisation by universities, digital skills badges offer considerable potential to help bridge perceived skills gaps between business requirements and graduate skills readiness for the workplace. though there is still much to learn about employers’ requirements and digital badges (glover, 2013), it is encouraging to note from the survey that organisations are open to the media used to share badges. this willingness may encourage and help students and graduates to share their digital credentials more widely, beyond their awarding university, helping them to enhance their employability and preparedness for remote and traditional workplaces. working remotely has been widely adopted across the world, driven by the global covid-19 health crisis in 2020, and is predicted to stay post-pandemic (phillips, 2020). linked to remote working is digital recruitment and the ability to share qualifications and digital credentials online, in both the application process and the short listing of candidates. micro-credentials recognised by the award of digital badges, afford students the opportunity to showcase their skills achievements visually, in a more in-depth, granular format, to employers and postgraduate recruiters (gibson et al., 2015). equally, micro-credentials with an associated digital badge can enable recruiting organisations, to focus on skills-sets that align more closely with their business skills needs (sutton, 2019). such skills can be overlooked by traditional recruitment methods, which do not involve digital badges and the visual sharing of skills. the strong employer focus on the importance of generic skills and competencies in graduate recruitment is evidenced through our survey data. this focus is encouraging, as a wider range of organisations shift to a more competency-based recruitment approach to source individuals (gauthier, 2020). digital badges, unlike degree certificates, capture this information and, therefore, are of interest and value to recruiters (bowen & thomas, 2014). the survey findings have helped to identify key recommendations that balance pedagogical digital badge practice in higher education with employer needs. going forward, more work is needed by universities to help employers understand their value and how they are recognised and understood. regarding the scope of current literature, evidence of meaningful interface of higher education with employers on awareness of, and engagement with, digital credentials as a reliable feature in recruitment processes, is limited (gallagher, 2018). until more research is in the public domain, questions remain to be answered: are digital badges influencing employer recruitment and selection practices? do badges have any bearing on recruiter interest in applicants? if higher education institutions are to encourage students and graduates to invest time in completing skills-based digital credentials, they need to be certain that the acquisition of digital badges truly supports students and graduates to secure employment. by extension, what plans are there for employers to use badges as part of their continuing professional development (cpd) processes in upskilling and re-skilling of employees? this point is of especial note, given that the future of jobs report (world economic forum, 2020), predicts employers are expecting to re-skill and upskill, approximately 70% of their employees by 2025. to complement the engagement with employers, however, the higher education sector needs also to engage directly with students, to inform them of the value of micro-credentials and badges, how they work, with embedded data secured digitally, and how and where students can use them. understanding the purpose of digital badges and how students can benefit from them is key to support learner engagement with digital credentials (hickey et al., 2014; hill et al., 2020). all stakeholders need to have confidence that the credibility and data security of digital badges is assured: that credential fraud is unlikely. however, to unlock the real potential of digital badges and their underpinning lifelong learning ethos, it is vital to have a flexible badge-awarding platform that perkins, j., & pryor, m. (2021). digital badges: pinning down employer challenges. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(1), 24–38. 36 is not linked to a specific university, as this could prove too limiting over an individual’s career trajectory. exploring the feasibility of a secure, shared digital infrastructure badging service for use across multiple stakeholders to support lifelong learning is, therefore, worthy of investigation. perhaps this is a tangible next step, to help develop productive employer and university digital badge partnerships. conclusion research on the role of digital credentials in teaching and learning is in its early stages, with much of the educational literature focusing on pedagogical approaches, integrative learning across academic and co-curricular domains and the use of badges to reward learning (shields & chugh, 2017; kehoe & goudzwaard 2015). this paper is distinctive and enriches this literature, as it concentrates on the underexplored areas of employer perceptions, awareness, and potential use of digital badges in recruitment practices. interestingly and worthy of highlighting, is that despite the general lack of digital badge awareness by the employers surveyed in this research, respondents were generally receptive and inquisitive about digital credentials, once they understood their purpose. other universities interested in badging systems are encouraged to take advantage of this appeal, in their wider, partnership working and their digital credential collaborations. analysis of the digital badge survey data in this study, reveals that a range of employer challenges need to be ‘pinned down’ and addressed by the higher education sector, to help further establish and launch digital badging systems. based on this research, the following recommendations for higher education institutions have emerged:  engage with a broad range of hr recruiters, employers, professional bodies and employer organisations to gauge their acceptance and awareness of digital credentials.  enhance partnership working with employers to help inform and identify the badge skills and competencies to meet existing and future workplace needs.  establish a well-defined, accessible, and verifiable digital badge framework to underpin the badge awarding rationale. the findings and challenges identified in this study, are likely to be of interest to a wide range of stakeholders, including academics, employability professionals and employers who are keen to capitalise on the potential of badges and to establish badging pilots. suggestions for further, more in-depth research in this area, include investigating whether digital badges are influencing recruitment practices, and reviewing if digital badges can really help students and graduates secure employment. while the evidence presented here indicates interest and acceptance by organisations and employers for digital credentials in the recruitment process. a limitation in this study is the size of the sample, further research and analysis of a larger sample size of employers from different employment sectors, organisational sizes and countries would provide further insights into this study’s findings. acknowledgments special thanks to the 73 employers who responded to the online digital badge survey, and the institutional employer board members who inspired this research. the study was conducted under the auspices of the qaa (scotland) enhancement theme and its sector-wide student transitions theme. references abramovich, s., schunn, c., & higashi, r. m. 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(2021). digital badges: pinning down employer challenges. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(1), 24–38. 39 raspovic, a. & pannan, l. (2013). practical steps and collegiality in the building of podiatry curricula to meet accreditation and health sector employability demands journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 4(1), 58—72. 58 practical steps and collegiality in the building of podiatry curricula to meet accreditation and health sector employability demands. anita raspovic1, linda pannan1 a.raspovic@latrobe.edu.au; l.pannan@latrobe.edu.au 1la trobe university abstract historically, mixed arrangements have been in place between educational institutions and podiatrist registration bodies to evaluate the capacity of courses to adequately prepare new graduates for clinical practice. the national scheme for the registration of health practitioners introduced in 2010, followed by a national system for accreditation of respective courses, has however seen significant legislative and policy change to requirements for evidencing effectiveness of podiatry courses. in addition, there has been a local and international change in emphasis by stakeholders in higher education, government, professional regulation, quality assurance and employment, towards measureable, explicit student learning outcomes. curricula initiatives at la trobe university, including large scale systematic review and redesign of all courses commencing in 2005 within the faculty of health sciences, and a subsequent university wide ‘design for learning’ project (la trobe university, 2009), provided a timely platform for podiatry staff to respond to critical emerging imperatives for increased program transparency and accountability. the case study presented in this paper provides a practical, in-context explanation of an approach adopted to develop and embed podiatry course learning outcomes (clos). it draws on the podiatry profession’s competency standards and produces aligned curricula where fine grain subject intended learning outcomes (ilos), underpinned by related learning and assessment activities, cumulatively address student development of the clos. systematic and comprehensive documented evidence demonstrates when and how key podiatry competencies are developed, attained and assessed in these podiatry curricula. key words: embedding course learning outcomes, graduate outcomes, curriculum design, curriculum mapping, podiatry competency standards, professional accreditation introduction the impetus for change was growing, when in the mid to late 2000’s the podiatry department at la trobe university was considering how to best approach; curriculum redesign and renewal initiatives from within its faculty and university, important legislative changes to professional regulation and program accreditation, rapidly evolving needs of health care practitioner education, and fundamental shifts in higher education from input to outcome based education. a comprehensive approach incorporating transparency and accountability was needed at a number of levels, to evidence that their courses had the capacity to achieve the stated outcomes. specifically, they needed to be able to show that by the time of graduation, students of the podiatry courses could demonstrate the attainment mailto:a.raspovic@latrobe.edu.au mailto:l.pannan@latrobe.edu.au raspovic, a. & pannan, l. (2013). practical steps and collegiality in the building of podiatry curricula to meet accreditation and health sector employability demands journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 4(1), 58—72. 59 of the full range of discipline specific professional competencies, generic skills and attributes required of an effective contemporary health care practitioner. moreover, this approach needed to bring strong educational value to the design and development of the newly developed curricula, thereby enhancing validity and credibility of the new courses. this paper aims to offer a practical case study in response to the question: what are the significant curriculum design, development and implementation processes which can facilitate identifying, embedding and evidencing clos throughout two vocationally oriented health science courses? as a result of reflection during and after the process, the paper also offers insights into anticipated and unexpected outcomes. the discussion below begins by providing introductory information on the profession of podiatry, although principles in this paper transcend discipline boundaries. the sections that follow offer contextual background that was important in shaping the approach used. detail is given of the method adopted to create the podiatry course learning outcomes (clos), how the systematic process that ensures the learning required to achieve them is embedded and assessed throughout the courses, and how this collectively meets external demands for increased program accountability and transparency. the podiatry context a podiatrist is a health professional who deals with the prevention, diagnosis, treatment and rehabilitation of medical and surgical conditions of the feet and lower limbs (australian podiatry association, 2012). while podiatry originated from the very old practice of chiropody, significant changes to the breadth, depth and complexity of practice has seen the emergence of a relatively new professional field of health. in australia, podiatry has been in existence for around 35 years, since changing its name from chiropody and has rapidly developed its scope of practice over that time (schnock, 1989). today, podiatrists are primary care practitioners who work in various clinical settings, dealing with a range of people, clinical conditions and types of management modalities. this includes care of people of all ages from children to adults and the elderly. podiatrists assist in the management of a range of complaints including; sports injuries, complications from chronic conditions such as diabetes and arthritis, musculoskeletal pain, and skin and nail concerns. anyone who has a foot problem or is seeking to maintain foot wellness might consult with a podiatrist. with the evolution of the profession over time, podiatrists have also become more involved in aspects of patient care that carry increased levels of risk. many podiatrists work with medically compromised patients, at significantly elevated risk of complications such as serious infection, non-healing wounds and amputation. podiatrists are trained to work with sharp instruments and use invasive techniques, such as the injection of local anesthetic and the conduct of minor surgical procedures. stringent infection control protocols exist around dealing with blood and bodily fluids. entry-level training now contains preparatory education for podiatrists who may, with further post-qualification study and experience, prescribe a selection of schedule 4 (s4) medications such as antibiotics. ongoing medical and technical developments have seen an array of sophisticated diagnostic and management strategies develop for a myriad of applications. the complexity of podiatric practice has grown quickly over a relatively short period of time, placing ongoing demands on podiatry courses to prepare students for contemporary practice. the very high expectations of quality podiatric education are indicative of its significance for public health and safety. the context of change a changing regulatory landscape in health traditionally the training and education of podiatrists in australia occurred within a range of institution types, including the former tafe sector or at external schools such as the former lincoln school of health sciences in melbourne. as a consequence of gaining status as a raspovic, a. & pannan, l. (2013). practical steps and collegiality in the building of podiatry curricula to meet accreditation and health sector employability demands journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 4(1), 58—72. 60 registered health profession in 1977 in victoria, the educational requirements for podiatry students increased from diploma to bachelor level in melbourne in the 1980s, shortly before the program moved into the higher education sector and was established in the faculty of health sciences at la trobe university. professional registration throughout australia operated with the primary function of protecting the public and creating a regulatory watchdog for the profession, setting legislative requirements for the attainment of appropriate levels of education and formalising expectations around standards of practice. the number of podiatry courses in australia was relatively stable at around six until more recent emergence of new courses offering a greater range of course structures and qualification levels in the education of entry-level podiatry practitioners. in 1994 the peak professional body representing podiatrists in australia and new zealand, the australasian podiatry council (apodc), released the first set of australian competency standards, entitled ‘competency standards and related assessment methods for the australian podiatry profession’. these articulated minimum expected capabilities of entry-level practitioners nationally, and prompted the launch of a voluntary accreditation program for podiatry courses in the early 2000s. in 2008, national laws created in response to the outcomes from the council of australian governments (coag) productivity commission review of the australian health workforce, resulted in a new national registration and accreditation scheme for health practitioners. this scheme is concerned with the ongoing development of a sustainable, flexible and responsive health workforce, the facilitation of high quality education and the provision that only practitioners who are suitably trained to undertake competent and ethical practice are registered (forrester & griffiths, 2011). it affords greater mobility to podiatrists who can register nationally and practice throughout australia. accreditation of podiatry courses in australia became compulsory from july 1 2010 and once fully rolled out, australian courses must hold current accreditation status with the australian and new zealand podiatry accreditation council (anzpac) and the podiatry board of australia, for its graduates to be eligible for podiatrist registration, a legal requirement to practice as a podiatrist. anzpac has two primary standards documents of relevance to entry-level course accreditation; the ‘anzpac podiatry competency standards for australia and new zealand’ (anzpac 2009a updated 2012) and the ‘anzpac accreditation standards and procedures for podiatry programs for australia and new zealand’ (anzpac 2009b). the accreditation standards cover five broad domains, addressing a comprehensive suite of issues around the provision of podiatry courses and requiring evidence of links between the anzpac competency standards and curricula framework including; contemporary content, learning and teaching approaches, sequencing, clinical education and approaches to assessment. the anzpac accreditation standards state the requirement that the total curriculum provides sufficient learning opportunities for students to meet minimum competency standards (in sub-standard c.1. anzpac, 2009b). the challenge therefore was to mount a case, supported by what would be deemed an acceptable level of evidence, that the profession’s competency standards are appropriately addressed through the new podiatry courses. changing contemporary health care practice, and future needs constant developments in the health sector, such as the evolving field of podiatry and the expansion and diversity of interdisciplinary health care teams, add complexity to the work of a podiatrist which is more complex now than it has ever been, and will continue to be so (brooks, 2011). it is particularly necessary for vocational courses such as podiatry to stay connected with industry, where there is great emphasis on education facilitating preparedness for employment in health practitioner roles. contemporary practice must be identified and articulated before competency standards can be interpreted in its context. raspovic, a. & pannan, l. (2013). practical steps and collegiality in the building of podiatry curricula to meet accreditation and health sector employability demands journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 4(1), 58—72. 61 significantly, a large portion of practical education in the courses is provided through fully operating clinics, and the curriculum must adequately prepare students early to function adequately and safely in contemporary health environments. contemporary health practice requires podiatrists to be able to work in teams to effectively solve complex problems and generate new solutions. good communication, professionally appropriate conduct and strong interpersonal skills are expected in what are often new and unfamiliar environments. navigating the ‘in between the lines’ unwritten operational rules in places of work, and understanding hierarchy, power and ways to influence change are highly sophisticated elements that are pervasive to most work environments. information literacy, evidence-based practice, enquiry skills, critical analysis and understanding research are key elements to well-rounded practitioners. the demand for these attributes from stakeholders, including employers, government health agencies and funding bodies, is clear and will continue to increase as podiatrists are required to be more flexible and adaptable within the health workforce. although implicit integration of these work related elements was likely to have previously occurred in traditional courses, it was clear that strategies to demonstrate that the new curricula would deliver the needs of a contemporary health care workforce were required. hence, discussions around what an effective podiatry course should be able to do now and in the future also considered how to provide convincing evidence that the courses would deliver on these promises. a fundamental shift in higher education from input to outcome simultaneously, curricula design was evolving (biggs & tang, 2007; hubball & burt, 2004; jones et al., 2007). the notable shift in higher education towards outcomes-based education strongly influenced this podiatry curriculum development effort. the australian based ‘assessing and assuring graduate learning outcomes’ project states this shift of emphasis from teaching inputs to learning outcomes has been a characteristic of considerable international activity aimed at articulating discipline specific statements of the learning outcomes university students should demonstrate by the time of graduation (aaglo project, 2011). recent works conducted through the australian learning and teaching council (altc) supported projects, ‘assuring graduate attributes’ (oliver, 2011) and ‘learning and teaching academic standards’ (altc, 2011), have articulated generic graduate outcomes and threshold learning outcomes for a selection of disciplines respectively. critical shifts in regulation, policy and quality assurance in higher education confirms this view with the expected use of explicit learning outcomes, specifically by the new tertiary education quality and standards agency (teqsa, 2011). while quality teaching inputs and a range of other key elements are essential drivers of quality student learning, defining and measuring the end product in the form of student learning outcomes has strong merit. but if this latter approach is adopted, can it provide the accountability and transparency measures useful for program approval, curriculum development processes, and professional accreditation? and, can these tools help to communicate to students, clinical supervisors, the profession and patients, in tangible terms, what the courses achieve? opportunities to strengthen curriculum aligns with institutional curriculum renewal podiatry at la trobe university was well placed to respond to the above issues as a review of all courses offered by the faculty of health sciences resulted in major curriculum change, with implementation to start in 2009. podiatry was to be offered as a combined bachelor/ master qualification with a graduate entry pathway into the masters course, a new course structure for the discipline at the time. along with a shift to an enquiry-based delivery model, the program was offered across geographically dispersed campuses, making use of block and sandwich teaching modes. there was also greater reliance on disseminated learning and teaching strategies, with the students located externally at clinical placements for longer, raspovic, a. & pannan, l. (2013). practical steps and collegiality in the building of podiatry curricula to meet accreditation and health sector employability demands journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 4(1), 58—72. 62 and planning for learning and instruction also focused on the higher levels on the aqf framework. in addition, there was a high level of commitment to embedding graduate attributes and generic capabilities to address the evolving common needs of health care practitioners. there was strong support within the faculty to shift to an outcomes-based approach. curriculum mapping and re-design that involved making clos explicit, aligning learning activities with assessment tasks, and addressing overlaps and gaps in content and skills, were expected. the curriculum design process backwards curriculum design principles were adopted (kelley et al., 2008a) in the development of custom designed curricula that would meet the requirements, as outlined above, drivers and circumstances, and achieve the clearly specified outcomes. stage one: developing the podiatry course learning outcomes (clos) as a first step, the la trobe university podiatry clos were strategically created. these clos captured, by design, (i) the podiatry profession’s competency standards (anzpac 2009 a,b), (ii) key generic attributes of a contemporary health care practitioner (faculty of health sciences 2009), and (iii) capabilities of a university graduate (la trobe university, 2009, 2012). characteristics and presentation of the podiatry course learning outcomes (clos) research reports that agreement on the nature of graduate learning outcomes is far from universal with academics’ conceptualisations ranging from basic communication skills to the transformational outcomes that shape personal and professional identity (aaglo project 2009). the first challenges when developing the podiatry clos were to identify and articulate what podiatry students would be expected to know and be able to do, including attributes and qualities, by the end of their podiatry course, and to also consider the structural parameters and characteristics of the podiatry clos. that is with no single accepted format for the learning outcomes there was good scope to customise them. of primary importance were fit to purpose and practical utility. physical size of the document, the number of clos, the level of detail that might be provided and their sequential development throughout the course, were all important considerations. these clos were to be created and presented in a manner that would embody the complex domains of what it means to be an effective, reflective and ethical health care practitioner and learner, understanding that at times they deal with elements that are abstract and tacit in nature. this was not to be a mechanical, reductionist checklist of tasks that students must perform, but rather a range of encompassing related statements, capturing forward-focused contemporary health practice. juxtaposed with this was the influence of the vocational nature of the courses, the importance of systematic skill and practical capability development, and uppermost, future patient safety and well-being. the document had to make sense to a range of audiences, requiring clear and accessible language and phrased in outcomes-based terms that could be demonstrated and assessed. the final clo document needed to be granular enough to inform curriculum development at the subject level but required intuitive flexibility for interpretation and contextually suitable application. the aim was to design a resource that would be of maximal use for program approval, and curriculum construction and accreditation. raspovic, a. & pannan, l. (2013). practical steps and collegiality in the building of podiatry curricula to meet accreditation and health sector employability demands journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 4(1), 58—72. 63 identifying and presenting the podiatry course learning outcomes (clos) creating the podiatry clos was a somewhat organic process that continued over a month or so. the first stage was of information gathering around how others had approached this issue, possible structure, content focus and presentation. in particular good guidance was received from colleagues within the faculty who were facing similar issues. a review of experiences and processes at other universities provided an appreciation of broader issues, such as ensuring stakeholder ownership and realistic discipline contextualisation (barrie, 2004). key resources were gathered including; anzpac competency and accreditation standards (anzpac 2009 a,b), resources on university and faculty strategic directions and graduate capabilities (la trobe university, 2009, 2012), the faculty of health sciences graduate attributes (faculty of health sciences 2009) and relevant literature (hubball & burt, 2004; aqf advisory board 2007). curriculum documentation for the new podiatry courses was on hand as a practical point of reference. the podiatry course structure is essentially offered over four years, with a combined bachelor/master degree clinical stream, a combined bachelor/master degree research stream (adding six months) and a graduate entry masters course (years three and four). the clos were to be the same for each podiatry course with regard to the requirements of a forward-focused, contemporary entrylevel practitioner, however, the embedding and mapping process was considered separately for each qualification, as were the entrance requirements for the graduate entry master pathway. eliciting concepts for the overarching clos involved consulting various documents initially. this was conducted by the authors, the faculty education/curriculum designer and the podiatry course coordinator. several iterations evolved with the final version merging the eight anzpac competency standards with the five health sciences graduate attributes and the six university graduate capabilities. significant overlap existed and merging the key themes was mostly a matter of reconciling terminology difference. the nine selected overarching learning outcome categories for the podiatry courses are: 1. generic health sciences discipline competencies 2. communication 3. professional practice 4. life-long learning 5. ethical and social responsibility 6. patient interview and assessment 7. interpretation, analysis and diagnosis 8. management and planning evaluation 9. safe and effective treatment consultation with the podiatry academic staff and the la trobe university podiatry external course advisory committee (pecac) on the detailed wording of the clo descriptors provided agreement on a final set of nine podiatry clos of mixed generic and discipline focus, which includes the five adopted la trobe health sciences graduate attributes. as discussed earlier, the resource presenting the final set of podiatry clos would be used for multiple purposes and must make sense to a range of audiences. the clos could be presented as a simple list. however, as ability would also be addressed for each clo at four increasingly developed cognitive levels (bowden et al., 2000) a matrix format covering an a3 raspovic, a. & pannan, l. (2013). practical steps and collegiality in the building of podiatry curricula to meet accreditation and health sector employability demands journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 4(1), 58—72. 64 page was found to be most suitable for presenting the detail resulting in the podiatry course learning outcomes matrix. each clo appears as the header of a column in the 9 x 4 cell matrix and the four cells below it identify the abilities achieved at increasing cognitive levels, scoping, enabling, integrating, and relating (see figure 1). these levels indicate how students may move towards attaining the final clo. at the most accomplished level the ‘relating’ ability statements articulate what the students will do to demonstrate they have achieved the relevant clo. the ability statements at each level are, in essence, fine-grain learning outcomes, incrementally describing the learning path to achieving the clo. representing outcome development in this way supports the use of a range of learning experiences in the curriculum leading to the achievement of the final clos, and acknowledges that these multi-dimensional outcomes require staged scaffolding throughout an entire course. figure 1: a shell illustrating the layout of the podiatry course learning outcomes matrix. qualitative description of course learning outcome 1. g e n e r ic d is c ip li n e c o m p e te n c ie s … 2. c o m m u n ic a ti o n … 3. p r o fe s s io n a l p r a c ti c e … 4. l if e -l o n g l e a r n in g … 5. e th ic a l & s o c ia l r e s p o n s ib il it y … 6. p a ti e n t in te r v ie w & a s s e s s m e n t… 7. i n te r p r e ta ti o n , a n a ly s is & d ia g n o s is … 8. m a n a g e m e n t & p la n n in g e v a lu a ti o n … 9. s a fe & e ff e c ti v e tr e a tm e n t… level 1: scoping. describe the depth, breadth and purpose of the clo, and the key skills required. level 2: enabling. perform the requisite skills by applying them to simple, directed tasks. level 3: integrating. apply a combination of skills in a cohesive manner to solve problems within own discipline. level 4: relating. evaluate new multidisciplinary situations, and devise and implement solutions by applying a combination of skills, at beginning practitioner level. raspovic, a. & pannan, l. (2013). practical steps and collegiality in the building of podiatry curricula to meet accreditation and health sector employability demands journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 4(1), 58—72. 65 process for populating the podiatry course learning outcomes matrix the next stage was to draft the ability statements for each clo at the four cognitive levels. the last row of the matrix was embarked on first. this row presents the relating level, where expectations of students’ capabilities and attributes upon graduation are articulated. once again several resources were considered in creating the initial statements, with close attention to incorporating elements and performance criteria of each anzpac competency standard, the health sciences graduate attributes and emerging university graduate capabilities. informal consultation occurred with podiatry staff as a gauge of the appropriateness of the directions of the document. once these graduate level abilities were defined, the course coordinator drafted ability statements for the scoping, enabling and integrating levels in consultation with the faculty education/curriculum designer. a first draft document was created. the consultations that followed were very important to developing an early version of the podiatry course learning outcomes matrix. several day long meetings were held with podiatry academic staff to consider debate, alter and qualify the ability statements underpinning clo 6-9, with those for clo 1-5 already defined as part of the health sciences graduate attributes. several drafts were written, each one refining the wording, scope and intent. then the views of pecac were canvassed, including student and broad stakeholder representation. as the document was substantially informed by the profession’s competency standards, it was felt that the clos and ability statements were, by design, a good reflection of the views of the profession, the podiatry regulatory authority and accreditation agency. the validity of this assumption would be duly tested during the formal podiatry course accreditation process. this period of consultation and redraft saw the final version of the current podiatry clo descriptors and matrix developed. the matrix document lists nine clos, each containing between three and seven ability statements at each of the four cognitive levels. a total of 152 sequenced ability statements eventuated. these were written cognisant that early level abilities should reflect aqf level 5 ability and later ones mostly aqf level 9. the accuracy of this delineation was cross checked later when the delivery of respective clos was mapped to course year level, however no further adjustment of the complexity of outcome ability statements was warranted. figure 2 gives an example of one of the fully populated clo columns, revealing its learning path in the form of a sequence of ability statements. stage two: embedding podiatry course learning outcomes by curriculum mapping embedding and mapping the podiatry clos through each year and subject of the podiatry courses involved a process of assigning each clo’s set of ability statements to relevant sequences of subjects. this occurred alongside an iterative process of developing fine grain learning outcomes for each subject. a systematic approach that would be sustainable over time was required to ensure outcomes were sequentially delivered, re-enforced, extended and assessed. the literature reports many ways to embed and map curriculum objectives and collectively these were consulted throughout development of the process (harden, 2001; sumison & goodfellow, 2004; robley, whittle & murdoch-eaton, 2005; kelley et al., 2008b; spencer, riddle & knewstubb, 2012). the approach adopted followed a step wise focus by year, subject and discrete subject intended learning outcomes (subject ilos). at this stage the curriculum was developed to the stage where subjects had been created in each year, with notional ideas about what each subject aimed to achieve. subject coordinators and staff had gone some way to proposing subject ilos although this was a work in progress. through a series of intensive staff workshops, the first undertaking was to approximate the year level/s with the expected clo cognitive levels and determine where the learning for raspovic, a. & pannan, l. (2013). practical steps and collegiality in the building of podiatry curricula to meet accreditation and health sector employability demands journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 4(1), 58—72. 66 figure 2: learning path for podiatry course learning outcome 6, patient interview and assessment. qualitative description of course learning outcome 6. patient interview & assessment podiatry graduates are expected to be able to conduct contextually sensitive history taking and assessments to evaluate the patient’s podiatric presentation. level 1: scoping i. describe the defined normal range of structure and function of the foot and lower limb ii. describe the purpose of collecting patient history, conducting assessment, and tailoring of the patient consultation to the individual’s needs, the situation and setting iii. list the range of questions and assessment techniques that may apply to podiatric consultation iv. describe the features of a clinically useful assessment technique, such as reliability, validity, sensitivity, specificity, and predictive capacity. v. define characteristics of the patient, situation and / or setting that may influence the process of interview and assessment level 2: enabling i. formulate a set of interview questions for a given patient ii. describe the purpose and features, such as reliability and validity, of specific assessment techniques iii. perform patient interview and document history iv. safely perform assessment techniques to provide clinically useful information v. list limitations of specific assessment techniques and suggest alternative options where available level 3: integrating i. select and justify the choice of questions used in the patient interview ii. select and justify choice of assessment techniques for a given patient iii. present and explain assessment results iv. discuss why the defined normal and abnormal ranges of structure and function may or may not correlate with a patient’s presenting complaint v. relate patient history and assessment findings to the patient’s presentation level 4: relating i. conduct contextually sensitive interviews and safely assess patients with a range of needs, in a variety of contexts and settings, to produce clinically useful information. ii. interpret patient history and clinical diagnostic assessments to establish initial clinical impressions. iii. refer patient for further diagnostic investigations, in light of the patient’s needs, the situation and the setting. raspovic, a. & pannan, l. (2013). practical steps and collegiality in the building of podiatry curricula to meet accreditation and health sector employability demands journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 4(1), 58—72. 67 each clo ability would primarily be addressed. at times the location was relatively obvious,for example, structure of the foot would naturally be first addressed in anatomy subjects, however the location for delivery of other ability components was less clear. this also saw the initial stage of gap and cross over identification. all ability statements were colour coded according to the year level in which they were primarily addressed, providing an immediate visual of the sequencing of subject delivery (figure 2). as expected, the lower level clo abilities tended to map to the start of the courses and the more complex outcomes resided in subjects at the end of the courses. disparate sequencing of clo abilities or delivery of outcomes too soon or too late in the courses could be easily considered through this powerful visual representation. gaps and overlaps in the curriculum, plus inconsistencies in sequencing, could be identified and corrected. key events at a program level were identified, such as readiness for external clinical placement, allowing identification of the abilities that were required to be achieved prior to students going off-campus to undertake practice-based learning as a member of a fully functioning clinical environment (i.e. hospitals, community health services, private podiatry practice). the next stage was to orientate each clo to subject/s and consider how the larger scope course outcome would be interpreted in the finer grain subject context. this interpretation was then used to write or adapt subject ilos by contextualising and sometimes directly incorporating relevant clo ability statements. this ensured the course outcome was adequately embedded within the subject. subject ilos are relatively detailed statements, affording subject coordinators a high level of flexibility and autonomy when marrying the course requirements with the vision of discrete subject goals. an example of how subject ilos were structured and worded is offered in figure 3. embedding the clos into subject ilos throughout the courses was systematically undertaken for each clo learning path, from cognitive level 1 to 4, with adjustments made to amend black holes in the curriculum and unnecessary cross over. in reality this stage took several weeks and re-drafts, with much debate over content, scope, logistics, resourcing, integration, and bridging the theory-practice nexus. important discourse opened up between staff on curriculum issues that tended not to be considered previously, as can happen when this level of introspective practice occurs. this stimulation of collaboration and collegiality is identified in the literature as a characteristic of the process (uchiyama & radin, 2009). figure 3: a sample subject intended learning outcome (at aqf level 9) subject intended learning outcome 2 (for subject 1) on successful completion of this subject, you should be able to: nominate and justify assessments required for diagnosis of a patient and, given the results, diagnose the patient and classify their risk of developing serious foot-related complications from diabetes mellitus, and neurological and vascular disorders of relevance. you should be able to: 1. identify a comprehensive testing plan for a given patient presentation, 2. diagnose serious complications, including ulceration, infection, charcot’s neuroarthropathy, chronic limb ischaemia and chronic venous insufficiency, from a selection of relevant indicators, 3. classify risk for serious foot complications based on assessment and other related clinically important findings, 4. justify the need for further assessment, such as diagnostic imaging, pathology and other diagnostic testing, based on a patient’s presentation and individual circumstances. raspovic, a. & pannan, l. (2013). practical steps and collegiality in the building of podiatry curricula to meet accreditation and health sector employability demands journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 4(1), 58—72. 68 when the podiatry clos had been fully embedded across the courses, and appropriately contextualised in subjects, teaching and learning activities and assessment tasks were systematically aligned with discrete subject ilos. this process provides clear demonstration of the discrete learning opportunities through the course for students to build up and attain clos that, by design, are inclusive of the profession’s (anzpac) competency standards. furthermore, it shows consecutive, repeated and systematic assessment of each student’s progress in developing and achieving the clos, providing convincing evidence that the final clos are successfully attained. this final step in the process goes explicitly to avoiding the fundamental issue identified by bath and colleagues (2007) whereby the espoused, the enacted and the learnt curriculum are different enough that the original intent has not been met. the curriculum documents documentation of the entire process is an important component of the approach used as it provides a tangible representation of the ‘living curriculum’. a formal record of the ‘point in time curriculum’ can be used for several purposes and serves as the platform that will be revised and revisited as a record of curriculum evolution. curriculum documents, systematically linking course outcomes to year levels, subjects, discrete subject ilos, teaching and learning activities, and assessment tasks were produced. the course curriculum map is the overarching curriculum document, showing pathways between clos and subject ilos. an example section provided in figure 4 demonstrates how this is structured, and shows how each subject contributes to the learning and assessment of level 3 abilities in the clo 6 learning path seen in figure 2. figure 4: section of the podiatry course curriculum map: integrating level of clo 6 (patient interview & assessment) subject ilos that address the course learning outcome abilities underpinning each course learning outcome subject 1* subject 2 all subjects listed → 6. patient interview & assessment level 3: integrating 6.3.i. select and justify the choice of questions used in the patient interview 2a 1a x 6.3.ii. select and justify choice of assessment techniques for a given patient 2a 2a,b x 6.3.iii. present and explain assessment results 2b 2b,c,d x 6.3.iv. discuss why the defined normal and abnormal ranges of structure and function may or may not correlate with a patient’s presenting complaint 2b 3a, 3d x 6.3.v. relate patient history and assessment findings to the patient’s presentation 2b, 2c 3a,b; 4a,c x *note: figure 3 above gives detail of ilo 2 for subject 1. raspovic, a. & pannan, l. (2013). practical steps and collegiality in the building of podiatry curricula to meet accreditation and health sector employability demands journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 4(1), 58—72. 69 examples of how the curriculum map is used routinely include reporting in student subject learning guides. relevant parts of the first two columns in figure 4 may be used to communicate how their subject’s ilos align to clo learning paths, for example, and linking this with assessment tasks indicates where they are evaluated. alternatively, it can be provided in its entirety to regulatory and accreditation bodies as evidence towards achieving intended course goals. considerations for evaluation, successes achieved and lessons learnt the final consideration in this case study is around evaluation of the approach described and the success of what was done. the key outcomes in this case are concerned with the effectiveness of the courses in ensuring comprehensive, aligned learning and producing graduates who are well prepared for the demands of industry. by default, it is taken that if these outcomes are achieved, the process must be appropriate. if the outcomes are not met, then the aspects of the curriculum approach and process responsible require identification and modification in order to refine the process. evaluation of key outcomes can be undertaken as a multifaceted activity, through critical analyses arising from both routine, ongoing curriculum maintenance, for example; annual subject and course reviews, and quality activities designed to specifically ascertain the overall integrity of a course and its ability to achieve required course outcomes. the latter might include feedback from placement supervisors on student ability/competence, data from employers on work readiness and abilities of new graduates, and feedback from graduates after a period of employment around whether the courses were complete, well-sequenced and aligned with industry expectations. evaluation of the process itself might include a critical review involving gathering feedback from staff and other key people who participated in the curriculum review process. a significant indicator that the aims of curriculum re-design were fulfilled in this case is that the courses have been granted accreditation up to 2018 by the respective professional accreditation authority, the australian and new zealand podiatry accreditation council (anzpac). further support is given regarding the suitability of the curriculum as the national professional registration authority, the podiatry board of australia, has accepted anzpac’s accreditation recommendations and also approved the courses. that is, graduates of the courses are deemed suitably qualified to legally register for practice as a podiatrist in australia. informally, feedback from students, teaching staff and external clinical supervisors has been positive in terms of the students’ knowledge and skill level as it relates to their expected level of clinical practice. several lessons have been learnt through undertaking this process that might be of use to others planning a similar project. firstly, there were resource implications. prolonged periods of staff time were required to design and develop the curricula, including several day long sessions and independent preparation in between. experienced discipline staff were pivotal to the success of the process, although it is these people who were often the busiest and least able to afford ongoing effort due to competing commitments. and for this reason, staff buy-in was essential. the podiatry staff were aware of the purpose and importance of what was being done and therefore gave dedicated contributions. in addition, this process aligned with organisational directives at the time which created good incentive to participate. it was also found to be important to have dedicated support and assistance from an objective person with educational awareness, to drive the project in a guided and timely manner. ideally, this person would be available to continue involvement until first graduates were finished. the final lesson learnt is that it is essential that the completion of the initial project is followed with a well laid out plan for curriculum maintenance and ongoing review. given the dynamic nature of factors involved in the evolution of a curriculum, a routine method for review is required to avoid associated documentation becoming out dated and irrelevant. raspovic, a. & pannan, l. (2013). practical steps and collegiality in the building of podiatry curricula to meet accreditation and health sector employability demands journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 4(1), 58—72. 70 conclusion this paper provides a practical description of a process adopted to identify, embed and evidence clos throughout two vocationally orientated health sciences courses. it offers insights on anticipated and unexpected outcomes experienced during the design and development of the curricula. from an overall perspective this process was about enhancing educational quality in a rapidly changing world, through increasing transparency and accountability. and while there is a level of risk that prescriptive curriculum processes might encourage deductive and reductionist thinking, the experience was the opposite where the potential of what could be achieved created new and exciting possibilities. in addition, the process created opportunities for collegial discussion and debate on podiatry curriculum issues that are unlikely to have occurred to the same extent otherwise. both the faculty of health sciences curriculum design processes and the institutional design for learning initiative support the practice of ‘explicit and systematic learning design’ and in doing so promote clear communication, articulated minimum expectations and fairness through sound design. the effects of this aligned curriculum design process have had far reaching effect on the curricula, including a practical role in the classroom environment. and while it remains a work in progress and will require caretaking to ensure its currency and ongoing utility, this has proven a highly valuable exercise for the courses, students and staff. maintenance and development of the curriculum map and associated resources/processes will form a key element of the department of podiatry’s curriculum strategic plan. further positive impact of this undertaking is also evident as the courses have been granted accreditation up to 2018 by the respective professional accreditation authority, the australian and new zealand podiatry accreditation council (anzpac) and this recommendation has been accepted by the australian regulatory authority for podiatrists, the podiatry board of australia. acknowledgments we wish to acknowledge staff from the faculty of health sciences at la trobe university, who generously donated their time, wisdom and enthusiasm to see this project to a successful completion: associate professor fitzmaurice, dr adam bird, joanna barrett, daniel bonanno, matthew cotchett, nicoletta frescos, dr karl landorf, dr shannon munteanu, dr george murley, nikolaos nikolopoulos, craig payne and byron perrin. raspovic, a. & pannan, l. (2013). practical steps and collegiality in the building of podiatry curricula to meet accreditation and health sector employability demands journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 4(1), 58—72. 71 references assessing & assuring graduate learning outcomes (aaglo) project. (2011). aaglo summary 3: challenges of assessing graduate learning outcomes (glos) in workbased contexts. retrieved february 8, 2013, from http://www.itl.usyd.edu.au/projects/aaglo/pdf/aaglo_summary%203_final.pdf australian and new zealand podiatry accreditation council (anzpac). (2009a – updated 2012). australian and new zealand podiatry accreditation council podiatry competency standards for australia and new zealand. retrieved october 2, 2013, from http://www.anzpac.org.au/accreditation.html australian and new zealand podiatry accreditation council (anzpac). 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(2004). beyond mapping and embedding graduate attributes: bringing together quality assurance and action learning to create a validated and living curriculum. higher education research & development, 23(3), 313—328. biggs, j. & tang, c. (2007). teaching for quality learning at university. (3rd ed.). berkshire, england: mcgraw hill. bowden, j., hart, g., king, b., trigwell, k. & watts, o. (2000). generic capabilities of atn university graduates. final report to detya, teaching and learning committee, australian technology network. brooks, p. (2011). health workforce issues for podiatry. journal of foot and ankle research, 4(suppl 1), i2. faculty of health sciences 2009. health sciences graduate attributes matrix: developing the attributes. faculty of health sciences intranet, la trobe university, viewed 8th february 2013, https://intranet.latrobe.edu.au/health/teaching-and-learning/subjects forrester, k. & griffiths, d. 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(2005). mapping generic skills curricula: outcomes and discussion. journal of further and higher education, 29(4), 321—330. schnock, w. (1989). annotations to the history of chiropody-podiatry in victoria 1929-1979. malvern, victoria, australia: walter schnock. spencer, d., riddle, m. & knewstubb, b. (2012). curriculum mapping to embed graduate capabilities. higher education research & development, 31(2) 217—231. sumsion, j. & goodfellow, j. (2004). identifying generic skills through curriculum mapping: a critical evaluation. higher education research & development, 23(3) 329—346. tertiary education quality standards agency (teqsa). (2011). developing a framework for teaching and learning standards in australian higher education and the role of teqsa: discussion paper. retrieved february 8, 2013, from <http://www.innovation.gov.au/highereducation/policy/tertiaryeducationqualityandstan dardsagency/documents/teqsa/teaching_learning_discussion_paper.pdf> uchiyama, k. & radin, j. (2009). curriculum mapping in higher education: a vehicle for collaboration. innovative higher education, 33, 271—280. http://www.latrobe.edu.au/about/downloads/dfl-booklet.pdf http://www.latrobe.edu.au/about/vision http://www.olt.gov.au/resource-assuring-graduate-outcomes-curtin-2011 http://www.innovation.gov.au/highereducation/policy/tertiaryeducationqualityandstandardsagency/documents/teqsa/teaching_learning_discussion_paper.pdf http://www.innovation.gov.au/highereducation/policy/tertiaryeducationqualityandstandardsagency/documents/teqsa/teaching_learning_discussion_paper.pdf abstract introduction a changing regulatory landscape in health changing contemporary health care practice, and future needs a fundamental shift in higher education from input to outcome opportunities to strengthen curriculum aligns with institutional curriculum renewal the curriculum design process stage one: developing the podiatry course learning outcomes (clos) figure 1: a shell illustrating the layout of the podiatry course learning outcomes matrix. stage two: embedding podiatry course learning outcomes by curriculum mapping figure 2: learning path for podiatry course learning outcome 6, patient interview and assessment. figure 3: a sample subject intended learning outcome (at aqf level 9) the curriculum documents figure 4: section of the podiatry course curriculum map: integrating level of clo 6 (patient interview & assessment) considerations for evaluation, successes achieved and lessons learnt conclusion references 1539 dean (final) dean, b.a. et al. (2022). career development learning in the curriculum: what is an academic’s role? journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 13(1), 142–154. 142 the journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability issn: 1838-3815 (online) journal homepage: https://ojs.deakin.edu.au/index.php/jtlge/ career development learning in the curriculum: what is an academic’s role? bonnie amelia dean1, sarah ryan1, tracey glover-chambers 1, conor west 1, michelle j. eady1, venkata yanamandram 1, tracey moroney 1, and nuala o’donnell 1 corresponding author: bonnie dean (bonnie_dean@uow.edu.au) 1university of wollongong abstract career development learning (cdl) is an approach to developing student employability that enables students to reflect on and plan their future careers through engaging in activities outside or within their degree. building on literature arguing for the benefits of integrating cdl within curriculum, this study examines academics’ perceived roles facilitating cdl. informed by the principles and processes of interpretive phenomenological analysis (ipa), 55 academics were interviewed from one institution, enabling responses to be examined through a common lens of teaching, policy and governance structures. findings demonstrate that while some participants broadly understood the value of cdl, the term cdl is not well known. further, while cdl strategies within teaching contexts occur, they are mostly unplanned or dialogic. this paper presents a taxonomy of current practice, featuring 11 diverse roles for facilitating cdl within curriculum grouped as absent, implicit and explicit approaches. the paper offers recommendations for a university-wide agenda for employability that features cdl strategies embedded across core curricula. keywords career development learning; employability; career readiness; higher education; academics introduction universities are placing greater attention on how they prepare students for their lives beyond graduation and for the world of work (jackson & bridgstock, 2021). supporting students to reach their career goals is an increasingly common strategic priority, with graduate employment data featured prominently in university rankings, government funding processes and university marketing campaigns (healy et al., 2020). to improve graduate employment outcomes, students need to understand the vagaries of the labour market, recruitment processes, and the employability value of their degree (smith et al., 2018). employability relates to the development of attributes, qualities and skills considered essential to employers (yorke, 2004). during university studies, employability is viewed as a learning process of self-awareness and reflection, impacted by personal qualities and situational factors that progress a graduate’s ability to achieve employment and career goals (divan et al., 2019; smith et al., 2018). employability has been described as a ‘moral duty’ for higher education providers, and a key return on significant private and public investments (artess et al., 2017). it offers dean, b.a. et al. (2022). career development learning in the curriculum: what is an academic’s role? journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 13(1), 142–154. 143 universities ‘political legitimacy’ by helping students realise their potential, become effective workers and global citizens (artess et al., 2017). to engage students in developing employability skills, knowledge and experiences, academics and university professionals implement a range of approaches and strategies, for example work-integrated learning (wil) and co-curricular experiences (jackson & dean, 2022). one of the key elements to approach the development of graduate employability includes teaching students about career options, tools, and possibilities (bridgstock, 2009). career development learning (cdl) centralises purposeful strategies and interventions to ‘help individuals self-actualise, transition to the labour market, make the best use of their skills and knowledge and live happy and fulfilled lives’ (artess et al., 2017, p. 39). while cdl has been described as a crucial and interdependent component of employability (dacre pool & sewell, 2007; watts, 2006), approaches to enacting cdl vary across institutions. recent research demonstrates cdl strategies integrated into curriculum and experienced as part of a degree program, rather than as separate or in addition to a student’s studies, can positively impact graduate employability (jackson & bridgstock, 2021). yet, this approach can also surface challenges, as it moves the responsibility for teaching career skills into an academic’s portfolio. this paper builds on previous work that explores the challenges and opportunities of embedding cdl into curriculum (bridgstock et al., 2019) and the attitudes and practices of academics in non-vocational degrees for teaching work-integrated learning strategies and career development (amiet et al., 2020; lloyd et al., 2022). our research addresses a gap regarding academics’ perceptions and understandings of cdl, across disciplines, including how they see their responsibility for teaching career development. it seeks to conceptualise and organise these diverse roles in order to better understand how students experience cdl facilitated by academics and to consequently offer recommendations to offer a more purposeful strategy around career development. two core research questions are proposed: what are academics’ understandings of cdl? and, how do academics perceive their role for facilitating cdl in their subjects? this paper first turns to unpack cdl literature including what we already know about how academics perceive their roles. next, the study and results are presented before offering a taxonomy to represent the range of roles academics assume integrating cdl in curriculum. the paper closes with implications for higher education providers. career development learning cdl describes strategies and approaches that aim to personalise higher education by enhancing awareness of the relationship between discipline studies, wil, and personal aspirations to support decision-making through work and life (mcilveen et al., 2011). it has been defined as, ‘the process of managing life, learning, work, leisure, and transitions across the lifespan in order to move towards a personally determined future’ (career industry council of australia, 2019, p. 27). cdl empowers students to reflect on all aspects of their university experience and make sense of those experiences in terms of their future career, to inform career decisions and action plans. as such, it is a crucial element of employability and an enabler for individuals to recognise the value of a wide range of experiences and skills: disciplinary learning, extraand co-curricular learning, wil, service learning, previous career experience and part-time work and use this to make informed career decisions (dacre pool and sewell, 2007; artess et al., 2017). cdl engages students in self-assessment to appraise their priorities and relate situated learning to their future career or profession. examples of cdl might include identifying personal skills, knowledge and interests and evaluating priorities, developing strategies for searching career opportunities, using tools for networking, showcasing strengths and creating short/medium term career action plans. as a self-managed process, cdl aligns with educational approaches that employ reflection, critical thinking and application of knowledge and skills to make meaning connections to work and career (mcilveen dean, b.a. et al. (2022). career development learning in the curriculum: what is an academic’s role? journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 13(1), 142–154. 144 et al., 2011). cdl has been shown to have positive effects for graduate outcomes and employability (watts, 2006), and confidence in making career decisions (brown et al., 2019). although current cdl approaches and definitions (see career industry council of australia 2019) espousing personalised, life-long philosophies are widely accepted and endorsed within higher education, earlier approaches to career education upheld different principles. earlier approaches to career education, spanning across organisation and educational contexts, sought to match a person with their environment (or vocation) often through psychometric methods (mcilveen & patton, 2006). assumptions underpinning these traditional concepts of career typically centralised cognitive processes, or approaches where occupation is singular and where types of people are suited to certain jobs (isaacson & brown, 1993). such philosophies and practices have been critiqued over the years to draw out problems with measuring or predicting a person’s career (smith et al., 2018). shifts in our concepts of work in the post-industrial era require a more flexible, constructivist approach to careers guidance to enable flexibility, afford greater agency, and recognise personal and social outcomes (hooley & dodd, 2015; patton, 2006). from these critiques, a call to action surfaces towards a reflexive approach that enables broader realisations of career (mcilveen & patton, 2006). in the higher education context today, a reflexive approach to employability is necessary to build graduates’ capabilities and skills for navigating labour market complexity (buchanan et al., 2022). graduates who understand and apply the wider value of their qualifications through transferable skills and knowledge, will be better equipped to succeed in a dynamic economic conditions and distributed workplace environments (bayerlein et al., 2021; daubney, 2021). most universities offer career services, where qualified practitioners support students in career related decisions and goals (donald et al., 2019). these centres work closely alongside or within faculties to provide bespoke advice and resources, a source of collaborative expertise and relationship with students, academics and industry (bridgstock et al., 2019). the most recent and significant shift, however, is the move to integrate cdl within the curriculum. cdl in the curriculum integrating cdl into curriculum, where it is facilitated by the staff who teach students, has been argued as an effective approach for engaging students in career processes (ameit et al., 2020; bridgstock, 2009; bridgstock et al., 2019). teaching staff are viewed by students as disciplinary experts and a key source for career advice and information. students have reported that they expect academic staff to assist with their career development (bennett et al., 2016). supporting students’ selfawareness and applications of knowledge towards future worlds of work within discipline studies promotes the relevance of their learning. however, bridgstock et al. (2019) point out that the integration of cdl into curriculum is challenging. they highlight that an employability focus may reduce space for academic autonomy, as it positions academics to undertake a service that they do not see as part of their role, expects more to be added to an over-crowded curricula, and requires those with a lack of expertise to facilitate cdl (bridgstock et al., 2019). to address these concerns, bridgstock et al. (2019) recommend a whole-of-course model for cdl in curricula as an iterative and reflective process of career identity building from first year progressing through the higher education journey. academic’s roles in student cdl cdl has not traditionally been part of academic positions, nor is it typically incorporated into formal education or accreditation of higher education programs. historically, it has not been recognised in workload tools or probation or promotion processes (bennett et al., 2016; hustler et al., 1998). it is no wonder then, that academics have identified barriers and challenges to implementing cdl. for over dean, b.a. et al. (2022). career development learning in the curriculum: what is an academic’s role? journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 13(1), 142–154. 145 two decades, researchers have found that most academics believe it is not their role to be specifically involved with preparing students for employment (hustler et al, 1998). in recent years, however, studies have found academics to be more amenable to incorporating employability and cdl in their courses (amiet et al., 2020; sin et al., 2019). sin et al. (2019) for example, explored the perceptions of 70 academics in portugal, to report degrees of acceptance of the broader employability agenda. they noted discipline differences, with business and engineering academics more accepting of learning for employability, while those teaching in arts disciplines, prioritised academic learning. all academics however, engaged in teaching practices associated with developing employability, where ‘employability, although not a guiding principle, may be a consequence of their pedagogical practices determined by their understanding of employability as ‘ability’ and not as ‘employment’ (sin et al., 2019, p. 929). in an australian study, amiet et al. (2020) found that most academics believed cdl to be the responsibility of all university staff. they investigated the attitudes towards cdl of 27 academics in three non-vocational undergraduate health-science degree programs. their study highlighted that although willing, academics lacked confidence in careers advising as many had limited industry experience. it recommended that cdl be formally recognised in position descriptions and promotional guidelines. ameit at al’s (2020) study also suggests academics have a key role in supporting their students’ career development, but require appropriate support, recognition and training. the importance and increased involvement of academics in cdl, leads to further inquiry into academics’ perceptions and lived experiences of their roles. the research in this paper, therefore builds on previous work to investigate academics’ perceptions of their role facilitating cdl in their classes. methodology this study employs the principles and processes of interpretive phenomenological analysis (ipa) (smith et al., 2009). ipa is conducive to our study, as it offers a qualitative approach that is less concerned with a means of analysis, and more in favour of better understanding the participant who is trying to make sense of their experiences (smith et al., 2009). as a methodology therefore, ‘ipa shares the views that human beings are sense-making creatures, and therefore the accounts which participants provide will reflect their attempts to make sense of their experience’ (smith et al., 2009, p. 4). ipa research studies adopt purposive sampling approaches, with participants selected from a homogenous sample. smith et al. (2009) highlight that the homogeneity of research participants enables rich and descriptively deep analytical insights that allow researchers to examine convergence and divergence in detail. while the homogeneity of the sample in ipa studies may differ (smith et al., 2009), in this study, homogeneity referred to selecting participants within the same institution, who teach within an institutional context with the same overarching practices and policies of cdl, this enabled responses to be examined through a common lens of teaching, policy and governance structures. therefore, the sample in our study, consisted of 55 academics from across disciplines (see table 1) within a regional, research-intensive australian university. drawing participants from the same institution allowed for the data to be analysed within the same teaching, policy and governance context. dean, b.a. et al. (2022). career development learning in the curriculum: what is an academic’s role? journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 13(1), 142–154. 146 table 1: participants and disciplines discipline vocational/ non-vocational no. participants data labelling (participant no.) nutrition science vocational 15 p01-p15 business administration vocational 7 p16-p22 geography non-vocational 8 p23-p30 maths non-vocational 7 p31-p37 history non-vocational 6 p38-p43 physics non-vocational 5 p44-p48 criminology non-vocational 4 p49-p52 sociology non-vocational 3 p53-p55 total 55 the disciplines were identified by senior academic administrators to represent a mix between vocational and non-vocational courses. given amiet et al.’s (2020) interest in academic’s perceptions in non-vocational degrees, we felt the breadth across disciplines, both vocational and non-vocational, is more representative of a university-wide context and will build on the findings on their study. aligned with ipa, semi-structured interviews were conducted. with ethical approval from the university’s human research ethics committee (hrec 2019/123), one research assistant conducted 45-60 minute interviews with 55 academics. participants were asked open-ended questions about their subject, and their perceptions and experiences with cdl. two main questions were proposed: (1) what is your understanding of cdl? and, (2) what do you see is your role in facilitating cdl? these questions aim to unpack participants’ perceptions of/attitudes towards their own involvement with career development learning. the main questions were followed by probing to focus the participant on topics raised and to uncover the elements that made up each concept. respondent debriefing was conducted at the end of all interviews, where the interviewer clarified statements, highlighted key points, and asked for feedback on the interview process in order to engage in reciprocal reflection. this process of reflection and clarification helped establish credibility in the data (lincoln & guba, 1985). as the collected data set was large, a series of steps for analysis were taken. data was initially analysed by two researchers who read through each participant’s accounts, engaging in discussion, and noting any interesting observations. next, the research team independently read 12 participants’ transcriptions and developed notes or codes based on common ideas or patterns that remained close to participant’s own words, employing a clear phenomenological focus. the research team next met to discuss their observations, noting anything of further interest and allowed a set of descriptive and exploratory comments to be developed (smith et al., 2009). these were developed into codes and used to analyse data through nvivo. then, a small group of four researchers analysed the data set to develop these codes into themes. themes and patterns within and across each participant’s experiences were explored and organised into groups as the researchers searched for connections and areas of difference. in our analysis, we were concerned with notions of trustworthiness and were informed by schwartzshea’s (2006) concepts for evaluating interpretive, qualitative data. this included conducting the project with ethical considerations and approvals and ensuring all participants’ transcripts were dean, b.a. et al. (2022). career development learning in the curriculum: what is an academic’s role? journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 13(1), 142–154. 147 member-checked and included the opportunity to expand and evaluate the accuracy of data. schwartz-shea (2006) recommends reflexivity is essential to evaluating qualitative data, and therefore our analysis included iterations of discussion, reading and reflections on data. findings this section comprises two parts based on the two core research questions. the first section outlines academics’ familiarity and understanding of the term cdl. the second section expands on participants’ diverse responses, reflecting on their role to include cdl into the subjects they design and teach, and organises these into themes. academic’s understanding of cdl several participants demonstrated an understanding of cdl as it linked to employability, broad skill development, lifelong learning, engaging students in reflections on career and developing professional identities. however, the dominant narrative across the data was that, as both a term and concept, cdl was unfamiliar. for some academics, the broad sentiments and goals of cdl were ascribe to, even though the specific term had not been used or was unknown to them. one academic who said they were unfamiliar with cdl, made the following comment, ‘i don't want to make that binary distinction between the real world and the learning world, but i feel like there needs to be a stronger sense of connection to the potential pathways that [the students] will take’ (p24). another academic acknowledged there was little to no focus on helping students learn cdl concepts, however, went on to mention, ‘by the nature of it, being a professional subject… career is always at the fore of mind for these students’ (p05). one academic was very clear that they had never heard the term cdl, stating, ‘wouldn't have a clue within the context of how you're talking about it’ (p18). yet after hearing the definition (we offered the definition above by career industry council of australia, 2019), this academic gave a specific description in their teaching that included reflection, which is vital in cdl, ‘… at the end of each module, [the students] are encouraged to write three takeaways, so three things that they have learned from that particular class or that resonated with them, or that they’re going to use moving forward’ (p18). there were also academics who described the term cdl as a form of ‘jargon’ (p22), as ‘vague’ (p29), ‘diffuse’ (p31) and as ‘not a term that i relate to’ (p2). despite saying they had not heard of cdl, some academics attempted to make links based on the term, ‘presumably it's about helping students to understand how to build a career and […] develop a career path?’ (p25) and, ‘i suspect it probably relates to the idea of students learning about things that will be applicable for their future careers’ (p06). others were more enthusiastic about the term: i think it sounds like a great idea because i know a lot of students struggle finding a job when they finish the degree, and somehow my impression is that that [cdl] is trying to help them in these steps, right? (p31). overall, academics had mostly limited understandings of cdl as a term although were able to unpack certain practices that aligned to the characteristics of cdl strategies. various perspectives for facilitating cdl overall, analysis revealed eleven key themes across the data that describes participants’ involvement in teaching with cdl. 1. academics are not career advisors dean, b.a. et al. (2022). career development learning in the curriculum: what is an academic’s role? journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 13(1), 142–154. 148 marking a clear distinction between the role of an academic and the responsibilities of a career advisor, several academics were resolute, ‘i don’t see that it’s our role necessarily to be doing career advice, there are people employed in the university for that purpose’ (p13), and another, ‘well i don’t know that that is my job. i don’t think it can be. i don’t know that i can fit another layer of responsibility in’ (p29). others deflected, ‘what do i know? they should see a career development person’ (p41) or mulled over their position, ‘we're not necessarily offering them career suggestions because we're not career advisors’ (p19). 2. academics are not equipped to support cdl the notion that cdl requires specific skills and experiences was highlighted given one academic’s employment at the university, stating ‘i’m also a career academic. i haven’t done anything else outside of being an academic’ (p52). another reflected on their own experiences, finding them confronting, ‘i will find myself being asked to give advice on things ... i’m really guessing, and i feel a little bit of an imposter around certain components’ (p27) and further expanded, ‘we can sometimes be put in positions where we’re looked to for expert understanding that we may or may not have’ (p27). reflecting on other academics as career advisors also drew out strong feelings about advising on working in industry: some academics would not have the first clue what it [cdl] involves because they have never done it. they have an academic career. it would be a mistake to assume that all academics are capable or interested in helping students develop their career (p32). 3. academics are career realists the hostility of the labour market and changing nature of work was motivation for some to comment on the complexity of finding work after graduation, ‘i barely mention what kind of opportunity they are going to have in that subject because i know that 15% of them, they will never make it’ (p44). another more encouraging response normalised the complexity: i can appreciate that students are keen to get out there and get into the workforce and get some stability in a career. but sometimes, life isn't that straightforward and to be okay with that and to know that sometimes you pursue many paths, and you still get there in the end … and that's okay (p11). 4. academics are cautious about curriculum replacements the presence of cdl in curriculum was met with caution for some, who saw it as competing with an already packed curriculum, ‘i just become a bit afraid that it starts to become a replacement for those more basic skills’ (p25). another academic warned not to spend too much time contemplating careers and rather develop broad skills in he, ‘because it becomes obsolete, or if not, you're going to find it in your textbook anyway’ (p44). 5. academics are focused on higher education the provision of university education was explored in relation to where cdl fits with the overall mission of higher education to increase knowledge and facilitate learning, ‘i don’t really think that the academic’s role is to develop careers for students. i think the academics role is to educate and provide environment in which students can learn and grow’ (p25). academics grappled with the distinction of higher education and institutions for learning work skills, ‘but this not is not tafe right? i mean that’s the definition of the university. that it is knowledge, it’s not working skills’ (p44) and ‘if that’s what the world wants maybe the university is not the institution we need so much anymore’ (p29). one academic pondered the duality of university learning and learning for work, ‘i want my graduates to dean, b.a. et al. (2022). career development learning in the curriculum: what is an academic’s role? journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 13(1), 142–154. 149 get jobs when they’re finished, but i also want them to not see it [he] in such a utilitarian fashion’ (p52). 6. academics are cultivating global citizens concepts of growth, citizenship and social justice were prioritised by some academics, ‘my role is not to engage them in terms of career, but i think more broadly in terms of citizenship’ (p42) and ‘to understand the world in a different way and read the world in a different way’ (p52). this includes fostering diverse, global perspectives ‘[…] helping people to be really active and optimistic citizens […] going to take part in a broader national process […] i think being in university is as much real life as being out of it’ (p43). these perspectives centralise the development of students as global citizens, which although aligned to definitions of cdl, was not the explicit intention of the participant when discussed. 7. academics are champions of critical thinking skills making the connection to employability skills useful for future employment, academics pointed to the importance of critical thinking, ‘i think we have a mission to develop critical thinking, and just understanding of what the world is and how it works’ (p27) and ‘my job is to teach them to think critically, whether that’s about the subject material or politics or just life in general’ (p52). one academic reflected on the changing nature of work and the significance of generic skills: […] those kinds of skills are going to be important as jobs change. being able to think, and argue, analyse, talk, present, persuade. in the 50 years i have been in the workplace that has never changed, and i can’t see it changing […] i think that making them better learners, more sophisticated communicators, that’s worth doing (p40). 8. academics are informal mentors engaging students on a deeper level and providing mentoring was linked with supporting individuals and their careers, ‘academics don't engage with [students] as deeply as they could, and the students don't get that level of mentoring which i think they need to get. i try to fill in the gaps’ (p48). this role includes being open to students, ‘i think often it just comes when you develop a good rapport with students and they are feeling a bit lost, and they come to chat to you [… ] i am always happy to do that with students’ (p08), suggesting mentoring emerges as the need arises and in conversation or dialogue, rather than as a planned and formal opportunity. 9. academics are career cartographers several academics described their role as helping to demystify or map the workplace landscape. one academic said, ‘it's important to set them [students] on the right path and then just let them follow the path’ (p37). later they elaborated on this as capacity building: ‘i mainly see myself as the person that gives them a lot of tools they can use in their future career. and that's somehow, the way we as mathematician help them […] we are like tool providers’ (p37). another expressed how they show students what it means to be a professional, ‘i prefer to talk about being a professional rather than work. i tend to talk about what's the ingredients of being a professional, one of which is taking responsibility for what you do and responsibility for your further development’ (p32). 10. academics are curriculum and career connectors linking theory to applications in practice and possible jobs was a role many academics spoke about. for example, one academic said, ‘i try and pack in as many examples, real-world stuff, articles from the newspaper […] that will hopefully make them go, ‘oh. okay. here's what i can do with this thing’ (p8). another recalled, ‘i try and embed that when i'm teaching them, i always try and tell them, ‘this is how you would use it’ (p26). connecting learning directly to a profession, this academic explained, dean, b.a. et al. (2022). career development learning in the curriculum: what is an academic’s role? journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 13(1), 142–154. 150 ‘you can take this into a wide array of jobs. and this technique that you're learning, or this suite of techniques can be applied to a whole bunch of problems [...] that's what i try to do’ (p10). thinking about the future, one academic pondered, ‘[…] having it formally embedded […] there are definitely ways that i could do it and i would like to do more of it, definitely’ (p08). ‘these reflections indicate that links to cdl are dialogic and emerge during the practice of teaching, as verbal statements and examples. this is demonstrated by the ‘tell them’ phrases. other career connections may be more designed into the curriculum, such as the addition of ‘real-world’, resources that exemplify the topic in practice. 11. academics are career allies in this dialogic approach, academics also found themselves having conversations with students about careers. one academic stated, ‘having the kind of conversations on career path strategies and this kind of stuff to actually get to a job, or that specific job, is something which i think is more relevant for them [undergraduate students]’ (p42). another recalled a recent experience: i do often see people just for general chat about careers, like i had someone a couple of weeks ago that had read an article about there being no jobs for [our discipline] and so came in and was like, i am really nervous, and i am really worried, so we had a bit of a chat about different things you can do. (p08) through dialogue, teachers can elicit students’ concerns and understandings of their careers and offer advice and guidance. these academics make themselves explicitly available to individuals, often outside of class time, for discussions about career possibilities. discussion the findings suggest academics perceive that they are assuming a range of roles when it comes to supporting their students’ career development and employability. academics connected many of their existing behaviours, attitudes, and values in higher education to the cdl definition, although the term ‘career development learning’ was unfamiliar to many. discussion of cdl often evoked intense emotion in participants, who shared the realities of their role to justify an absence of cdl, an implicit provision of some cdl or a committed focus on explicitly supporting cdl. through the findings, we have observed these various levels of involvement with teaching cdl as falling within clusters of cdl practices, these are absent, implicit or explicit within curriculum. we present this as a taxonomy in figure 1. figure 1: taxonomy of academic’s perceived involvement in facilitating cdl dean, b.a. et al. (2022). career development learning in the curriculum: what is an academic’s role? journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 13(1), 142–154. 151 in this taxonomy, academics’ involvement and assumed roles in cdl were not found to be mutually exclusive or representative of an individual. rather, academics’ responses usually aligned with multiple roles within one area, denoting their general approach to cdl as absent, implicit, or explicit. for example, an academic who affirmed a focus on the role or purpose of higher education was likely to also express a focus on developing generic critical thinking skills for real world applications. although these activities connecting theory to practice, reflection, and development of generic skills are common pedagogical approaches, when used in the context of making connections to an individual’s future career options they could be summarised as potentially conveying either an unknowing or implicit approach to cdl. at times, academics would acknowledge their potential involvement in cdl did not align with their overall approach. however, these academics would then outline contextual barriers that would not allow them to enact this role. for example, while many academics approved to acting as career mentors to their students (i.e., explicit cdl), several identified workload and student numbers as barriers. academics showed varying levels of confidence and career knowledge to deliver meaningful cdl. aligning with previous research (amiet et al., 2020; hustler et al., 1998; sin et al., 2019), it is apparent from the discussions many academics did not see themselves as being career advisors nor did they feel equipped to provide career guidance. some academics did not appear to perceive their academic identity beyond that of a researcher and subject matter expert (winter, 2009), though several did draw on their own career experiences to communicate or advise students on career pathways available. this reluctance to embed cdl within teaching practice connects to broader tensions between traditional academic identities and perceptions of institutional pressure for reconstructed academic identities more aligned to economic concerns (dugas, et al., 2020), such as employment and employability. however, this reluctance may not be fixed, as dugas et al. (2020) found that academics’ job satisfaction was not determined by the amount of excessive workload, but whether the excessive workload expected of them was line with their own job priorities. within a lens of academic identities as responsive ‘unfinished project[s]’ (barrow, grant & xu, 2020, p. 241), this suggests that investing resources to develop a personally meaningful sense of cdl’s importance to academics is a crucial step to ensuring its inclusion in everyday learning and teaching. the findings suggest that while there are various degrees of involvement with cdl, the overwhelming majority of cdl activities are dialogic and informal, emerging during teaching delivery, rather than purposefully designed into curriculum. this was clear from the perceived implicit and explicit clusters that highlight conversations with students and the use of informal examples during teaching as the primary cdl practice, rather than purposefully designed cdl interventions. the spontaneous or unplanned inclusion of cdl reflect opportunities for academics to make planned links in the curriculum, including sense-making, self-reflection, decision making and action planning involved in ‘moving towards a personally determined future’ (career industry council of australia 2019, p. 27). it is these elements of cdl, that relate to all aspects of an individual’s situation, that have traditionally been the role of professional career advisors. to ensure that students receive multiple opportunities to engage in meaningful career development activities, a closer look at how to formalise embedding cdl as a core curriculum activity is required. to address this concern, it would be beneficial for academics and careers professionals to develop a shared vision, understanding and nomenclature of cdl (bridgstock et al., 2019). as identified in earlier studies (amiet et al., 2020), to better support students and their career learning, there need to be more opportunities for academics to be supported to design cdl in their curriculum. dean, b.a. et al. (2022). career development learning in the curriculum: what is an academic’s role? journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 13(1), 142–154. 152 implications the taxonomy can be used to spark conversation around current practice for integrating cdl into curriculum. we recommend that in consultation or wider professional learning contexts, career professionals use the taxonomy with academics to identify how they see themselves using cdl and recognise existing good practice. drawing on the three categories more broadly, academics can name their practice along the areas of absent implicit and explicit, and use this as a starting point to discuss the meaningful contribution of cdl for their curriculum, in their teaching and for their students. the aim here is not to saturate curriculum with cdl, but instead to find meaningful opportunities within teaching contexts, for students to contemplate their transitions, reflect on their priorities and connect skills and knowledge to their future practice. in this way, aligned to bridgstock et al. (2019), we therefore recommend a whole of course or degree approach to cdl that is embedded within a broader employability framework. to intentionally build a range of cdl strategies into the learning outcomes, activities and even assessments, across a program of study would ensure all students have access to career learning throughout their studies. while emergent links to careers during teaching is advantageous and rich, it does depend on the discretion and individual experiences of the teacher. therefore, we suggest academics’ personal accounts and approaches are integrated with purposefully designed activities, in order to build students confidence and ability to navigate their future careers. identifying and using champions who are closely associated with course management is one strategy to enable cdl to become overt and identifiable. recognising champions in a community of practice may also provide cdl support to other academics. this will also align to establishing a course-wide approach to cdl (bridgstock et al., 2019). it would also assist to develop cdl as a shared responsibility among students, academics and professional staff including careers services. identifying and clarifying the role of the university careers service in the provision of cdl, and in providing structured activities and content in both curricula and co-curricula contexts, will also address the concerns of academic staff expressed at the ‘absent’ end of the continuum in figure 1. harnessing the expertise of career development professionals and the genuine interest from academics in their students’ career development, together with a formal course-based strategy means not all academic subjects need take a structured approach to embedding cdl. collaborative, professional learning can ensure a shared understanding of cdl. coupled with agreed roles of academic staff and career development professionals and a collaborative approach, structured activities and enabling practices could inform a whole of institution approach. finally, cdl is a crucial part of a broader strategic priority toward student employability. therefore, an institution-wide framework for employability is recommended to build students’ capacities and awareness to prepare them for transitions across work, learning and life. conclusion with the growing need to focus on the employability of students, cdl is an important part of meeting this need. embedding cdl in curriculum can benefit students as it assists them to develop more selfawareness and fosters career learning and professional practice (bridgstock et al., 2019; jackson & bridgstock, 2021). this study has shown that academics describe their roles in developing students’ careers in various ways. while some argue it is not part of their position, others seek opportunities to coach students through career conversations. overall, this research shows these roles are largely informal and dialogic, and emerge naturally in teaching contexts. we present the various roles in a taxonomy and in areas of absent, implicit, and explicit practices for integrating cdl in curriculum. this dean, b.a. et al. (2022). career development learning in the curriculum: what is an academic’s role? journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 13(1), 142–154. 153 taxonomy is a useful starting point to ignite conversation on current cdl practices in order to recognise good practice and identify opportunities for meaningful integration. further work is required to identify cdl champions, foster career development understandings through professional learning, and integrate intentional career activities across degree programs. this study is limited to one institution and therefore we are mindful that the range of roles will differ across contexts. this may also largely depend on how the institution engages career centres with faculty and their strategic approach to employability. future research is required to examine discipline discourses and practices or evaluate approaches to course-wide cdl. references amiet, d., choate, j., hoskin j., & dart, j. 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(2022). gateways, not pathways: student expectations regarding undergraduate study and employability journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 13(1), 65–78. 65 the journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability issn: 1838-3815 (online) journal homepage: https://ojs.deakin.edu.au/index.php/jtlge/ gateways not pathways: student perceptions of the portals to employability edward lock1 and kate kelly1 corresponding author: edward lock (edward.lock@vu.edu.au) 1 first year college, victoria university, melbourne, victoria abstract the expectation that tertiary education leads to employment is one that most commencing students hold. a problem arises when there is a gap between the knowledge and skills students expect to acquire and the knowledge and skills course designers and teachers expect students to develop. the present study interviewed 22 first year students and 12 final year students to explore their expectations and experiences of employability teaching and learning, and compared these to the conceptions of employability articulated in their institution’s policy documentation. the findings suggest that most students believed that, to achieve their career goals, their primary focus should be on completing their academic studies, and that all relevant knowledge and skills would be unveiled during this process. as such, they viewed their time at university as a distinct stage in their development, one that must be completed before they move on to engage with the challenge of employment. such expectations differ in important ways from those of the institution at which participants were enrolled, which sets employability within the context of an ever-changing job market and the consequent need for life-long learning. moreover, while the institution clearly articulates the skills that they believe are embedded within their units and courses, this is not being conveyed to students. implications of this research highlight the need to carefully consider what expectations students are bringing with them regarding the enhancement of employability and how institutions can best act to bridge the gap between students’ expectations and their own. keywords employability teaching; graduate capabilities; non-traditional students; career planning; expectations gap; transitional pedagogy; career pathways; life long learning introduction the idea that university study enhances a person’s employability is a central feature of the higher education landscape both internationally and in australia (oliver, 2015). in the past, this idea has been a central driver of the shift towards widened access within the australian higher education sector. university education was understood as having improved employment and economic outcomes, both for individuals and for the broader economy, and so widening access to that education was and is deemed to be very much in the public interest. this message has been transmitted to students, a majority of whom now enrol in higher education institutions (heis) with improved employment opportunities in mind (baik et al., 2015). enhancing graduates’ employability is now a central goal of both heis and the policymakers who regulate and fund them: institutions market themselves and their products using claims related to the enhancing of employability, and policymakers are increasingly lock e. and kelly, k. (2022). gateways, not pathways: student expectations regarding undergraduate study and employability journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 13(1), 65–78. 66 seeking to evaluate university teaching and learning in terms of institutions’ delivery on such promises (dawkins et al., 2019). put simply, in today’s australian higher education sector, students, heis and governments hold high expectations regarding the capacity of university study to enhance employability. while the widening access agenda has led to heis having a greater interest in employability, an additional consequence of this agenda has been the rise of pedagogic challenges associated with the delivery of higher education to ‘non-traditional’ students (o’shea et al., 2021). investigation of these challenges has generated a large volume of research, with a particularly prominent branch focused on the development, implementation and evaluation of transitions pedagogy (kift, 2009; kift, 2015; baik et al., 2015; tinto, 2009). one of the key findings of this research is the recognition that, in order to be successful, higher education teaching and learning needs to bridge an expectations mismatch or gap. this can be understood as the gap between the expectations that students on the one hand, and heis on the other, hold regarding the nature, purpose and operation of teaching and learning at university (kift, 2015; krause et al., 2005). the basic proposition that arises from this literature is that, to the extent that such an expectations gap exists, students are unlikely to achieve all that higher education study has to offer. what has been less fully investigated is whether or not expectations gaps exist in relation to those aspects of higher education teaching and learning that are most targeted at enhancing employability. or, in other words, we do not yet know whether the expectations that students and heis have regarding employability teaching and learning are aligned with one another. this matters because, as transitions research has demonstrated, the presence of such an expectations gap may threaten the efficacy of the efforts of heis to support students’ development of employability skills, knowledge and aptitudes. in simple terms, if such an expectations gap exists, even the best-intended efforts of teachers and curriculum designers may involve them merely ‘talking past’ the students they are seeking to support. this paper reports on exploratory research comparing the expectations of an australian hei with those of its students regarding employability teaching and learning. the purpose of this research is to identify whether or not an expectations gap exists and, if so, to explore the characteristics of this gap. the research was carried out in victoria university, melbourne, a large australian university that teaches courses across many disciplines and that caters to a diverse cohort of students, including relatively high proportions of culturally diverse, low-socio-economic status (ses), first-in-family and mature-age students (samerawickrema & cleary, 2021). literature review an awareness of the pedagogic challenges that arise when students experience an expectations mismatch has arisen primarily in the context of research into the success with which diverse students make the transition into and through their first year of study. a core strand of such research is focused on transitions pedagogy. proponents of transitions pedagogy have themselves drawn on research from related fields, including the first-year experience (krause et al., 2005; baik et al., 2015), the challenges of improving student retention (tinto, 2009), the importance of promoting student engagement (kift, 2009) and the value of university adaptation to the needs of diverse students (zepke & leach, 2005). together, this research highlights the challenges that students face in transitioning towards and into university, particularly if they experience a gap between their expectations of university and the reality of their first-year experience (briggs et al., 2012). a mismatch between a student’s expectations and their first-year experience has been found to be related to increased rates of withdrawal (kift, 2015). in addition, briggs and colleagues (2012) note that many students do not attend extra-curricular events, visits, or activities that are on offer, citing work commitments, a reluctance to give up their spare time, and a lack of understanding about how and why to become involved in such experiences. finally, research in australia has shown that the alignment of student lock e. and kelly, k. (2022). gateways, not pathways: student expectations regarding undergraduate study and employability journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 13(1), 65–78. 67 expectations with experience is connected to achievement levels (krause et al., 2005). such findings highlight the importance of the identification of expectations gaps and of the efforts that institutions take to bridge these gaps (briggs et al., 2012; kift, 2015). as well as highlighting the importance of expectations gaps, transitions pedagogy research has shown that, while transitioning into university can be challenging for all students, it is typically more so for students from non-traditional backgrounds (briggs et al., 2012). non-traditional students can include those who are the first in their family to attend university, mature age or from underrepresented cultural groups within the university’s population. such students can face particular challenges associated with the transition to university, including the development of feelings of isolation and frustration if they do not feel that they ‘fit’ into the university’s expectations of them (briggs et al., 2012). in addition, such students may struggle to succeed at university if they lack the cultural capital needed to understand the implicit rules of and expectations for learning success (kift, 2015). given this point, those students who are the first in their family to attend university can be particularly vulnerable. within an australian context approximately half of the university student population are first in family (baik et al, 2015). generally, these students are considered to be disadvantaged in comparison to their peers who have immediate family members to assist them with navigating the higher education space, making first in family students more likely to experience a gap between their expectations regarding and experiences of higher education. given the risks that are associated with the presence of such a gap, it is unsurprising that addressing the needs of non-traditional students has come to be seen as increasingly important (longwell-grice et al., 2016). indeed, many of the recommendations that have emerged from transitions pedagogy literature are tailored to the needs of non-traditional students (kift, 2009), and targeted at the challenge of bridging expectations gaps (leese, 2010). the challenges caused by an expectations gap can affect specific areas of higher education learning. therefore, investigation into the potential presence of expectations gaps in relation to employability teaching and learning would seem warranted. while there is little research in this specific area, that in related fields serves to highlight both the potential for such expectations gaps to exist, and the likely importance of those gaps should they exist. we already have ample evidence that students enter higher education in australia with future employment in mind. comprehensive research regarding the first-year experience of australian undergraduate students shows that 87% enrolled in a higher education course to improve their job prospects, and 77% did so with a specific job in mind (baik et al., 2015). further research confirms these findings (lock & kelly, 2020), which leads one to conclude that the subject of employment (or employability) is likely to be present in the expectations that many students hold regarding higher education. the precise content of prospective students’ expectations about this aspect of university study are less clear, but existing evidence certainly points towards the potential presence of expectations gaps (greenbank, 2014). research shows considerable variation in secondary students’ access to careers information, with that variation being caused especially by differences in the socio-economic background of those students (dockery et al., 2020). research also indicates that many prospective students lack clear understandings of and knowledge regarding the education-employment pathways that they choose to pursue (lock & kelly, 2020; parks et al., 2017). with a wealth of knowledge available to them, even those prospective students who access that knowledge may find it difficult to discern what information is of value to them, which results in them tending to make intuitive rather than rational decisions about their future education-employment pathway (greenbank, 2014). more worrying still, recent evidence suggests that despite students often attending university with a career destination in mind, their knowledge of the pathways and requirements to get there can be limited (lock & kelly, 2020). if many students do not have accurate understandings of the employment outcomes associated with their chosen degree, we might well worry that they will also lack an accurate expectation of how heis intend to support the development of students’ employability knowledge and skills. lock e. and kelly, k. (2022). gateways, not pathways: student expectations regarding undergraduate study and employability journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 13(1), 65–78. 68 finally, it is worth noting that these same patterns regarding the presence of expectations gaps and their increased impact on non-traditional students are evident as students transition out of higher education and into employment (lizzio, 2012). students can struggle to understand the nature of, and opportunities within an increasingly complex employment market (donald et al., 2018). furthermore, o’shea and colleagues (2021) have shown that students who come from diverse backgrounds face greater challenges in preparing for graduate employment. for example, they may not take advantage of the necessary extra-curricular activities needed to be competitive in today’s job market. while an unwillingness to engage in such extra-curricular employability activities may be explained in part by such students’ need to juggle competing demands such as part time/full time employment and caring responsibilities, it is also due to students’ lack of the knowledge and cultural capital needed to support this aspect of learning. similarly, bathmaker and colleagues (2013) discuss the idea of those entering the job market needing to ‘play the game effectively’ which acknowledges the increasing requirement for students to graduate not only with specialised knowledge but also with the skills needed to understand how their knowledge and transferable skills connect to the needs of employers; to know how to sell themselves and their prior learning. there is evidence that students believe that the more education they have the better, which can encourage them to believe their degree/s are a ticket to the career of their choice (lock & kelly, 2020). such beliefs can lead some students to miss out on opportunities known to be associated with enhanced employability (o’shea et al., 2021). overall, we have reason to presume that an expectations gap about employability teaching and learning might well exist, but there is little definitive evidence articulating either that such a gap exists or, if it does, what the characteristics of this gap might be. the present study purpose this project explores the expectations regarding employability teaching and learning of first and finalyear students enrolled in a diverse array of degree programs at an australian higher education institution and compares those expectations to the conception of employability articulated by that institution. the purpose of this research is to investigate whether or not a gap exists between the two and, if so, in what ways student expectations differ from the model of employability teaching and learning advanced by the institution. context the institution that forms the case study in this research was selected for two reasons. firstly, the narrative of employability advanced within victoria university, melbourne, as expressed through, for example, its graduate capabilities statements, is typical of those utilised by providers across the higher education sector. secondly, the means through which this institution seeks to embed employability skills throughout its degree programs is similar to that of many australian universities, with graduate capabilities being mapped across curricula and assessment tasks (daniels & brooker, 2014). as such, the approach to employability teaching and learning of this institution is characteristic of other providers within the australian higher education sector, which suggests that findings from this research may well be of relevance to other institutions in this sector. participants drawing on a three-part categorisation of degree types advanced in previous research (lock & kelly, 2020), participants were recruited from generalist degrees (including arts and science), mixed degrees (including psychology, law, and criminal justice) and specialist degrees (including nursing, engineering, and paramedicine). participants were recruited via their student email, and emails to students included a flier and an information form. lock e. and kelly, k. (2022). gateways, not pathways: student expectations regarding undergraduate study and employability journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 13(1), 65–78. 69 participants comprised of 22 first year university students in their first semester of study and 12 university students in their final year of study. first-year participants had a mean age of 21.9 (sd=5.23) with ages ranging from 18 to 33. of these students, 63.6% (n=14) were the first in their family to attend university and 31% (n=7) were considered to be ‘mature age’. the 12 final-year students had a mean age of 24.58 (sd=4.70) with ages ranging from 21 to 33. in this group, 75.00% (n=9) were the first in their family to attend university and 33.33% (n= 4) were considered ‘mature age.’ across the participants, the ratios of those who were first-in-family and mature-age were high relative to average participation of such groups at this institution, an outcome that may be a product of the reliance on students to self-select into this recruitment process. no other demographic information was collected to ensure confidentiality. students were able to withdraw at any time and no incentives for participation were offered. method and procedure this project was approved by the victoria university human research ethics committee (hrec-17192). to explore the alignment between the expectations of the institution and its students, the following steps were taken. firstly, the expectations regarding employability advanced by the institution were ascertained through an examination of relevant documentation. findings were drawn from examination of documentation (including course webpages) related to both the institution’s operationalisation of graduate capabilities and its broader employability strategy. secondly, semi-structured interviews were used to identify the expectations regarding employability teaching and learning of two cohorts of students: those in their first semester and those in their final year of study, respectively. the approach taken here, which utilised a smaller number of more detailed interviews rather than a large-scale survey, was adopted because it allowed for deeper exploration within an authentic context of an issue that is characterised by ambiguity (kiger & varpio, 2020). interviews were conducted initially face to face and then online as a result of covid-19 lockdown restrictions. students had the project explained to them, were made aware of their right to withdraw from the project at any time, and then gave verbal consent regarding their participation. all interviews were recorded, and each took between 20-30 minutes. each interview began with coverage of demographic details. the structure of the remainder of the interviews was dependent on whether the participant was a first or final year student. for first year students the goal was to draw forth a description of the participant’s journey to being enrolled in their chosen program of study (with a particular emphasis on the role that intended employment outcomes played in that journey) and a description of that participant’s expectations regarding the remainder of their studies (again, with a particular focus on the place of employability teaching and learning within those expectations). final year students were asked to reflect on their experience of employability teaching and learning and to describe their expectations regarding the transition from education to employment. the third and final step involved the transcription and analysis of student interview recordings and the comparison of findings regarding the employability expectations of students with those of the institution. thematic analysis was employed to code, analyse, and interpret interview data (kiger & varpio, 2020). the researchers applied the six-step model of thematic analysis developed by braun & clarke (2006). the process of transcription enabled a development of familiarisation with the data set. the two researchers, using atlas.ti software (version 1.9), operated independently to generate initial codes and to organise these into themes. comparison of the two coding products allowed for review, alignment, and validation of a final selection of themes, each of which is discussed below. lock e. and kelly, k. (2022). gateways, not pathways: student expectations regarding undergraduate study and employability journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 13(1), 65–78. 70 results institutional expectations to understand the expectations regarding employability learning and teaching advanced by the institution, three sources of documentation were explored: degree program webpages, graduate capabilities statements and the institution’s employability strategy. degree program webpages are one of the primary mechanisms through which the diverse array of offerings delivered by this institution are marketed to prospective students. the layout of webpages for all degree programs is standardised, and all place a primary emphasis on the employment outcomes associated with their respective degrees. career outcomes are noted briefly in the ‘overview’ section that heads each program webpage, and these outcomes are then presented in greater detail in the section immediately following this introductory overview. connections are drawn between the content of the degree program – including, where relevant, placement opportunities available within it and the accreditation status of the course with relevant professional associations. in addition to the linking of degree programs to specific career outcomes, all programs are expected to develop in students victoria university’s (vu) graduate capabilities. the graduate capabilities articulated by this vu are detailed below: in addition to discipline knowledge, skills, and their application [higher education study] is intended to contribute to students developing the capabilities needed to be: 1. adaptable and capable 21st century citizens who can communicate effectively, work collaboratively, think critically, and solve complex problems. 2. confident, creative lifelong learners who can use their understanding of themselves and others to achieve their goals in work and learning. 3. responsible and ethical citizens who use their inter-cultural understanding to contribute to their local and global communities. (vu, 2021) each of these statements is supported by a list of underpinning concepts, many of which are closely related to transferable skills. the operationalisation of these graduate capabilities statements is mandated within policy and procedures documents (vu, 2012) and facilitated through teaching and learning governance structures and processes. more particularly, these processes require that each unit of study maps assessment tasks against one or more of the graduate capability statements, and that coverage of the suite of graduate capabilities is mapped across all degree programs. as such, the development of graduate capabilities is articulated by the institution as something that occurs alongside and in conjunction with the development of discipline or professional knowledge and skills throughout a student’s program of study. finally, the operationalisation of employability teaching and learning within the institution is supported by a specialised business unit (vu, 2020) which, as well as providing support services to students and to teachers, is tasked with producing and implementing an institution-wide strategy for the promotion of student employability. as such, a key role of this unit is to articulate how employability teaching and learning are to be understood within the institution. that strategy builds on the vision of what students need to develop in terms of employability that is described below: [t]he key to career success in the future lies in the mastery of career management skills such as adaptability, flexibility and being able to filter and redirect skills and knowledge into as-yet unknown employment contexts, rather than having had the prescience to choose an indemand sector or job role years in advance (vu, 2020, p. 6). lock e. and kelly, k. (2022). gateways, not pathways: student expectations regarding undergraduate study and employability journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 13(1), 65–78. 71 overall, the expectation held by the institution is that employability learning will be a central part of students’ experience throughout all aspects of their journey along their respective higher education pathways. student expectations students starting with a career focus a majority of participants (86% (19 of 22) of first year and 75% (9 of 12) of final year students) reported that they had chosen to start their current university course with a career outcome in mind. interviews then probed more deeply regarding the factors that, according to participants, had influenced the formation of their career destination and higher education choices. the roles of family and friends when describing how their pathways towards their current course of study (degree program) had commenced, the most common source of influence referred to by both first and final year participants was that of close personal contacts, be they family members or friends. this is depicted in the following quotes: i have always been semi surrounded by nurses. my partner’s sister is an emergency department nurse, so i have always had her sort of input and she has been nursing about 5 or 6 years and she has always had good insight, i guess. a couple of my friends, really close ones, are also doing nursing as well (student 27). well, i didn’t really know in year 12. i have a family friend who is a paramedic, and she was talking about it. i don’t know, the way she was talking about it really captured me and i’d never thought about doing paramedicine before. but she was saying how much she loves it and how rewarding it is and i was like, that could be good for me too (student 28). my dad actually suggested police … i have had family who have worked in the police. my grandfather did and i have an uncle and aunty who did so i suppose that was something that made me want to do this (student 6). when i was in high school, i didn’t really know what to do, and my mum chose all my subjects (student 9). as the quotes above highlight, the nature of these influences varied: for many participants, conversations with family members or friends played a key role and for some parental decisions or advice was pivotal. the roles of schools and career counsellors with regard to additional sources of influence on decision-making regarding course choice, 14 of the participants spoke of engaging with their schools and their careers counsellors. some participants made reference to the positive role played by careers counsellors in their decision-making processes. i got all the information about the [institution] from my guidance counsellor. she was really good and asked me what i wanted to do. i said i have no idea: maybe architecture, maybe psychology, i don’t know. she was like, well, these are your options (student 1). the school i went to gave me a lot of help in figuring out what university i wanted to go to and what course and a bunch of different information (student 12). our careers lady basically said i know you are not in the course you originally wanted but you are going to be alright because you are a life-long learner. i have just kinda kept that in mind and she is kinda right because i am kinda comfortable getting old and still doing courses and stuff (student 3). lock e. and kelly, k. (2022). gateways, not pathways: student expectations regarding undergraduate study and employability journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 13(1), 65–78. 72 the majority of students who commented on this source of advice highlighted that it was not helpful to them. i talked about it with careers people but like, i found them not helpful cause they just kept pressuring me with all these options, but i was like i don’t know what i want to do. and i didn’t know what i didn’t know (student 17). the school heavily encouraged as i wasn’t 100% sure what i wanted to do but getting vtac applications done as soon as they came out was super important to my school. i felt pressured, stressed and confused (student 2). finally, it is worth noting that, while many participants made at least some reference to having looked online to learn about their options, most described this online research as having been limited in scope, and only 5 reported having attended open days to explore higher education options. knowledge of and expectations about education-employment pathways following discussion of the role of career destinations in choices about degree programs and the sources of influence that related to those choices, interviews focused on students’ knowledge of and expectations regarding the relationships between their studies and career destinations. first year students were asked to describe how they saw their studies leading towards career destinations, any important actions or decisions they had to take along the way to improve their prospects of attaining career goals, and how confident they felt in terms of their ability to reach those destinations. the 19 first year participants who identified a future career they were interested in pursuing were asked if they had an idea of what the required steps to achieve this goal were, aside from completing their degree. of the 19 asked, only 3 were able to articulate clearly and accurately what was required of them. furthermore, only two students believed that they would personally need to seek extra upskilling and skill building to be ready for future employment: both students were mature age with significant experience in the workforce already. much more common in participants’ responses were descriptions of uncertainty regarding what, beyond completing the requisite number of units, university study would require of students and what it would offer to them in terms of preparation for employment: i haven’t looked extensively. i’ve had a little peruse, i guess, but i haven’t done any definite research (student 11). absolutely no idea. i don’t know. i know i have to do a lot, but i don’t even know where to start (student 4). no idea what to do, maybe another degree probably but whatever (student 1). yeh, i don't really have a plan as such. i have basically just gone with the flow. so no, no plan really (student15). the implications of uncertainty while a number of students were comfortable in acknowledging their lack of knowledge regarding how to reach career destinations, of more concern was the prevalence of participant responses that suggested that completion of a degree represented a distinct step that should be undertaken prior to further consideration of the next steps needed to reach an employment destination. honestly, i can’t say with any specifics. i’m assuming over the course of three years…i’m gonna assume that things will come up that will help me (student 7). i’m just taking it step by step. university first (student 8). i just need to do all the work with my course to continue with my degree, to get a job (student 12). lock e. and kelly, k. (2022). gateways, not pathways: student expectations regarding undergraduate study and employability journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 13(1), 65–78. 73 to be honest, about decisions, it's more like...cause all i wanna get from this unit, this university in general, is that...i just wanna get the certificate, and be able to go somewhere…for now it’s just…i wanna get this degree done (student 5). like i said i am more focussed on [thinking about career destinations] when it gets closer to that point, maybe in the third year of this degree. i haven't really thought that much about transition and that kind of stuff. just will focus on it when i get closer to it (student 22). i know this course gets me from point a to point b, and it doesn't really matter what happens in between, so i'm just gonna ride it out (student 7). final year students: expectations and experiences lastly, we asked final year students to discuss both their expectations regarding their future employment and their experiences of employability teaching and learning. when asked about their confidence in acquiring a job after graduation, a number of students acknowledged this being a source of stress and frustration as they felt that, despite nearing the completion of their degrees, the future was still uncertain. i would say i didn’t realise the job prospects when i entered the degree. i thought there is always a need for emergency help so there will always be jobs, whereas it is really hard to get a job here. i only found this out in my final year (student 28). i am not sure what the future holds, i would love to think at the end of this i would get a job but realistically that is not 100% so i need to start questioning do i want to go and do something else (student 26). i try not to think too far in the future as it gets a little intense (student 33). i am in a space of being stuck on what i am doing now. more information to students or a class where students can ask where their degree is taking them, what they need to do to get there would be good. i know so many people are having trouble with that (student 29). of the 12 final year students only 3 students still felt that they were confident in their initial degree choice and career goal. no i decided before i got into the course my destination and the specifics. pretty much in year 10 and 11 (student 24). i have always found myself interested in it, and wanted to seek the course and then the career. this has never changed (student 30). from when i first applied and until now, i am equally confident. i was happy to do the course. i know that this is what i want to do and i still feel like it was a good idea (student 34). all three students acknowledged having a keen interest in the area long before university applications were due, and all three were able to clearly articulate what the steps were to reach their career goal. in describing the pathways that they expected to follow, these three students made reference to knowledge that they had sought independently of their studies. according to one: i did lots of seminars and went to lots of external workshops about the different pathways [in my field] (student 30). this is telling, as the majority of first year participants in this study appeared to be working under the assumption that they would either acquire relevant employability knowledge and skills passively as part of their degree or that they would figure out what they needed at the conclusion of their current degree. lock e. and kelly, k. (2022). gateways, not pathways: student expectations regarding undergraduate study and employability journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 13(1), 65–78. 74 discussion a comparison of the expectations of the institution’s expectations regarding employability teaching and learning and those of its students reveals a concerning gap between the two. from the perspective of this australian hei, employability teaching supports students as they venture along educational pathways, developing the lifelong-learning skills that they will need to enhance their employability. the key features of the vision of employability teaching and learning advanced by this institution are both clear and, we would argue, recognisable to most working in the australian he sector. these features include the following: • employability is placed at the centre of the teaching and learning project of the institution and is conceived in terms of students’ development of both discipline and transferable knowledge and skills. • the importance of students’ development of transferable skills and knowledge is pitched in terms of the increasingly uncertain world of work. • the development of employability skills are seen as occurring throughout all units of study within a degree program. • emphasis is placed on the need for students to develop the right metacognitive approach to employability learning, one characterised by the adoption of an ongoing, reflexive attitude towards employability learning. comparison of these expectations with those of students reveals a concerning story: one that begins with superficial alignment between the two but that then quickly fractures, resulting in the presence of an expectations gap. superficially, there exists alignment between student choices regarding undergraduate degree programs and the marketing of those programs by institutions. as is noted above, more than four fifths of participants identified their rationale for choosing to study as the gaining of employment in a specific career. these results are consistent with existing research: lock & kelly (2020) found that 74% of students were entering university with a specific career destination in mind, and baik and colleagues (2015) found that 77% of australian students see higher education as a means of helping them to get training for a specific job. this simple expectation – that higher education leads to employment – is largely consistent with the broader discourse of higher education. the institution considered here, like many others in australia, actively fosters this expectation by making career outcomes a prominent feature of the marketing of specific degree programs. on further investigation of students’ expectations regarding the pathways leading to their identified career outcomes, and of their understanding of how their chosen degree programs could contribute to their successful navigation of those pathways, worrying gaps in knowledge are revealed. only three of 19 first year participants who named specific career outcomes were able to describe accurately how those outcomes could be reached. this reinforces the findings of research that shows that high proportions of commencing undergraduate students do not have accurate knowledge regarding the education-employment pathways they have commenced (lock & kelly, 2020). furthermore, the findings regarding final year students suggest that this lack of understanding of how career outcomes can be pursued can, in some cases, persist well into the latter stages of a student’s studies. this lack of certainty on the part of students regarding education-employment pathways is, perhaps, not surprising given what we know regarding the difficulties that non-traditional students in particular face in transitioning both into university and into graduate employment following university. we know that secondary students from lower socio-economic backgrounds tend to access fewer resources relating to careers advice (dockery et al., 2020). we also know that non-traditional students face challenges with regard to the transition into university (briggs et al., 2012), such as experiencing feelings of uncertainty and pressure in the making of education choices, feelings of isolation and disconnectedness when starting university, and decreased levels of success while at university. in lock e. and kelly, k. (2022). gateways, not pathways: student expectations regarding undergraduate study and employability journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 13(1), 65–78. 75 terms of transitioning out of university, researchers have shown that non-traditional students often lack the necessary personal and relational capital needed to successfully compete in a hyper competitive graduate employability market (o’shea et al., 2021). the responses of participants in this project echo many of the findings from such research. participants acknowledged the pressured context in which decisions regarding future study and employment had been made, described the prominence in the shaping of their choices of close personal contacts such as family members and friends, and acknowledged that, for many of them, only limited additional research had been undertaken to inform their choices. interestingly, the fact that students do not have a clear understanding of their education-employment pathway may not be as problematic as first perceived. firstly, many of the participants in this study communicated an awareness of and a comfort with the limits of their knowledge. as such, student lack of knowledge about how employment destinations could be reached was, for them, a known unknown, and, therefore, a problem that they might reasonably be expected to address. secondly, the expectations regarding employability learning that are expressed by the institution, particularly through its articulation of graduate capabilities and an employability strategy, clearly emphasise the need to enhance student employability skills and knowledge throughout all aspects of every degree program. in other words, it is clear that, from the perspective of the institution, students enrolling into undergraduate programs are not presumed to possess the knowledge and skills needed to gain employment; the development of that knowledge and those skills are important components of the value offer of higher education as it is understood by the institution. thirdly, the increasingly complex and dynamic nature of the graduate employment market would seem to make understanding how to develop a career in the twenty first century an objectively difficult intellectual challenge (foundation of young australians, 2015). it might be no wonder, therefore, that students in general, and nontraditional ones in particular, lack detailed knowledge of how to attain desired employment outcomes. furthermore, we might expect that, as the employability strategy of the institution considered here makes clear (vu, 2020), it is the responsibility of a hei to help prepare students explicitly for their pursuit of success in this challenging economic context. the most striking finding from this research is that many of the participants understood their lack of knowledge as a problem that should be addressed either after or, at best, towards the end of their degree program. this was evident in the responses of many of the first year participants, including those who suggested that their primary goal was to focus on their studies rather than worry about the separate problem of employability. such findings are consistent with research that shows that, for lower socio-economic and first in family students in particular, higher education can be conceived as a realm that, while perhaps being a requirement for employment, is also a fundamentally distinct phase of one’s life (greenbank, 2014). the responses of final year participants also supported this finding, though in varied ways. while some participants – notably, mature age students with prior experience in work – were able to articulate how they had enhanced their employability throughout their studies, others either expressed regret about how late in their studies they had turned to this issue, or even maintained an ongoing expectation that employability would be a problem for another day. in general, therefore, participants articulated expectations regarding the function and operation of their chosen degree programs that were, in important ways, distinct from the development of employability skills and knowledge. participants’ motto might be summed up as: ‘first get through the education gateway, then find an employment pathway.’ the expectation that completion of a degree program constitutes a gateway to employment differs markedly from the expectations of higher education providers. for this institution, as for others within and beyond the australian higher education sector, the dominant metaphor used in discussion of the relationship between education and employment is one of pathways (raffe, 2003). the metaphor of pathways, while not unproblematic, serves a number of functions within education discourse. these include the examination of relationships and interconnections among pathways and, of particular importance here, the identification of the role that students are expected to take as navigators of higher education lock e. and kelly, k. (2022). gateways, not pathways: student expectations regarding undergraduate study and employability journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 13(1), 65–78. 76 pathways (raffe, 2003). this notion is reflected in the expectations expressed by the institution and reported above: in the emphasis on lifelong learning, which relates to expectations about the complex interweaving of pathways into, out of and between educational and employment experiences, in the discourse associated with the mapping of employability learning and teaching across units within a degree program, and in the representation of students as active participants in the learning experience (vu, 2021; vu, 2020). it is not particularly congruent, however, with expectations expressed by participants, who saw university as something to get them from ‘point a to point b’ before moving on to consider employment. conclusion if students understand employability to be a problem to be solved at or towards the end of a degree program, then they are less than likely to take on the role of an active navigator of educationemployment pathways that is expected of them. active engagement is often predicated on the prior possession of a certain amount of capital; students reflect on the experiences that are known to them and bring that knowledge to their educational contexts (lizzio, 2012). if students feel that they do not have the ‘right’ knowledge and skills, they may be more likely to become passive in their consumption of education. more generally, and as research into the first-year experience has shown, gaps between the expectations of heis and their students can result in decreased rates of student success, both in relation to their education in general, and their learning in specific disciplines or fields (briggs et al., 2012). the findings of this research suggest that such a gap may well exist between institutional expectations regarding the nature of employability teaching and learning and those of their students. such a gap poses a risk to the successful operation of employability teaching; it may lead to teachers, operating with the best of intentions in terms of their support for student employability, merely talking past their students. where it is found to exist, the work needed to bridge an expectations gap must be undertaken, which requires those engaged in employability teaching to both actively uncover the expectations that students bring with them regarding employability, and to make explicit throughout their curricula the understandings of employability that those within universities hold. limitations and implications for research and practice the limitations of this research project are clear. this was an exploratory, qualitative research project that was designed to seek out early indications regarding whether or not an expectations gap regarding employability teaching and learning exists at one australian institution. because of its exploratory nature, the participant cohort examined in this project is small, and a reliance on qualitative research methods means that there is little capacity to extrapolate from findings general knowledge about the expectations of prospective australian undergraduate students. however, the importance of employability teaching means that the indications of an expectations gap existing in this area of higher education warrant attention. it has been commonplace in the past for heis to presume that any differences in the success of students resulted from inherent strengths and deficits of individuals, rather than from the varied levels of preparedness of students due to their diverse backgrounds and social and cultural capitals. the findings here, which echo those in research in other higher education sectors (greenbank, 2014), suggest that some students, even while being committed to the achievement of success at university, might misunderstand what success looks like in terms of the enhancement of their employability. as a consequence, their uptake of relevant opportunities and their performance on relevant assessment tasks may be lower than is true of other students. future research should examine both whether or not expectations gaps regarding employability teaching exist at scale across education systems, and whether or not variation exists across students enrolling into different degree types. given the findings expressed here, such research must examine not merely whether future employment is a driver for student enrolment into higher education degrees, lock e. and kelly, k. (2022). gateways, not pathways: student expectations regarding undergraduate study and employability journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 13(1), 65–78. 77 but also what students expect their degree programs to offer them in terms of employability teaching and learning, and where within those programs students expect such teaching and learning to take place. with undergraduate degrees becoming more commonplace and the graduate job market becoming more competitive, it is increasingly likely that having a degree will not be enough to gain employment. employers may expect students to have additional qualifications or relevant work experience upon graduation (jackson & tomlinson, 2020), and they also seek graduates who can articulate how their studies relate to their chosen path of employment, and who can identify transferable skills and knowledge that they have learned during their studies. while the scale of this research is small, the problem that it is addressing is not. furthermore, while this research does not, itself, provide evidence of the presence of an employability expectations gap across the australian higher education sector, its findings offer potential value to researchers interested in seeking such evidence. finally, this research draws attention to the need of heis to make employability teaching explicit in curriculum design and delivery. the solutions to expectations gaps described in existing research involve teachers and curriculum designers supporting the transition of students into university through the active uncovering of individuals’ preconceptions about university life and study, and the purposive bridging of gaps that might exist between those preconceptions and the expectations held by their institution. on the one hand, this requires teachers and curriculum designers to make explicit the assumptions regarding employability that underpin their efforts to support student learning. on the other hand, however, teachers must work to uncover the prior expectations that students bring with them in order to bridge the knowledge gap. references atlas.it scientific software development gmbh. 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(2005). integration and adaptation: approaches to the student retention and achievement puzzle. active learning in higher education, 6(1), 46-59. https://doi.org/10.1177/1469787405049946 brooks, a., lynch, s. & debono, m. (2013). using standards rubrics to assure graduate capabilities within the context of undergraduate liberal arts programmes: curriculum design and assessment. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 4(1), 23-38 23 using standards rubrics to assure graduate capabilities within the context of undergraduate liberal arts programmes: curriculum design and assessment angus brook1, sandra lynch1, sr. moira debono1 angus.brook@nd.edu.au; sandra.lynch@nd.edu.au; moira.debono@nd.edu.au 1university of notre dame australia abstract in 2011 members of the school of philosophy and theology at the university of notre dame australia (unda) sydney campus, designed two standards rubrics as part of a project aimed at undertaking research within the area of assuring graduate attributes and capabilities in australian universities. the standards rubrics designed were oriented towards developing particular graduate attributes intrinsic to the core curriculum programme in philosophy, ethics, and theology; all students at unda are required to undertake this programme, which reflects a ‘liberal arts’ or ‘liberal education’ approach to university education. in this paper, we engage in an institutional case study of this project, discussing the advantages and challenges of developing and using these standards rubrics with a specific focus on: how they have already been used, how we plan to use them in the continuing development of our core curriculum programme, and the particular challenges we face in developing standards rubrics within a ‘liberal arts’ or ‘liberal education’ environment. in doing so, we will attempt to demonstrate the usefulness of developing standards rubrics as a basis for careful and systematic review of our pedagogical approach, and curriculum and assessment design so as to assure the achievement of graduate attributes and capabilities. given our focus on developing these standards rubrics within a catholic liberal education environment, the paper will begin with a discussion of the tradition of liberal education. this tradition provides the immediate context for the graduate attributes and capabilities toward which our rubrics are oriented and helps explain the specific nature of the core curriculum programme. the article will then consider key theoretical problems that arise in attempting to assure graduate attributes and capabilities within a liberal education environment, including problems related to educating towards objectives or attributes that are difficult to assess or measure due to their generality. in the final part of the paper, we demonstrate the usefulness of developing standards rubrics as a means of reviewing our pedagogical approach and curriculum design for the purposes of fostering graduate attributes and designing assessments that enable students to demonstrate the degree to which they have attained graduate attributes. keywords: rubrics, graduate capabilities, graduate attributes, curriculum design, assessment mailto:angus.brook@nd.edu.au mailto:sandra.lynch@nd.edu.au mailto:moira.debono@nd.edu.au brooks, a., lynch, s. & debono, m. (2013). using standards rubrics to assure graduate capabilities within the context of undergraduate liberal arts programmes: curriculum design and assessment. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 4(1), 23-38 24 1. the context of this study 1.1. a catholic university and its graduate attributes the nature of a catholic university is defined by the apostolic constitution on catholic universities, ex corde ecclesiae, as a place dedicated to research, to teaching and to the education of students who freely associate with their teachers in a common love of knowledge (pope john paul ii, 1990). in the most general sense, according to the apostolic constitution, a catholic university is defined by a search for truth and meaning within the framework of a dialogue between faith and reason in which both are seen as necessary components and in which education is oriented towards the integrity of the human person (pope john paul ii, 1990). ex corde ecclesiae also suggests more specific qualities of the approach to education within catholic universities including: an integrative approach to knowledge, an emphasis on ethics, and the centrality of theology in the life and teaching of the university (pope john paul ii, 1990). in short, ex corde ecclesiae stipulates that a catholic university must be explicitly christian and must embody the aspirations of the earliest universities to be communities dedicated to the pursuit of universal truth (pope john paul ii, 1990). the ‘liberal arts’ or ‘liberal education’ approach, a model of education intrinsic to the idea of a catholic university, looks to ancient greece for its earliest impetus and was developed further during the time of the roman empire (kimball, 1995). the classic formulation of this approach to education, in a specifically catholic sense, is found in john henry newman’s the idea of a university first published in 1852. in this text, composed of a series of discourses, newman defines the university as a place of teaching ‘universal knowledge’ (newman, 1996). within this framework of universal knowledge newman goes on to define the purpose of university education as fostering the exercise and growth of certain habits, moral and intellectual... and to educate human persons and their capacity to live well (newman, 1996, pp.4-5). those who take newman’s idea of a university to be seminal in defining the nature of a catholic university tend to extract from these discourses two main themes: first, that a catholic university must be oriented towards educating the whole human person for the sake of a good or happy life, and further, that a catholic university must be oriented towards the truth – inasmuch as we define truth as universal knowledge or integrated truth. alasdair macintyre engages with precisely this issue when he asks the question as to what makes a university a community; a ‘uni-versity’ as opposed to a ‘multi-versity’ (macintryre, 2009). the answer, according to macintyre, lies in the analogous relation between universe and university; the universe is the unified reality to which a university refers to in its quest for truth (macintyre, 2009). thus, a university as a community is unified by a common pursuit of universal/unifying truths about the reality in which we live. it follows, then, that there must be something that unifies the disparate disciplines for a university to be a single community, whether it be a common love of knowledge, a common notion of academic freedom, etc... in the case of the catholic university, macintyre suggests, it is philosophy and theology that unify all disciplines in their respective pursuits of truth (2009). philosophy enables this unification of difference by its very nature; for philosophy is the search for universal or transcendent truth. within the context of a catholic university, philosophy has as its primary task and role the unification of disciplines and the establishment of the conceptual relations between disciplines (macintyre, 2009). theology enables this unification through the study of god inasmuch as, within the catholic tradition, it is god who/that explains the unity of relations between various aspects of reality and it is god who/that explains the unity of human persons and our quest for truth in the fullest sense (macintyre, 2009). it is for this reason that most, if not all, catholic universities either offer a brooks, a., lynch, s. & debono, m. (2013). using standards rubrics to assure graduate capabilities within the context of undergraduate liberal arts programmes: curriculum design and assessment. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 4(1), 23-38 25 ‘core curriculum’ programme in philosophy and theology or will accord philosophy and theology a special unifying role in the intellectual life of the university. this view of a specifically catholic university education, in particular as it is expressed in core curriculum programmes, almost invariably shapes the graduate attributes or graduate capabilities statements of catholic universities. even when the graduate attributes of a catholic university are apparently the same as those of public/secular universities, the uniquely catholic approach to university education will signify a distinct interpretation of the meaning of the stated graduate attributes. the graduate attributes of unda are: communication, critical and reflective thinking, technical competence and interdisciplinarity, life-long learning, ethical responsibility, philosophical and religious approaches to life, team work, research and information retrieval skills, internationalisation, and commitment to active citizenship. the graduate attribute of philosophical and religious approaches to life is one obvious criterion of the catholic identity of unda but it is important to note that all of these graduate attributes will be interpreted in light of the catholic nature of the university. at unda the core curriculum programme contains its own internal learning objectives which are oriented towards fostering and developing in students core graduate attributes of the university. the objectives of the core curriculum programme are mandated by the trustees of the university, the formal body of the university tasked with promoting and maintaining the catholic identity of the university. these core curriculum objectives unpack and develop a distinctive catholic understanding of the university’s graduate attributes. the objectives of unda’s core curriculum programme are as follows: 1. to communicate the catholic view of the integration of faith and reason; 2. to provide introduction to ethics as an academic discipline in preparation for life and work; 3. to introduce the concept of liberal arts education and its capacity to enrich education within both professional and humanities degree courses; 4. to enable a coming together of students of different backgrounds and interests; 5. to create habits of philosophical and theological reflection that will last for life and have a positive effect upon autonomous and rational decision-making. when we look to synthesise the university graduate attributes and the core curriculum objectives, the specifically catholic approach to university education taken by unda is brought to light. for example, it is evident that the graduate attribute of ‘life-long learning’ can be unpacked and developed within the framework of the formation of habits of philosophical and theological reflection. in similar fashion, each of the graduate attributes of the university can be unpacked and explained in further depth through the learning objectives of the core curriculum programme (see table 1 below). 1.2 an experimental pilot programme – logos: an institutional case study the compulsory core curriculum at the university of notre dame has traditionally been offered to students via three standard introductory academic units: an introduction to philosophy, an introduction to ethics, and an introduction to theology. over the years, however, concerns emerged about whether it was really possible to foster and promote in students the attainment of the basic objectives of catholic university education through standard academic units in this fashion. could we assert with any confidence that at the end of these three standard academic units their objectives and those of catholic university education in general have been attained or at least begun to be attained; for example, do students have a sense of what it means to integrate faith and reason, do they understand the notion of a fulfilled or happy life, or the concept of the person as it is presented to them within the context of the core curriculum? in other words, doubt began to emerge about whether the core curriculum achieved its goals, and further, whether we could be assured brooks, a., lynch, s. & debono, m. (2013). using standards rubrics to assure graduate capabilities within the context of undergraduate liberal arts programmes: curriculum design and assessment. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 4(1), 23-38 26 that our graduates had attained the graduate attributes or objectives specific to catholic university education. table 1: the relationship between core curriculum objectives and graduate attributes core curriculum objectives graduate attributes to communicate the catholic view of the integration of faith and reason communication philosophical and religious approaches to life life-long learning to provide introduction to ethics as an academic discipline in preparation for life and work ethical responsibility commitment to active citizenship to introduce the concept of liberal arts education and its capacity to enrich education within both professional and humanities degree courses technical competence and interdisciplinarity research and information retrieval skills internationalisation to enable a coming together of students of different backgrounds and interests communication team work to create habits of philosophical and theological reflection that will last for life and have a positive effect upon autonomous and rational decisionmaking critical and reflective thinking life-long learning philosophical and religious approaches to life in 2011-2012, the school of philosophy and theology at unda, sydney campus, was given the opportunity to radically re-think and re-design the way we offer the core curriculum programme to our students. what emerged from this opportunity is the current pilot version of the core curriculum, entitled the ‘logos programme’. aside from the name ‘logos’, intended to signify the unity of faith and reason and theology and philosophy, the logos programme was an experimental approach to the core curriculum for the university of notre dame; it was explicitly oriented towards the mandated ‘formational’ objectives of the core curriculum and the graduate attributes of the university. graduate attributes, and the various generic skills they involve, are integral to learning outcomes for units of study, but they are also closely connected to the mandated core curriculum objectives and hence to the catholic mission of the university. for example, the philosophy module of study entitled, “to what extent is our behaviour determined?” asks whether humans are capable of free choice. students are expected to come to an appreciation of the significance of the idea of freedom in understandings of the human person; to be able to identify and explain concepts brooks, a., lynch, s. & debono, m. (2013). using standards rubrics to assure graduate capabilities within the context of undergraduate liberal arts programmes: curriculum design and assessment. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 4(1), 23-38 27 which underpin understandings of human action; to be able to critically evaluate competing conceptions of human responsibility and accountability; and to be able to explain the extent to which a variety of human choices can be regarded as free. in doing so, the catholic understanding of the human person opens discussion to the theological implications of human freedom and responsibility. the key reasons for redesigning the core curriculum programme were to give students choice in what they studied in philosophy and theology; to provide some flexibility of study; and to make more explicit the relevance of philosophy and theology to everyday life and training for the professions. consequently, instead of requiring students to attend regular weekly lectures or tutorials, the logos programme is divided into modules of study; each module consists of a discrete class on a particular topic in philosophy, ethics, theology, or a synthesis of philosophy and theology oriented towards and applied to various professions. we offer a wide range of modules, e.g., 140 over a semester of teaching, but students only need to complete eight modules to meet the class attendance requirements of a unit. thus, students can select module topics that interest them, or are relevant to their intended professions. on completion of each eight modules the student is required to submit a graded assessment task to complete a unit. the logos programme, overall, consists of three units and three carefully designed assessment tasks; the first a philosophical essay, the second an ethical case study, and the third a critical reflective portfolio. the opportunity to radically reform how we offered the core curriculum programme also provided us with the opportunity to more explicitly examine how we fostered and promoted student attainment of the core curriculum objectives and how we could design assessment tasks that would provide students with the opportunity to demonstrate their completion of the objectives. this in turn – at least theoretically – would give us some assurance that students were achieving the graduate attributes of the university via the core curriculum programme. by happenstance, at much the same time as we were developing and designing the new logos programme, we were also contacted by beverley oliver regarding the opportunity to develop standards rubrics for assuring graduate attributes. developing the standards rubrics served as a solid basis for designing the assessments for the logos programme in the first instance, but has also assisted us in thinking through the curriculum design of the logos programme. 2. key theoretical problems 2.1. liberal education and graduate outcomes most research on ‘liberal education’ or ‘liberal arts’ education as discussed in this paper emerges from the u.s. this is unsurprising given the prevalence of the liberal education tradition there, the many ‘liberal arts’ colleges and religious universities, and the enduring conviction that liberal education is effective in producing capable citizens; e.g. the 1828 yale report determined that a traditional liberal arts curriculum is the best means to prepare for a changing society (seifert et al., 2008, p.108). despite the popularity of vocationally oriented education, the conviction persists that liberal education leads inevitably to better educational outcomes, higher attainment of generic skills and attributes, increased employability and greater engagement in civil life. (aac&u, 2005; ferrall, 2011; hardwick day, 2011; nussbaum, 1997 and 2010). recently, however, educational research has questioned the validity of claims regarding the optimal educational outcomes of liberal educational institutions, while noting the higher cost of attending these institutions by comparison with public colleges and universities (hoover, 2011). eckles (2010), for example, suggests that while the liberal education model has been praised throughout u.s. history, little research has been done to determine the outcomes of such education. likewise, seifert (2008) claims that the effect of liberal education is an ‘empirical black box’ since there is little certainty about its outcomes or about how liberal brooks, a., lynch, s. & debono, m. (2013). using standards rubrics to assure graduate capabilities within the context of undergraduate liberal arts programmes: curriculum design and assessment. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 4(1), 23-38 28 education achieves these outcomes (where such evidence is available). organisations such as leap (liberal education and america’s promise), aac&u (association of american colleges and universities), and the annapolis group, which collectively represents 130 private liberal arts colleges, have nonetheless engaged in various forms of social research in an attempt to defend their claim to educational excellence and achievement of graduate outcomes. certain aspects of the us research into liberal education are relevant to the australian context and, specifically, to the context of the core curriculum programme at unda. firstly, the research summarises claims made by liberal education institutions as to outcomes and states that: 1. its emphasis on universal knowledge and generic skills helps develop graduates who have exemplary generic thinking skills in analysis, reasoning (both theoretical and practical), argument, and communication. 2. its emphasis on ethics, practical reasoning, and citizenship fosters and produces graduates who are more active and thoughtful citizens. 3. its approach to educating the whole person produces graduates who are more flexible, capable of adapting to change and therefore more employable. however, it is widely recognised that it is difficult to assure or validate these claims about graduate outcomes or attributes. there is little hard data empirical or otherwise about graduate outcomes for students educated in liberal education institutions beyond data from ‘graduate satisfaction’ surveys and graduate ‘self-assessment’ surveys. the task of validating claims about graduate attributes poses a significant epistemological problem for liberal education universities or liberal arts colleges. how would a university or college, which makes significant claims about the generic skills, citizenship qualities, and employability of its graduates, justify these claims in any substantial way? 2.2. graduate attributes and liberal education in the australian context the conception and use of graduate attributes in the australian university context responds to similar concerns about the need to demonstrate the reality of graduate outcomes; and in particular to demonstrate a university’s ability to provide an education that is both relevant to the new ‘knowledge economy’ and assures employability of graduates (barrie, 2006). in the australian context, however, graduate attributes often seemed to appear ‘overnight’ and were vague and largely inconsistent (clanchy & ballard, 1995). this might suggest that many australian universities were unsure of what precisely they achieved educationally, beyond teaching discipline-specific content (green, hammer, & star, 2009). the emergence of graduate attributes and the concern about graduate outcomes in the australian higher education context is markedly different to the situation in the us, where there has been a strong and longstanding tradition of making claims about the characteristics of graduates, in relation to generic skills and qualities, and of offering education explicitly oriented towards particular character traits or attributes. in australia, on the other hand, the emphasis appears to have been on discipline specific knowledge (donleavy, 2012). jones’ (2009a) research suggests that, for complex reasons, graduate attributes often remain ‘espoused theory’ or ideals separated from the views of academic staff about discipline specific learning. jones’ (2009a) study implies that a discipline specific focus predominates amongst the surveyed australian academic staff; graduate attributes are viewed as distinct from discipline knowledge and skills, or as appropriately embedded tacitly into the discipline specific knowledge, or less positively as externally imposed and a threat to the independence of the discipline and to academic authority. this tension between the brooks, a., lynch, s. & debono, m. (2013). using standards rubrics to assure graduate capabilities within the context of undergraduate liberal arts programmes: curriculum design and assessment. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 4(1), 23-38 29 notion of graduate attributes and discipline specific knowledge is one of the most common themes in the literature on graduate attributes in australia (barrie, 2006, 2012; hughes & barrie, 2010; jones, 2009a, 2009b; green et al., 2009; donleavy, 2012); it arguably reflects the way in which australian universities have become what macintyre calls ‘multi-versities’ dominated by distinct disciplines without a shared or unified vision of education or of the desired characteristics of graduates. in this respect, institutions such as unda, campion college, and the australian catholic university, which are explicitly oriented toward the catholic liberal education tradition, have a distinct advantage in the genesis of the development of graduate attributes. this is because our graduate attributes reflect a unified vision of university education, which is comfortable ‘with generic skill development of a complementary, enabling and even character building nature’ (donleavy, 2012, p.352). academics in these catholic tertiary institutions are already comfortable with the idea of education as ‘formational’ or character building and therefore may find it easier to promote and foster graduate attributes than colleagues at public/secular universities in australia (donleavy, 2012). 2.3. the problem of forming and demonstrating graduate capacities within a liberal arts programme even if, as research suggests, a university like unda is oriented toward dealing with graduate attributes, we are still left with the problem of assuring that the graduate attributes are attained. the approach we have taken, and will continue to take over the next few years, responds to recommendations identified in the literature, specifically those of: (i) reviewing our pedagogical approach to teaching the objectives of the core curriculum, (ii) ensuring the alignment of desired attributes and curriculum, and (iii) developing criteria and standards by which the attainment of graduate attributes might be assessed (green et al., 2009). we are, therefore, using curriculum design as a means of focusing on the role of the core curriculum in ‘forming’ key graduate attributes via its objectives; and assessment design to provide opportunities for students to demonstrate their attainment of graduate attributes. before we move on to a discussion of curriculum and assessment design issues, it is worth drawing out the difference between the problems posed by ‘graduate attributes’ in the catholic ‘liberal education’ model of university education and the problems posed by graduate attributes in ‘public/secular’ models of university education. many articles addressing graduate attributes begin with a discussion of how and why graduate attributes emerged in australian universities (barrie, 2006, 2012; green, 2009; oliver et al., 2011; wood et al., 2011; donleavy, 2012; de la harp & david, 2012). almost all of these begin with a recognition that graduate attributes in the australian context arose primarily out of a need to orient university education towards graduate employability and therefore to some measure of accountability to business and government. hence, the emergence of graduate attributes has often been perceived as heralding a shift in the purpose of university education in australia, from elite, research-centred institutions designed to reproduce a professional, intellectual class... (to)... a more vocational, mass educational focus, with universities playing a central, if vexed, role in the formation of professional, white collar employees (marginson, 2000 as cited by star & hammer, 2008, p. 238). this perception explains the difficulty of many public/secular universities in coming to terms with graduate attributes since they inherently refer to a view of education at odds with the traditional model, in which most academic staff were themselves educated and formed. universities like unda, acu, or colleges like campion college face a different problem when confronted with the demand for assuring graduate attributes. the catholic liberal education model is inherently oriented towards graduate characteristics or qualities that generally translate easily into graduate attributes, despite some issues of interpretation. rather, the catholic liberal education model faces the problem of how to convince its brooks, a., lynch, s. & debono, m. (2013). using standards rubrics to assure graduate capabilities within the context of undergraduate liberal arts programmes: curriculum design and assessment. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 4(1), 23-38 30 students, academic staff, business partners, and government that exposure to the unifying and foundational disciplines of philosophy and theology is a legitimate way of forming and assuring graduate attributes; and further, that the graduate attributes fostered through this exposure are relevant to the contemporary needs of australian society. the claim of catholic tertiary institutions in australia to offer a unique educational experience and excellent graduate outcomes depends upon addressing these problems convincingly. 3. objectives of pedagogical, curriculum and assessment design issues in liberal arts programmes some of the more practical explorations of the literature relating to the attainment of graduate attributes identify the need for a shift in the pedagogical approach to university teaching and learning. cassandra star and sara hammer (2008) justify this need by arguing that …in societies saturated with information, the ability to master knowledge, rather than be mastered by it, is the hallmark of both a capable knowledge worker and a good citizen (p. 240). faced with the sheer amount of easily accessible information, students are often overwhelmed by information or can no longer discriminate between intellectually credible and non-credible sources of information. for some students, the important distinction between fact and knowledge, or empirical fact and explanation, has disappeared. in this context, it is not enough for academic teachers to provide discipline specific theory and knowledge; rather it becomes crucial for them to provide students with the capacity to master knowledge. consequently, the shift in educational focus from discipline specific knowledge to graduate attributes is no arbitrary ploy to erode the purpose of universities, but rather, is a necessary response to fundamental changes brought about by a supercomplex society (barnett, 2012). in this situation of supercomplexity, for graduates and citizens to truly master knowledge, the emphasis on what is taught and how it is taught in universities must shift from the traditional focus on ‘content’ to one which emphasises ‘process’: what graduates can do with knowledge (star & hammer, 2008, p. 240). in this respect, it is important to ensure that students are given the opportunity to engage in practising key graduate attributes, such as critical thinking and reflection in the classroom or online to help them appreciate the value of graduate attributes for their future lives and careers (treleaven & voola, 2008). the pedagogical approach taken by unda in this context is guided by the ‘the engagement premise’, which claims that the defining feature of american tertiary education in the twenty first century will be the emergence of student engagement as an organizing construct for institutional assessment, accountability, and improvement efforts (kuh, 2009). the premise holds that engagement helps to develop habits of the mind and heart that enlarge [students’] capacity for continuous learning and personal development (kuh, 2009, p.5). specifically, the premise proposes that: the more students study a subject, the more they know about it, and the more students practise and get feedback from faculty and staff members on their writing and collaborative problem solving, the deeper they come to understand what they are learning and the more adept they become at managing complexity, tolerating ambiguity, and working with people from different backgrounds or with different views. engaging in a variety of educationally productive activities also builds the foundation of skills and dispositions people need to live a productive, satisfying life after college (kuh, 2009, p.5). kuh notes that one of the earliest iterations of the engagement premise was the pioneering work of the eminent educational psychologist ralph tyler, showing the positive effects of time on task on learning. this change in our pedagogical approach required a corresponding change in curriculum design to engage students in process-oriented learning (or capability brooks, a., lynch, s. & debono, m. (2013). using standards rubrics to assure graduate capabilities within the context of undergraduate liberal arts programmes: curriculum design and assessment. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 4(1), 23-38 31 building learning); to focus on the ‘how to’ as well as the ‘what’ and the ‘why’ of learning so that teachers clearly articulate their expectations of student learning, including learning oriented towards the attainment of graduate attributes or capabilities (green et al., 2009). as treleaven and voola (2008) have noted, this also demands that the development of graduate attributes is embedded into course content in an authentic manner. it is often asserted that students measure the curriculum in terms of assessment and that they orient their learning efforts primarily towards those aspects of the curriculum that will be assessed (gibbs, 2003). therefore if we are to encourage the attainment of graduate attributes, we should carefully design assessment tasks to clearly, explicitly and authentically develop graduate attributes (wood et al., 2011). equally, the purpose of assessment in this context must also be oriented towards enabling students to self-reflectively demonstrate their attainment of those graduate attributes or capabilities (boud & falchikow, 2006). 4. programme rubrics as informing pedagogy, curriculum and assessment task design the original intention of our attempt to create programme rubrics was to systematically analyse and unpack the capabilities or standards expected of students in the core curriculum programme at unda in the context of our focus on engagement. the framework for this institutional case study was the ‘assuring graduate capabilities’ research project in which we were asked to design course rubrics, listing the key attributes of our graduates and describing expected levels of performance ranging from beginner to expert (oliver, 2011a). we designed two different programme rubrics, covering two of the five objectives of the logos programme. the first objective was ‘providing an introduction to ethics as an academic discipline in preparation for life and work’; and the second was ‘creating habits of philosophical and theological reflection that will last for life and have a positive effect upon autonomous and rational decision-making’. a rubric, in the most general sense, is a ‘tool’ that sets out specific expectations of students (stevens & levi, 2013). in this particular instance, the rubrics we were modifying were pre-designed rubrics supplied by beverley oliver and oriented toward the task of establishing standards for graduate outcomes or attributes. it is important to note that at the outset we had no intention to develop rubrics that could then be used as assessment task rubrics or as bases for pedagogical and curriculum design. rather, the use of these programme rubrics was as a basis for thinking through pedagogy. curriculum and assessment task design emerged out of the process of attempting to design rubrics that reflected our expectations of our students. the conceptual analysis necessary to designing the rubrics served as a point of origin for our reflection on and investigations into pedagogy, curriculum and assessment design. in the next section of the paper, we will briefly and broadly outline some of the thinking and practices that emerged out of the design of the rubrics. 4.1. designing the standards rubrics there were various challenges that we faced as a team throughout the process of collaboratively modifying the sample rubrics for graduate capabilities. the two main difficulties we encountered initially were the conceptual analysis of the graduate capability and subsequently the development of the descriptive framework of the categories belonging to the capability, for example, the key descriptive terms for particular categories. at first, we also found it difficult to be realistic about what we would expect from a competent graduate. we found that we tended to focus on what we would expect from a high achieving student and it was initially difficult to moderate these expectations as well as to find a way of standardising the terminology used to differentiate between the various levels of capability. brooks, a., lynch, s. & debono, m. (2013). using standards rubrics to assure graduate capabilities within the context of undergraduate liberal arts programmes: curriculum design and assessment. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 4(1), 23-38 32 the first challenge we faced, when confronted with the provided standards rubric template, was that of identifying the qualities essential to each of the desired attributes contained in our programme. for example, it is one thing to claim that we desire our students to develop the attributes of ethical responsibility and commitment to active citizenship through the core curriculum objective of an ‘introduction to ethics as an academic discipline in preparation for life and work’, and another to specify precisely what this entails in the way of ‘ethical reasoning’ standards. we confronted this task using discipline specific knowledge in ethics and critical thinking in association with data from recent research on values-based action (gentile, 2010). the second challenge was to develop a set of standard descriptive terms for each category and as noted above, our initial expectations confused competence with excellence so that finding descriptive terms that would be fair to an average graduate was difficult. in the end, the aqf standards descriptions of what would be expected of graduate students proved to be very helpful in determining appropriate descriptive terms for the various levels, i.e., novice, competent, proficient, and expert. analysing the development of a skill such as problem-solving led to agreement on the following set of categories to describe the capability at these different levels: beginners recognise the existence of the problem; novices recognise the nature of the problem; competent students apply rules of reasoning to the problem; proficient students/graduates apply various models of rational-decision-making to a problem; while experts are capable of evaluating and synthesising decision-making strategies. the task of producing the standards rubrics created opportunities by orienting us toward more critical consideration of attributes/capabilities as they could be applied to the core curriculum. opportunities arose in three main areas: opportunities to undertake a shift in pedagogical approach to teaching/learning, opportunities to re-examine how we approach curriculum design in the core curriculum, and opportunities to carefully and more consciously approach assessment design. table 2: extract of rubric used to develop standards rubrics: philosophical and theological reflection1 categories competent graduates of this course can: philosophical reasoning understands the structure of argument and knows the rules of reasoning. consistently and reliably employs a suite of reasoning tools. critically evaluates own arguments and those of others and applies philosophical reasoning to various contexts. exploration of revelation incorporates sacred scripture and tradition in relation to god. understands revelation as the underlying principle of theology and reflects on the lived experience of revelation. 1 this extract only contains the descriptors for graduates (competent). the full rubric contains columns for expert, proficient, competent, novice, and beginner brooks, a., lynch, s. & debono, m. (2013). using standards rubrics to assure graduate capabilities within the context of undergraduate liberal arts programmes: curriculum design and assessment. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 4(1), 23-38 33 autonomy beyond classroom requirements, pursues substantial, additional knowledge and/or actively pursues independent educational experiences. rational decision making clearly identifies problems and understands factors impacting upon decision-making. applies the rules of reasoning and understands and employs various models of rational decision-making. applies rationally decision-making techniques to everyday life and to learning contexts. reflection reviews learning to integrate personal life experience with philosophical and theological reasoning in depth and in a coherent way; is also be able to synthesise learning of philosophical and theological reasoning with life experience as the basis for planning further educational or life goals. appreciation of a good life (habit/virtue) articulates knowledge of the main theories about a good life, is able to offer reasoned arguments for a personal view of a good life, and actively engages in activities that reflect habits of practical reasoning and personal integration of thinking about a good life. learning objective: to create habits of philosophical and theological reflection that will last for life and have a positive effect upon autonomous and rational decision-making. 4.2. opportunity 1: a shift in pedagogy: from teacher centred learning to ‘practicing attributes’ right from the outset, our discussions about redesigning the core curriculum programme were oriented toward the pedagogical problems of engaging students and offering a programme that was ‘formational’ rather than discipline specific. within these discussions, we formed a consensus that the way we taught in the core curriculum needed to change; that we needed to shift to a model of teaching/learning in which philosophy and theology were constituted as unifying and integrating ways of thinking, questioning, and engaging with personal and professional life experience. as we experimented with the modules in the early weeks of the new logos programme we also found that this new orientation to teaching/learning changed what happened in the classes in very practical ways, even to the degree that we changed the physical configuration of the room. many, if not most, of these changes in our approach to teaching/learning arose from conscious and careful reflection on our experiences of producing the graduate attributes standards. the main changes that emerged can be summarised in the following imperatives to ensure that: • a student-centred learning environment was formed so as to minimise didactic styles of lecturing and lecturer-directed learning; • half of each hour of class involved discussion, debate, practicing key skills, or the application of philosophical\theological argument in small groups; brooks, a., lynch, s. & debono, m. (2013). using standards rubrics to assure graduate capabilities within the context of undergraduate liberal arts programmes: curriculum design and assessment. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 4(1), 23-38 34 • at least one of the small group sessions in each module required students to critically reflect on their own personal or professional experience relevant to the arguments covered in the class; • students in small group discussions were encouraged to integrate and synthesise prior learning in their course of study with philosophical/theological discussion; • a central tenet of our approach to teaching was the use of reasoned argument. as such, teachers explicitly modelled reasoned arguments and required the students, in their small groups, to practise engaging in such argument; • a key feature of each module is that teaching/learning is oriented towards the practice and development of key capabilities and attributes. to this end, students prepare for each module they take by analysing and reflecting on short readings or questions that serve as starting points for the arguments and class discussions. modules are designed so that each hour engages students with particular capabilities or generic skills, critical reflection, analysis, reasoned argument, communication, questioning, and a synthesis of experience, learning, and reasoning. as noted above, attempting to achieve these changes over the four hour period of each module led us to restructure the teaching space used. in the logos programme room students are always seated in small groups, i.e. 5-6 horseshoe shaped groups physically oriented toward the centre of the room where the projector screen, whiteboard, etc. are all located. but, with minimal effort, they can also refer back to a whole class discussion led by the coordinator. 4.3. opportunity 2: building curriculum; forming the intrinsic characteristics of graduate attributes a key problem that emerged as a result of providing students with choice as to which modules they studied and flexibility as to when they undertook classes was a loss of structure. we could no longer assume that students should easily be able to appreciate the structural integrity of the programme. towards the end of the first semester of the programme, we realised that students might experience it as a kind of smorgasbord of philosophy and theology, rather than as a programme taking an integrated and unified approach to reasoning and to formation. we originally thought that the provision of compulsory core modules would be enough to provide the requisite sense of structural integrity. the core modules are: (i) think – an introduction to thinking, reasoning, and philosophical argument, (ii) choose – an introduction to practical reasoning and ethical theory, (iii) live – an introduction to reasoning and argument within catholic theology, especially in relation to the question of the meaning of life, and (iv) learn – an introduction to cardinal, intellectual, and theological habits relevant to life-long learning and the human quest for a happy life. however, it became clear within the first semester that the elective modules needed to be more explicitly oriented toward the objectives of the programme and the achievement of graduate attributes. the graduate attributes/capability standards we had developed previously via our analysis of the programme’s objectives served as an excellent basis for our curriculum planning. they assisted us in thinking through the topics in philosophy and theology that needed to be included in order to help students appreciate the programme’s overall structure and to enable them to develop certain skills and capabilities. this kind of analysis in which programme objectives and a structured and gradual development of certain skills and capabilities are joint focal points has become a feature of our regular curriculum planning days. an example of this is the way in which the graduate attributes of ethical responsibility and commitment to active citizenship are expressed through the core curriculum objective of an brooks, a., lynch, s. & debono, m. (2013). using standards rubrics to assure graduate capabilities within the context of undergraduate liberal arts programmes: curriculum design and assessment. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 4(1), 23-38 35 ‘introduction to ethics as an academic discipline in preparation for life and work’. to succeed in fostering and forming these graduate attributes we recognise that we cannot simply expose students to ethical theories and hope this translates to ethically responsible action. rather, we offer modules that build the basic skills intrinsic to ethical responsibility; raising awareness, developing analytic skills are accompanied by opportunities to script and practice ethical responses to real life ethical conflicts. the curriculum includes the study of practical reasoning and of key ethical theories as applied to real life cases, extracted from both personal and professional life experiences 4.4. opportunity 3: demonstrating graduate capabilities at university; assessing the intrinsic characteristics of graduate attributes the final opportunity that arose from producing the graduate capability standards rubrics relates to assessment design. we found the conceptual analysis of the learning objectives and graduate attributes/capabilities particularly helpful in thinking through how we could give students the appropriate forum to demonstrate these attributes/capabilities. this, in turn, led to a change in the way that we assess the core curriculum programme. there are two forms of assessments in the core curriculum (logos) programme: in class non-graded assessments attached to each module, and a graded assessment attached to each unit. in adapting oliver’s rubrics for assessment purposes we referred to sadler (2009) who discusses rubrics as cross-tabulations of fixed criteria that provide grading schemes. sadler explains the way in which the criteria are arranged so that there is one row for each criterion and the cells in each row contain descriptive text (using verbal quantifiers or typical features) that identifies the characteristics of a particular ‘standard’ for that criterion. the verbalquantifier form of cell entry uses descriptors such ‘little, if any, evident’ to ‘an extremely high level’ to indicate the level of the criteria a student exhibits. the typical-features form of cell entry consists of a qualitative description of the corresponding ‘standard,’ often with reference to sub-attributes of the main criterion. the assessor nominates the cell that best characterises the quality of each student’s work on each criterion. as sadler explains, each cell in the tabulation can be given a numerical value, which is then processed mathematically along with all the other applicable cell scores to arrive at a total score for that work and, if required, a summary grade; such rubrics are described an analytic rubrics. in this study we used less common holistic rubrics in which the assessor grades simply by reviewing the pattern of cells identified in the matrix, and making an overall judgment. both types of rubrics have their shortcomings that sadler (2009) explains, but as a team we argued that holistic rubrics were more in keeping with the formative aims of the core curriculum that require us to develop a perspective on a student’s overall achievement in a module, rather than to focus on particular characteristics or deficiencies that may need special attention. the primary goal of the non-graded assessment tasks attached to each module is to enable students to practice key generic skills and capabilities. we do this by making sure that each non-graded assessment contains a series of interconnected activities, each of which focuses on a different generic skill or attribute. the key elements of the non-graded assessments are: a) a preparation task that requires students to engage in analysis of the targeted philosophical or theological topic and to reflect on how it relates to their lives; b) seminarstyle teaching, group work involving deliberation, debate, logical argumentation and clear communication, activity which integrates the preparation task with exploration of the topic, and c) a final task which requires students to critically reflect upon or engage deeply with the module topic in relation to their personal and professional life experience. the students receive feedback at the end of the module on their non-graded assessment tasks to indicate the degree to which they have met the criteria associated with module tasks. graded assessment tasks require students to demonstrate the development of particular graduate capabilities and skills. the first graded assessment task, attached to the brooks, a., lynch, s. & debono, m. (2013). using standards rubrics to assure graduate capabilities within the context of undergraduate liberal arts programmes: curriculum design and assessment. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 4(1), 23-38 36 logos i unit, requires students to engage in philosophical argument and thus tests their abilities in communication, research, critical thinking, analysis, adopting philosophical approaches to life, and philosophical reflection. the second assessment task, attached to the logos ii unit, is an ethical case study which requires students to identify ethical dilemmas within real life case studies, apply an ethical theory to the case study, and demonstrate their capacity to engage in practical reasoning in justifying what they would do if confronted with the dilemma. the overarching purpose of this graded assessment is to give students the opportunity to demonstrate the development of their capacity to be ethically responsible and their commitment to active citizenship. the final graded assessment task, attached to the logos iii unit, is a reflective portfolio which requires students to critically reflect on their personal or professional life experience in light of their learning about philosophical and theological reflection in the logos programme. the overarching purpose of this final graded assessment is to provide students with the opportunity to demonstrate their developing habits of philosophical and theological reflection; in short, the graduate attribute of life-long learning. conclusion the opportunity to develop standards rubrics to assure graduate capabilities/attributes came at a time when we also had the chance to completely review the way we offer the core curriculum programme at unda, sydney. there have been challenges both in the project of setting up the new logos programme and in developing and applying the standards rubrics. the opportunities to carefully re-think and re-examine how we approach teaching/learning, curriculum design, and assessment tasks, have changed and will continue to affect how we approach the core curriculum programme in sydney. the greatest strengths of the project have been its success in increasing student engagement (according to evaluation data collected by unda in increasing student engagement), and its impact on the integrity of the curriculum as measured by its impact on teaching practice. a community of practice has developed amongst the staff: increased motivation, greater coherence in pedagogy and a clearer focus on educational goals is evident. these strengths are no doubt due in part to the unique opportunity which a compulsory core curriculum presents. at the same time creating a learning environment in which students from every discipline area participate demands that a great deal of time be spent in consultation with heads of different disciplines, in timetabling and in general administrative duties. brooks, a., lynch, s. & debono, m. 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(2011). ‘assessment and standards for graduate outcomes. asian social science, 7:4, 12–17. http://boliver.ning.com/page/standards-rubrics-1 using standards rubrics to assure graduate capabilities within the context of undergraduate liberal arts programmes: curriculum design and assessment 1. the context of this study 1.1. a catholic university and its graduate attributes the nature of a catholic university is defined by the apostolic constitution on catholic universities, ex corde ecclesiae, as a place dedicated to research, to teaching and to the education of students who freely associate with their teachers in a com... ex corde ecclesiae also suggests more specific qualities of the approach to education within catholic universities including: an integrative approach to knowledge, an emphasis on ethics, and the centrality of theology in the life and teaching of the u... the ‘liberal arts’ or ‘liberal education’ approach, a model of education intrinsic to the idea of a catholic university, looks to ancient greece for its earliest impetus and was developed further during the time of the roman empire (kimball, 1995). th... those who take newman’s idea of a university to be seminal in defining the nature of a catholic university tend to extract from these discourses two main themes: first, that a catholic university must be oriented towards educating the whole human pers... 2. key theoretical problems 2.1. liberal education and graduate outcomes conclusion mitchell, l.j., campbell, c., rigby, r., & williams, l.t. (2021). giving students an edge: focusing on eportfolios for graduate employability. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(2), 316-331. 316 the journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability issn: 1838-3815 (online) journal homepage: https://ojs.deakin.edu.au/index.php/jtlge/ giving students an edge: focusing on eportfolios for graduate employability lana j. mitchell1,2, chris campbell3, roshan rigby1,2 and lauren t. williams1,2 corresponding author: lana mitchell (lana.mitchell@griffith.edu.au) 1school of health sciences and social work, griffith university, gold coast queensland, australia 2menzies health institute queensland, griffith university, gold coast, queensland, australia 3learning futures/griffith online, griffith university, nathan, queensland, australia abstract universities are placing increased attention on providing students with eportfolios and online teaching platforms to enhance learning and employability. this paper reports on a study which aimed to investigate the views of dietetics students on the usefulness of pebblepad as a learning platform and eportfolio tool for evidencing graduate competency and enhancing employability. this research was conducted within a multi-component design-based research framework. pebblepad was introduced to the griffith university bachelor of nutrition and dietetics fouryear degree in 2016 as part of the edge project (eportfolios for dietetics graduate employability). students enrolled in 1st and 3rd year courses utilising pebblepad in 2016 and 2017 were invited to complete an online survey at the conclusion of each course. surveys were completed by 116 students (2016 n=50; 2017 n=66). students perceived that pebblepad could impact on their employability through demonstrating their learning as well as assisting their understanding and competency development as a professional. this was more evident in 3rd year students than 1st year. the aspects of pebblepad perceived as most beneficial for employability were the ability to: 1) collate experiences and assessment; 2) evidence dietetics competencies via ‘tagging’; and 3) facilitate reflection. the least beneficial aspects were: 1) usability and navigation of pebblepad; 2) lack of clarity around using pebblepad to evidence employability; and 3) belief that required reflections were excessive. eportfolios and learning platforms such as pebblepad are perceived by students to be useful for evidencing employability. potential improvements in assessment design could further enhance their use. keywords: allied health, competence, design-based, employability, employment, eportfolio, nutrition, pebblepad, workforce, work-readiness introduction the higher education academy states that to enhance graduate success, it is important that university degrees are designed to actively assist students to ‘develop a range of knowledge, skills, behaviours, attributes and attitudes which will enable them to be successful not just in employment but in life’ (cole & tibby, 2013, p. 5). graduates able to demonstrate their competence and showcase their unique skills to potential employers may have an advantage in the current competitive employment market (health workforce australia, 2014; job outlook, 2012). employability as defined by the higher education academy is a set of achievements – skills, understandings and personal attributes – that https://ojs.deakin.edu.au/index.php/jtlge/ mailto:lana.mitchell@griffith.edu.au mitchell, l.j., campbell, c., rigby, r., & williams, l.t. (2021). giving students an edge: focusing on eportfolios for graduate employability. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(2), 316-331. 317 makes graduates more likely to gain employment and be successful in their chosen occupations, which benefits themselves, the workforce, the community and the economy (yorke, 2006, p. 8). the employability framework used at griffith university aims to combine scholarly learning, work integrated learning and professional preparation to achieve graduate success and employability (griffith university careers and employment service, 2015). the framework aims for students to use their academic work to build career awareness, confidence, and their professional identity to enhance student success and satisfaction when transitioning into the workplace. context with increasing investment in technology, electronic portfolios (eportfolios) are being introduced to learning and teaching at universities (pearson et al., 2018; porter et al., 2015) with an emphasis on strong teaching pedagogy (pearson et al., 2018) and student-centred active learning (clark & eynon, 2009). eportfolios allow the online collation of work and are particularly suited to evidencing skills developed throughout a degree (woodley & sims, 2011). there is evidence that eportfolios improve student understanding of curricula (joint information systems committee, 2008) and promote reflective practice (clark & eynon, 2009; joint information systems committee, 2008; kimball, 2005; pearson et al., 2018). students who use eportfolios have been found to gain confidence and show enhanced self-worth (joint information systems committee, 2008). eportfolios present the opportunity to encourage an attitude of ‘lifelong learning’ amongst students to guide continued professional development (cpd) after graduation (green et al., 2014; joint information systems committee, 2008; pearson et al., 2018). another benefit of eportfolios is their use for graduate recruitment. a systematic scoping review of the views of employers, industry representatives and university educators regarding the use of eportfolios in graduate recruitment showed a variety of benefits, including the ability to showcase key skills and work (mitchell et al., 2021). to improve employability, it was recommended that eportfolios contain samples of professional work, reflections, videos and photos, in addition to typical résumé content, as well as a clear and concise structure (mitchell et al., 2021). there is thus substantial interest in using eportfolios in learning, career development and transition into employment (hallam & creagh, 2010). several eportfolio platforms are commonly used in higher education, including mahara, pebblepad and google sites. at this institution, pebblepad was adopted as the eportfolio of choice. pebblepad is an eportfolio and learning platform that allows students to manage their own learning through the documentation, collation and assessment of learning activities (pebblepad learning, 2018). within the pebblepad environment, students can customise eportfolios, but they can also utilise developed teaching resources such as workbooks and templates. pebblepad has been evaluated for several student cohorts and purposes, including an assessment platform (cordier et al., 2015; welsh, 2012), to enhance the quality of learning environments (le, 2012) and as an eportfolio tool (woodley & sims, 2011). it has been used to communicate professional achievement and to record and store evidence of professional development (hampe & lewis, 2013) as well as to demonstrate employability (brent, 2019; tuffley & brent, 2019). pebblepad has also been utilised to develop scaffolded critical reflection (gregory & johnston, 2019) and reflection through video creation (korf & campbell, 2019). studies have explored how pebblepad can be effectively implemented at the institution level (campbell, 2019; campbell & duffy, 2019; trahar & bourke, 2019), through investigating learning design (allan et al., 2019) and for first year engineering design (michael et al., 2019). dietetics education similar to other professions, dietetics in australia relies on competency-based assessment, with students needing to demonstrate their ability to meet all of the national competency standards for dietitians (dietitians australia, 2021) prior to graduation. dietetics curriculum within universities is underpinned by the competency standards, with students developing competence throughout their degree. the griffith university dietetics degree is structured around the relevant professional mitchell, l.j., campbell, c., rigby, r., & williams, l.t. (2021). giving students an edge: focusing on eportfolios for graduate employability. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(2), 316-331. 318 competency standards which are embedded in a scaffolded way. eportfolios have been shown to be useful for graduates to demonstrate competency (bramley et al., 2020; gaba, 2015) and to exhibit their skills to future employers (hallam & creagh, 2010; vouchilas & george, 2016). within dietetics, eportfolios have been evaluated regarding the provision of evidence for learning outcomes on placement in australia and the united kingdom (brennan & lennie, 2010; palermo et al., 2015) and assessment on internship in the united states (gaba, 2015). these studies show that eportfolios may be useful in situations where students take responsibility for, and participate in their own assessment and learning, by setting goals and creating opportunities for structured self-learning, contributing to and promoting critical thinking (palermo et al., 2015). significantly, students who have had previous experience with eportfolios have found them to be a useful platform for recording knowledge and facilitating communication throughout the degree and on professional placement (palermo et al., 2015; volders et al., 2010), and evidencing competence (porter et al., 2016). more specifically, pebblepad has been evaluated in regards to nutrition student perceptions and the use of pebblepad digital workbooks (burkhart & craven, 2020) as well as entrustable professional activities (epas) to support competency-based education (bramley et al., 2020). reflection is a key skill that requires practice to improve learning and enhance performance, both while at university and after graduation. pebblepad provides a tool to scaffold reflection throughout a degree, allowing students to complete reflective templates and to collect, collate and reflect upon individual tasks (dreisiebner et al., 2017; korf & campbell, 2019; roberts, 2014). by allowing students to critically reflect on one’s learning and for compiling and demonstrating evidence of learning and skill development (krause, 2006, p. 1), students are able to make connections between their learning experiences which can then enable and potentially increase their transfer of knowledge and skills to other contexts (penny light et al., 2012). thus, the use of eportfolios, and in this instance, pebblepad, may be beneficial to student learning. while previous research has evaluated dietetics student use of eportfolios, the impact of eportfolios on dietetics graduate employability has not been explored. eportfolios for dietetic graduate employability (edge) pebblepad was introduced within the bachelor of nutrition and dietetics program at griffith university in 2016 as part of the eportfolios for dietetics graduate employability (edge) project. pebblepad was used to assess student learning within one 1st year and four 3rd year courses in the four-year degree program that graduates credentialed dietitians. pebblepad was also used by students to collate and reflect on evidence of developing competence, to document career planning and cpd activities and to demonstrate graduate employability. a key benefit of many eportfolio tools such as pebblepad is that the work of students can be collated in one place and used to demonstrate skills and abilities (pebblepad learning, 2018). consistent use of pebblepad to complete and submit assessments provided further benefit for collating assessments and using them as evidence of competency development. this was an important reason for choosing pebblepad within the griffith bachelor of nutrition and dietetics and was communicated to students by the academics. setting learning goals and logging cpd hours is a key requirement for dietitians to maintain accredited practising dietitian status. this key practice was included in the bachelor of nutrition and dietetics from 1st year of the degree to develop skills they will need as graduates. the portfolio elements of pebblepad were customised to allow students to develop their resume from 1st year of the program and to identify and seek out activities that would strengthen their employability. pebblepad was fully embedded into courses through tutorial workbooks, reflective tasks, cpd logs, personal eportfolio development, and assessment upload. figure 1 shows an example of a pebblepad workbook, which includes navigation tabs across the top of the workbook linking to the different assessment items within the course. mitchell, l.j., campbell, c., rigby, r., & williams, l.t. (2021). giving students an edge: focusing on eportfolios for graduate employability. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(2), 316-331. 319 figure 1: example of pebblepad within 1st year bachelor of nutrition and dietetics some existing assessment items were redesigned to utilise the functionality of pebblepad, and some were purpose-developed for pebblepad (pearson et al., 2018). constructive alignment was used to improve the courses to optimise student learning, whereby learning outcomes, assessment tasks and learning activities were clearly outlined and linked (biggs & tang, 2011). academic staff provided pebblepad training to each student cohort at the beginning of each teaching period, with ongoing support provided throughout the degree. aim and research questions this study aimed to investigate dietetics students’ views on the usefulness of pebblepad as a learning platform and eportfolio tool for demonstrating competency and to enhance employability in order to make recommendations for improving practice. the research questions are: 1. what views are held by student dietitians of the usefulness of pebblepad as a tool for demonstrating competency and cpd and to enhance employability? 2. in what ways do student dietitians perceive that pebblepad can assist with demonstrating their employability? methods research design a design-based research approach was used, incorporating evaluation and feedback from each teaching period to iteratively redesign assessment, resources and student training for each subsequent course (akker et al., 2006; edelson, 2002). this design-based research approach has been used to inform curriculum development within the bachelor of nutrition and dietetics (ross et al., 2017). this paper reports on data from successive cross-sectional surveys as part of a multicomponent longitudinal study to evaluate and redesign the edge components first introduced into the bachelor of nutrition and dietetics degree in 2016, including the pebblepad implementation, assessments, and resources. in 2017, pebble pad was implemented throughout griffith university. ethical clearance was obtained for the research (institutional ref no: 2016/772 and 2017/111). all participants provided informed consent prior to their inclusion in the study. reporting of the study follows strobe guidelines (vandenbroucke et al., 2007). an overview of the design-based research mitchell, l.j., campbell, c., rigby, r., & williams, l.t. (2021). giving students an edge: focusing on eportfolios for graduate employability. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(2), 316-331. 320 approach used in the implementation and evaluation of pebblepad within specified courses in the bachelor of nutrition and dietetics is illustrated in figure 2. figure 2: design-based research approach to the implementation and evaluation of pebblepad within specified courses in the bachelor of nutrition and dietetics. research population bachelor of nutrition and dietetics students enrolled in the relevant 1st year (2016 n=63; 2017 n=80) and 3rd year courses (2016 n=61; 2017 n=50) were invited to participate via an email announcement using the course learning management site (blackboard). in 2016 this occurred after course completion, while in 2017, the email was sent in the final weeks of the teaching period, prior to assessment grading. data collection mixed method online surveys that contained quantitative and qualitative items were conducted over multiple teaching periods in order to evaluate student satisfaction with pebblepad in courses within the bachelor of nutrition and dietetics. these included a combination of categorical items (demographic data), likert scale (agreement with attitudinal statements related to pebblepad and employability) and open-end items (to explore attitudes and experiences of pebblepad) (see table 1 below). in 2016, a 38-item survey was made available via survey monkey and took 10-15 minutes to complete. skip logic was applied so students only answered the items that were relevant to them based on responses given. pilot testing of the survey was conducted by four nutrition and dietetics staff members and four nutrition and dietetics students, with feedback incorporated. with the university-wide implementation of pebblepad in 2017, a large-scale, qualtrics online survey was implemented at the university level. this 23-item survey was adapted from the original survey and implemented pebblepad in the bachelor of nutrition & dietetics changes to pebblepad resources and assessment in iterative process of evaluation and redesign year 1trimester 1 university-wide pebblepad implementation year 3 trimester 2 year 1 trimester 1 year 3 trimester 2 online survey october 2016 evaluation online survey october 2017 implementation 1st year students 3rd year students 2016 2017 s tu d e n t tra in in g mitchell, l.j., campbell, c., rigby, r., & williams, l.t. (2021). giving students an edge: focusing on eportfolios for graduate employability. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(2), 316-331. 321 broadened for use in a range of university programs. thus, some of the 2017 items differed slightly from the 2016 items, however, the key elements were comparable, as shown in table 1. the survey items presented in this paper addressed data related to demographics, use of pebblepad, impact of pebblepad on learning, and the effectiveness of pebblepad for assessment and employability. data analysis statistical analysis survey data obtained in survey monkey and qualtrics were exported and statistically analysed in microsoft excel. the results were analysed through a series of descriptive and frequency comparisons. mean and standard deviation (sd) were calculated for the level of agreement on the likert scale data, where 1= strongly disagree and 5= strongly agree. after checking that the variables were normally distributed, chi-squared and unpaired t-tests were conducted to evaluate differences between cohorts, with variance tested using levene’s test (engineering statistics handbook, n.d). statistical significance was set as p<0.05, suggesting strong evidence that the result is not random (mcleod, 2019). thematic analysis qualitative comments from open-ended items on the survey were analysed using thematic analysis (rapley, 2011). the process summarised by rapley was followed, including: 1) familiarising with the data; 2) generating initial codes; 3) searching for themes by collating similar codes; 4) reviewing themes; and 5) refining themes (rapley, 2011). quantitative and qualitative data were then triangulated to enhance the validity of the research. mitchell, l.j., campbell, c., rigby, r., & williams, l.t. (2021). giving students an edge: focusing on eportfolios for graduate employability. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(2), 316-331. 322 table 1: survey items for the bachelor of nutrition and dietetics pebblepad survey (2016) and university-wide survey (2017) construct 2016 survey items (bachelor of nutrition and dietetics specific) 2017 survey items (university-wide) demographic data student number gender age group course enrolment 7-digit code categorical categorical yes/no student number gender age group program/ course enrolment open-end categorical categorical open-end assessment benefit of all assessment items submitted in pebblepad likert scale(a) feedback on pebblepad pebblepad elements that worked well open-end pebblepad elements that worked well open-end suggested improvements open-end suggested improvements open-end impact of pebblepad on employability usefulness of pebblepad for employability likert scale(a) relevance of pebblepad for future career likert scale(a) pebblepad encouraged consolidation of important career planning items likert scale(a) the eportfolio helped focus on courses likert scale(a) pebblepad helped achieve learning objectives likert scale(a) motivation to continue using pebblepad to evidence competency/ employability likert scale(a) impact of pebblepad on readiness to be a dietitian likert scale(a) impact on readiness to be a professional likert scale(a) usefulness of collation of assessment items for employability likert scale(a) mitchell, l.j., campbell, c., rigby, r., & williams, l.t. (2021). giving students an edge: focusing on eportfolios for graduate employability. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(2), 316-331. 323 construct 2016 survey items (bachelor of nutrition and dietetics specific) 2017 survey items (university-wide) benefit of all assessment items submitted and marked through pebblepad for employability likert scale(a) plan to use pebblepad to demonstrate learning and skills likert scale(a) use of pebblepad beneficial for enhancing employability yes/no/ unsure most beneficial aspects open-end least beneficial aspects open-end additional use of pebblepad use of pebblepad outside course requirements yes/no use of pebblepad in other ways in the future likert scale(a) use of pebblepad and why open-end use of pebblepad open-end plan for continued use of pebble pad yes/no/ unsure plan to use pebblepad in other ways yes/no how planned to use and why open-end other use for pebblepad open-end (a) 1= strongly disagree; 2= disagree; 3 = neutral; 4 = agree; 5= strongly agree mitchell, l.j., campbell, c., rigby, r., & williams, l.t. (2021). giving students an edge: focusing on eportfolios for graduate employability. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(2), 316-331. 324 results participants the survey was completed by 98 students, a response rate of 41%. in 2016, 11 1st year students (18% response rate) and 39 3rd year students (64% response rate) completed the survey, with the majority being female (1st year = 91%; 3rd year = 92%). just over a quarter of 1st year students were younger than 20 years of age (27%) and another 27% were 20-24 years, with the remaining 45% 25 years or older. the majority of 3rd year students were 20-24 years of age (77%; 25+ years=23%). in 2017, 28 1st year students (35% response rate) and 20 3rd year students (40% response rate) completed the survey. the demographic characteristics of 2017 students are presented in table 2 along with relevant quantitative findings. perceived usefulness of pebblepad for enhancing employability students perceived that pebblepad could impact on their employability through supporting their learning as well as assisting their understanding and development as a professional. this was more evident in the 3rd year than the 1st year student data. in 2016, 56% of the 3rd year respondents agreed that pebblepad was beneficial for enhancing their employability as a dietitian (33% unsure; 10% disagreed), compared to only 18% of 1st year students (55% unsure; 27% disagreed, p=0.025). in 2016, the 3rd year students reported higher levels of agreement for most of the employability statements than 1st year students, although results did not reach statistical significance (data not shown). in 2017, 3rd year respondents rated the impact of pebblepad on employability significantly higher than the respondents in 1st year (p<0.01) (see table 2). table 2: bachelor of nutrition and dietetics student responses regarding the use of pebblepad to enhance employability in 2017, 1st year versus 3rd year responses 2017 1st year (n=28) 3rd year (n=20) n % n % gender female 26 93 18 90 male 2 7 2 10 age <20 years 9 32 2 10 20-24 10 36 12 60 25+ 9 33 6 30 mean(a) sd mean(a) sd i understand the relevance of using pebblepad to support my learning. 2.82 1.04 4.15** 0.79 i understand the relevance of using pebblepad for my future career. 2.61 0.98 3.7* 1.14 the eportfolio helped me to focus on my courses. 2.11 0.90 3.4** 1.11 pebblepad helped me achieve learning objectives 2.54 1.12 3.7* 1.10 the use of pebblepad has positively impacted my readiness towards being a professional. 2.50 0.94 3.85** 1.01 (a)agreement scale: 1= strongly disagree; 2= disagree; 3 = neutral; 4 = agree; 5= strongly agree significantly different compared to 1st year: ** p<0.001; * p<0.01 mitchell, l.j., campbell, c., rigby, r., & williams, l.t. (2021). giving students an edge: focusing on eportfolios for graduate employability. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(2), 316-331. 325 in 2016, students were asked whether they thought ‘it would be beneficial to have all assessment items within nutrition & dietetics courses submitted and marked through pebblepad’. while only 9% of 1st year and 26% of respondents agreed or strongly agreed with this statement, more than half of the students agreed or strongly agreed when the same question was asked with the addition of ‘in order to better evidence my competency/ employability’ (1st year: 55%; 3rd year: 54%). the qualitative results for these cohorts are presented below, with exploration of the benefits and issues of using pebblepad providing further insight into the quantitative findings. how pebblepad assists with evidencing employability responses to the open-ended item: ‘what aspects of pebblepad did you find most beneficial for evidencing your employability?’ fell into three categories, namely collation, tagging and reflection. collation the students saw the benefits of collation as: …being able to collate all your experiences and assessment all in one place (student 36, 3rd year, 2016). i can simply open pebblepad and show a prospective employer the work that i have completed over the course of my degree (student 41, 3rd year, 2016.) in particular, students commented on the benefit of using pebblepad for developing and recording their learning goals and cpd log. the activity log functionality of pebblepad made it possible for students to record their learning goals for the course and to keep a log of hours spent. students could also reflect on and evidence specific activities within the activity log. the cpd logbook worked well as it was an easy way to document/keep track of the activities and hours completed (student 59, 3rd year, t1 2017). students felt that pebblepad enhanced their employability by encouraging professional development activities that may not otherwise have been undertaken. i felt it was extremely useful to do a cpd log as it encourages you to undertake volunteer work, increase knowledge and experience, as well as participate in mentoring (student 38, 3rd year, 2016). however, not all students felt this way, with some reporting a lack of clarity about how pebblepad could be used to evidence employability and some unsure of whether employers would be interested, as evidenced in the following comments. not sure an employer would look at your pebblepad portfolio, if they even know what it is (student 32, 3rd year, 2016). i’m not sure how an employer would use it as a reference for my employment. do they access it themselves or would we have to print everything out/re-write it for them? (student 5, 1st year, 2016). tagging the second benefit of pebblepad for evidencing employability was the tagging function, whereby keywords or phrases could be linked to items of work. in particular, tagging allowed the national competency standards for dietitians (dietitians australia, 2021) to be identified to demonstrate competence for placement and future employers. mitchell, l.j., campbell, c., rigby, r., & williams, l.t. (2021). giving students an edge: focusing on eportfolios for graduate employability. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(2), 316-331. 326 having all the competency standards tagged so that when we graduate, they are all in the one place and it will be easy to be able to show how we meet certain competencies (student 22, 3rd year, 2016). reflection the third benefit of pebblepad for evidencing employability was the way in which it was used to facilitate reflection and as a record of progress. …reflection of learning and development as a student dietitian (student 2, 3rd year, 2016). easy to track progress’ (student 14, 3rd year, 2016). in future, because i have written about each activity, i will be able to collate this all into my cv with the reflection to then look back and read to remember how it allowed me to improve as a student dietitian (student 31, 3rd year, 2016). alternatively, some students felt that the amount of coursework reflection required to be documented within the multiple pebblepad workbooks and assessments was excessive. while documented reflections were seen as beneficial, the amount required was not seen as necessary to evidence employability. the excessive reflection, an employer isn’t going to read any of it. enough to remind us of the experience would be enough (student 23, 3rd year, 2016). another limitation revealed in response to the question of ‘what aspects of pebblepad did you find least beneficial for enhancing your employability?’ related to pebblepad’s useability. students felt that the pebblepad layout was confusing, navigation was difficult as was locating their work. i found pp overall not very user friendly (student 29, 3rd year, 2016). the assets store looks really messy and confusing (student 36, 3rd year, 2016). discussion this study is the first to show that students increasingly see the relevance of a portfolio to evidence competency and enhance employability as they progress through their degree. however, the study also highlights that to increase eportfolio acceptability, adequate training and support are required, as well as realistic expectations of workload. this expands our understanding of how an eportfolio tool such as pebblepad could impact on student employability through supporting their learning at university. a key finding of this study is that, despite having the same level of exposure to pebblepad, 3rd year respondents who were a year or less from degree completion were more likely to agree that pebblepad was useful for supporting their learning and evidencing their employability than 1st year students. this finding supports the results of tymon which showed that final year students had a better understanding of what employers expected of them than did 1st and 2nd year students (tymon, 2013). while students in the current study were not asked about their understanding of employability, it might be expected that 3rd year students would have a better understanding of the concept of employability than students in the first year of their degree. it may also be that 3rd year students have amassed more experiences to collate within pebblepad, in order to reflect on their development to evidence employability. similarly, tymon found that students of all year levels acknowledged coursework activities as contributing to developing relevant skills and attributes for employability, including practicing communication and self-management skills, working in groups and building confidence (tymon, 2013). however, these activities were not emphasised by students as much as placement and work experience in developing relevant employability skills (tymon, 2013). mitchell, l.j., campbell, c., rigby, r., & williams, l.t. (2021). giving students an edge: focusing on eportfolios for graduate employability. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(2), 316-331. 327 while evidence suggests that the capstone placement experience conducted in the final year of study is fundamental to the construction of competence in students (palermo et al., 2017), the griffith university bachelor of nutrition and dietetics program has increasing amounts of placement-related content from 1st year of the degree so that by 3rd year students have a more sophisticated understanding of the professional competencies than do the students in 1st year. this explains the enhanced positivity about the usefulness of pebblepad to evidence competency by 3rd year. this study found that some students did not find pebblepad to be user friendly which impacted their perception of its usefulness for employability, suggesting they needed more support for its use. the university-wide evaluation found that students used their eportfolio to support their course activities including reflecting on their learning, however, there were issues, with some being critical of it early on in the implementation (campbell, 2019; campbell & duffy, 2019). the importance of providing adequate support for students using pebblepad and other eportfolios has been acknowledged in the literature (brennan & lennie, 2010; burkhart & craven, 2020). brennan and lennie, in their survey evaluating the perceptions of the use of portfolios by 114 dietetics students from 11 united kingdom universities, showed that student understanding of portfolios was directly correlated with the amount of portfolio guidance they obtained (brennan & lennie, 2010). the technology skills of participants may have also impacted on this. while the majority of participants in this study were born into the digital age, digital fluency is a continuum that is influenced by multiple factors (wang et al., 2013). this finding highlights the importance of providing appropriate pebblepad training to students from the outset, as well as providing ongoing guidance within university courses, to ensure that students are confident in its use to take advantage of the potential benefits. given reflection is a key skill for dietitians (brennan & lennie, 2010), reflective tasks were embedded within pebblepad assessments and workbooks. however, students felt the level of reflection to be excessive. this could have been due in part to the design and required sections of the pebblepad templates, and in part due to the way the assessments were designed, and requirements communicated. while eportfolios have been shown to be useful in dietetics internships in the united states (gaba, 2015), is it common for students to perceive that the level of effort required is excessive (brennan & lennie, 2010). brennan and lennie showed that while 92% of respondents agreed that the development of their portfolio was a valuable learning experience, 76% felt that there was too much associated paperwork (brennan & lennie, 2010). as their respondents were from 11 different united kingdom institutions, it is a widespread issue beyond a particular eportfolio tool, or type of portfolio. the time consuming nature of eportfolios has also been identified as a disadvantage to using them within the recruitment process (mitchell et al., 2021). the variability in students’ perceived comfort with the process of reflecting may be linked to learning style. it is acknowledged that students with a theorist or reflector learning style (honey & mumford, 1992) feel more confident reflecting than those who are predominately activists and pragmatists (brennan & lennie, 2010). given the importance of reflection and evidence demonstrating that reflection aids the transfer of knowledge and skills (penny light et al., 2012), reflective activities have been maintained. however, we have reduced the number and length of reflections to reduce student burden. graduate success is enhanced when students can develop their knowledge, skills, behaviours, attributes and attitudes throughout their degree and clearly communicate these to potential employers (cole & tibby, 2013). these fundamental components of employability need to be strengthened throughout their degree path, setting graduates up for lifelong learning (cole & tibby, 2013). it has been acknowledged that university students understand that their degree is just one element contributing to their employability (tomlinson, 2008). in a study conducted by tomlinson, higher education students understood that to set themselves apart from others they needed to demonstrate skills and attributes in addition to those gained from their degree (tomlinson, 2008). students close to graduation, in particular, could benefit from the discipline of documenting their learning in pebblepad and to continue that practice in their professional career. a recent systematic scoping review has evaluated the views of employers, industry representatives and university mitchell, l.j., campbell, c., rigby, r., & williams, l.t. (2021). giving students an edge: focusing on eportfolios for graduate employability. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(2), 316-331. 328 educators for the use of eportfolios in graduate recruitment (mitchell et al., 2021). this review showed that awareness and use of eportfolios in recruitment was low, and highlighted content recommended to be included in eportfolios. ensuring that key content is included in a graduate eportfolio is likely to enhance employability (mitchell et al., 2021). additionally, students and graduates are encouraged to include the sharable link for their eportfolio within job applications documents to allow employers to view eportfolio as they would a website. limitations to this study should be acknowledged. participant numbers were reasonably low, with response rates ranging between cohorts from 18% to 64% due to the timing and method of survey recruitment. in 2016, students were recruited via an email announcement after the teaching team had ceased face to face contact with the cohort. however, the demographic data of respondents is consistent with that of the cohort (unpublished data). in 2017, the method of survey delivery differed slightly, changing from a locally administered survey to an institution-wide survey. unfortunately, this meant that some items, while similar, were not directly comparable. conclusion this study showed that eportfolios, in particular pebblepad, were perceived by dietetics students as useful tools for demonstrating employability. changes in assessment design could further enhance the benefits of eportfolios. it is important to remain focused on the learning outcomes for students when incorporating pebblepad into assessment and the curriculum. the key benefits of eportfolios need to be clearly communicated to students, and training should be provided to show how pebblepad can be used to evidence competency and enhance employability. further research needs to focus on student use of pebblepad in evidencing professional competency in job-seeking as they progress to graduation and employment. acknowledgements funding: this project was supported by griffith university health, dean of learning & teaching. funding funding for this project was provided from the griffith university health group, dean (learning & teaching) ($2500). conflict of interest the project team have received $2500 seed funding from pebblepad to undertake a systematic scoping review of the literature resulting in a manuscript which has been accepted for publication: ‘enhancing graduate employability through targeting eportfolios to employer expectations: a systematic scoping review. these funds have not impacted on results or interpretation of the data. references akker, j., gravemeijer, k., & mckenney, s.(2006). introducing educational design research. in j. van den akker, k. gravemeijer, s. mckenney, . & n. nieveen, (eds.), educational design research (pp. 3–8). london: routledge allan, c. n., campbell, c., & crough, j. 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(2021). informational interviews help undergraduate students at the mid-point of non-specialist stem degrees confirm their career aspiration. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(2), 299– 315. 299 the journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability issn: 1838-3815 (online) journal homepage: https://ojs.deakin.edu.au/index.php/jtlge/ informational interviews help undergraduate students at the midpoint of non-specialist stem degrees confirm their career aspirations louise lexis1, jency thomas2, caroline j. taylor1, jarrod e. church4, brianna l. julien5 corresponding author: brianna julien (b.julien@latrobe.edu.au) 1department of physiology anatomy and microbiology, school of life sciences, la trobe university, melbourne, victoria, australia. orcid: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6522-537x 2 department of physiology anatomy and microbiology, school of life sciences, la trobe university, melbourne, victoria, australia. orcid: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0795-7951 3department of physiology anatomy and microbiology, school of life sciences, la trobe university, melbourne, victoria, australia. orcid: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2151-8709 4department of physiology anatomy and microbiology, school of life sciences, la trobe university, melbourne, victoria, australia. orcid: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8266-4043 5department of physiology anatomy and microbiology, school of life sciences, la trobe university, melbourne, victoria, australia. orcid: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7531-9989 abstract higher education institutions are expected to produce career-ready graduates who are equipped for the challenges of the 21st century. employability experts argue that this can be achieved by integrating career development learning (cdl) into the curriculum. the informational interview helps students learn more about a career by interviewing a professional working in a field of interest, and helps students to make decisions regarding their career plans. the aims of the study were to determine students’: 1) preferred career paths and career identity at the midpoint of their non-specialist degree; and 2) experiences and perceptions of an informational interview module. an informational interview module was embedded into a second-year human biosciences subject taken by students in undergraduate non-specialist health-related stem degrees. students indicated their preferred career, learned about informational interviews, and conducted an interview with a professional working in the field they wished to enter. after the interview, students completed reflection activities, responding to open-ended and likert-scale questions. 91 student reflections were analysed to determine students’ career identity, and their experiences and perceptions of the module. descriptive statistical analysis was conducted on likert-scale answers and inductive thematic analysis was conducted on open-ended answers. students’ career preferences were wide-ranging, with allied health the most popular. career identity was reasonably well established in this cohort. the student experience was overall positive, and students’ thought the module was useful in supporting their career planning and career development. in conclusion, an informational interview assignment is an effective career development tool for human biosciences students. keywords: employability, stem education, career identity, career development learning, higher education, career aspirations https://ojs.deakin.edu.au/index.php/jtlge/ mailto:b.julien@latrobe.edu.au https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6522-537x https://protect-au.mimecast.com/s/-gsxcbnzzlfvdz9xh6f5hv?domain=orcid.org https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2151-8709 https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7531-9989 lexis, l., thomas, j., taylor, c.j., church, j.e., & julien, b.l. (2021). informational interviews help undergraduate students at the mid-point of non-specialist stem degrees confirm their career aspiration. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(2), 299– 315. 300 introduction governments and communities have an expectation that higher education institutions will produce career-ready graduates who are equipped for the challenges of the 21st century (bridgstock, 2009; oliver, 2015). indeed, the australian federal government announced the job-ready graduates package of higher education reforms, including the national priorities and industry linkage fund (npilf) (department of education, skills and employment, 2020). the npilf funds universities to engage with industry on the design and delivery of courses that will produce ‘job-ready graduates’, that is, students with real world job skills. the npilf ‘encourages innovation by using industry-linked teaching models and supporting best practice’ (department of education, skills and employment, 2020). with funding explicitly tied to graduates’ readiness for work, australian universities must redouble their efforts to support students to develop their employability skills during their studies. a recent study by lock and kelly (2020) showed that many students about to embark on a wide range of degrees at 15 australian universities had a poor understanding of the career pathways available to them upon completion of their degree. this was particularly evident for students about to begin a non-specialist degree, in which a majority showed limited or somewhat limited knowledge of the career outcomes related to their respective courses (lock & kelly, 2020). this supports the appeals of leading scholars to deliver career development learning (cdl) across degree programs (bridgstock, grant-iramu, & mcalpine, 2019). cdl can be defined as learning about the content and process of career development or life/career management. the content of [cdl] in essence represents learning about self and learning about the world of work. process learning represents the development of the skills necessary to navigate a successful and satisfying life/career (mcmahon, patton, & tatham, 2003; p. 6). delivery of cdl in the early stages of a university degree shapes student understanding of possible career pathways and facilitates the development of true career identities (bridgstock et al., 2019). fugate, kinicki and ashforth (2004) described a career identity as an intellectual compass that helps direct relevant learning, and supports informed and appropriate career choices. it is achieved through personal investment in the development of one’s future career and employability, and is reflected in an ability to draw on experiences and coherently communicate a personal narrative which aligns to preferred employment options (tomlinson, 2017). a career identity is thus an integration of relevant experiences into a meaningful paradigm in which an individual links their enthusiasm, interest and proficiencies with desirable career roles (fugate et al., 2004; meijers, 1998). given that cdl is focused on improving understanding of one’s self and the world of work, effective cdl activities are numerous and varied, although student-centered authentic tasks are an integral component (bridgstock et al., 2019). one example is the ‘informational interview’, a career exploration tool that helps individuals get the inside scoop on careers by having a conversation with a professional already working in an industry of interest (crosby, 2010, p. 1). informational interviews are ‘simple to assign yet challenging to do’ and appropriate for students at different stages of postsecondary education and in different discipline areas (decarie, 2010). the purpose of the interview is for the student to learn more about the interviewee’s career path, the skills and credentials required, the nature of the occupation on a daily basis, and the industry trends and challenges (crosby, 2010; lindsey & barker, n.d.). informational interviews give students an opportunity to connect with a real person who can provide practical advice and who may act as a model for the student’s future (decarie, 2010). incorporation of an informational interview into the curriculum is suitable for adult learners, who value autonomy and self-direction (lieb & goodlad, 2005), because the student chooses who they interview and can shape the direction the interview takes to suit their needs (decarie, 2010). by completing an interview, the interviewer should develop a realistic understanding of what a career entails, thereby acquiring the information needed to make lexis, l., thomas, j., taylor, c.j., church, j.e., & julien, b.l. (2021). informational interviews help undergraduate students at the mid-point of non-specialist stem degrees confirm their career aspiration. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(2), 299– 315. 301 an informed decision to continue to pursue an interest in a career path, or explore elsewhere (crosby, 2010; lindsey & barker, n.d.). although informational interviews have been popular for some time (crosby, 2010), research into their effectiveness as a form of cdl is in its infancy. educators in the field of business have published papers describing the curriculum models they have used, and anecdotally, have reported on the positive aspects of using informational interview assignments as a career development tool (decarie, 2010; mulvaney, 2003; teller, 2017). mulvaney (2003) introduced an informational interview assignment for business communication students to bridge the gap between their college life and future career, and reports that the assignment meets with gratifying success (p. 66). reasons attributed to success include promotion of career exploration, networking, and provision of insight into the accounting profession (mulvaney, 2003). decarie (2010) introduced an informational interview assignment into an introductory business communication course and reported a positive impact, reflected in the students being excited about their future careers (p. 313) and having a new connection between their skills and their behavior and a new connection with themselves and their futures (p. 314). to help students navigate ‘boundaryless careers’, teller (2017) introduced informational interviews to teach business students the benefits of networking, and found that students gained an understanding of its importance for their future careers. a limited number of studies have focused on student perceptions of the value of informational interview assignments. mackey and courtright (2012) explored criminal justice and social science students' perceptions of an informational interview assignment. the authors conducted thematic analysis of 78 student summaries and reflections where they highlighted components of the interview that they found particularly interesting. a majority of students thought the interview was valuable because it provided benefits relating to career selection and preparation (mackey & courtright, 2012). similarly, plakhotnik (2017) showed through analysis of 89 surveys that human resource management students thought they had learned more about the profession of a manager and gained an insight into careers in the field. lun (2020) showed through analysis of 23 student surveys that an informational interview assignment helped human services students develop an understanding of the field. collectively, these results indicate that students studying criminal justice and social science, human resource management, and human services find an informational interview assignment to be a valuable career planning tool. nevertheless, there exists a paucity of research regarding the impact of informational interview assignments on students' career planning and development in undergraduate non-specialist science technology engineering and mathematics (stem) related degrees. these degrees are a pathway to a multiplicity of careers, thus, further research in this area is warranted. the basis of the study reported in this paper was an assessed module on informational interviews for human biosciences students which was developed and implemented in undergraduate nonspecialist health-related stem degrees. the objectives of this study were to determine: 1. students’ preferred career paths and career identity. 2. students’ experience and perceptions of the informational interview module. the informational interview is the authentic career development tool that was used to promote career planning and career development in the students. the intention was that the informational interview module would prompt students to identify their preferred career path and obtain information that would assist in the decision to pursue the career or investigate elsewhere. this process supports students along their journey of developing a career identity. knowledge of students’ preferred careers is important, as it informs future work around resource development to support diverse cohorts in non-specialist degrees. similarly, knowledge of students’ career identity is invaluable, along with student experience and perceptions data, for informing future work, in particular, how the curriculum can be tweaked to enhance cdl for students. lexis, l., thomas, j., taylor, c.j., church, j.e., & julien, b.l. (2021). informational interviews help undergraduate students at the mid-point of non-specialist stem degrees confirm their career aspiration. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(2), 299– 315. 302 methods participants and context the informational interview module was embedded into a first-semester second-year human biosciences subject delivered over 12 weeks and contributed 10% of the final grade. ninety-one students in undergraduate non-specialist health-related stem degrees (health sciences 43%; biomedicine 22%; sport and exercise science 31%; other 4%) attempted the module. the module was introduced to students in the first week of semester, both in class and via the subject learning management system site. a guide was provided to students which set out the requirements of the module, including a weekly schedule and marking rubric (access the guide here: https://doi.org/10.26181/60c189aa2c55e). students were provided with an eportfolio workbook that included instructions for completing the module, space to indicate their preferred career path pre-interview, space to record what they had learned during the interview, and space to complete their post-interview reflection activities. in the first half of semester, students indicated their preferred career path and completed a preparatory online course available via linkedin learning called informational interviewing (bruno, 2017) and prepared for their interview. the online course taught students about the structure and purpose of an informational interview, how to prepare for the interview and contact professionals, what to expect, how to analyse and evaluate the interview, and how to follow-up with the interviewee post-interview. in the second half of semester students conducted the informational interview with a professional in the field they wanted to know more about or wished to enter. students completed the module in 2020 when learning had been moved to remote delivery and social distancing and lockdown periods were in effect meaning interviews were not conducted in person. students were instructed to cover the following topics during the interview but were not given specific questions to ask and were not asked to record the questions: career path including challenges; skills and credentials; a typical day and average hours worked; and current and future state of the industry including challenges. students completed post-interview reflection activities in their eportfolio workbook by responding to questions (open-ended and likert-scale) relating to their career identity, interview experience and perceptions of the module activities. study design and data analysis this study used a mixed methods concurrent triangulation design. in this design, a researcher collects and analyses quantitative (numeric) and qualitative (text) data concurrently (creswell et al., 2003). the rationale for this approach is to attempt to confirm, cross-validate or corroborate findings within a single study resulting in well-validated and substantiated findings (creswell et al., 2003). to address the objectives of the study, student eportfolio responses regarding preferred career path were analysed, with careers grouped into categories, and each category presented as a percentage. to further address the objectives of the study 91 student reflections completed at the end of the module were analysed. these comprised open-ended responses, and 10-point and 5point likert-scale responses. likert-scale questions analysed were related to: stage of decision making related to career plan; interest level in the career post interview compared to pre interview; size of professional network; self-rating of knowledge and skills; rating of the interview experience; perceptions of the preparatory online course; perceptions of the usefulness of the module for promoting career planning and career development; and students’ intention to use informational interviews in the future outside of official studies. open-ended questions analysed were related to: initial impressions of the interview including the good, the bad and the ugly; the aspects of the module that were most helpful for career planning; and the practical changes that could help https://doi.org/10.26181/60c189aa2c55e lexis, l., thomas, j., taylor, c.j., church, j.e., & julien, b.l. (2021). informational interviews help undergraduate students at the mid-point of non-specialist stem degrees confirm their career aspiration. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(2), 299– 315. 303 support career planning. inductive or data-driven thematic analysis using the approach described by braun and clarke (2006) was conducted on the responses to the open-ended questions. frequency of responses within the identified themes are presented quantitatively to show how common the themes are relative to each other. descriptive statistical analysis was conducted on the quantitative data to show each component of the likert-scale as a percentage. the study was conducted with approval of the institution’s human research ethics committee (hec18127). results career paths and career identity to gain insight into students’ career identities, students were asked questions about decision making related to their career plan, and their interest level in the chosen career post-interview compared to pre-interview. they also responded to questions regarding their professional network and perceived knowledge and skills. decision making related to career plan when students were asked to choose which one of four statements best described their thinking about their career path, most students indicated that they had a good idea of or had decided on their preferred career path; a minority of students had not decided (table 1). table 1: decision making related to career plan (n=88). students were asked to select the statement that best described their current thinking. statement describing thinking about your career path percent student responses i have not decided on a career and am not concerned about this at present 2.3% i have not decided on a career and am worried about making a decision 10.2% i have a good idea on my future career, but am open to other options 53.4% i know what i want to do and have a plan on how to achieve my career goals 34.1% preferred career paths students identified a preferred career path and then interviewed a professional working in that field. students wished to pursue a range of different career paths, with allied health the most popular (fig. 1). of those students who wanted to pursue a career in allied health, physiotherapy was the most popular (59.1% of students), followed by optometry (6.8% of students), and equal numbers wishing to pursue careers in speech pathology (4.5%), psychology (4.5%), exercise physiology (4.5%) and prosthetics and orthotics (4.5%). students were instructed to ask the interviewee about: their career path including challenges; skills and credentials; a typical day and average hours worked; and current and future state of the industry including challenges. these topics were suggested as a mechanism for the students to gain deeper insights into the career path of interest, and to help them decide whether to continue pursuing the career path or investigate elsewhere. students indicated, using a 5-point likert scale (‘much less interested’, ‘less interested’, ‘no more or less interested’, ‘more interested’, ‘much more interested’) what their level of interest in the career path was post interview, compared to before they embarked on the module (n=87). no students were much less or less interested, 26.4% of students had not changed their mind, 49.4% of students were more interested, and 24.1% of lexis, l., thomas, j., taylor, c.j., church, j.e., & julien, b.l. (2021). informational interviews help undergraduate students at the mid-point of non-specialist stem degrees confirm their career aspiration. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(2), 299– 315. 304 students were much more interested in pursuing the career path post interview. this indicates that for 74% of the students, the learnings from the interview enhanced their interest in pursuing the career path and helped to develop their career identity. professional network professional connectedness is a key capability required for fostering a successful networked approach to graduate employability (bridgstock, 2016), along with the development of one’s career identity. the size of a student’s professional network is an indicator of their connectedness capabilities, and therefore, their career identity. when students were asked, using a 5-point scale, how many professionals they know and interact with in the field they wish to enter, most responses showed that students know and interact with 1-2 (38.6% of students) or 3-5 (34.1% of students) professionals. fewer students know and interact with 6-10 professionals (12.5%) or more than 10 professionals (5.7%). nine per cent of students did not know and interact with any professionals in the field they wish to enter. figure 1: preferred career paths of students (n=89). students named the career they wished to pursue, with allied health the most common response. perceived knowledge and skills students’ perceptions of their knowledge of what a professional does in the field they wish to enter, along with their perceived ability to research a career of interest, and analyse and evaluate their findings are integral components of the building of a career identity (fugate et al., 2004; meijers, 1998; tomlinson, 2017). most students rated their knowledge of what a professional does in the field they wish to enter as ‘good’ (53.4%) on a 5-point likert scale (‘very poor’, ‘poor’, ‘fair’, ‘good’, ‘excellent’), with 28.4% of students rating their knowledge as ‘excellent’, and the remainder (18.2%) rating their knowledge as ‘fair’. no students rated their knowledge as ‘poor’ or ‘very poor’. similarly, lexis, l., thomas, j., taylor, c.j., church, j.e., & julien, b.l. (2021). informational interviews help undergraduate students at the mid-point of non-specialist stem degrees confirm their career aspiration. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(2), 299– 315. 305 most students rated their ability to conduct an informational interview and analyse and evaluate an informational interview that they conducted as ‘good’ (fig. 2). figure 2: student perceptions of their ability to conduct and review an informational interview after (n=88). ratings provided at the end of the module on a 5-point likert scale: very poor, poor, fair, good, or excellent. interview experience when students were asked to rate their interview experience on a scale from 1-10, with 10 being the most positive, most students (95%) provided a rating of between 7-10, with only 5% of students provided a rating of 6 or less. this indicates that the overall experience was positive for most students, a finding that is supported by the qualitative data. eighty-six students recorded their initial impressions of the interview (table 2), providing some insight into the reasons for the overall experience rating. most comments (104) were regarding a positive experience, with noticeably less (24 comments) relating to a negative experience. the positive experiences were largely associated with students stating that they had learnt more about the career path of interest and that the interviewee was very approachable and happy to share detailed information about their career journey. although fewer in number, the negative comments were mostly associated with issues regarding the interview itself, such as the time allocation or the mode of communication such as a zoom call. a minority of negative comments related to interviewee issues, such as being time poor or perceived to be too early in their career progression. given that this was a new experience for students, it is not surprising that 23% of students indicated in their open-ended response that they experienced a feeling of nervousness or awkwardness at some stage during the interview. table 2. themes emerging from student responses (n=86) to the open-ended question ‘what was your initial impression of the interview including the good, bad and ugly’. representative quotes provided. positive comments learning about a career path (54%)  the interview was enjoyable and educational in giving a more detailed account of working in a clinical environment and being able to understand the processes and workings of the health field.  it was very insightful as i was able to gain information about occupational therapy. i was able to obtain detailed lexis, l., thomas, j., taylor, c.j., church, j.e., & julien, b.l. (2021). informational interviews help undergraduate students at the mid-point of non-specialist stem degrees confirm their career aspiration. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(2), 299– 315. 306 information about the requirements of an occupational therapist and i am now more interested in pursuing this career path.  i thoroughly enjoyed the interview. it was a really beneficial experience to learn from someone well-versed and knowledgeable about the industry i want to enter, and occupation i want to undertake. interviewee attributes (31%)  he was very polite and willing to share his story with me.  my interviewee [name] was amazing and went into detail so much more than i could have asked for.  my interviewee was very nice and friendly and was encouraging when i asked follow up questions or asked her to clarify more after she answered one of my questions, i also felt very comfortable talking to her which i felt was important as it meant i enjoyed my interview with her negative comments interview issues (63%)  the only bad part about the interview that as it was online zoom call, it was slightly harder to gain good eye contact and harder to communicate and taking note was slightly harder as connection would cut out sometimes  unfortunately, ran out of time to ask all the questions  luckily enough i…found a neurosurgeon who was willing to dedicate some time to answer my questions however the time allocated was still not really enough to cover everything and cover more in depth insight regarding this field. i am looking to plan more interviews to gain more insight and expand the information i have already gathered. interviewee issues (25%)  the only negative of the interview was that [name] is still relatively young career wise, so next time i may interview someone who has 20 to 30 years in their profession.  the interviewer was speaking too fast for me retain all the information.  she was…short on time and could only provide some of the answers i was after student perceptions of the module preparatory online course most students agreed or strongly agreed that the online course helped them understand the purpose of informational interviews, how to conduct an informational interview, and how to analyse and evaluate an informational interview that they had conducted (fig. 3). lexis, l., thomas, j., taylor, c.j., church, j.e., & julien, b.l. (2021). informational interviews help undergraduate students at the mid-point of non-specialist stem degrees confirm their career aspiration. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(2), 299– 315. 307 0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100% online course helped me learn how to analyse and evaluate an informational interview that i conducted online course helped me learn how to conduct an informational interview online course helped me understand purpose of informational interviews strongly disagree disagree neutral agree strongly agree figure 3: student perceptions of the help provided by the preparatory online course on informational interviews completed before conducting their own informational interview (n=87). ratings provided at the end of the module on a 5-point likert scale: strongly disagree, disagree, neutral, agree, or strongly agree. knowledge and skills developed most students agreed or strongly agreed that completion of the module improved their understanding of the state of the industry, and what a professional does in the field they wish to enter. similarly, most students agreed or strongly agreed that they had gained knowledge and developed skills that would be useful in the future (fig. 4). figure 4: student perceptions of the knowledge and skills they developed by completing the module (n=88). ratings provided at the end of the module on a 5-point likert scale: strongly disagree, disagree, neutral, agree, or strongly agree. lexis, l., thomas, j., taylor, c.j., church, j.e., & julien, b.l. (2021). informational interviews help undergraduate students at the mid-point of non-specialist stem degrees confirm their career aspiration. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(2), 299– 315. 308 aspects of the my career module that have been most helpful for career planning sixty-nine students provided open-ended responses relating to what they thought were the most helpful aspects of the module, with most comments citing the provision of insight into a career and help with career planning (table 3.). table 3: themes emerging from student responses (n=69) to the open-ended question ‘what aspects of the my career module have been most helpful for your career planning’. representative quotes provided. career insights and planning (65%)  it provides deeper insights to your potential career from the perspective of a professional who has already achieved what you're wanting to do in the future. in addition, it gives a 'step-by-step' idea on how to go about entering the field and what can be done to set yourself apart from other people.  interviewing a person from my desired career gave me insight i might not otherwise have into the steps it takes to get there. it was also useful to find out the daily workings of an orthodontist to see if they line up with what i thought an orthodontist did. most of the treatment of patients is about fully assessing them, planning and coming up with multiple treatment options. there is a lot more thinking involved than i thought there was. inspirational and confidence building (15%)  by getting me to talk to people in the field and answer the questions posed, the module has eased a lot of my nerves and has made me realise how achievable my goals are if i really try my best.  getting me to do the interview was very helpful as it encouraged me to work harder and apply myself, as l am now even more inspired to get into the field that l have dreamed of. understanding the purpose of informational interviews (10%)  given me the opportunity to understand what an informational interview is and how helpful they are in relation to my future. as they provide me with a better understanding of the field i want to enter once i'm finished with my tertiary education.  completing an informational interview and knowing that i can use it as a tool for future career prospects. making professional connections (8%)  the informational interview itself was super important and definitely the most essential aspect, as the process required me to learn to make connections with people and the benefits of making connections. it taught me to be more professional, to put myself out there more and to not be afraid to ask for help or for more information it could be one of the best things i do for myself, or even land me a job.  being able to understand why networking is crucial in developing my own personal brand and improving my chances of getting job opportunities within this field. practical changes that could help support career planning fifty-two students provided responses relating to practical changes that could help support career planning, with most comments citing personal career adaptive behaviours, rather than changes to the module itself (table 4.). lexis, l., thomas, j., taylor, c.j., church, j.e., & julien, b.l. (2021). informational interviews help undergraduate students at the mid-point of non-specialist stem degrees confirm their career aspiration. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(2), 299– 315. 309 table 4: themes emerging from student responses (n=52) to the open-ended question “please suggest any practical changes that you believe could help support your career planning”. representative quotes provided. taking personal responsibility using career adaptive behaviours (54% of comments)  i could possibly be more proactive in seeking out more of these interviews with professionals in the field i'm interested in. this will allow me to make a more informed decision in the future.  more supplementary learning outside of university… i could also attempt to reach out to more people in the field and form a strong network to kickstart my career in the field. more career options guidance (17% of comments)  a designated meeting with a career advisor  maybe more resources on specific job titles as i personally struggle to find “job titles” nothing needs to be changed (17% of comments)  nothing as completing this module was helpful in my career planning.  i enjoyed this module and i can't think of any changes that would improve the design of the module plans to conduct informational interviews when students were asked to provide their level of agreement using a 5-point likert scale (‘strongly disagree’, ‘disagree’, ‘neutral’, ‘agree’, ‘strongly agree’) with the statement ‘i will conduct more informational interviews outside of my official studies’, 69.3% of students agreed or strongly agreed with the statement, 28.4% chose neutral, and 2.3% disagreed (n=88). these results indicate that most students found the informational interview to be an authentic and useful career development tool that allowed them to gain insights into one’s career path. further, the findings suggest that students believe that their insights can be deepened by conducting more interviews in the future. discussion the main findings of this study showed that upon completion of the module most students had a good idea of their future career or had already made the decision and had a plan on how to achieve their career goals. a range of quantitative and qualitative data indicates that students were overwhelmingly of the opinion that the informational interview module promoted knowledge and skill development that would be useful for their future career development and planning. a majority of students wished to pursue a career in a health field and were more interested in the career path post interview. overall, students had a positive experience conducting the informational interview, and planned to conduct more informational interviews in the future outside of official studies. postinterview, most students, were interacting with professionals in the field they wished to enter and were relatively confident with their knowledge of the profession and ability to conduct and review an informational interview. career paths and career identity decision making related to career plan lock and kelly (2020) found that most students who were about to begin non-specialist degrees demonstrated limited knowledge of the career outcomes related to their respective courses. choate and long (2019) reported that 26-28% of second year physiology students in a non-specialist lexis, l., thomas, j., taylor, c.j., church, j.e., & julien, b.l. (2021). informational interviews help undergraduate students at the mid-point of non-specialist stem degrees confirm their career aspiration. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(2), 299– 315. 310 bachelor of science degree were undecided or uncertain about their careers. in the present study, only 12.5% of students fell into this category, with 53% having a good idea of their future career, and 34% knowing what they want to do, with a plan on how to get there. the findings of this study indicate that the student cohort was reasonably well established in their journey of developing a career identity at the mid-point of their degree, as most students (88%) had a good idea of their future career or had already made the decision and had a plan on how to achieve their career goals. the cohorts in the studies by lock and kelly (2020) and choate and long (2019) had not yet engaged in cdl which may explain the more advanced career plans reported in this study. these findings provide support for using an informational interview module to develop students’ career plans, and is consistent with the recommendation of bridgstock et al. (2019) that early access to cdl that is integrated into degree programs builds student understandings of possible career trajectories and supports the development of realistic career identities. preferred career paths across the cohort, students wished to pursue a range of career paths including those in allied health, medicine, dentistry, nursing, science, and the sport science and fitness industry. of those students wishing to pursue a career in allied health, physiotherapy was the most popular. these choices are not surprising, given the cohorts of students who engaged with the module (health sciences 43%; biomedicine 22%; sport and exercise science 31%; other 4%). these findings are in general agreement with unpublished internal data from michigan state university and the university of arizona consistently indicating that 90% of physiology students aspire to a career in the healthcare field, although a greater percentage wished to pursue medicine (60%) (steele, vanryn, stanescu, rogers, & wehrwein, 2020). similar to the results of this study, choate and long (2019) reported that 23-25% of second year physiology students in a non-specialist bachelor of science degree intended to pursue a career in medicine. only 8-9% wanted to pursue a career in allied health (choate & long, 2019), which is noticeably lower than the present study, showing close to 50% of students wanting to pursue a career in this field. although an explanation for these differences has not been confirmed, it may be due to different students being attracted to a bachelor of science versus the degree types studied in this paper, as well as the types of career and postgraduate pathways that are marketed and promoted to students from within these degree structures. level of interest in career post interview after indicating their career choice early in the module, students prepared for and conducted an informational interview with a professional in that field. upon completion of the module, no students were less interested in their chosen career path, 26% had not changed their mind, and 74% were either more interested or much more interested in pursuing the career path. through the interview, students learned about the interviewees’ career path, including challenges. they also gained inside knowledge of the career and industry such as a typical day, average hours worked and the current and projected future state of the industry. it appears that these insights influenced and motivated students, strengthening their commitment to their chosen career path, and further developing their career identity. indeed, a theme emerging from the open-ended question regarding students’ initial impression of the interview was that it facilitated learning about a career path in detail, highlighted in the student quote: …i was able to obtain detailed information about the requirements of an occupational therapist and i am now more interested in pursuing this career path. these results are in agreement with decarie (2010) who reported that students were excited about their future careers after completing an informational interview assignment. when comparing the findings of the present study to plakhotnik’s (2017), both similarities and differences exist. in agreement with this study, 74% (60 second-year human resource management students in lexis, l., thomas, j., taylor, c.j., church, j.e., & julien, b.l. (2021). informational interviews help undergraduate students at the mid-point of non-specialist stem degrees confirm their career aspiration. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(2), 299– 315. 311 plakhotnik’s study) decided to continue pursuing a career in the chosen company or industry after completion of the informational interview assignment. in contrast to the findings of this study, 26% of the students said they would not continue their pursuit of a career in the chosen company or industry. given that the goal of an informational interview is to develop a realistic understanding of what a career entails, the fact that students changed their mind about career choices in the study by plakhotnik (2017) indicates that student learning took place, with informed decisions made to further explore other suitable career options. compared to this research, students in the study by plakhotnik (2017) may have been less knowledgeable regarding the careers as they embarked on the assignment, and realised through their exploration and learnings that the career didn’t align with their future aspirations. professional network in the present study, the majority of students (73%) were interacting with between 1 and 5 professionals in the field they wished to enter. pleasingly, over 10% were interacting with 6 or more professionals in the field, but worryingly 9% were not interacting with any. the size of one’s professional network is an indicator of connectedness capabilities, which include developing social network literacy, and growing, strengthening, maintaining, and working with professional connections (bridgstock, 2016). developing meaningful connections with professionals helps individuals develop their career identity (bridgstock, 2016; fugate et al., 2004; meijers, 1998; tomlinson, 2017). most students were interacting with professionals in the field they wished to enter, indicating that they were in the process of establishing their connectedness capabilities (bridgstock, 2016). the informational interview is an important cdl tool that can help students develop this capability. one of the themes emerging from open-ended responses regarding the helpfulness of the module was the importance of the informational interview in supporting students to make professional connections: …the process required me to learn to make connections with people and the benefits of making connections. it taught me to be more professional, to put myself out there more and to not be afraid to ask for help or for more information. these results suggest that students will have the confidence to continue to build and strengthen their professional connections beyond the boundaries of the assessed module. indeed, another theme emerging from the open-ended responses on the helpfulness of the module was that it was inspirational and confidence building: by getting me to talk to people in the field and answer the questions posed, the module has eased a lot of my nerves and has made me realise how achievable my goals are if i really try my best. some students realised that they needed to take more responsibility for using career adaptive behaviours to further their career identity and this involved conducting more interviews. this was the most common theme arising from the open-ended question asking about changes that could better support students’ career planning. students commented: i could be more proactive in seeking out more of these interviews with professionals in the field i’m interested in”, and “i could attempt to reach out to more people in the field and form a strong network to kickstart my career in the field. these data may explain why 69% of students planned to conduct informational interviews in the future outside of official studies and shows that students place value on the informational interview as an authentic career development tool. lexis, l., thomas, j., taylor, c.j., church, j.e., & julien, b.l. (2021). informational interviews help undergraduate students at the mid-point of non-specialist stem degrees confirm their career aspiration. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(2), 299– 315. 312 perceived knowledge and skills students’ perceptions of their knowledge of what a professional does in the field they wish to enter, along with their perceived ability to research a career of interest, and analyse and evaluate their findings are integral components to building a career identity (fugate et al., 2004; meijers, 1998; tomlinson, 2017). on completion of the module, over 80% of students rated their knowledge of what a professional does in the field as ‘excellent’ or ‘good’, and this was supported by qualitative data. the most common theme emerging from the open-ended question regarding the most helpful aspects of the module was that students gained career insights and advice regarding their career planning. students were given deeper insights into a career and a step-by-step idea on how to go about entering the field and it was useful for them to learn about the daily workings of professionals. collectively, these data indicate that the informational interview was influential in students’ learning about what a professional does in the field they wish to enter. the informational interview module required students to research a career of interest as they prepared for and conducted the interview. students were required to rate their ability to conduct an interview, as well as their ability to analyse and evaluate the interview. over 60% of students rated themselves as ‘excellent’ or ‘good’, showing that most students had high self-confidence with these tasks. the vast majority of other students rated their ability as fair, indicating less confidence, which is not surprising given that this was most likely a new experience for most students. interview experience most students (95%) in the present study indicated that the interview experience was positive (rating between 7 and 10). qualitative analysis provides additional data that gives insight into why this was the case. the two themes emerging from the data show that transformative student learning about the career and industry, along with helpful interviewee attributes created the positive experience. this is reflected in the following student quotes: i thoroughly enjoyed the interview. it was a really beneficial experience to learn from someone well-versed and knowledgeable about the industry i want to enter, and occupation i want to undertake my interviewee was very nice and friendly and encouraging…i also felt very comfortable talking to her which i felt was important as it meant i enjoyed my interview with her. these findings are in agreement with mackey and courtright (2012) who showed via thematic analysis of criminal justice and social science student reflections that the most commonly occurring theme was that the interview was a rewarding experience. in the present study, thematic analysis revealed that 31% of positive comments (32 comments) related to the disposition of the interviewee (polite, willing to share story, amazing), and is consistent with other studies (mackey & courtright, 2012; plakhotnik, 2017). mackey and courtright (2012) suggest that the comments may reflect the apprehension some students initially had with the assignment. indeed, in the present study, 23% of students indicated that they experienced a feeling of nervousness or awkwardness at some stage during the interview. plakhotnik (2017) asked students what surprised them the most about the informational interview assignment, and consistent with the findings of this study, 35% commented on how difficult it was to take the interview with statements such as, i was surprised that i was brave enough to conduct the interview and i am glad i survived the interview (p. 7). in the present study, 63% of negative comments (15 comments) related to interview issues such as running out of time and having to adapt to virtual meeting technology. in response to the covid-19 pandemic, students and professionals have become more accustomed to communicating via virtual meeting technologies such as zoom and microsoft teams. this opens new opportunities for students to conduct informational interviews with a greater range of professionals as they are not bound by location or time zone. twenty-five percent of negative comments (6 comments) related to the lexis, l., thomas, j., taylor, c.j., church, j.e., & julien, b.l. (2021). informational interviews help undergraduate students at the mid-point of non-specialist stem degrees confirm their career aspiration. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(2), 299– 315. 313 interviewee, such as speaking too fast, or having to reschedule. similarly, plakhotnik (2017) reported that students were frustrated when an interview had to be postponed, and when the interviewee was late or joked during the interview. student perceptions of the module the quantitative analysis in this study shows that students believed completion of the module improved their understanding of what a professional does in the field they wish to enter, as well as the state of the industry. this improved, realistic understanding will allow students to make more informed decisions about their career path (crosby, 2010; lindsey & barker, n.d.). most students thought that they had gained knowledge and skills that would be useful for their future career development and planning. qualitative thematic analysis shows that the module: provided insight into a career and helped with career planning (65% of comments); provided inspiration and confidence (15% of comments); promoted understanding of the purpose of informational interviews (10% of comments); and helped with making professional connections (8% of comments). these results are supported by findings from other studies investigating student perceptions of an informational interview assignment. mackey and courtright (2012) showed via thematic analysis of criminal justice and social science student reflections post-interview that the second most common theme was the benefit for career selection and preparation. similarly, plakhotnik (2017) showed through analysis of 89 surveys that human resource management students thought they had learned more about the profession of a manager and gained an insight into careers in the field. lun (2020) showed through analysis of 23 student surveys that human services students thought an informational interview assignment helped them develop an understanding of the field. taken together, findings from studies investigating the impact of informational interview assignments overwhelmingly indicate that the career development tool is valuable for undergraduate students’ career development and planning. future research two students in the study mentioned that connecting with alumni and current students in postgraduate courses they were interested in applying to could provide useful insight into their career planning. bridgstock’s (2016) connectedness learning model describes alumni engagement and student partnerships as connectedness pedagogies that support students in developing their connectedness capabilities. there exists an opportunity to incorporate these elements into the module, and conduct further research on the benefits. a theme emerging from the open-ended responses on practical changes that could assist career planning is the provision of more career options guidance, such as more resources on specific job titles as i personally struggle to find job titles. it is not surprising that students struggle with this, given the vast array of careers that students move into. relevant resources tend to be scattered across various platforms and are not easily located by students who often don’t know what they are looking for or how to search appropriately. a purposefully designed career options resource that supports students in non-specialist healthrelated stem degrees to understand the details of a range of possible careers could assist students with their initial decision making regarding their preferred career path. this would ideally occur prior to students engaging in informational interviews. therefore, research that focuses on the development, implementation, and evaluation of such a resource would add to the current knowledge on cdl. summary to the researchers’ knowledge, this paper describes the first in-depth evaluation of an informational interview assessment introduced into the curriculum of stem non-specialist health-related degrees. lexis, l., thomas, j., taylor, c.j., church, j.e., & julien, b.l. (2021). informational interviews help undergraduate students at the mid-point of non-specialist stem degrees confirm their career aspiration. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(2), 299– 315. 314 the study demonstrates that most students had a positive experience conducting an informational interview, and the interview contributed to the development of a realistic career identity. students felt that the module facilitated detailed learning about a career and the state of the industry, as well as skills related to researching a career and building professional connections. post-interview, students were confident in their knowledge of the profession and are therefore likely to make better decisions about their career path. the results are consistent with others from non-stem disciplines and support the approach of embedding cdl into the curriculum. educators across stem disciplines are encouraged to incorporate an informational interview assignment into their curriculum. the model described in this paper is scalable and could be adopted across a range of degree programs, in particular, in non-specialist degree programs with large student numbers, and contributes to the development of career-ready graduates that are equipped for the challenges of the 21st century. references braun, v., & clarke, v. 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(2022). development and evaluation of a pre-professional identity workshop: a case study in exercise science. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 13(1), 155–170. 155 the journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability issn: 1838-3815 (online) journal homepage: https://ojs.deakin.edu.au/index.php/jtlge/ development and evaluation of a pre-professional identity workshop: a case study in exercise science kelly clanchy1,2, clare minahan1, elizabeth cardell3, and andrea bialocerkowski4 corresponding author: kelly clanchy (k.clanchy@griffith.ed.au) 1school of health sciences and social work, griffith university, gold coast, australia 2menzies health institute queensland, griffith university, gold coast, australia 3school of medicine and dentistry, griffith university, gold coast, australia 4griffith health, griffith university, gold coast, australia abstract pre-professional identity (ppi) aims to provide an understanding of, and connection to, the skills and knowledge contained in a degree and the intended profession of the student. investigation into ppi is of importance to higher-education institutions as it provides a means of understanding a student’s orientation and motivation behind degree and career selection. developing learning activities that capitalise on these motivations is proposed to increase student engagement, reduce attrition, and enhance employability. using the growing, but relatively new profession of exercise science as an example, this study describes a workshop based on theoretical models relating to the concept of ppi, adult learning and self-reflective practices that can be integrated into programs to enhance students’ understanding of their professional identity. one hundred and seventy-three final year exercise science students participated in and evaluated the workshop. the workshop was evaluated using a theoretical framework specifically designed for the evaluation of training activities. the combination of the evaluation and feedback from students were synthesised to develop a model for the application of ppi activities across a three-year undergraduate degree. keywords preprofessional identity; exercise science; employability introduction pre-professional identity (ppi) is defined as ‘an understanding ofand connection withthe skills, qualities, conduct, culture and ideology of a students’ intended profession’ (jackson, 2016, p. 926). ppi has been studied through theoretical lenses to explain how ppi shapes students’ career development. specifically, the self-authorship theory explains the process of becoming a professional through three developmental and interlinked stages, each having cognitive, intrapersonal, and interpersonal dimensions (baxter magolda, 2008). when applied to students, these stages involve: 1) gaining an understanding of the chosen profession, its norms, values and expectations; 2) using critical thinking and reflection, question disciplinary knowledge and practice; and 3) immersion into the chosen profession, collaborating with others and actively contributing to new ways of work (jackson, 2016, 2019). at a practical level, activities including wearing a uniform, role plays and debates, role modelling and guided reflection, mentorship, and immersion into authentic, work integrated learning clanchy, k. et al. (2022). development and evaluation of a pre-professional identity workshop: a case study in exercise science. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 13(1), 155–170. 156 experiences are proposed to facilitate the development of pre-professional identity (hodge et al., 2009; jackson, 2019; ronfeldt & grossman, 2008; rosenblum et al., 2016). ppi is important for academic achievement, retention, and employability for vocation specific and nonvocation specific programs (good & adams, 2008; jackson, 2016; jensen & jetten, 2016; tomlinson & jackson, 2019; whannell & whannell, 2015). developing students’ understanding of their preprofessional identity is proposed to be associated with significant benefits including improved graduate employability through a clearer understanding of the scope of employment opportunities available (jackson, 2019; nadelson et al., 2017; tan et al., 2017); providing students with a sense of purpose and meaning in relation to their current position as a student in a professional program and their intended profession upon graduation (jackson, 2016); and developing an in-depth insight into their decision-making processes and orientation towards their chosen career, in particular, their connection and attraction to a profession (fraher & gabriel, 2014; hallier & cascón-pereira, 2012; schwartz et al., 2011). students with limited experience in their professional field have been found to have a weak connection between their role as a student, the curriculum and their future profession which may lead to misalignment of student expectations of study and the scope of the profession; and in turn attrition (bergmark & westman, 2018; hamshire et al., 2019; hamshire et al., 2013; mckendry et al., 2014). at an institutional level, developing an understanding of students’ ppi in a degree is proposed as a means to understand students’ orientation to their chosen career, including their values and motivations, and to promote engagement in the learning activities, thus reducing attrition (good & adams, 2008; jensen & jetten, 2016; whannell & whannell, 2015). learning activities can be purposely embedded into curricula to enculturate students to their intended profession so that students have realistic expectations of what it means to practice in their intended field (jackson, 2016). a lack of clarity regarding students’ ppi limits the ability of the higher education sector to target programs and learning activities to maximise student outcomes. therefore, there is a need for theoretically-based learning activities that describe students’ ppi, both for the students and the higher-education sector. exercise scientists are allied health professionals who assess, design and deliver exercise and physical activity programs for the purposes of improving health and fitness, wellbeing or performance, and/or the prevention of chronic disease and disability (exercise and sports science australia, 2020). exercise science encompasses a broad range of professions including exercise scientists, sports scientists, exercise physiologists and clinical measurements and diagnostics specialities (exercise and sports science australia, 2018, 2020). exercise science professions are relatively new and evolving entrants into allied health and are among australia’s highest employment growth areas (australian industry and skills committee, 2018). given the evolving nature of the profession and variable employment outcomes, it is not clear how students define, or perceive what it means to be, an exercise science professional. defining ppi is confounded by the broad nature of the degree outcomes in exercise science and the narrow backgrounds of the students, particularly with the establishment of shared foundation years across health curricula in many australian universities. it is proposed that a student’s ppi develops throughout the duration of their study, as students are exposed to their profession’s theoretical and practical knowledge (cruess et al., 2019). this aligns with the self-authorship theory. to begin to understand the ppi of exercise and sports science students enrolled at an australian university, the authors of the present study conducted a body of work that evaluated the ppi and work readiness of two cohorts of exercise science students (clanchy et al., 2021). key findings from this work indicated that: 1) students identified strongly with the professional identity of practitioner, with little understanding of the role of scientist and researcher in the context of exercise science; 2) the formation of a student’s ppi is largely value-driven based on the desire to help others, interest in exercise and sport and satisfaction with previous work or volunteer experiences in the field; and 3) the students’ professional identity and future perceived employment were focused on being an autonomous practitioner who works in a team to deliver evidence-based and science-oriented interventions. building on this work, the current paper describes the process of developing and clanchy, k. et al. (2022). development and evaluation of a pre-professional identity workshop: a case study in exercise science. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 13(1), 155–170. 157 evaluating a workshop that aimed to increase exercise science students’ understanding of ppi in the context of their degree program. this paper aims to: 1) describe the development and delivery of a workshop to promote ppi; 2) evaluate the workshop in a cohort of undergraduate exercise science students; and 3) identify additional strategies that could promote ppi. the results are used to provide a model for integrating ppi in an established curriculum scaffolded across a 3-year degree. using exercise science as a case study is advantageous due to its newness as a stand-alone career pathway, its increased popularity and growth within the health sector, and the limited understanding of students’ ppi. our findings can be applied to other professional degrees to promote increased understanding of the students’ intended profession and engagement in learning activities associated with the degree. methods as stated above, this study is part of a larger program of research that used a mixed method design to describe the perceived ppi, work values, work readiness, and perceived healthcare contribution of two final year cohorts of students (2016 and 2017) in the bachelor of exercise science at griffith university, australia (clanchy et al., 2021). ethical approval was gained from griffith university human research ethics committee (gu ref no: 2016/205). the results of this evaluation formed the basis of a ppi workshop which was developed and evaluated in 2017. students were informed of the research via an introductory email. students provided consent for two separate purposes: 1) to participate in the online survey and allow researchers to use their responses for research purposes; and 2) to allow researchers to use their verbal responses for research purposes. data were analysed only from students who consented to participate in the program of research. participants were able to withdraw their consent up to the point that the data was deidentified for analysis. workshop description the guideline for reporting evidence-based practice educational interventions and teaching (greet) checklist (phillips et al., 2016), guided the description of all aspects of the face-to-face workshop to facilitate its evaluation, interpretation and replication (phillips et al., 2016). the 17 checklist items were grouped under four themes to provide clarity for the workshop descriptions: 1) workshop focus, including background information and objectives; 2) development including the selection and application of theoretical frameworks; 3) delivery, including the number of instructors, resources, schedule, and contact; and 4) outcomes, including whether the workshop was delivered as designed. item 4 of the greet checklist requires discussion of the five foundation steps of evidence-based practice included in the educational intervention as per the model proposed by dawes and colleagues (dawes et al., 2005). it was not the intention of this workshop to develop students’ understanding or application of evidence-based practice. thus, elements of the five steps of evidence-based practice were included in the workshop design, that is, students were asked probing questions to appraise their own experiences and values to apply the information provided regarding ppi frameworks; however, this model was not explicitly referred to in the workshop. the workshop aimed to improve students understanding of their pre-professional identity through three mechanisms: 1. establishing the definition of ppi and factors considered to influence ppi; 2. understanding the five key domains of professional identity; and 3. increasing the perception of the meaning of three professional categories associated with exercise science (researcher, scientist, practitioner). clanchy, k. et al. (2022). development and evaluation of a pre-professional identity workshop: a case study in exercise science. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 13(1), 155–170. 158 the self-authorship theory was utilised to address the first aim of the workshop. students were encouraged to critically reflect on: 1) their previous experiences and values that drove their decisionmaking process to enter into the degree and how these align with their chosen profession; 2) the alignment between their disciplinary knowledge and intended career pathways; and 3) possible activities/ opportunities that would engage them with their chosen profession during their university studies. two theoretical frameworks relating to the domains of professional identity were identified and utilised to address aims 2 and 3 respectively: brooks et al (2003) domains of professional identity; and the science-practitioner model (jones & mehr, 2007). brooks et al (2003) domains of professional identity consist of 5 values that are proposed to influence where an individual identifies themselves on the science practitioner continuum (jones & mehr, 2007): affiliation; autonomy; money; science; and structure. the science-practitioner model demonstrates the importance of research in practice by providing a continuum of research participation relating to the roles of practitioners and scientist/ researchers. this model highlights the inter-relationship between research and clinical practice in evidence best practice (jones & mehr, 2007). these frameworks were selected as: 1) they provided an overview of the different professional categories (researcher, scientist, and practitioner) associated with practice as an exercise scientist; and 2) they provided a list of values/ domains that can be used to conceptualise decision-making processes for student exercise scientist professional identity (affiliation, autonomy, money, science and structure). additionally, both frameworks allow academics with limited exposure to the theoretical basis of professional identity to facilitate discussions with students on exercise science professional practice and the factors that drive career decision-making processes for students. further, principles of adult learning (collins, 2004) and self-reflective practice (maudsley & strivens, 2000) were applied to promote active learning. the workshop was delivered as a 2-hour face-to-face session conducted during a practical laboratory in a core final year (year 3) exercise prescription and programming course during the first week of class in trimester 2. in total, 28 workshops were delivered with 10-12 students in each. all workshops were facilitated by the same accredited exercise scientist who had 7 years’ experience in academic curriculum development and delivery and in clinical practice (kc). familiarity with clinical practice/ employment fields of the students was desirable as it provided context to the application of the three above mentioned theoretical frameworks. the workshops were delivered in a standard classroom, and no specialised equipment was required. the full workshop description is contained in the supplementary material (refer appendix). in summary, the workshop was divided into three sections: • section 1 – definition of ppi: including probing questions to construct a definition of ppi and examine the factors that are perceived to facilitate its development. • section 2 – professional identity in exercise science: delivery of a facilitated discussion and presentation to encourage students to reflect on the continuum of professional identities available in exercise science, specifically the role of science and research, and to investigate the relationship between their own professional identities and the established domains of professional identity. • section 3 individual development of ppi: the use of probing questions to encourage students to reflect on the development and evolution of their individual ppi. workshop evaluation and strategy identification the evaluation of the ppi workshop was mapped against kirkpatrick’s training evaluation model (kirkpatrick & kirkpatrick, 2006), a measure with evidence of sound psychometric properties for the evaluation of education and training initiatives (phillips et al., 2013; phillips et al., 2016). based on the four levels of the kirkpatrick’s training evaluation model (i.e., reaction, learning, behaviour, and results), a workshop evaluation was constructed comprising: 1) a survey containing a question on the perceived usefulness of the workshop for the development of the students’ ppi, using a 4-point clanchy, k. et al. (2022). development and evaluation of a pre-professional identity workshop: a case study in exercise science. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 13(1), 155–170. 159 likert scale (level 1) and an open-ended text question on how the ppi workshop assisted the students to evaluate their ppi (level 2); and 3) evaluation of the notes of the workshop facilitator (level 1 and 2). the survey was conducted at the conclusion of the workshop using an online survey platform, surveymonkey. an anonymous online survey was used to encourage an accurate, honest, and immediate account of the students’ perceptions of the workshop. the evaluation followed the workshop in the same session due to time restrictions. the workshop facilitator kept notes on the engagement of students in each workshop and reflections on the implementation of the workshop content after each workshop. these notes were analysed to identify key themes across workshops. evaluation of the behaviour and results of the implementation of the workshop (kirkpatrick’s level 3 and 4 respectively) was not in scope based on the challenges of quantifying ‘professional identity’ behaviour. however, participant responses to the open-ended survey questions were analysed for self-reported increase in participation of behaviours or changed perceptions that could be considered to develop ppi (level 3). the maintenance of the workshop in the curriculum was considered a measure of the workshop results/organisational performance (level 4). strategies that could influence students ppi were identified during workshop discussions. workshop discussion responses were audioand video-recorded and transcribed verbatim. data analyses frequencies were used to summarise the responses to the likert-scale questions. descriptive content analysis was used to identify themes for the open-ended survey question, workshop discussions and facilitator notes. open to selective coding was used to provide an overview of each response, with a secondary hierarchical analysis applied to group responses under key themes (braun & clarke, 2006). two researchers independently conducted the analyses. differences of opinions on the deconstruction, interpretation, and reconstruction of data were resolved through discussion until consensus from all researchers was gained regarding the key theme that the datum represented. the process undertaken was selected based on evidence that indicates the use of two primary coders reduces flexibility in the iterative process of coding analysis, particularly interpretive and pattern coding (berends & johnston, 2005). the frequency of the themes derived from the open-ended survey question was presented as a percentage of the total coded responses. themes derived from the workshop discussions were presented as a percentage of the number of workshops the theme was discussed in, and as a percentage of the total coded responses. primary themes were identified by applying two arbitrary criteria: 1) > 30% representation in the 12 workshops; and 2) > 10% of the total coded responses relating to the construct of interest, to ensure that the distribution of responses was reflected in the analyses, while allowing for consensus conclusions to be drawn. when either or both criteria were not met, themes were classified as secondary. quotes that illustrated the primary themes were identified. results participants the 2017 cohort of students enrolled in a final year prescription and programming course (n=187) participated in this study. the ppi workshop evaluation response rate was very high (n=173, 93%). participants identified as female (42%) or male (58%) with the majority aged 20-24 years (67%) and of australian nationality (71%). eighty percent of the respondents were enrolled as full-time domestic students, and most had not undertaken previous tertiary study (66%) other than their current bachelor of exercise science degree. more than half had not undertaken previous professional or paid work experience (66%), were not currently undertaking work in their field of interest (81%), had not clanchy, k. et al. (2022). development and evaluation of a pre-professional identity workshop: a case study in exercise science. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 13(1), 155–170. 160 undertaken voluntary work experience (68%), and had not engaged in research activities (81%). there were no statistically significant differences between respondents and non-respondents for any demographic variables. perceived usefulness of professional identity workshop figure 1 presents the students’ perception of the usefulness of the workshop for the development of ppi. the workshop was perceived by most students (95%) to be useful/very useful. figure 1: perceived usefulness of an interactive workshop for the development of student’s preprofessional identity table 1 presents the distribution of written responses relating to the usefulness of the ppi workshop (n= 119; 63% of respondents). primary themes on the usefulness of the ppi workshop included the promotion of self-reflection relating to a career pathway (21%); explanation of pathways, careers, and opportunities available (21%); and the broadening career perspectives as to not close off employment options (18%). table 1: themes relating to the influence of the workshop on the students’ pre-professional identity themes coded statements (n=119) promotion of self-reflection relating to career selection 25 (21%) explanation of pathways, careers, or opportunities 25 (21%) broadened perspective/ not close off options 21 (18%) provide direction, clarity and insight to decision making processes 19 (16%) provide opportunities to ask questions and discuss career options openly 7 (6%) information should be presented earlier 5 (4%) increased confidence in decision making 4 (3%) provision of information regarding the five values underpinning career selection 3 (3%) not perceived to be beneficial 2 (2%) scared for future prospects 2 (2%) other 6 (5%) 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 very useful useful undecided not useful clanchy, k. et al. (2022). development and evaluation of a pre-professional identity workshop: a case study in exercise science. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 13(1), 155–170. 161 students’ responses relating to self-reflection were further categorised into two themes: 1) reflection on the practicalities of career selection; and 2) value-based career decisions. students indicated that the workshop provided context to their professional identity; their desired professional pathway; and their university experience. this is reflected in the responses below. please note that the following quotes are from de-identified transcripts, therefore no participant attribution is possible. given me useful information to reflect on my professional identity as i haven't stopped to think about it. made me really think about what i want from my degree and how i want to go forward with my profession. this is the first time i have actually realized in all three years of studying exercise science that i know the reason why i am doing what i am doing. students also indicated that the workshop resulted in self-reflection on how their individual values aligned with their career decisions as demonstrated in the following responses: it helped me to identify what i valued and why i valued those areas when choosing a job. it also helped me to understand what other job areas are available and how they link in with the area i am interested in, as well as how my job interest area can be a sliding scale towards other areas too. overall, i feel more confident in the career pathway i have choose and my reasons for choosing it. made me think further about my future and what is important to me in a role. encourages to reflect about what is important to you, your own values, responsibility, and commitment to the profession you choose. the workshop has made me evaluate my values, and how these can align to my future career. facilitator’s reflections three primary themes emerged from analysing the facilitator’s reflections: 1. consider integrating the ppi workshop earlier in the degree as ppi key concepts are important for students to understand from the commencement of their study to provide relevance to the degree content and possible career opportunities. 2. the content included in the ppi workshop did not map to the content of the exercise prescription and programming subject it was integrated into. students perceived the content as useful, and therefore important. integrating smaller curriculum elements relating to ppi results in the content being a ‘hidden’ component of the curriculum. therefore, students may be unable to reflect on their decision-making processes in relation to their career. 3. the current professional standards for exercise science have limited application in the domains of ppi. there is, therefore, limited capacity/ ‘space’ to integrate professional identity into the curriculum. however, modules (beyond a singular workshop) need to be dedicated to ppi and employability. this recommendation is made in consideration of the proposed benefit of establishing a professional identity for students particularly relating to engagement in learning activities. proposed activities to develop professional identity students suggested many activities that they perceived would increase their professional identity. these were summarised into 11 themes (table 2), of which two themes were classified as primary: 1) provision of work integrated learning (wil) opportunities earlier or more frequently in the degree; and 2) providing career pathway information earlier in the degree to guide the selection of subjects and extra-curricular activities. the provision of mentoring activities, inclusion of more skill-based clanchy, k. et al. (2022). development and evaluation of a pre-professional identity workshop: a case study in exercise science. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 13(1), 155–170. 162 practical subjects and explanation of subject relevance to the students’ intended career were represented in 25% of focus groups but less than 10% of the coded responses. more frequent or earlier wil experiences was discussed as a means of the students gaining a more indepth understanding of the requirements of the exercise science profession and insight into the interrelationship between theory and practice. this would allow for reflection relating to their desire to pursue a career in the field, and their connection with the identity of an exercise scientist. we’ve learnt like a lot of stuff and i can tell you a lot of random things, but i don’t think any of it can actually apply to what we want to do, like i just feel like i’ve just been given a lot of information, but none of it is actually useful and a lot of it we’re forgetting because we’re using it, we’re not doing anything with it. if we had a placement where you put that theory into practice or something, it might help us to remember. as he said, i was thinking more placement as well, just so you can understand that this is what you’re getting into. i understand like in health it’s hard to have placement because we’re in a position where we could actually hurt someone if we don’t know what we’re doing, so even if it’s just like going in like one or two hours a day and just watching what’s been happening. i’m happy with sitting on a chair and watching people work, so i know this is what is expected of me. something that could work well is i know like the nursing degree, they incorporate a placement, like pretty early on and that will, i know a lot of people that i know who are in nursing, while doing that placement they find out whether what they do, if they actually do want to do it because you’re actually working in the field and you’re doing the things that you would be doing later on when you’re actually qualified and having that for this, like just in placements in all the different fields opens people’s eyes up to all different options as well. the provision of career information early in the degree was identified as a priority due to the importance of making decisions on degree pathways that allowed students to both achieve their intended career, but also not exclude potential career options. yeah, i guess, but i like the details of everything, so i guess like just being more specific and clearer on like what exactly you have to do to go from point a to point b, that’s the path you have to take, rather than finish your exercise science degree and then go ‘[…], i want to be a physio, now i have to go back and do these three or four subjects. it’s a very broad degree, exercise science, and it would be a great move, i know other unis are doing it with exercise science and creating those certain streams and you said that the uni wants to focus on employability but for instance you said that we can get into sleep, being a sleep scientist, but we probably haven’t touched onto that at all throughout our degree, so how then do we know that that’s what we want to do. so, i think moving forward it would be awesome to see that, i know it’s hard to know, but a lot of people do know what interests them and what pathway they want to take and it’s a lot easier to make that decision at the start of your degree or even in second year, if you go ‘okay, i’ve done one year of exercise science now i’m going to choose the education path’. you still do exercise science but it just sets you up well for doing education or i’ve chosen now the physio path, so i’m doing a couple of subjects that’s going to focus on that clinical reasoning and that communication with patients and a few basic physio things so that by the end of exercise science i have a basic understanding into physiotherapy or […] wants to get into research so he can do all that science stuff that probably 90% of people here don’t want to do, but yeah. i think maybe that first year where you’re just hit with all the medical stuff, obviously you have to learn about the body to learn further onwards, but there was no subject that was like, yeah, like everyone said, ‘this is what you can do with it, this is the paths you can take’. maybe a subject earlier that was like set in more about the exercise science and more what you would be doing at the end in more of maybe just a basic detail just so people knew what they getting into early. clanchy, k. et al. (2022). development and evaluation of a pre-professional identity workshop: a case study in exercise science. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 13(1), 155–170. 163 table 2: themes derived relating to the proposed activities to develop professional identity number of focus groups n= 12 number of instances coded n= 88 work integrated learning opportunities earlier or more frequently 9 (75%) 29 (33%) career pathways information early in degree 8 (67%) 24 (27%) mentoring 3 (25%) 7 (8%) more skills based practical subjects 3 (25%) 7 (8%) explanation of subject relevance to career 3 (25%) 4 (5%) increased access to the program director or advisor 2 (17%) 7 (8%) more career specific subjects 1 (8%) 3 (3%) more networking and volunteering opportunities 1 (8%) 3 (3%) more information on postgraduate options and requirements 1 (8%) 2 (2%) guest speakers from different professions 1 (8%) 1 (1%) other 1 (8%) 1 (1%) discussion this paper described the focus, development, delivery, outcome, and evaluation of a tailored workshop that aimed to develop the ppi of exercise science students in their final trimester of study. to provide a replicable description of the workshop, the guideline for reporting evidence-based practice educational interventions and teaching (greet) checklist (phillips et al., 2013; phillips et al., 2016) was used. the workshop evaluation applied the kirkpatrick training model to determine students’ perceived usefulness of the workshop, their changes in attitudes, skills and knowledge as a result of participation, and/or the uptake of the workshop by the learning institution (kirkpatrick & kirkpatrick, 2006). in addition to conducting a structured evaluation of the workshop via an online survey, participants were asked for their viewpoints on additional strategies that could be included in the curriculum to improve ppi. moreover, the facilitator provided notes on the delivery and engagement of students during the workshop. triangulation of these sources of data allowed for strong conclusions to be drawn regarding the workshop’s efficacy and acceptability, and recommendations for improvements. the workshop was theoretically driven, based on the self-authorship theory, science-practitionermodel, and brooks et al (2003) domains of professional identity and addressed a need in an exercise science degree program at one australian university. the workshop was perceived to be beneficial by 95% of students as a means of developing their ppi. students stated that the workshop promoted selfreflection of their intended career pathways, provided explanation of available career pathways and opportunities, and broadened their perspectives as not to close off employment opportunities that they may not have considered previously. this feedback aligned with the workshop learning outcomes (refer to table 1 in supplementary material, appendix). the workshop was designed to allow students to consider the practicalities of their career selection and how their values drive their career decisionmaking processes. evaluation of the qualitative responses of the usefulness of the workshop indicated student-identified improvements in their skills relating to ppi including self-reflection and application of the provided knowledge to their own circumstances. although the inquiry described in this paper clanchy, k. et al. (2022). development and evaluation of a pre-professional identity workshop: a case study in exercise science. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 13(1), 155–170. 164 relates to the profession of exercise science, it can be argued that the content of the workshop could easily be applied to other vocational and non-vocational degree programs. evaluation of both student and facilitator responses indicated that the timing of the workshop may limit the students’ ability to apply any benefits gained from the workshop to their program of study. this was supported by students who indicated that they would have benefited from wil opportunities and career pathway information earlier or more frequently during their degree, consistent with previous research undertaken in exercise and sports science students (de hollander et al., 2018). this would enable them to make more informed decisions on elective subjects and extra-curricular wil experiences. providing this information during a degree would also have the added benefit of linking the curriculum elements and the potential employment outcomes, possibly increasing engagement and reducing attrition (good & adams, 2008; jackson, 2016; jensen & jetten, 2016; tomlinson & jackson, 2019; whannell & whannell, 2015), as demonstrated by the following quotes: what you’ve done here, i actually think you should, you know, something like that could have gone in first year and i say that because my daughter started this degree, she completed first year and she went ‘well, i don’t know what the hell to do with that, i want to go to university to get a job at the end of it’ and something like that would have been really good in the first year. yeah, i agree, like one of my friends, she was in this program as well and she, first year, and there was like anatomy, foundations, chemistry and it just felt like being back in school with chemistry and everything like that, like i was disheartened, i was like ‘is this really what i want to do?’ and so she dropped out. luckily, i kept going because i was like ‘hopefully it gets better than this’. yeah, i just wish there was a, especially in first year, there was just something more hands on and practical so that you can know how to relate all your chemistry and your anatomy in the first year to at least something basic hands on. current exercise science accreditation standards focus on discipline-specific skills that are required for employment. however, information on how these skills apply in an employment setting and the employment opportunities available for exercise science graduates is lacking. previous work undertaken by the authors of this study emphasise the need for ppi to be developed for exercise science students using activities that are integrated across the curriculum from enrolment onwards (clanchy et al., 2021). as such, the integration of ppi and employability into the curriculum needs to be supported by accrediting bodies as a means of increasing the employability of their graduates. information collected during this body of work can be used to map ppi activities across a university curriculum from intake to graduation based on the work by lizzio and colleagues (lizzio, 2011). an assumption made when generating this model was that the current curriculum is saturated with theoretical concepts and practical competencies, with no room for a dedicated professional practice and employability subject. the proposed model relies on the integration of these activities into core units/subjects in the degree and the scaffolding of the activities from students who are transitioning into the degree to students who are transitioning out of the degree. this scaffolding is consistent with the student lifecycle model proposed by lizzio and colleagues (lizzio, 2011) which has been previously used to successfully integrate activities linking curriculum content, wil and employability (bates & hayes, 2017). our model for scaffolding professional identity and employability activities across a three-year professional degree is presented in table 3. the model is based on three phases: 1) transitioning into the degree program (year 1); 2) transitioning through the degree program (year 2); and 3) transitioning out of the degree program (year 3) (lizzio, 2011). the objectives of the model include establishing a connection with the degree contents, future career options and with industry to facilitate early engagement and reduce attrition; developing a stronger understanding of the profession and possible pathways of interest to capitalise on wil opportunities and elective selection; and a more nuanced understanding of the students’ current skills and knowledge in the context of their chosen profession to promote a stronger affiliation with their profession and enhance their employability. this aligns with the three stages in the self-authorship theory (baxter magolda, 2008). included activities range from the progressive development of clanchy, k. et al. (2022). development and evaluation of a pre-professional identity workshop: a case study in exercise science. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 13(1), 155–170. 165 eportfolios and resumes to document developing skills and competencies, career profiles, information on interviews and peer and professional networking to promote industry engagement, and stronger integration of career knowledge and practice-based assessments to develop stronger links between curriculum activities and professional outcomes. learning activities are scaffolded to move from the attainment of discipline-specific skills to a more refined understanding of the specific profession, to provide an opportunity for the development of employability skills (smith et al., 2009; watts, 2006). the strength of the study design includes a detailed description of the intervention to allow for replication using a validated checklist, the inclusion of a strong theoretical basis for the intervention design including the science-practitioner model and the domains of ppi, integration of the principles of adult learning and reflective practice, evaluation by the facilitator to provide meaningful feedback on delivery, and a structured evaluation of the workshop delivery using a theoretical framework. it is proposed the strength of the study design will allow for modification and replication of this workshop in different professional fields. we suggest that the methods described in this study could be applied to students studying vocational and non-vocational degrees as a means of facilitating an increased understanding of professional identity. we propose that ppi can be developed through learning activities that facilitate reflection on personal factors and experiences, and the understanding of their chosen profession and possible career directions, and explicitly link these to professional norms and values, and scope of practice, consistent with the theoretical constructs of the self-authorship theory. the outcomes of this study are limited to the evaluation of the perceived usefulness of the workshop by the participants and the facilitator. due to the complex nature of the domain being evaluated, that is ppi, it is difficult to determine whether participants increased their ‘professional identity’ behaviour, beyond their focus group responses. future research could apply a ppi scale at baseline, immediately after the workshop delivery, then three to six months later to track maintenance and/or changes. however, evidence suggests that ppi scales have limited evidence on their psychometric properties (matthew et al., 2019) and the outcomes of this workshop may not be apparent immediately postdelivery. the inclusion of focus groups post-workshop delivery, or at the time of students entering the workforce, may determine the influence of the workshop of professional identity and the student’s employability/ career pathway. future research could include the evaluation of the utility and acceptability of the workshop in other health science professions. conclusion pre-professional identity promotes an understanding and connection between skills, qualities, conduct, culture and ideology of students’ intended profession and can be facilitated through learning activities designed to consolidate an understanding of the profession, critical thinking and reflection relating to curriculum elements and immersion into their intended profession prior to graduation (jackson, 2016; johnson et al., 2012; marks & thompson, 2010; sutherland & markauskaite, 2012; trede et al., 2012; whannell & whannell, 2015). several theoretical frameworks provide an understanding of professional identity and to a lesser degree ppi; however, worked examples demonstrating the application of these frameworks in teaching practice are limited. this article provides a description of the development (including the theoretical basis), delivery and evaluation of a ppi workshop, using exercise science as a case study. the outcomes from the evaluation, in combination with suggested strategies from students relating to the development of ppi, have been combined into a framework for integrating and scaffolding professional identity and employability activities across a three-year professional degree. clanchy, k. et al. (2022). development and evaluation of a pre-professional identity workshop: a case study in exercise science. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 13(1), 155–170. 166 table 3: potential scaffolding of professional identity and employability activities across a three year professional degree year objectives of model possible curriculum or co-curriculum elements year 1 transition in: • clarifying connection of content and degree program to future career options. • improving industry connections. • develop an eportfolio categorising previous experiences and education. • complete personality profiles and testing and apply the results to the student’s field of interest. • provide career profiles including interviews with practicing professionals with proposed study plans. • define graduate attributes for the degree to provide context for learning. • explicitly state the relevant graduate employability skills in the learning outcomes for every subject. year 2 transition through: • developing an understanding of the profession and potential pathways of interest. • capitalising on workplace learning and wil. • deconstruct job advertisements and identifying study plans and opportunities for practical experiences. • conduct information interviews with professionals of interest. • participate, as a peer, in practical exams. • progress eportfolio. • ensure assessment items have a practice specific focus/ scaffolding of case studies and examples across subjects. • develop practice-based assessment item. • provide information sessions on postgraduate study options. • integrate research friendly experiencesparticipating in research projects, student selection of research topic. • embed an industry mentoring program/ industry q&a sessions/ industry events. • produce or engage with blogs for professional development opportunities/ volunteer opportunities. year 3 transition out: • understanding of current skills and knowledge and relationship to professional fields. • affiliation with a profession. • implement a peer mentoring program. • use peer personal training program. • embed professional identity workshops. • integrate employment specific modules (e.g., resume writing, selection criteria etc.) • finalise the eportfolio. • map personal skills against job/ fields of interest. • practice skills in simulated practice environments/ virtual classrooms. • develop a professional development plan post-graduation. • build alumni networks to build profiles of ‘first years.’ clanchy, k. et al. 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(2022). development and evaluation of a pre-professional identity workshop: a case study in exercise science. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 13(1), 155–170. 170 appendix supplementary material ‘development and evaluation of a pre-professional identity workshop: a case study in exercise science’ is available http://hdl.handle.net/10072/420414 1654 spagnoli (final) spagnoli, d. et al. (2023). from we ask to iask: a self-reflection strategy enabling students to connect assessment and employability. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 14(1), 71–87. 71 the journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability issn: 1838-3815 (online) journal homepage: https://ojs.deakin.edu.au/index.php/jtlge/ from we ask to iask: a self-reflection strategy enabling students to connect assessment and employability dino spagnoli1, shelley kinash2, trina jorre de st jorre2,3, sally male4, clare m. mouat5, 7, & kevin mcdougall6 corresponding author: dino spagnoli (dino.spagnoli@uwa.edu.au) 1 school of molecular sciences, the university of western australia, perth, western australia 2 student experience, university of new england, armidale, new south wales 3 centre for research in assessment and digital learning, deakin university, geelong, victoria 4 teaching and learning laboratory, faculty of engineering and it, the university of melbourne, melbourne, victoria 5 school of people, environment and planning, massey university, palmerston north, aotearoa new zealand 6 school of surveying and built environment, university of southern queensland, toowoomba, queensland 7 school of social sciences, the university of western australia, perth, western australia abstract most students acknowledge shared responsibility, with the university, for their employability development. many academics use assessments as the main driver for motivating students to learn. at the intersection between employability, assessment and learning, the emergent research question is what are the mechanisms by which course-based employability is fostered? prior research reveals that although academics identified course-based assessment as the key employability mechanism, neither students nor employers registered this conceptualisation, and thus purpose of assessment. the aim of this research was to stimulate and communicate the direct connection between assessment and employability to students and interpret their response. over 100 first-year students, across a metropolitan and regional australian university, participated. students were directed to use a simple reflective tool, dubbed iask by the researchers, that probed employability elements of identity, attributes, skills, and knowledge. the research revealed the resulting student view that regular coursebased assessment can develop their employability skills in communication and independence, but not in critical thinking and global citizenship. keywords employability, assessment, reflective practice, firstyear experience introduction student-focussed research has shown that finding a suitable job after graduation is a key concern shared by many university students, globally and across disciplines (jorre de st jorre & oliver, 2018; pigden & jegede, 2020; tomlinson, 2008; tymon, 2013). however, students’ understanding of factors of importance to employment are more variable, and students who need opportunities to develop knowledge and skills relevant to careers often do not pursue those opportunities until late in their degree, if at all (doyle, 2011; jorre de st jorre et al., 2019; tymon, 2013). for this reason, universities spagnoli, d. et al. (2023). from we ask to iask: a self-reflection strategy enabling students to connect assessment and employability. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 14(1), 71–87. 72 have sought to embed skills and knowledge of importance to employability into the formal curriculum, where all students can benefit (clarke, 2018; oliver & jorre de st jorre, 2018). however, research examining student perceptions of such curricula (e.g., curricula specifically designed to develop graduate attributes), suggests that where capabilities are embedded, they also need to be explicitly communicated or assessed, otherwise it is common for students to remain unaware of the skills they have demonstrated or the relevance of their achievements (hill et al., 2020; hill et al., 2019; jorre de st jorre et al., 2019; jorre de st jorre & oliver, 2018 lock & kelly, 2022). student-centred professional development for employability requires guidance, intentionality, and mechanisms for reflexive practice. guidance should not be left until near graduation conversations or rely on students accessing extra-curricular career services (cook, 2022). instead advancing employability requires guidance in revealing the range of employability practices, such as timely and ongoing reflections on assessment tasks over the course of a student’s study. jorre de st jorre and oliver (2018) coined this practice, ‘assessment for employability’ (p. 55). assessment for learning is a well-established pedagogy which recognises the influence of assessment on where students direct their effort (carless, 2017; hattie, 2009). students also hold assessment in high regard in relation to their learning (ashford-rowe et al., 2014; boud, 2007; crisp, 2012; hughes & barrie, 2010). unfortunately, research has shown that students rarely see connections between assessment and employability (kinash, mcgillivray, & crane, 2018 ), even in relation to curriculum specifically designed to integrate the practice of work with theory (ajjawi et al., 2019). students completing assessment activities is a primary means to develop their employability, within a disciplinary/industry context, and completed assessment tasks can be used as evidence of achievements to converse with and/or show to prospective employers (jorre de st jorre & oliver, 2018 ). the mechanisms for independent or guided reflection are, however, unlikely to be helpful let alone successful without reinforcing the connection between assessment and employability. awareness is the essential intermediary factor that determines efficacy in the connections between assessment, learning and employability (bennett et al., 2017; dacre pool & sewell, 2007; farenga & quinlan, 2016; jorre de st jorre et al., 2019; qenani et al., 2014). beyond awareness, students also need to develop the ability to present their claim that they have developed the skills, attributes and identity that are required for the particular employment opportunity (holmes, 2013; sarkar et al., 2021). developing efficacious employability by assessment techniques is a keystone for lifelong professional development, mentoring and managing, as well as innovation and discovery. there is a lack of research focused on effective practices that students can use to link employability and assessment. moreover, we argue that this link should be made very early in the student’s university life (sambell et al., 2021). our argument is grounded in previous research that has concluded the importance of aligning employability initiatives with student expectations (aasheim et al., 2009; nilsson, 2010). by making this link in the first-year of university, students have been shown to have improved demonstration of key employability skills and academic attainment in subsequent years (hanna et al., 2015). therefore, students’ perceptions of employability can be enhanced at firstyear level if the link of employability with current assessment practices is made clear and explicit. we introduce a reflective tool (identify, attributes, skills, knowledge, iask) that students can use to link employability with assessment, and we investigate the first-year students’ point of view by means of thematic analysis of their responses. the paper proceeds to describe the theory that underpins the development of the iask tool and we describe the methods and results from a study where we invited first-year university students to use the iask tool as part of their reflective practice. through thematic analysis we discovered the types of spagnoli, d. et al. (2023). from we ask to iask: a self-reflection strategy enabling students to connect assessment and employability. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 14(1), 71–87. 73 assessments that students linked to specific employability learning. the research questions to guide the second part of this paper were: 1) do first-year students link employability learning through assessment after completing the iask tool? 2) do first-year students associate assessment types with specific employability learning after completing the iask tool? theory underpinning the iask reflection tool there is widespread agreement regarding the function of higher education in developing the careerready student and that this is a multi-faceted function. knight and yorke (2003a) identified the four main determinants of employability as understanding (u), skills (s), efficacy (e) and meta-cognition (m), comprising the usem theory. the authors argue that understanding is equivalent to what pedagogical theorists, such as bloom et al. (1956) called knowledge, that efficacy is equivalent to what theorists such as barrie (barrie, 2006) and oliver (2013) call attributes, and that meta-cognition is equivalent to what theorists such as knight and yorke (2003b), and others such as bennett et al. (2017) and holmes (2013) also call identity. graduate attributes have been comprehensively researched, intersecting with employability research. researchers such as oliver and jorre de st jorre (2018) and star and hammer (2008) have identified that the graduate attributes, described as the overall capacities (independent of discipline) are developed through the student learning journey and are desirable (by employers) qualities of graduates. the skills-led approach to graduate employability has been a traditional method for the higher education sector for many years (dearing, 1997), even though skills cannot be developed in isolation of other employability components. research from the uk has revealed employers’ overall perceptions of graduate employability requiring a complex and composite graduate identity (hinchliffe & jolly, 2011). identity is not fixed for every student as formation depends on the context, which is why we argue that good practice in identity-formation is facilitated through curriculumembedded reflective practice based on the assessments that students are already expected to complete. in other words, the approach is embedded rather than ‘bolt on’ (cook, 2022). the student’s performance of assessment tasks is one way for students to develop their identity (holmes, 2001). the assessment tasks can also be used to develop knowledge and attributes, which have been the focus of many literature studies describing employability (clarke, 2018; steur et al., 2012). deriving a practice-based instrument from the above theory would engage four main components of employability learning: i (identity), a (attributes), s (skills) and k (knowledge) to comprise the iask model of learning employability through assessment. these four components overlap and intersect, with the primary aligned questions as follows: (1) what did i learn about myself, related to my graduate career, through doing this assessment activity? (identity); (2) how have i progressed my overall development and become more through doing this assessment? (attributes); (3) what skills (technical and transferable) have i developed through doing this assessment? (skills); (4) what career-related information and understandings have i developed through this assessment activity? (knowledge). spagnoli, d. et al. (2023). from we ask to iask: a self-reflection strategy enabling students to connect assessment and employability. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 14(1), 71–87. 74 beyond knowing that assessment and employability interact, students require a nuanced ability to leverage discipline-based assessment for employability. arguably, it is good practice if students are informed early in their education, so that they can apply their learning throughout. the study reported in this paper examined the use of a simple tool (iask) to connect assessment and employability learning, for first-year students. methods human ethics approval was granted to conduct this research. the researchers at two australian universities intentionally recruited diverse perspective through using multiple means to invite as many first-year students as possible to take part in this study. some students were invited through a specific tutorial on employability, and some were invited through emails from unit or programme coordinators or community of practice members (including careers advisory, academic and professional staff). participants accessed the tool through a link providing the research information, informed consent, and brief online module about employability for students who wished to proceed. participation was voluntary, was not a hurdle requirement, and did not impact on their grades. participants were anonymised at the data collection stage. those students who wished to proceed watched a short video (see: https://player.vimeo.com/video/398441740/) which explained the iask tool (figure 1) and how it could be linked to an assessment item of their selection. participants provided key demographic information that was used to categorise students into seven broad discipline areas (table 1). participants were then asked to choose one assessment item and put it at the centre of the iask tool. the example that participants were given in the online video was a laboratory report. students then completed the rest of the iask tool as instructed from the video. figure 1: an example of the iask tool used by students to reflect on their assessments and link to their employability in total, 114 first-year students participated in this study. students reported numerous subjects in the description of their major. this is to be expected from first-year australian university students where multiple degree pathways are still open to them during their first year. the list provided in table 1 describes the first subject indicated by students in their major sequence only and have been grouped together into overarching disciplines. spagnoli, d. et al. (2023). from we ask to iask: a self-reflection strategy enabling students to connect assessment and employability. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 14(1), 71–87. 75 table 1: number of students per discipline who completed an iask survey. discipline number of students engineering (including mechanical, chemical, electrical, mining, civil) 45 medicine, biomedical and health sciences (including pharmacology, nursing, microbiology and immunology, pathology and laboratory medicine) 27 biological sciences (including biochemistry, genetics, anatomy and human biology) 21 physical sciences, data science and math (including chemistry, physics, geology, computer science and math) 15 psychology 4 economics 1 philosophy 1 total 114 nvivo was used to conduct reflective thematic analysis following abductive (shuttling between grounded and scholarly insights into the assessment-employability connection), realist (drawing on student insights and experiences in the reality of student participants), and semantic (focussing on the explicit level of expression by participants) conventions (braun & clarke, 2006). the first stage of analysis was to identify the full set of themes emergent from the student responses to the iask tool. from the 114 student responses, there were 456 data-points (114 responses x 4 sectors of iask). in this first stage, each of these data points was coded to the iask categories of assessment type, identity, attributes, skills and knowledge. the responses from students were coded based on the overall theme. for example, the code ‘technical’ was assigned if a student response specifically referenced the studied discipline. the code ‘communication’ was assigned when the student response related to an oral or written skill that they were developing. the second stage was to code the first stage themes to align with the list of employability learning (graduate attributes), across the iask categories (table 2). these themes were: communication, critical thinking, global citizenship, teamwork, independence, problem-solving and information literacy (oliver & jorre de st jorre, 2018). this involved the sorting of student statements from the iask tool into digital groupings by identifying and sorting the synonyms and other similarities and differences grounded in the terminology students themselves used to describe the phenomena (what employability learning they gained through assessment). the lead researcher then transferred focus from the employability learning groups to the relationships between the employability learning and the type of assessment described. the lead researcher returned to the data multiple times, interrogating the groupings and the evidence for classifications, and making changes to coding and interpretation. one other researcher independently checked the codes, frames and groupings and raised discrepancies and differences of opinions where they arose. the two researchers discussed the variance and arrived at consensus as to classification. descriptive statistics were performed to describe the most popular themes that arose from the thematic analysis. spagnoli, d. et al. (2023). from we ask to iask: a self-reflection strategy enabling students to connect assessment and employability. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 14(1), 71–87. 76 table 2: second stage coded themes placed in employability learning previously published by oliver and jorre de st jorre (2018) employability learning published by oliver and jorre de st jorre, (2018). what employers might need, or universities emphasise? * indicates new employability learning coded entry: from the 32 codes of the iask responses by 114 students. communicationoral communication, written communication technical communication professionalism critical thinking-critical and analytical thinking data analysis critical thinking global citizenshipability to interact with coworkers from different or multi-cultural backgrounds networking interpersonal skills teamworkworking collaboratively with colleagues to complete tasks collaborating enjoyment-group leadership independence-learning and working independently, highlighting resilience and mental wellbeing work alone independence motivation time on task persistence dedication determination discipline multi-tasking work ethic maturity problem solvingdeveloping innovative ideas, adapting knowledge and applying skills in different contexts problem solving application of knowledge information literacyemphasising the ability to judge the veracity of information research organisation*-preparing and organising work, team members and priorities, having clear goals set from the out set clear expectations organisation preparation other*codes that the researchers could not place in any of the employability categories as above. self-awareness creativity curiosity easy going capable spagnoli, d. et al. (2023). from we ask to iask: a self-reflection strategy enabling students to connect assessment and employability. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 14(1), 71–87. 77 results employability learning themes in each iask category across the 456 data points, a total of 596 descriptions were found in the 32 coded themes. some entries by students covered multiple codes, therefore, the number of descriptions is greater than individual data points. the students allocated these descriptions of codes nearly evenly across the four iask categories (identity 25%, attributes 25%, knowledge 24% and skills 26%). the coded entries were then matched against the employability learning themes (oliver & jorre de st jorre, 2018). the majority clustered in communication, independence and organization. these three themes accounted for almost 75% of the student comments. the lowest weighted descriptor was global citizenship, which accounted for 1.5% of the coded descriptors. descriptive statistics are provided for the iask categories (table 3). the ‘other’ category, which included codes such as self-awareness, creativity, and capability, was too diverse for comment based on the descriptive statistics conducted with the iask categories. overall, independence and organisation accounted for most of the responses by students for identity and attributes sections of the iask tool, whereas communication dominated responses in skills and knowledge. table 3: percentages represent the distribution of the coded comments in a particular iask category (column) across the nine employability themes. employability themes identity attributes skills knowledge too diverse to comment communication 2.0% 0.0% 54.9% 55.3% critical thinking 2.7% 1.3% 2.0% 4.3% global citizenship 0.0% 0.0% 2.6% 3.5% teamwork 22.0% 3.3% 0.7% 2.1% independence 37.3% 78.9% 14.4% 5.7% problem solving 0.7% 1.3% 9.8% 11.3% information literacy 0.0% 0.0% 11.1% 16.3% organisation 35.3% 7.2% 2.0% 0.0% other 0.0% 7.9% 2.6% 1.4% the colour ranges classify the theme responses: dark green (high), yellow (medium) and red (low) (n = 114. some entries by students covered multiple codes, therefore, the number of descriptions is greater than individual data points.) spagnoli, d. et al. (2023). from we ask to iask: a self-reflection strategy enabling students to connect assessment and employability. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 14(1), 71–87. 78 students indicated the strongest association for building capacity for communication as sitting alongside knowledge and skills, and building capacity for working independently to be associated with identity and attributes. in other words, students appeared to perceive that communication was strengthened through learning what is required from the assessment, and then in practicing the writing and speech skills to deliver. the quotes provided throughout this section are examples from the student’s response to emphasise the employability theme being discussed. working independently was developed through the experience of doing the assessment by themselves, observing their ability to do so effectively, persevering, and being dedicated and positively shifting their self-confidence. the overwhelming response by students to the iask question about identity from these assessments was having clear expectations, meeting the deadline in good time and having the motivation to get the task complete. an example of such a response was ‘i like to work with clear deadlines and get work done efficiently and quickly’ (student 100, university 1, bachelor of biomedical science). another subset of codes within the independence theme in the attributes classification were focused on determination, resilience, and self-improvement: ‘i am persistent and will always aim to complete the task by the deadline. i am constantly acknowledging the feedback i've been given and working to implement them to improve my work’ (student 9, university 2, master of professional engineering). therefore, these first-year students appear to intentionally be using their assessment tasks as a means to develop their determination to complete tasks in an efficient manner. students also identified that organisation was a key employability learning theme associated with getting the assessment completed. student responses indicated that the demands of assessment task completion change their identity, and develop their positive attribute of working independently, as demonstrated by the quote from student 19, university 1, bachelor of professional engineering: ‘i am a person who likes everything to be completed with 100% effort, i am organised and persistent.’ employability themes in each assessment type the seven most popular assessment types used to conduct the iask reflective exercise described by students were laboratory report (28), group work (16), essay (12), life cycle assessment (11), examquiz-test (10), laboratory (7), and oral presentation (6) (table 4). these assessment types accounted for 485 of the 596 coded descriptions (81% of all responses) and 90 of the 114 students (79% of all students). spagnoli, d. et al. (2023). from we ask to iask: a self-reflecaon strategy enabling students to connect assessment and employability. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 14(1), 71–87. 79 table 1: percentages in each row represent the contribu6on of each employability learning theme for a par6cular assessment type assessment type (number of students selec4ng this assessment) communica4on cri4cal thinking global ci4zenship teamwork independence problem solving informa4on literacy organisa4on other essay (12) 16.0% 0.0% 0.0% 6.0% 24.0% 16.0% 18.0% 10.0% 10.0% exam-quiztest (10) 16.3% 2.0% 2.0% 0.0% 30.6% 22.4% 0.0% 10.2% 16.3% group work (16) 24.3% 0.0% 5.8% 13.6% 23.3% 7.8% 6.8% 9.7% 8.7% laboratory report (28) 35.2% 0.0% 6.2% 3.7% 28.4% 6.2% 6.8% 9.3% 4.3% laboratory (7) 37.9% 0.0% 6.9% 6.9% 27.6% 10.3% 0.0% 6.9% 3.4% life cycle assessment (11) 28.6% 0.0% 5.4% 1.8% 8.9% 12.5% 14.3% 12.5% 16.1% oral presentaoon (6) 22.2% 0.0% 2.8% 0.0% 30.6% 8.3% 8.3% 8.3% 19.4% the colour ranges classify the assessment-theme responses: dark green (high), yellow (medium) and red (low) (n = 90. some entries by students covered mulople codes, therefore, the number of descripoons is greater than individual data point. spagnoli, d. et al. (2023). from we ask to iask: a self-reflection strategy enabling students to connect assessment and employability. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 14(1), 71–87. 80 laboratory and the laboratory report students directly distinguished between a laboratory assessment, where students complete a task within the laboratory time, and a laboratory report, where the student completes an assessment outside of the laboratory, as two separate assessment types. however, there were a great deal of similarities between the responses of students for these two assessment types. communication, in the form of written skills and independence, in the form of determination and dedication to get the work done on time accounted for 63.6% (laboratory) and 65.5% (laboratory report) of the total employability learning themes. time management, which was placed in the independence employability theme, was a code that came up on numerous occasions for the laboratory work and laboratory report, as a skill being developed. this is consistent with work on the areas of high anxiety and low self-efficacy for students in the laboratory. at the start of the laboratory, it is common for students to feel anxious about getting the work completed on time, which tends to be associated with low self-efficacy (rummey, clemons, & spagnoli, 2019). it was therefore encouraging to see how many students indicated that this was a motivational factor in getting the task completed and a strong element of employability learning. this was highlighted by the quotes below: it [the laboratory] made me stick to my time management schedule. (student 36, university 1, bachelor of biomedical science) time management and being able to work on multiple things at once (student 3, university 1, bachelor of science) the main difference between these two laboratory assessments was that problem solving was stated nearly double the number of times as an employability theme for the laboratory assessment compared with the laboratory report assessment. group work the group work assessment accounted for any assessment that students had described as involving working with other students for a co-created output. communication again achieved the highest number of descriptions. the benefits of group work have been referenced in the published literature. for example, there are studies which include the positive outcomes of communication and teamwork skills as a result of students completing group assignments (volkov & volkov, 2015). there is also an established correlation between student satisfaction and group performance, which depends on group participation in their assignments (springer et al., 1999). in the current study, we found that enjoyment was a common code in the identity section of the iask tool for students working in a group assignment. the perceived enjoyment is often related to how students’ expectations of the assignment and how much work they put in compared to their team members (butt, 2017). examples of relevant students’ comments are below: prefer to work in a group. work harder when partnered with friends. (student 17, university 1, bachelor of biomedical science) i like to work in groups but have deadlines with clear expectations. (student 19, university 1, bachelor of professional engineering) organisation and leadership were two codes that were highlighted in the attributes section of the iask tool, which again relates to the perception of the interactions between members in the group. i am good with communication when others do not feel comfortable voicing their opinion, i try to take up the leadership role where possible and i am motivated by high marks (student 20, university 1, bachelor of philosophy). spagnoli, d. et al. (2023). from we ask to iask: a self-reflection strategy enabling students to connect assessment and employability. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 14(1), 71–87. 81 dedicated to ensure cohesion within group, and responsibility for myself to finish work to same standard as those in the group. clear that organisation is important to me. (student 28, university 1, bachelor of biomedical science) the demonstrated student appetite for working in groups bodes well for their future workplace contexts, thus reinforcing assessment tasks as the opportunity to practice and develop the skills required for their future employment. essay the essay had a greater spread of student-perceived employability learning with independence, information literacy, communication (in the form of written communication), and problem solving all accounting for between 16 to 24 per cent of all coded responses from students. students, particularly at first-year, find meeting the standards of academic writing difficult (aitken & thompson, 2018; sadler, 2010). it was encouraging that both information literacy, which involves the researching and sourcing of information, and problem solving, which involves developing ideas and adapting knowledge to the task in hand, featured prominently in the knowledge and skills being developed by writing an essay. this was most prominent in the knowledge and skills section of the iask tool: this was the first assessment i had done where i had to learn how to reference, which is good because a lot of my future assessments would require me to use this skill (student 11, university 1, bachelor of professional engineering). life-cycle assessment the life-cycle assessment was the only assessment type that had specific employability themes made explicit in its assessment design. the assessment was part of an introduction to a professional engineering unit, which stated the importance of engineering in a global context and on the relevance to future careers. moreover, there were specific employability learning outcomes detailed in the unit outline, such as communication skills, inclusive teamwork, problem-solving and self-directed learning. the life-cycle assessment had the lowest responses within the independence theme among all of the assessment types. the most prominent theme for the life-cycle assessment after communication was the ‘other’ category. this category included codes, such as self-awareness, creativity, curiosity, easy going and capability, which could not be aligned to any one of the other employability themes. after the other category, information literacy, organisation and problem solving were the three most common employability themes. exam-test-quizzes the researchers grouped together any formal exam, test, or online quiz. students hold examination and recall of knowledge in a test situation in high regard. for the exam-quiz-test assessment types, independence and problem solving are the most prominent employability learning themes. for example: ‘i have the determination and drive. i will always complete a task regardless of the outcome’ (student 101, university 2, bachelor of professional engineering). students also thought that these assessments helped develop their problem-solving skills with an acknowledgement of the time pressures that are involved in the study of the exam and completing the exam on time. a bachelor of biomedical science noted that ‘[t]his assessment required a deep level of thinking and required me to apply my knowledge to things that weren't talked about much in classes (student 100, university 1). spagnoli, d. et al. (2023). from we ask to iask: a self-reflection strategy enabling students to connect assessment and employability. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 14(1), 71–87. 82 oral presentations oral presentations were heavily populated with the communication and independence employability learning themes, which accounted for 52.8% of all the themes for that assessment type. oral presentations had commonality to the life-cycle assessment because the other category featured higher than the other employability theme. students believed that oral presentations encouraged their creativity. students also emphasised the capacity of oral presentations to develop their oral communication skills, with one student commenting: ‘i am creative and i work best when given some room for interpretation and allowed to have some creative freedom over my assessments’ (student 87, university 2, bachelor of philosophy). overall, the surprising outcome of the data was the wide variety of assessment types students nominated as enabling employability learning. students identified specific skills developed by types of assessment (e.g., communication skills with oral presentations) and general, transferable skills such as those developing their employability skills of recall, motivation and working under pressure to get the task completed. discussion the results of this empirical research establish a critical and direct processual link between learning, assessment, and employability, confirmed through analysed written reflections of students about their experiences. an overview of the results shows that students could use the iask tool as a reflective exercise to provide broad lists of what they learned through assessment and that they believed would make them employable. the research therefore contributes to the emerging body of literature linking employability, reflection and articulation of employability learning (reid et al., 2021). the research confirmed three major areas of employability learning that students associated with their assessments. these areas are communication, independence, and organisation. students identified communication, both written and oral, as being developed as knowledge gained and skills learnt through their assessments. employers consistently rank both oral and written communication skills more highly than technical or discipline-based knowledge (gray et al., 2005). students perceived independence and organisation as being developed as an identity and attribute that they learnt through their assessments. this is an encouraging result as it implies that if students are taught about the link between assessment and employability then students can use their achievements from their assessments as evidence to support a job application or answer interview questions. this could be useful in addressing employers’ perceptions that graduates lack necessary professional skills (byrne et al., 2020). the variety of different assessments that students used in their reflection on employability learning is also encouraging. this result indicates that employability skills such as communication or independence do not need to be explicitly assessed, which is notoriously difficult (sambell et al., 2021). students need to be able to find the value in their assessments and if a particular skill is not linked to a grade, sometimes that value can diminish. however, the use of a reflective strategy, such as the one outlined in this paper, can provide students with an opportunity to increase the perceived value of assessment on their employability. although the above results are encouraging, there are two crucial employability areas that students are not associating with assessment tasks, namely global citizenship, and critical thinking. the importance of global citizenship cannot be ignored (palacios-hidalgo et al., 2021). many students consider working for a multi-national corporation or in work abroad. australia, especially being positioned within a rapidly growing and dominating south-east asian market, would want graduates to be able to work and actively and engage with their neighbours on a cultural, economic and political spagnoli, d. et al. (2023). from we ask to iask: a self-reflection strategy enabling students to connect assessment and employability. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 14(1), 71–87. 83 level (schech et al., 2017). many researchers and academics have identified the importance of developing employability skills in the first-year of university which can lead to increased engagement and learning (hanna et al., 2015; harris-reeves & mahoney, 2017; milliken et al., 2021). ignoring global citizenship in assessments at first-year level could delay the engagement required in this important area of employability. like global citizenship, critical thinking was a key skill that students did not link to the assessments on which they chose to reflect. aligned with bloom’s taxonomy (bloom et al., 1956; forbes, 2018), critical thinking is at a higher-level order of thinking. at the first-year level, it is unsurprising that most assessments do not include the explicit development of this highly regarded employability skill. however, including critical thinking into the first-year curriculum can have the added benefit of allowing students to develop a new perspective to knowledge (wass et al., 2011) and engage with the subject material (david & brown, 2012). over half of the students (55%) responding to the survey indicated that they were from a science discipline. many science academics believe that critical thinking is a generic skill that is developed and assessed within the majority of their units (sarkar et al., 2020). however, very few of the students associated critical thinking as being developed within their assessments at a first-year level. the results from this study once again highlight the disparity that exists between the importance of assessments from the view of academics and students (kinash, crane, judd, & knight, 2016). nearly a third of assessments chosen by students (30%) were of a laboratory assessment or a laboratory report. due to the majority of laboratory assessment work characterised as so-called ‘cook-book style recipe formats,’ it is unsurprising that critical thinking is not being developed by students within these assessments (clark et al., 2016). moreover, the amount of learning in general from expository style laboratories has been questioned for many years (kirschner, 1992). only relatively recently has the chemistry education laboratory research, for example, moved to developing more augmentation and critical thinking style laboratories (walker et al., 2011). the research reported here supports the recommendation that more open-ended, less instructional style of laboratory assessment be introduced at an earlier stage of university if these important skills that employers find important are to be efficaciously developed. conclusion the work presented in this paper firstly described the development of the iask reflective tool which students could use to make the link between employability and current assessment practices. after students watched a short online video, they were able to complete the iask tool and reflect on the employability learning they had gained through their chosen assessment. once the objective of assessment as a vehicle of employability learning was made transparent to students, they were able to report the nuances of this approach. at the intersection between identity and attributes the most prominent theme was independence. at the intersection between skills and knowledge communication was the theme detailed by many of the students involved in this study. this indicates that the students participating in this research appear to believe that completing their assessment tasks provides an opportunity for them to develop their ability to drive their employability and their future workplace behaviours. a surprising outcome was the variety of the assessment types reported by students. the research has practical implications for university educators at the intersection of learning design (through assessment) and employability development. as such, the development of this reflective tool and research derived four overall recommendations. spagnoli, d. et al. (2023). from we ask to iask: a self-reflection strategy enabling students to connect assessment and employability. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 14(1), 71–87. 84 1) explicitly make students aware of the connection between employability, learning and assessment, perhaps using a tool such as iask for students to reflect on and record this relationship. 2) encourage students to use assessment both as an opportunity to practice employability skills through doing the assessment tasks (assessment as process) and to use the completed assessment tasks as evidence of employability skill development in their employment applications and interviews (assessment as products). 3) use a variety of assessment types and select/match the assessment types to the employability learning relevant and appropriate to the discipline/s and industry/ies. 4) in designing the specific assessment task, proactively align the instructions and desired outcomes with the intended employability skill development. limitations of the research were a sample size which did not allow comparison and contrast between students in different disciplines and the bounded condition of only first-year students. future research is recommended to probe, for example, the differences between identified iask responses from students in science, technology, engineering and medicine (stem) versus humanities, arts and social science (hass) disciplines and between first and final year students. acknowledgements the authors would like to thank the staff who assisted with participant recruitment and the students who agreed to take part in this study. the authors would also like to thank the university of western australia community of practice funding scheme, which was administered through the education enhancement unit, and the school of agricultural and environment, university of western australia, which initiated the collaboration between authors in this study. disclosure statement the authors report there are no competing interests to declare. references aasheim, c. l., li, l., & williams, s. 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(2021). credentialing micro-credentials. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(1), 58–71. 58 the journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability issn: 1838-3815 (online) journal homepage: https://ojs.deakin.edu.au/index.php/jtlge/ credentialing micro-credentials gavin moodie1 and leesa wheelahan2 corresponding author: gavin moodie (gavin.moodie@utoronto.ca) 1 department of leadership, higher and adult education, oise, university of toronto 2 oise, university of toronto, canada. orcid: 0000-0001-7981-9710 abstract the core purpose of accrediting educational credentials is to establish their conformity with standards established for educational credentials in general, particularly those offered by other institutions and in other fields. educational accreditation integrates educational credentials within a network of all other educational credentials and their processes for assuring standards and quality. these processes are essentially conservative, being designed to minimise the risk of a failure of standards or quality. there are also pragmatic obstacles to recording multiple credentials from different sources within education’s accreditation system. in contrast, the recognition of expertise in employment is embedded within employment. the core criterion for the recognition of expertise in employment is the practitioner’s integration within a specific field of practice if not a site of employment. comparability, and still less similarity of practice with other fields and sites, is irrelevant to the recognition of expertise in employment. inasmuch as micro-credentials seek to develop employability they are markedly different from programs that develop educational knowledge and skills. while such microcredentials may be recognised in employment, they seem incompatible with educational accreditation. the little evidence available is that micro-credentials do not have strong employment outcomes. micro-credentials seem unlikely to address inequality in higher education which reflects deep and pervasive inequalities in society, and seem unlikely to strengthen links between education and work which depends as much on the structure of work and the labour market, and the cognitive content of jobs. keywords: microcredentials, accreditation, short courses, employability introduction micro-credentials have displaced massive open online courses (moocs) as the portmanteau higher education reform elixir. moocs were first established in 2008 by the canadian professors george siemens and stephen downes whose course connected networks (siemens, rudolph, & tan, 2020, p. 109) of distributed open resources (downes, 2012). these connectivist moocs, abbreviated cmoocs, were displaced in popular imagination by x-moocs (bates, 2014) which are instructionist (teacher-focused, skills-based, product-oriented, non-interactive, and highly prescribed) (johnson, 2009, p. 90) many of which are little more than a series of short videos and automated assessments (bates, 2014). around the height of their popularity in 2012, ‘the year of the mooc’ (pappano, 2012), friedman (2013, p. 2013) claimed that nothing has more potential to lift more people out of poverty https://ojs.deakin.edu.au/index.php/jtlge/ moodie, g., & wheelahan, l. (2021). credentialing micro-credentials. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(1), 58–71. 59 than moocs, and similarly extravagant claims were made that moocs would disrupt universities’ business model and make higher education radically cheaper (hollands & tirthali, 2004). moocs failed to meet the claims made for them because their developers misunderstood pedagogy (moodie, 2016), because they wilfully ignored the previous expertise on online education (bates, 2014) which moocs were going to ‘revolutionise’, and they ignored the experience of fellow elite universities with similar extravagant proposals to establish online universities during the dot com boom just a decade earlier. a decade after peak mooc, micro-credentials have updated real, exaggerated and confected issues to address, but the evangelical tone remains. worried about getting work in a world disrupted by a supposed 4th industrial revolution? frustrated by higher education’s misalignment with employment? impatient for a quick fix to the under representation of equity seeking students in higher education? exasperated by the recurring failure to cut higher education’s costs radically? determined to disrupt higher education’s institutionalisation? micro-credentials have been promised to solve all these real (howley, 2010, p. 6; hollands & tirthali, 2004) and confected problems, and more. for example, a post for the brookings institution argues that partnerships between online education and employers which involve employers certifying groups of courses as meeting industry’s standards for skills and knowledge ‘is likely a game-changer’ and ‘essentially an end-run around traditional accreditation as a measure of quality’ that will be a ‘radical shakeup of higher education’ which ‘holds the prospect of far less expensive and more customized degrees that are more in tune with the recruiting needs of major employers’ (butler, 2015). it seems that we haven’t reached peak micro-credentials yet. google trends reports the popularity of search terms entered in google from january 2004 to the present. brown, mhichil, beirne and mac lochlainn (2021, pp. 229-230) found in their june 2021 search that the term ‘microcredentials’ first appeared in google search results in 2013. our search in march 2022 found that ‘microcredentials’ first appeared in google search results in may 2009, that ‘micro-credential’ first appeared in october 2009, ‘microcredential’ in february 2014, and ‘micro-credentials’ in august 2015, with searches for all terms still increasing at the time of the search or recently (figure 1). figure 1: number of times ‘microcredentials’ and cognates have been searched in google from january 2004 to march 2022 source: authors, from google trends note: google improved its data collection from 1 january 2016 1 jan 2004 1 mar 2010 1 may 2016 25 50 75 100 moodie, g., & wheelahan, l. (2021). credentialing micro-credentials. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(1), 58–71. 60 we have argued against the debasement of education by micro-credentials (wheelahan and moodie, 2021a), against their facilitation of the precarity of the gig economy (wheelahan and moodie, 2021b), and we have argued that they are part of the fetishisation of skills as a consequence of their degradation by human capital theory which underpins education policy (wheelahan, moodie, & doughney, 2022). here we describe the characteristics of the systems and structures for accrediting, assuring quality and recording substantial credentials, which would be pressured and possibly compromised if they included micro-credentials in the very big volumes advocated or implied by their proponents. we argue that inequality in higher education has much deeper and broader causes than may be substantially reduced by micro-credentials and moreover, that micro-credentials have the potential to compound existing inequalities if they are regarded as an alternative to substantive qualifications for those who are already disadvantaged. and then we elaborate the irreconcilable differences between the recognition of educational expertise by educational credentials and the signalling of employment expertise which is sought for many microcredentials. the paper starts by reviewing legacy short courses offered by universities, non-government organisations and businesses, and notes policy makers’ interest in having micro-credentials accredited by formal qualifications frameworks or universities. the paper then describes universities’ accreditation as linking credentials with a network of other educational credentials and quality assurance processes. this it contrasts with the recognition of expertise in employment which is based on the practitioners’ integration within a specific field of practice. the paper argues that these two forms of recognition are incompatible. the paper observes pragmatic difficulties with recording multiple credentials from different sources within existing educational credential records. the paper then argues that inequality in education reflects deep and broad inequalities in society, which are unlikely to be addressed by micro-credentials. the final substantial part of the paper reports studies finding that micro-credentials do not increase holders’ employment outcomes substantially, and argues that they are unlikely to do so. so what’s new? universities have been offering certificates for short courses for centuries (larson, 1957, p. 31). typically these are offered outside standard accreditation, quality assurance and financing arrangements, but are offered within universities’ authority as autonomous self-accrediting institutions. some are funded mostly from institutional resources as part the institution’s contribution to lifelong and community education; others contribute to continuing professional education and are funded mostly from tuition fees. some are offered by faculties directly, some are offered through faculties’ dedicated continuing education units, and some are offered through a central continuing education unit. thus, polanyi (1944/2001, p. xl) wrote the great transformation while he was a lecturer for the extramural delegacy of the university of oxford which had been founded in 1878, and while he offered tutorial classes for the workers’ educational association which was founded in 1903. the st john ambulance association started awarding certificates for completing its first aid course towards the end of the 19th century, and by the end of the century it had awarded hundreds of thousands of st john first aid certificates in four continents (pearn, 1994, p. 1718). employers have also long offered certificates and badges for completing enterprise training. if the most important need were to signal competence in job skills one would expect employers to expand their provision and recognition of their certificates and badges. however, an intriguing feature of credentials as labour market [signals] . . . is that their value is determined not just by the utility of the human capital they represent, but by the institutions that endorse them (milan, 2021, p. 40). and moodie, g., & wheelahan, l. (2021). credentialing micro-credentials. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(1), 58–71. 61 universities are being expected to increasingly offer courses to improve their graduates’ employability. this exacerbates a trend over the last two decades of shifting responsibility for preparation for work from employers to publicly supported educational institutions, reflecting employers’ disinvestment in their workers’ induction and training of around 40% over this period in canada (hall & cotsman, 2015, p. 6), the uk (green et al., 2016), and the usa (cleary & van noy, 2014, p. 1). non-formal work-related learning in australia fell by 12.4 percentage points from 2005 to 2016/17 (australian bureau of statistics, 2017). training intensity also declined, from a median of 28 hours in 2007 to 24 hours in 2017 (oecd 2019a, p. 19). livingstone (2019) found similar declines in non-formal workrelated learning in his study of canada. if educational institutions should develop job skills, the quickest and most flexible response would be to expand existing continuing professional education programs. instead, micro-credentials are proposed as sharply different from institutions’ current practices. the first difference is adopting the language of accreditation expressed through the word ‘credential’, and the second is to reorient core curriculum from scholarly knowledge to employment skills. these raise two problems: the incompatibility of micro-credentials and current systems and structures for accrediting, assuring the quality and recording substantial credentials; and the incommensurability of work skills and disciplinary knowledge. accrediting micro-credentials there are increasing policy attempts to mainstream and incorporate micro-credentials into formally recognised qualifications frameworks or accreditation, validation and recognition systems. governments want to recognise, credential and count all forms of learning including informal and non-formal learning, particularly if it will support labour market access and movement. from a policy perspective, enabling the credentialing of all learning helps to ensure an efficient system so that individuals can credential the learning they have done wherever and however they undertook it and have it ‘count’, and so governments don’t have to pay for learning that has already been undertaken. the credentialing of micro-credentials is one way for universities to signal the standing of their credentials to employers and potential students and to award credit for previous studies. making learning count also putatively supports social inclusion because those who are from disadvantaged backgrounds are able to have their learning recognised. and, this process contributes to the stock of human capital in a nation because it supports ‘upskilling’, and the integration of learning with work. these are the basic elements of a lifelong learning framework, and micro-credentials are now situated within that framework. it is, for example, the point of the eu’s common micro-credential framework (european mooc consortium, 2019) and is consistent with government aspirations for post-secondary education systems that support lifelong learning, recognition and portability (oecd, 2019b). however, while governments seek to improve the flexibility of universities and their responsiveness to employers’ needs through ‘quick to market’ qualifications, incorporating micro-credentials into jurisdictions’ qualifications frameworks risks their becoming bogged down in frameworks’ quality assurance, accreditation and validation requirements. alternatively, governments want universities to incorporate micro-credentials into universities’ quality assurance processes. however, if micro-credentials are to be included as credentialed certifications that count towards degrees and post graduate programs, using universities’ internal quality assurance processes may also take more time than envisaged, with the usual complaints moodie, g., & wheelahan, l. (2021). credentialing micro-credentials. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(1), 58–71. 62 about universities being slow to respond. universities may also have a more restricted view of what counts as valuable educational knowledge than the proponents of the certification of job skills. universities’ accreditation education uses distinctly educational structures, processes and criteria to accredit learning. these originate with the licentia ubique docendi (license to teach without further examination everywhere, or more specifically, in all universities) granted by papal bull from the end of the 13th century (haskins, 1941, p. 282; moodie, 2007). accreditation processes have been successively adopted by universities themselves, such as the university of durham upon its foundation in 1832 (silver, 1996, p. 189), associations of usa universities in regional accrediting bodies from 1885 (brittingham, 2009, p. 8), and by the association of american universities from its foundation in 1900 (speicher, 2000). accreditation structures, processes and criteria are integrated with related activities. they have been systematised and often mandated by governments as quality assurance processes. and they have been incorporated within occupational accreditation and licensing requirements mandated by occupational bodies and often by governments. the purposes of accreditation and its related processes of quality assurance and occupational licensing are to maintain standards, maintain and often improve quality, establish similarity of provision, and establish relative levels of provision such as those systematised by qualifications frameworks. these are essentially conservative purposes designed to minimise the risk of a failure of standards or quality. ensuring similarity of quality and standards with other programs both within the institution and outside entails extensive comparison and often consultation with others, which is often time consuming. it involves integrating each educational credential within a network of all other educational credentials and their processes for quality assurance. universities australia. (2021, p. 6) recommends three minimum standards necessary to enable the rapid recognition of microcredentials by australian universities: 1. microcredentials have clear evidence of achievement or learning outcome; 2. microcredentials have an understandable unit of exchange; and 3. microcredentials are quality assured and verifiable, with sufficient, relevant metadata. universities australia. (2021, p. 8) states that credit can be recognised only where there is information on the volume and depth of learning. this information is not available where the only information provided is on competences or other outcomes, as many advocate for microcredentials. however, specification of the volume of learning is a fraught debate in australia, particularly in the vocational education sector where ‘purist’ champions of competency-based training (which is the mandated model of curriculum in that sector) claim that certification should be awarded based on demonstration of competence, and that volume of learning or the time taken to learn particular competencies is irrelevant. contra this position, others within vocational education have (successfully) argued that volume of learning is an important indication of the depth and complexity of expected learning, and needed to overcome low-quality, unreliable, and frankly, oftentimes dodgy, training (wheelahan, 2016). the australian government’s (2022) national microcredentials framework seems to be oblivious to this debate and doesn’t recognise any incompatibility the concept of competence and specifying a volume of learning. specifying credentials by learning outcomes avoids this but raises other problems (boud & jorre de st jorre, 2021). furthermore, to use a very good phrase from the united states, the framework seems to ‘nickel and dime’ (or overly and minutely specify) the inputs required before micro-credentials can be accredited in requiring requires records of micro-credentials to include estimates of: moodie, g., & wheelahan, l. (2021). credentialing micro-credentials. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(1), 58–71. 63 a. number of hours of in-person face-to-face contact with teaching staff. b. number of hours of synchronous online contact with teaching staff. c. number of hours of peer-to-peer engagement and its mode. d. estimated number of hours of asynchronous online content and reading/viewing of audiovisual material, etc. e. estimated number of hours spent on assessment. (australian government, 2022, pp. 13, 17) since micro-credentials may be from one hour to six months in duration, these estimates may be of very brief amounts of time indeed. it is hard to understand how this nickel-and-diming was agreed by the vocational and higher education educators who were eight of the 16 members of the microcredentials working group convened by the department to discuss and agree key elements of the framework by broad consensus (australian government, 2022, p. 20). neither universities nor colleges provide this information about their substantial credentials, and they probably couldn’t without substantial additional work. this nickel-and-diming of teaching and learning is incompatible with the development of students’ capacity to manage their own learning that is one of the goals of post-secondary education. records current processes for verifying credentials are manageable for the two or three degrees that may be claimed by a person. one degree from one institution might correspond to the volume of six or more micro-credentials awarded by multiple bodies from different sectors, and verifying those is very cumbersome by current processes. the various computer applications and platforms that have been established to record, authenticate, store and transmit multiple qualifications need to integrate records in ways that makes sense for jurisdictions’ different approaches, and this is not particularly straight forward given that these apps and platforms were not designed with jurisdictions’ requirements in mind (chakroun & keevy, 2018, p. 33). chakroun and keevy (2018) explain that the world reference levels system should include functions to continuously capture, connect, archive and share global metadata about credentials, credentialing organizations, quality assurance organizations and competency frameworks, and additional metadata as needed to support the cross-border recognition of qualifications (p.34). doing this on a national level would arguably have significant challenges, and these problems are magnified at the international level. how are employers or other educational jurisdictions to distinguish between providers that are low quality and those that are high quality even if they use the same platform to record and transmit results and other outcomes? these issues become particularly acute in for-profit markets where the strong incentive is to drive costs down. recognition of expertise in employment educational accreditation contrasts sharply to the recognition of expertise in employment which is embedded within employment rather than educational processes. expert practitioners have distinctive ways of reflection (schön, 1983) which require distinctive forms of development (schön, 1987). expertise in practice is recognised in stages such as novice, advanced beginner, competent, proficient, and expert (dreyfus & dreyfus, 1986, p. 21), and participation in expert practice is understood in several levels such as transactional, peripheral, occasional, active, and core group (lave & wenger, 1991; wenger & trayner, 2011). different levels of practice are recognised differently in different fields, such as nursing’s five levels of proficiency (benner, 1982, p. 402) and medicine’s five levels of entrustable professional activity moodie, g., & wheelahan, l. (2021). credentialing micro-credentials. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(1), 58–71. 64 (ten cate, 2018). the core criterion for the recognition of expertise in employment is the practitioner’s integration within a specific field of practice if not a site of employment. comparability and still less similarity of practice with other fields and sites is less relevant to the recognition of expertise in employment, yet comparability and similarity with other fields is central to the recognition of educational expertise. irreconcilable differences micro-credentials are often designed to develop employability skills. advocates distinguish carefully between employability, being employable and employment (artess, hooley, & mellors-bourne, 2017): some writers seek to use employment outcomes as a measure of graduates’ employability. however, others make a distinction between employment, being employable (which is specific to a job role), and employability, which can be used to describe a general set of students attributes and qualities which are not directly related to their current employment status. this distinction is important because both employment and being employable are strongly related to labour market conditions and to the perceptions of employers while it is possible to define employability in broader and less contingent ways (p. 15). this understands employability as: …a set of achievements – skills, understandings and personal attributes – that makes graduates more likely to gain employment and be successful in their chosen occupations, which benefits themselves, the workforce, the community and the economy (yorke, 2006, p. 8). while employability ‘skills’ and ‘knowledge’ may not necessarily be construed narrowly (yorke, 2006, p. 8), they are clearly contrasted with educational knowledge and skills. the criterion for success in developing employability is increasing the probability of gaining employment (yorke, 2006, p. 8), which contrasts with developing educational knowledge and skills. furthermore, employability implies a quick responsiveness to employers’ disparate and changeable needs, while educational knowledge and skills are institutionalised stably similarly in different institutions and cultures (meye et al., 2007). there seems no way of reconciling these differences, given that education and work are inherently distinctly different domains (buchanan et al., 2020, pp. 9, 16). indeed, some advocates of microcredentials make a virtue of their incompatibility with educational institutions, seeking to disrupt them. even if these difficulties could be resolved, they would not address either of the two main problems micro-credentials are often proposed to fix: higher education’s inequity, and the plateauing of the economic benefits of higher education. higher education’s many failings: inequity from their foundation from the 12th century until around the late 16th century most european universities probably enrolled mostly students from the more prosperous peasant and yeoman classes with perhaps around 15% of ambitious, able, and fortunate students from more modest backgrounds (moodie, 2016). however, european universities’ social composition changed from the late middle ages. the proportion of oxford matriculants who were gentlemen or above increased from 39% in 1575-1579 to 52% in 1600-1609 (o’day, 1982, p. 90). for their second 400 years european universities, and from their foundation universities in the usa, canada and elsewhere, have been dominated by students from upper and upper middle class backgrounds. as higher education participation has transitioned from elite to mass and now to moodie, g., & wheelahan, l. (2021). credentialing micro-credentials. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(1), 58–71. 65 universal (trow, 1973), inequity in participation moved from all higher education to the more elite institutions and programs in a process lucas (2001) identified as effectively maintained inequality. even so, people from lower and lower middle class backgrounds remain heavily under represented in higher education. higher education’s inequity is a problem because higher education is an intrinsic good, because it improves graduates’ lives, and because it extends their capability (sen, 1999; nussbaum, 2000; moodie & wheelahan, in press). but it also has important secondary effects since higher education influences access to good jobs, even when higher education is not directly necessary or even relevant to the job (arrow, 1973, p. 194). education, which reflects a particular kind of attainment, has come to signify merit generally (young, 2001). it is permissible and acceptable to discriminate against people on the grounds of education when it is impermissible or unacceptable to discriminate against them on the grounds of class or some other characteristic strongly associated with higher education. while these secondary effects reflect higher education’s inequity, not all are attributable to higher education so much as to employers and society generally which apply higher education credentials beyond their domain. higher education’s inequity starts at birth. indicators of socially produced disadvantage are pervasive and implicated in all social institutions and in the distribution of opportunities. all parents want the best for their children, but not all are equally resourced in providing opportunities or in accessing the institutions that can provide them (mcloyd, 1990; linver, brooks-gunn, & kohen, 1999; behrman & rosenzweig, 2004; black, devereux, & salvanes, 2005). these disadvantages in childhood lead to lower attainment in the early years of schooling. while almost all primary school pupils aspire to enter university, children quickly understand what is feasible for them from their marks, finances, and social circumstances, and they adjust their aspirations accordingly (james, 2002; bowden & doughney, 2010; dupriez, monseur, & lafontaine, 2012; harrison & waller, 2018; bennett & lumb, 2019, p. 968). this results in some students being contingent and others embedded choosers of higher education (ball, reay, & david, 2002, p. 336). educational disadvantage accumulates throughout schooling and results eventually in leaving school early or to lower attainment in the final years of schooling. this greatly reduces students’ options for higher education. even when non-traditional students enrol in higher education their choices are more heavily constrained than their middle class fellow students (reay et al., 2001). this cumulative filtering and shaping of peoples’ educational attainment operates at the level of individual, family, and class (boudon, 1974; bourdieu, 1979/1984). it reflects economic and social structures of society as a whole, and the mobilisation and exercise of political power (piketty, 2020). and of course it does not start at birth, but is transmitted through generations (bourdieu, 1973; bourdieu & passeron, 1990). micro-credentials address none of these challenges. at best they add another supplementary option for those whose choices are constrained, but it is to an option of degraded educational value (wheelahan & moodie, 2021a). higher education’s many failings: un(der)employment post-secondary education has been dominated for the last half century by human capital theory and more recently by skill-biased technological change (lauder, brown, & cheung, 2018) which argues that education has economic value only when it develops the right kinds of skills, those driven by technological change. this readily degrades into a skills fetish (wheelahan, moodie, & doughney, 2022). human capital theory has been criticised extensively on empirical, methodological, and normative grounds (tan, 2014, p. 411). it was initially descriptive, explaining financial rewards from expanding moodie, g., & wheelahan, l. (2021). credentialing micro-credentials. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(1), 58–71. 66 education; and explaining why individuals, companies, and governments increased their spending on education. during the 1980s and 1990s human capital theory then also became normative: advocates argued that investment in human capital should be increased to increase financial rewards. since the 2000s human capital theory has become increasingly prescriptive, with advocates arguing that post-secondary education should be increasingly concentrated on and then restricted to programs thought to have most economic benefit (moodie & wheelahan, in press). consequently the plateauing of the economic benefits of higher education has been considered a failing of higher education, rather than of the labour market, and still less of human capital theory. while the employment and income benefits of substantial credentials have plateaued recently, they remain substantial (ma, pender, & welch, 2019; hailemariam, 2018; patrinos, 2016; montenegro & patrinos, 2014; boarini & strauss, 2007), unlike those of micro-credentials. data on micro-credentials are scarce because most are so recent and because they are not defined consistently. a partial exception are skills sets, which have been offered in australian vocational education and training since 2006 (mills et al., 2012, p. 11). skills sets are single units or combinations of units which link to a licence or regulatory requirement, or defined industry need (national quality council 2006, cited in mills et al., 2012, p. 7). yet completing full qualifications generally has substantially more benefits than completing just modules (karmel & fieger, 2012, p. 20). and completion of a full qualification in the trades on average leads to better labour market outcomes than completion of a module or a set of modules (lu, 2015, p. 8). consequently while enrolments in skill sets have grown over time, they were only 3.7% of all australian vocational education and training program enrolments in 2018 (stanwick & siekmann, 2019, p. 9). as we have elaborated elsewhere (wheelahan & moodie, 2021b), several studies of short credentials in the usa have found ‘only weakly positive and inconsistent gains from these award combinations’ (bailey & belfield, 2017, abstract). completing a certificate of up to a year’s duration increased graduates’ chances of being employed, but not their median salary compared with noncompleters (burns & bentz, 2020, p. 3). more than half of adults with a short-term certificate of up to 15-week duration who were employed, earned $us30,000 or less per year, which is below the national poverty line for a household of four (ositelu, 2021, pp. 10-11). further, the median yearly income for black and latino/latina adults with a short-term certificate is $us10, 000 to $us20,000 less than the median yearly income of their white counterparts who hold a credential of similar length. some 41% of graduates with a short-term certificate were unemployed and of those who were employed, 39% reported that their current job was not related to their credential (ositelu, 2021, pp. 14-15). most of these studies were of the outcomes of micro-credentials offered by educational institutions. kässi and lehdonvirta (2022) investigated the effects of micro-credentials offered through an online freelancing labour market on employment in that labour market. the [unidentified] platform in question hosts millions of freelance workers who bid for thousands of new projects that employers post on the platform each day. most of the matches are transnational, and the work is performed remotely over the internet. workers can undertake voluntary computer administered skill tests on the platform, which, if successfully completed, earn them microcredentials that are displayed in their profiles. over 300 credentials are available on skills such as programming languages, graphic design techniques, and office software packages. our data consist of the microcredentials earned and projects completed by a representative sample of 46,791 workers on the platform over a period of 9 years (kässi & lehdonvirta, 2022, pp. 3-4). the micro-credentials were awarded for completing tests that take about 30 minutes to complete that are highly technical, quizzing test takers about very specific facts within their skill areas (kässi & lehdonvirta, 2022, pp. 8-9). moodie, g., & wheelahan, l. (2021). credentialing micro-credentials. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(1), 58–71. 67 kässi and lehdonvirta (2022, pp. 15, 16) generated their sample of 46,791 workers randomly from all workers on the platform; their sample of workers had completed 467,455 projects. the workers worked mostly on a single category of job and mostly completed micro-credentials in the same category (kässi & lehdonvirta, 2022, p. 18). kässi and lehdonvirta, (2022, pp. 35, 7) find that microcredentials are beneficial only in the same category as the work, and that ‘micro-credentials’ impacts on labor market outcomes are considerably smaller than are the impacts of past work experience, agency affiliation, and algorithmic recommendations. so even micro-credentials designed for a specific online employment platform and offered on that platform improve labour market outcomes only a little. micro-credentials are unlikely to strengthen the relations between education and work because they consider only one side of the relation. much more attention is needed to the structure of work, the structure of the labour market, and the development of cognitive skills at work: the fundamental problem is not that there is a shortage of the relevant skills that employers demand but that there is a lack of good-quality jobs. the problem that needs to be addressed is not labour scarcity but job scarcity (brown, p., lauder, h., & cheung, s. y. (2020, p. 133). conclusion though they serve multiple educational, employment, social, and cultural purposes (dewey, 1916/1966, pp. 258-259; geiger, 2015, p. ix) educational credentials do so by developing and certifying educational knowledge and skills. educational institutions establish trust and credibility in their credentials by integrating them within a network of all other educational credentials and their processes for assuring standards and quality. educational credentials have become institutionalised in this sociological sense (meyer, et al., 2007). some understand micro-credentials to be just small versions or parts of substantial credentials (chakroun & keevy, 2018, p. 10; european mooc consortium, 2019, 2nd page; kato, galán-muros, & weko, 2020, pp. 8-9). these nonetheless change the regulative discourse of higher education, and degrade relations of classification and framing of the curriculum (wheelahan & moodie, 2021a). others posit micro-credentials as also developing graduates’ employability. this distorts and corrodes higher education (wheelahan & moodie, 2021b) in pursuit of a chimera (wheelahan, moodie, & doughney, 2022). micro-credentials that seek to develop employability seek recognition which is embedded within employment, for which the core criterion is integration within a specific field of practice, if not a site of employment. in this contribution we have argued that this is incompatible with educational accreditation which integrates credentials within a network of all other educational credentials and their processes for assuring standards and quality. employability is also deeply embedded within the human capital framework of the capitalist economy. we have previously argued in contrast that all post-secondary educational credentials should have three pluralist roles, though with different emphases and orientations, of providing entry to and progression in the workforce, providing access to further education, and promoting social inclusion (moodie et al., 2013). references arrow, k. j. 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(2010). using successful graduates to improve the quality of undergraduate nursing programs. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 1(1), 26 – 44. 26 using successful graduates to improve the quality of undergraduate nursing programs geoff scott 1 , esther chang 2 and leonid grebennikov 1 g.scott@uws.edu.au; e.chang@uws.edu.au and l.grebennikov@uws.edu.au 1 office of planning and quality, university of western sydney 2 school of nursing and midwifery, university of western sydney abstract this paper outlines the context and focus of the late 2008 survey of 45 early career nursing graduates working in public hospitals in an outer-urban area of sydney who were identified by their supervisors as performing successfully. it gives an overview of the key quantitative and qualitative results for 2008 compared with the results of earlier studies of successfully performing nurses and other professionals in the first 3-5 years of their career. based on this analysis it makes a range of recommendations on how to optimise the quality and relevance of the learning design, support and assessment systems experienced by undergraduate nursing students. the study confirms that, in addition to possessing a high level of technical competence, it is a particular combination of personal, interpersonal and cognitive capabilities which characterises the most effective performers. the most productive approaches to developing these capabilities focus on: consistent two-way links between theory and practice; the availability of responsive, committed academic staff with current clinical experience; provision of clear direction and integration between different units of study; the systematic use of casebased learning, simulations, clinical placements and associated assessment tasks which are “real-world” focused, integrated and problem-based, and which concentrate on the key capabilities identified as counting most for successful early career practice in this and parallel studies. key words: competencies; capabilities; surveying; successful graduates; learning design introduction need the 2008 review of australian higher education (the so called bradley review) reports: submissions from business and industry, in particular, discussed the types of skills sought in graduates. technical skills and generic employability skills (such as communication and language skills) were considered to be of equal importance. (department of education, employment and workplace relations [deewr], 2008, p.210). however, understanding exactly what is meant by concepts like “employability skills” as they apply to the professions taught at universities, determining exactly how to identify the capabilities and competencies most telling for successful early career practice and then effectively shaping and assessing them in context remains relatively unexplored. mailto:g.scott@uws.edu.au mailto:e.chang@uws.edu.au mailto:l.grebennikov@uws.edu.au http://pubapps.uws.edu.au/teldir/schlprocess.php?snfch scott, g., chang, e. & grebennikov, l. (2010). using successful graduates to improve the quality of undergraduate nursing programs. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 1(1), 26 – 44. 27 building on the ideas of john dewey (1933), the work of gonczi, hager and oliver (1990) and a successful program developed for australia’s skill olympians in the mid 1990s (scott & saunders, 1995) a series of pilot studies involving some 200 successful early career graduates in nine professions 1 was undertaken by the university of technology, sydney (uts) between 2000 and 2005 (rochester, kilstoff & scott, 2005; scott & yates, 2002; vescio, 2005). apart from these studies we have been able to locate little research that specifically uses successful graduates to identify the capabilities that count most for effective early career practice or to provide feedback on what aspects of their university experience have proven to be most (and least) productive in preparing them for their first 3-5 years of professional practice, especially at a broad regional, state or national level. even fewer studies have explicitly used the findings to “backward map” (elmore, 1979) to test and enhance the relevance and validity of curriculum and assessment design. one of the most valuable resources for adult learning is having access to the experience of a “fellow traveller” further down the same professional path (tough, 1979; scott, 2008). external advisory committees for course development are often comprised of professionals who, by virtue of their seniority and role, are unlikely to be in direct contact with the day to day practicalities and realities of junior staff. studies of successful graduates using the proven professional capability and learning frameworks applied in this and the earlier studies provide a double benefit. it builds in relevance to new students because they know that what they are to learn and how they are to learn it has proven to be of direct significance to their successful graduate peers. furthermore, it provides a useful mechanism to validate and situate the professional capability and competency frameworks developed by advisory committees and accreditation panels. the bradley review and minister julia gillard (2009) have confirmed that participation and completion levels in australian higher education are to increase, with a particular focus on low socio-economic status student access and success. for this objective to be achieved educators need to optimise the focus, relevance, efficiency and productivity of the learning which undergraduates experience in our universities. the nursing profession is a key foundation for the future of australia. producing imaginative, effective and successful young graduates, people able to take up leadership roles over the next decade, is critical to the future of this country with its expanding health challenges, an aging population and the need to deal productively and promptly with the twin pressures of the financial and climate crises. the business council of australia (bca) has emphasised that a sound health care system populated by highly capable staff is a key economic as well as social issue and that higher education is an investment not a cost (business council of australia, 2009). it is for all of the above reasons that a team of researchers came together to work with key senior figures in the sydney west area health service (swahs) to test the potential for scaling up the pilot studies of successful nurses undertaken by the uts to a regional, state or national level. this paper reports on the results of phase one of the scale up strategy – swahs regional study. professional capability, competence and effectiveness considerable confusion continues to exist between key terms like “competence” and “capability”. in this study “competence” is seen as being more related to the possession of the skills and knowledge necessary to perform the duties set down for a particular role; whereas “capability” involves a mixture of emotional and cognitive intelligence including the ability to 1 the professions studied were: accounting, architecture, education, engineering, information technology, journalism, law, nursing, and sports management. scott, g., chang, e. & grebennikov, l. (2010). using successful graduates to improve the quality of undergraduate nursing programs. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 1(1), 26 – 44. 28 determine when and when not to deploy these competences. “capability” cannot be taught, nor can people be trained in it. however, it can be learnt by undertaking educational experiences which entail coming to grips with real world dilemmas (or simulations of them); by experiencing what happens when “things go wrong”, or when the unexpected happens, and then by having to make sense of what is unfolding in order to successfully resolve the situation; and finally to learn from experience by reflecting on what worked or didn’t using a diagnostic framework developed by successful practitioners. figure 1: professional capability framework figure 1 summarises the distinction and introduces the key elements of the professional capability framework which, since the uts studies has been validated in a range of other more extensive investigations, mainly focused on professional leadership (scott, coates & anderson, 2008). in this figure three overlapping aspects of professional capability are identified – personal, interpersonal and cognitive. these domains are underpinned by relevant role-specific and generic competencies (the skills and knowledge found to be essential to the specific role being studied). the research to date has validated a set of items related to each of the five components of figure 1. the survey used in the swahs investigation is the same as that used in these other studies. the items used in the survey fall into a number of scales / domains which align with the domains identified in figure 1. they are discussed in more detail in fullan and scott (2009), scott, coates and anderson (2008), and in vescio (2005) and are summarised in appendix 1. in the successful graduate studies those supervising the target group (i.e. the supervisors of graduates who are in their first five years of professional practice) are asked to identify those people they believe are the most effective. they are then asked what criteria/indicators led them to select one graduate as being a particularly effective performer but not another. the successful graduates are asked to rate a set of items on how they personally judge their effectiveness at work. in this way the perception of their supervisors and their own perceptions can be compared. the effectiveness indicators identified in all previous studies have been consolidated and then adjusted with the input of early career nurses and the profession to form the study’s scale “what accounts for your effective performance at work” given in appendix 1. personal capabilities interpersonal capabilities cognitive capabilities role-specific competencies generic competencies capability competency scott, g., chang, e. & grebennikov, l. (2010). using successful graduates to improve the quality of undergraduate nursing programs. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 1(1), 26 – 44. 29 productive learning in higher education a robust framework and set of checkpoints now exist on what engages students in productive learning and retains them at university. the research that underpins this framework is explored in detail in a commissioned research and analysis report for the 2008 australian review of higher education (scott, 2008) and in earlier work (e.g., foley, 2000; scott, 2006). this so called rated class a framework is given in appendix 2. it is from these empirically verified checkpoints on what is necessary for effective learning that the fourteen items which make up the scale “keeping university and professional learning relevant” used in the successful graduates studies has been developed (see appendix 1). the aims of this study were: to identify the criteria by which nursing graduates judge the effectiveness of their own performance at work; to compare these with the indicators used by the nurse unit managers (nums) who selected them; then, using the framework in figure 1 and its associated scales, to identify the capabilities that were seen to be most important for successful nursing practice during the first years following employment as a registered nurse; and to evaluate through “backward mapping”, the degree to which university programs were developing these capabilities and using learning and assessment methods which, in hindsight, the successful graduates had found to have been most productive in helping them prepare for professional practice. these aims were the same as those in the original 2005 uts study (rochester, kilstoff & scott, 2005) where the same survey was administered to 17 nursing graduates identified as successful by their nums at different hospitals. method instrument and procedure this study involved graduates from two teaching hospitals in the western sydney area. the 2008 successful nursing graduates survey was delivered by the university of western sydney (uws) office of planning and quality in partnership with the uws school of nursing and midwifery, and swahs. the survey was administered to 45 nursing graduates identified by their nums as being successful performers in the first five years of their career. the first section of the survey invites participants to rank on a five-point likert-type scale a range of indicators they would personally use to judge the effectiveness of their performance at work, first on importance (1-low to 5-high) and then on the extent to which they would like to develop these further (1-low to 5-high). in the second section the respondents are asked to rank a range of items that related to the five components of professional capability identified in figure 1 and appendix 1 – first on their importance for the successful performance at work (1low to 5-high) and then, using the same rating scale, on the extent to which the university course and their professional learning experiences have actually focused on each element. the third section of the survey invites participants to rank a range of ways in which their university courses and professional learning programs could be made more relevant to the needs of their profession, first on the relative importance of each strategy to them and then on the extent to which the university and professional learning programs they have experienced have handled that aspect effectively, using the educational quality scale and the same rating system as that outlined above. the survey comprised 64 quantitative items and the results for these items are given in appendix 1. scott, g., chang, e. & grebennikov, l. (2010). using successful graduates to improve the quality of undergraduate nursing programs. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 1(1), 26 – 44. 30 validity and reliability checks of the capability and context scales to confirm the precision of measurement and the existence of the proposed constructs were conducted while developing a prototype survey instrument in 2008 (scott, coates & anderson, 2008). statistical methods (e.g., exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis performed in spss 2 ) were used to validate the items and scales, and to determine the nature and strength of patterns in response. to facilitate interpretation of quantitative results this paper presents them as a summary of mean based ordinal ranks. a detailed range of qualitative data was also generated. more than 200 comments provided by respondents in the current study were subjected to a thematic qualitative analysis. these comments give important insights into what respondents had in mind when ranking items and identify a wide range of suggestions on what universities and health service providers might now concentrate upon if they want to make their courses relevant to the needs of nursing graduates in their first years of professional work. the project was granted ethics approval by uws. results of the 2005 study are shown to allow comparison of the findings. participants the 45 successful early career nurses who participated in the 2008 survey were identified through a partnership between senior staff from the uws school of nursing and midwifery and their counterparts in swahs. the nurses selected came from two teaching hospitals in an outer-urban area of the city. respondents had, between them, attended seven universities. further details of the respondents’ profile are provided in appendix 3. as noted earlier, selection criteria were not specified to the nums who identified the participants. instead, once they had been selected, each num was asked to identify the criteria and indicators they had personally used. this provided an additional data source for the study and, in previous ones, has proven to be of great interest to undergraduate students who are eager to know what their supervisors will be impressed by when they commence work. the participant selection criteria highlighted by nums in the 2008 study included: (a) the consistent delivery of allocated work on time and to a specified standard in the time allotted; (b) high levels of client (in this case patient) satisfaction; and (c) high levels of co-worker satisfaction. these indicators align with those identified in earlier studies across the professions and in more recent studies of effective educational leaders (scott, coates & anderson, 2008). additional, more specific, indicators identified by the nums as influencing their choice in the present study included: being motivated and enthusiastic; demonstrated eagerness to learn / advance skills; being pro-active (e.g., initiating talk with a doctor or reviews of patients); sound communication and liaising skills; good organisation and time management skills; and high levels of competency / professionalism. results the full set of quantitative results is given in appendix 1. 2 computer program for statistical analysis, originally statistical package for the social sciences. scott, g., chang, e. & grebennikov, l. (2010). using successful graduates to improve the quality of undergraduate nursing programs. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 1(1), 26 – 44. 31 indicators used by respondents to judge their own effectiveness at work table 1 identifies the mean ratings and ranks for the 12 effectiveness indicators respondents could use to judge the quality of their performance at work. these are rated first on importance and then on the extent to which respondents would like to develop further in each performance area (1-low to 5-high). the five highest ranking indicators are highlighted. table 1: judging your own effectiveness at work importance for work (1 – low to 5 – high) judging your own effectiveness at work wish to develop (1 – low to 5 – high) mean rank items mean rank 4.27 5 feeling organised when i do my handover 3.48 11 4.16 9 successfully handling the emotional needs of the patient. 3.70 5 4.16 8 helping ensure my patients get the right support when they go home 3.60 8 4.59 2 successfully finishing the jobs i have to do on time 3.68 7 4.22 6 receiving positive feedback from my nurse unit manager 3.69 6 4.36 3 receiving positive feedback from my patients 3.55 9 4.04 10 receiving positive feedback from colleagues 3.52 10 4.18 7 achieving goals set for my professional development 3.95 2 4.31 4 establishing a collegial working environment 3.88 3 4.69 1 achieving successful patient outcomes 4.10 1 3.40 12 being invited to discuss my work with others 3.39 12 3.93 11 successfully implementing new initiatives 3.86 4 the indicators rated high on both importance as a personal effectiveness measure and as a priority for further development include: “achieving successful patient outcomes” (ranks 1 – on importance, 1 – as a priority for further development); and “establishing a collegial working environment” (4, 3). the indicators rated high on importance as a personal effectiveness measure but lower as a priority for further development include: “successfully finishing the jobs i have to do on time” (2, 7); “receiving positive feedback from my patients” (3, 9); and “feeling organised when i do my handover” (5, 11). the items rated lower on importance but higher as a priority for further development include: “achieving goals set for my professional development” (7, 2); “successfully implementing new initiatives” (11, 4); and “successfully handling the emotional needs of the patient” (9, 5). scott, g., chang, e. & grebennikov, l. (2010). using successful graduates to improve the quality of undergraduate nursing programs. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 1(1), 26 – 44. 32 capability items ranked highest on importance in 2008 compared with 2005 table 2 identifies the 12 capability items which attracted the highest rankings on importance for effective performance as an early career nursing graduate (in rank order, highest first). the third column of the table provides the ranks for the relevant items in the 2005 study. table 2: capabilities most important for effectiveness at work what accounts for your effective performance at work mean 2008 rank 2008 rank 2005 items 4.75 1 (p) 2 being willing to face and learn from my errors and listen openly to feedback 4.71 2 (gsk) 3 being able to organise my work and manage time effectively 4.67 3 (p) 13 understanding my personal strengths & limitations 4.66 4 (c) 4 being able to set and justify priorities 4.62 5 (p) 8 wanting to produce as good a job as possible 4.61 6 (i) 6 being able to develop and use networks of colleagues to help me solve key workplace problems 4.58 7 (p) 9 being able to remain calm under pressure or when things go wrong 4.53 8 (c) 7 the ability to use previous experience to figure out what is going on when a current situation takes an unexpected turn 4.53 9 (i) 1 the ability to empathise with and work productively with people from a wide range of backgrounds 4.53 10 (i) 14 being able to work with senior staff without being intimidated 4.49 11 (p) 11 having a sense of humour and being able to keep work in perspective 4.48 12 (c) 15 an ability to recognise patterns in a complex situation professional capability framework: p – personal capabilities scale; i – interpersonal capabilities scale; c – cognitive capabilities scale; gsk – generic skills and knowledge scale. capability items rated high on importance but low on focus at university items rated high on importance for successful professional practice (mean > 4.0) but rated low on the extent to which the university course focused on this area (mean < 3.0) identify potential areas for enhancement in university and professional learning programs along with their assessment systems. the eight items which meet these criteria are presented in table 3 along with an indication whether these items had similar gaps between their importance and course focus ratings in 2005. scott, g., chang, e. & grebennikov, l. (2010). using successful graduates to improve the quality of undergraduate nursing programs. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 1(1), 26 – 44. 33 table 3: capabilities ranked high on importance and lower on university focus what accounts for your effective performance at work mean importance 2008 mean university focus 2008 consistent with 2005 items 4.58 2.58 (p) yes being able to remain calm under pressure or when things go wrong 4.53 2.67 (i) yes being able to work with senior staff without being intimidated 4.20 2.77 (c) no knowing that there is never a fixed set of steps for solving workplace problems or carrying out a task 4.20 2.84 (i) no being able to motivate others to achieve great things 4.44 2.86 (i) no being able to give constructive feedback to work colleagues and others 4.32 2.88 (gsk) no having a high level of current technical expertise relevant to my work area 4.20 2.93 (c) yes being able to identify from a mass of detail the core issue in any situation 4.49 2.98 (p) yes having a sense of humour and being able to keep work in perspective professional capability framework: p – personal capabilities scale; i – interpersonal capabilities scale; c – cognitive capabilities scale; gsk – generic skills and knowledge scale. capability items rated high on importance and on the focus given to them at university table 4 shows items that rank high both on importance (mean > 4.0) and university focus (mean > 3.5). these indicate areas of good practice. the choice of a performance rating of 3.5 (i.e. half way between “neutral” and “agree”) is consistent with patterns in other surveys where students consistently rate performance lower than importance. the third column of the table shows whether these items had similar high ratings in the 2005 study results. table 4: capabilities ranked high on importance and on university focus what accounts for your effective performance at work mean importance 2008 mean university focus 2008 consistent with 2005 items 4.62 3.77 (p) yes wanting to produce as good a job as possible 4.33 3.62 (sk) no being able to manage my own ongoing professional learning and development 4.66 3.58 (i) yes being able to set and justify priorities 4.53 3.51 (ip) no the ability to empathise with and work productively with people from a wide range of backgrounds professional capability framework: p – personal capabilities scale; i – interpersonal capabilities scale; c – cognitive capabilities scale; gsk – generic skills and knowledge scale. scott, g., chang, e. & grebennikov, l. (2010). using successful graduates to improve the quality of undergraduate nursing programs. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 1(1), 26 – 44. 34 when one’s capability as a nurse is most tested after completing the capability sections of the survey respondents were invited to indicate under what circumstances their professional capability as a nurse was being most tested. the majority of respondents (71.1%) reported that it is “when things are going wrong”, 15.6% reported that it is “when things are going normally” and only 1 respondent out of the 45 surveyed reported that this happens “when things are going well”. strategies for making university and professional learning relevant: importance and performance ratings in 2008 table 5 identifies the mean ratings and ranks for the 14 strategies found to make university courses and professional learning programs in nursing more interesting, engaging, relevant and productive. each strategy is first rated on importance in keeping university and professional learning relevant and then on the extent to which the university course or professional learning programs which respondents have undertaken so far has handled that aspect effectively. the five highest ranking methods are highlighted. table 5: strategies for making university and professional learning relevant: mean ratings and ranks importance for work keeping university and professional learning relevant university’s focus mean rank items mean rank 4.38 8 focus more directly on the capabilities identified by successful nurses as being important in university courses and assessment 3.03 12 4.49 6 use real-life workplace problems identified by successful graduates as a key resource for learning 3.43 6 4.38 9 make work-placements which test out the capabilities identified as most important in this study a key focus in each course 3.40 7 4.78 1 clinical practice 3.81 2 4.58 3 rotation through a range of clinical areas 3.76 3 4.33 10 use successful graduates more consistently as a learning resource in as a learning resource in university courses 2.83 14 2.96 14 decrease the amount of formal classroom teaching of basic technical skills and use self-instructional guides and i.t. to develop these 2.86 13 4.60 2 include learning experiences based on real-life case studies that specifically develop the interpersonal and personal skills needed as a nurse 3.69 4 4.46 7 provision of a transition to practice program (if you have undertaken one) 3.82 1 3.69 13 when relevant, use i.t. to make learning as convenient and interactive as possible 3.27 11 4.24 11 ensure that all teaching staff model the key attributes identified as being important in this study 3.38 9 4.58 4 ensure that teaching staff have current workplace experience 3.31 10 4.56 5 make assessment more real-world and problem-based and less focused on memorising factual material 3.39 8 4.20 12 use performance on the capabilities identified as being most important in earlier parts of this survey as the focus for assessment and feedback on all learning tasks 3.44 5 scott, g., chang, e. & grebennikov, l. (2010). using successful graduates to improve the quality of undergraduate nursing programs. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 1(1), 26 – 44. 35 the strategies rated high on both importance and the extent of their current use in university and professional learning program include: “clinical practice” (ranks: 1, 2); “include learning experiences based on real-life case studies that specifically develop the interpersonal and personal skills needed as a nurse” (2, 4); and “rotation through a range of clinical areas” (3, 3). these items indicate perceived areas of good practice in the university programs undertaken by respondents. it is important to note that twelve of the items attract mean importance ratings well in excess of 4.0. this validates the areas covered by these twelve items as being important quality assurance checkpoints for both the design of learning programs for nurses and for tracking the effectiveness of their implementation. the qualitative data generated by the survey and summarised in the next section confirms this. the items rated high on importance but relatively low on the extent to which universities or professional learning programs handle them effectively included: “ensure that teaching staff have current workplace experience” (ranks 4, 10); and “make assessment more real-world and problem-based and less focused on memorising factual material” (5, 8). qualitative comments a wide range of qualitative data was generated by the survey. first, as already noted, respondents were asked to explain their high ratings for each of the quantitative areas surveyed (“best aspect” comments) and to suggest improvements (“needs improvement” comments). they were also asked to identify one of the most challenging situations which they have encountered in their early years of professional practice and how they went about addressing it. their responses provide ideal material with which to develop real-world scenarios for case and problem-based learning and assessment. the challenges identified in the 2008 survey included: having to manage a wide range of emergencies like a patient suddenly becoming unstable; having to cope with a wide range of demands bearing down at the same time; having to manage when a number of colleagues are unexpectedly ill or called away; dealing with “difficult” patients and distressed families; and having to work productively with a diverse range of staff and senior people. extensive qualitative feedback was provided when respondents were asked how, in hindsight, their university and professional learning might have been made more relevant. consistent with the highest rating items in table 5, in their open-ended feedback respondents give particular attention to clinical practice. further, many participants’ comments about the importance of clinical practice suggested that this practice should be continuous, self directed and that it should operate within a structured environment which provides ongoing opportunities for interaction with patients. other “best aspect” learning methods recurrently mentioned in the comments all involve active learning and include: laboratory practicals; lecturers’ real life stories; discussions of trouble shooting issues; simulations of case scenarios; and registered nurses discussing their experiences and sharing effective ways to deal with common challenges. many respondents identified specific course subjects like the following as proving to be relevant in the early years of professional practice: anatomy; physiology; pathophysiology; pharmacology / medication; patient assessment; nursing care; and ethics. taken more generally what respondents in this survey say will improve their professional learning aligns closely with the rated class a framework and confirmed in the commissioned research and analysis report on student learning to the 2008 review of australian higher education (scott, 2009). scott, g., chang, e. & grebennikov, l. (2010). using successful graduates to improve the quality of undergraduate nursing programs. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 1(1), 26 – 44. 36 discussion and conclusions this study of 45 successful early career nursing graduates from two outer-urban sydney hospitals has both tested a methodology and generated a range of findings about professional effectiveness, capability and learning in the unique operating context of being a nurse. in terms of professional effectiveness it should be noted that ten of the 12 effectiveness indicators attracted a mean importance rating 4.0 or higher, suggesting that the vast majority of respondents saw them as being either moderately high or very high in their usefulness. the highest ranking indicators align closely with the indicators identified independently by the nums who chose the sample and with the effectiveness indicators identified by supervisors in the earlier studies of other professions. in terms of the capabilities ranked highest on importance there is a considerable overlap between the 2008 and 2005 results. some variation is seen, however, in capability areas like the following which appear in the top 12 items ranked highest on importance in the 2008 study but not in the 2005 study: “understanding my personal strengths and limitations”; “being able to work with senior staff without being intimidated”; and “an ability to recognise patterns in a complex situation”; along with the following item which received the top rank in 2005, but was ranked ninth in 2008: “the ability to empathise with and work productively with people from a wide range of backgrounds”. in both the 2005 and 2008 studies eight out of the twelve items ranked highest on importance relate to emotional intelligence (i.e. some aspect of personal or interpersonal capability). this pattern of findings aligns with the studies undertaken in other professions and those involving professional leadership (fullan & scott, 2009; scott, coates & anderson, 2008; vescio, 2005). specifically, in 2008 five of the top ranking items come from the personal abilities scale and 3 from the interpersonal abilities scale. a further three items relate to the cognitive ability scale. just one item in the top twelve comes from the generic skills and knowledge scale. there is a similar pattern in the results of the 2005 study – with the personal abilities scale again producing the largest number of high rating capability items. of eight capabilities ranked high on importance but low on focus given at university four align with the 2005 survey results and may warrant improvement attention in nurse education programs. they are: “being able to remain calm under pressure or when things go wrong”; “being able to work with senior staff without being intimidated”; “being able to identify from a mass of detail the core issue in any situation”; and “having a sense of humour and being able to keep work in perspective”. of particular interest is the relatively low rating given to the existing university focus on the item: “having a high level of current technical expertise relevant to my work area”. the “needs improvement” qualitative data generated by the survey can be used to supplement these results and explain the ratings in more detail. the following areas were consistently identified in both the 2008 and 2005 survey results as being well addressed in the university programs undertaken by respondents: “wanting to produce as good a job as possible”; and “being able to set and justify priorities”. with a scale up of the study to the state or national level it will become increasingly possible to identify areas of good practice in addressing high rating capability items in one location that can then be shared with another. the “best aspect” qualitative data generated by the survey can be used to supplement these results. it has been said that the emotional intelligence capabilities identified as being so important to effective early career performance in this profession cannot be taught. this is true but they can be learnt, especially if the supervisors of clinical practice are alerted to the top rating emotional intelligence and cognitive capabilities, and if their assessment of trainee nurses gives focus to how well the individual displays them when things go wrong or when the scott, g., chang, e. & grebennikov, l. (2010). using successful graduates to improve the quality of undergraduate nursing programs. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 1(1), 26 – 44. 37 unexpected happens. this was supported by an earlier study of successful engineering graduates (scott & yates, 2002) and further discussed in the commissioned report to the 2008 review of australian higher education (scott, 2009). the focus on clinical practice highlighted by the successful graduates as a positive aspect of university program also aligns with more extensive analyses of some 280,000 qualitative “best aspect” and “needs improvement” comments made on the national course experience questionnaire at the field of education level (scott, 2006; scott, grebennikov & gozzard, forthcoming) where the analysis of preferred methods in the health field of education shows that almost 90% of the “best aspect” comments are about clinical practice. it should be noted however that, in these broader studies and in the current one, there are suggestions for making the clinical experience far more focused on the emotional intelligence and cognitive capabilities found to be so important in all these successful graduate studies. some ways in which this might be done have been identified earlier in this paper. the learning strategies rated high on importance but relatively low on the extent to which universities or professional learning programs handle them effectively included: “ensure that teaching staff have current workplace experience”; and “make assessment more real-world and problem-based and less focused on memorising factual material”. these items identify potential areas for improvement action in undergraduate nurse education and professional learning programs. the “needs improvement” qualitative data generated by the survey can be used to explain the quantitative results and to identify relevant improvement solutions. with a scale up of the study to the state or national level it will again become increasingly possible to identify areas of good practice in addressing high rating items on the educational quality scale in one location that can then be shared with another. the “best aspect” qualitative data generated by the survey can be used to supplement these results. the study confirms that both capability and competence are important elements in being identified as a successful graduate. it shows that key skills and knowledge are necessary but are not sufficient for capable and consistently effective practice. the study’s findings align with those from all previous investigations. the study shows, for example, that capability as an early career nurse is most tested when the unexpected happens, when many small challenges all unfold at the same time and when things go “wrong”. it reveals that emotional intelligence – both personal and interpersonal – is a core ingredient in framing an effective response, along with a distinctive diagnostic and contingent way of thinking. it shows that key aspects of emotional intelligence and the cognitive skills required cannot be taught but they can certainly be learnt – especially if clinical practice, simulations and case-based learning experiences are appropriately designed and the capabilities that rate highest on importance to successful graduates are given central focus. the study also confirms the importance of bringing theory, practice and real life situations into dialogue whenever possible and of seeing content as being just one element in the process of “reading and matching” (scott, 1999; schön, 1983, fullan and scott, 2009). this also suggests that greater use of integrated and problem-based assessment focused on the highest rating early career capabilities identified in the study may be warranted. the study identifies a range of effectiveness indicators that can be used to assess the quality of early career performance. a relatively small sample size and possible self-reporting bias are two limitations of the study which may have impacted the reliability of the outcomes. nonetheless, studies like this can assist directly with the process of repositioning higher education. and, if replicated across professions, sites and systems, they represent a distinctive and significant way to help governments assure the standards, relevance and cost-benefit of university programs suited to the emerging needs of the 21 st century. scott, g., chang, e. & grebennikov, l. 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(2010). using successful graduates to improve the quality of undergraduate nursing programs. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 1(1), 26 – 44. 39 appendix 1: quantitative results successful graduate capability study, nursing 2008-09 (n = 45) five highest ranks within the first and last sections are highlighted green. ten highest ranked abilities are highlighted yellow. importance for work items wish to develop mean rank judging your own effectiveness at work mean rank 4.27 5 1. feeling organised when i do my handover 3.48 11 4.16 9 2. successfully handling the emotional needs of the patient. 3.70 5 4.16 8 3. helping ensure my patients get the right support when they go home 3.60 8 4.59 2 4. successfully finishing the jobs i have to do on time 3.68 7 4.22 6 5. receiving positive feedback from my nurse unit managers 3.69 6 4.36 3 6. receiving positive feedback from my patients 3.55 9 4.04 10 7. receiving positive feedback from colleagues 3.52 10 4.18 7 8. achieving goals set for my professional development 3.95 2 4.31 4 9. establishing a collegial working environment 3.88 3 4.69 1 10. achieving successful patient outcomes 4.10 1 3.40 12 11. being invited to discuss my work with others 3.39 12 3.93 11 12. successfully implementing new initiatives 3.86 4 what accounts for your effective performance at work importance for work personal abilities extent uni focused mean rank mean rank 4.75 1 1. being willing to face and learn from my errors and listen openly to feedback 3.47 7 4.67 3 2. understanding my personal strengths & limitations 3.20 15 3.73 36 3. being confident to take calculated risks and take on new projects 2.72 35 4.58 7 4. being able to remain calm under pressure or when things go wrong 2.58 37 4.29 20 5. having the ability to defer judgement and not to jump in too quickly to resolve a problem 3.13 18 4.29 21 6. a willingness to persevere when things are not working out as anticipated 3.00 25 4.62 5 7. wanting to produce as good a job as possible 3.77 1 4.00 32 8. being willing to take responsibility for projects, including how they turn out 3.07 22 4.22 24 9. having an ability to make a hard decision 3.13 19 4.40 16 10. a willingness to pitch in and undertake menial tasks when needed 3.30 11 4.49 11 11. having a sense of humour and being able to keep work in perspective 2.98 28 importance for work interpersonal abilities extent uni focused mean rank mean rank 4.53 9 1. the ability to empathise with and work productively with people from a wide range of backgrounds 3.50 5 4.45 13 2. a willingness to listen to different points of view before coming to a decision 3.44 8 4.62 6 3. being able to develop and use networks of colleagues to help me solve key workplace problems 3.40 9 4.36 17 4. understanding how the different groups that make up my organisation operate and how much influence they have in different situations 3.00 24 4.53 10 5. being able to work with senior staff without being intimidated 2.67 36 4.44 14 6. being able to give constructive feedback to work colleagues and others 2.86 31 4.20 27 7. being able to motivate others to achieve great things 2.84 32 4.27 22 8. being able to develop and contribute positively to team-based projects 3.33 10 scott, g., chang, e. & grebennikov, l. (2010). using successful graduates to improve the quality of undergraduate nursing programs. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 1(1), 26 – 44. 40 importance for work intellectual abilities extent uni focused mean rank mean rank 4.20 25 1. knowing that there is never a fixed set of steps for solving workplace problems or carrying out a task 2.77 34 4.20 26 2. being able to identify from a mass of detail the core issue in any situation 2.93 29 4.53 8 3. the ability to use previous experience to figure out what is going on when a current situation takes an unexpected turn 3.14 17 4.05 30 4. being able to diagnose what is really causing a problem and then to test this out in action 3.00 27 4.25 23 5. an ability to trace out and assess the consequences of alternate courses of action and, from this, pick the one most suitable 3.07 21 4.43 15 6. being able to readjust a plan of action in light of what happens as it is implemented 3.11 20 4.16 28 7. being able to see how apparently unconnected activities are linked and make up an overall picture 3.21 14 4.66 4 8. being able to set and justify priorities 3.58 4 4.48 12 9. an ability to recognise patterns in a complex situation 3.00 23 importance for work specific skills and knowledge extent uni focused mean rank mean rank 4.32 19 1. having a high level of current technical expertise relevant to my work area 2.88 30 3.76 35 2. being able to use i.t. effectively to communicate & perform key work 3.25 13 4.33 18 3. being able to manage my own ongoing professional learning and development 3.62 3 3.49 38 4. an ability to chair and participate constructively in meetings 2.56 38 3.84 34 5. being able to make effective presentations to clients/colleagues 3.70 2 4.04 31 6. understanding the role of risk management and litigation in current professional work 3.47 6 3.62 37 7. knowing how to manage projects into successful implementation 3.20 16 4.14 29 8. an ability to help others learn in the workplace 3.00 26 3.91 33 9. understanding how organisations like my current one operate 2.84 33 4.71 2 10. being able to organise my work and manage time effectively 3.27 12 importance keeping university and professional learning relevant extent of use mean rank mean rank 4.38 8 1. focus more directly on the capabilities identified by successful nurses as being important in university courses and assessment 3.03 12 4.49 6 2. use real-life workplace problems identified by successful graduates as a key resource for learning 3.43 6 4.38 9 3. make work-placements which test out the capabilities identified as most important in this study a key focus in each course 3.40 7 4.78 1 4. clinical practice 3.81 2 4.58 3 5. rotation through a range of clinical areas 3.76 3 4.33 10 6. use successful graduates more consistently as a learning resource in as a learning resource in university courses 2.83 14 2.96 14 7. decrease the amount of formal classroom teaching of basic technical skills and use self-instructional guides and i.t to develop these 2.86 13 4.60 2 8. include learning experiences based on real-life case studies that specifically develop the interpersonal and personal skills needed as a nurse 3.69 4 4.46 7 9. provision of a transition to practice program (if you have undertaken one) 3.82 1 3.69 13 10. when relevant, use i.t. to make learning as convenient and interactive as possible 3.27 11 4.24 11 11. ensure that all teaching staff model the key attributes identified as being important in this study 3.38 9 4.58 4 12. ensure that teaching staff have current workplace experience 3.31 10 4.56 5 13. make assessment more real-world and problem-based and less focused on memorising factual material 3.39 8 4.20 12 14. use performance on the capabilities identified as being most important in earlier parts of this survey as the focus for assessment and feedback on all learning tasks 3.44 5 scott, g., chang, e. & grebennikov, l. (2010). using successful graduates to improve the quality of undergraduate nursing programs. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 1(1), 26 – 44. 41 appendix 2 rated class a framework r are immediately relevant to their particular background, abilities, needs and experiences; a provide more opportunities for active learning than they do for passive learning – in particular when they include frequent opportunities for students to make contact with people who are further down the same learning path and to actively search a range of relevant data bases; t consistently link theory with practice – for example, when they consistently use case and problem based learning, carefully structured clinical practice and relevant simulations; e effectively manage students' expectations right from the outset; d ensure that learning proceeds logically, is integrated and that the course of study has clear direction; c use a valid graduate capability profile to specifically generate appropriate outcomes and assessment tasks. care is taken to ensure that the units of study used directly address the full capability profile and do not duplicate each other; and that all learning feeds assessment; l provide them with opportunities to pursue flexible learning pathways. although students are allowed some flexibility and choice in the study units undertaken, careful attention is given to ensuring that they still end up with the same spread and quality of capabilities at graduation; a ensure that assessment tasks are valid, integrated, problem-based and that feedback on them is timely, constructive and detailed; s not only include opportunities for self-managed learning using both digital and paper-based resources but actively coach students on how to undertake it; s provide support and administrative services which are easily accessed, responsive to students needs and which specifically work together to optimise the total experience which a student has of the university or college; a ensure that access to learning times, locations and resources makes participation in the learning program as convenient and productive as possible. scott, g., chang, e. & grebennikov, l. (2010). using successful graduates to improve the quality of undergraduate nursing programs. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 1(1), 26 – 44. 42 appendix 3 profile of respondents to the 2008 study current job title frequency percent acting clinical nurse educator 3 6.7 acting nurse unit manager 1 2.2 clinical nurse specialist 1 2.2 nursing unit manager 1 2.2 registered nurse 35 77.8 registered nurse anaesthetics 1 2.2 registered nurse intensive care 2 4.4 registered nurse medications 1 2.2 total 45 100.0 main activities undertaken in present job frequency percent acute geriatric nursing 1 0.9 assist patient activities of daily living (adls) 2 1.8 attend high risk deliveries 1 0.9 basic nursing care 3 2.7 bed managing 1 0.9 cardiac monitoring 4 3.5 care for very premature babies 1 0.9 chemotherapy 1 0.9 communication with doctors 2 1.8 documentation 2 1.8 family support 1 0.9 fluid / airway / pain management 8 7.1 hygiene 1 0.9 medication administration 19 16.8 nurse caring for sick children 1 0.9 patient advocacy 5 4.4 patient assessment / re-assessment 7 6.2 patient education 4 3.5 patient observation 5 4.4 post-op care 7 6.2 pre-op care 3 2.7 research nurse 1 0.9 rosters 2 1.8 student / new staff support and education 8 7.1 team work / leader 9 8.0 total / direct patient care 14 12.4 total 113 100.0 scott, g., chang, e. & grebennikov, l. (2010). using successful graduates to improve the quality of undergraduate nursing programs. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 1(1), 26 – 44. 43 main degree relevant to present employment frequency percent bachelor of nursing 40 88.9 bachelor of nursing and pg certificate 1 2.2 bachelor of nursing, grad certificate in trauma and orthopaedics 1 2.2 bachelor of science in nursing 2 4.4 diploma in adult nursing 1 2.2 total 45 100.0 university at which this degree was completed frequency percent australian catholic university 8 17.8 charles sturt university 3 6.7 university of manchester 1 2.2 university of newcastle 1 2.2 university of sydney 6 13.3 uts 5 11.1 university of western sydney 21 46.7 total 45 100.0 year this degree was completed frequency percent 2003 4 8.9 2004 9 20.0 2005 18 40.0 2006 10 22.2 2007 3 6.7 unspecified 1 2.2 total 45 100.0 being employed as an assistant in nursing whilst undertaking the nursing degree frequency percent yes 29 60.0 no 17 37.8 total 45 100.0 scott, g., chang, e. & grebennikov, l. (2010). using successful graduates to improve the quality of undergraduate nursing programs. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 1(1), 26 – 44. 44 sector of employment as an assistant in nursing frequency percent aged care 2 6.9 aged care / casual pools westmead and nepean private 1 3.4 aged care, private hospital 1 3.4 agency, private sector, nursing home 1 3.4 both public and private 1 3.4 casual pool 2 6.9 central sydney area health 1 3.4 emergency surgical 1 3.4 enrolled nurse 3 10.3 hospital 1 3.4 hospital as a casual employee 1 3.4 intensive care as a nurses aid and specialling on all other wards 1 3.4 nursing home 4 13.8 nursing home and hospital 1 3.4 orthopaedic, spinal and neurological rehabilitation 1 3.4 private 1 3.4 private nursing home 1 3.4 public hospital 2 6.9 public hospital and nursing nome 1 3.4 stockton 1 3.4 ug westmead pools 1 3.4 total 29 100.0 1665 otermans (final) otermans p.c.j., aditya, d. and pereira, m. (2023). a study exploring soft skills in higher education. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 14(1), 136–153. 136 the journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability issn: 1838-3815 (online) journal homepage: https://ojs.deakin.edu.au/index.php/jtlge/ a study exploring soft skills in higher education pauldy c. j. otermans1,2, dev aditya2, and monica pereira3 corresponding author: pauldy otermans (pauldy.otermans@brunel.ac.uk) 1 division of psychology, department of life sciences, brunel university london, uxbridge, united kingdom 2 otermans institute, london, united kingdom 3 department of computer science, brunel university london, uxbridge, united kingdom abstract there is a need for improved skills development within the uk’s higher education institutions (hei) stemming from the disconnect between the expectations of employers of the skills graduates have and the skills graduates have gained during their degree. it is well-known now that there is a clear skills gap. the present study aims to explore the effect of graduates and students' perception of skills development in hei in the uk. a total of 420 participants completed an online survey to explore their perception as well as their confidence of skills development by rating each skill on a likert scale. the paper discusses the results in light of pedagogical strategies developed to teach soft skills in he. the paper concludes with recommendations for teaching practice. keywords employability, confidence, soft skills, higher education, graduates, skills development introduction in the uk it is found that there are skill shortages across all sectors (department for digital, culture, media & sport, 2021). skills shortages are defined by having too few people with the right set of skills to fill existing positions (hart et al., 2007). these skills shortages are often identified in the lack of soft skills which are valued by employers and are often the determining factor to hire or not hire someone (noah &aziz, 2020). more specifically, the employer-graduate skills gap is defined as the skills that employers feel that graduates lack and the soft skills that they should possess following graduating from university (hart et al., 2007). the soft skills that are valued by employers include collaboration, communication skills, language skills, emotional empathy, time management, team working and leadership skills. research has shown that employers often prioritise problem-solving and collaboration over university degrees (noah & aziz, 2020) a total of 64% of small and medium enterprises (smes) feel that students do not possess the soft skills required for the workplace (chartered institute of personnel and development (cipd), 2021). the present study aims to explore the effect of graduates and students' perception of skills development in higher education institutions (hei) in the uk using an online survey. research has shown that soft skills are not given enough attention in training & education and that there is an over-emphasis on the hard skills that graduates should obtain (noah & aziz, 2020). thus led to students being incapable of vocational positions. this has rendered the uk in what is currently the graduate skills gap. the 800,000 responses show a positive picture with the majority of graduates in either employment (79%) or further study (20%). in relation to subjective outcomes, 71% of otermans p.c.j., aditya, d. and pereira, m. (2023). a study exploring soft skills in higher education. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 14(1), 136–153. 137 participants indicated that they were utilising what they learnt while studying. this can include subject-specific knowledge, but also wider transferable and employability skills developed during their university studies. graduate outcomes data are also used by league tables, the three main league table producers being the guardian, the complete university guide, and the good university guide. the guardian includes a measure of quality assurance agency (qaa) for he in the uk that attempts to equip graduates with the capacity to gain employability skills (swingler et al., 2019). graduate outcomes is the biggest uk annual social survey and captures the perspectives and current status of recent graduates (higher education statistics agency (hesa), 2019). graduates who have completed their course will be asked to take part in the survey 15 months after they finish their studies. the aim of the graduate outcomes survey is to help current and future students gain insight into career destinations and development. it also includes questions about what constitutes success for graduates after finishing their course and in this way offers a unique perspective on the relationship between academic, economic and interpersonal measures of success. interesting to note is that success could mean different things to different people and successful outcomes go beyond measures of employment and salary. the latest data from the 2018-19 cohort of graduates (just under 'career after 6 months' which is the percentage of graduates who find graduate-level jobs, or are in further study at professional or higher education (he) level, within six months of graduation (the guardian, 2020). the complete university guide includes a measure of 'graduate prospects' which is a guide to the success of graduates after leaving university (university league tables, 2022). the good university guide includes a measure of 'graduate prospects,' also using the data from hesa (the times, 2024). this shows that the emphasis on graduate outcomes and prospects is an important indicator when ranking and comparing universities and education providers. this above-mentioned skills gap can be seen throughout hei in the uk, including russell group universities (daley & baruah, 2021). a study by ahmad et al., (2019) found that mastering communication skills, teamwork skills, leadership skills and innovativeness lead to better performance in the workplace. these skills have been found to be crucial in addition to motivation and business planning in enhancing employability skills for graduates, particularly in the computer science and engineering sectors (okudan & rzasa, 2004). further skills identified as crucial which students and/or graduates typically lack are creativity, critical thinking, analytical skills, problem-solving, and the ability to work independently (talentcorp, 2014). furthermore, the uk government has set up the foresight future of skills and lifelong learning project which looks at reducing the general skills gap (not necessarily focused on graduates only), promoting lifelong learning and bringing economic growth to the uk economy (government office for science, 2020). a review (green et al., 2016) highlighted a few weaknesses in the uk economy and in the skills provision. in more detail, it showed that there was an under-investment by employers in skills that would allow them to raise the value-added of their activities, and certain groups of individuals have been identified who fall outside the reach of the current skills system. this suggests there is a need for increased skills training to ensure the skills gap is reduced. in addition, the world of jobs is transforming due to industrial revolution 4.0 which not only means different jobs will emerge, but existing jobs will also change. this suggests that 42% of the core skills required to perform the existing jobs are expected to change and more than 1 billion people need to be reskilled by 2030 (world economic forum, 2020). furthermore, as the world is becoming more and more digital, high-tech skills are in demand as well as specialised interpersonal skills. in sum, the world is facing a reskilling emergency. to put this into context, more than 1 billion jobs, almost one-third of all jobs worldwide, are likely to be transformed by technology in the next decade, according to oecd estimates (government office for science, 2020). by just 2022, the world economic forum estimates 133 million new jobs in major economies will be created to meet the demands of the fourth industrial revolution (world economic forum, 2020). at the same time, economic and demographic shifts are putting additional pressures on today’s workforces. as we enter a new decade, one that the united nations and others have called the 'decade of delivery' for important transitions to a more sustainable otermans p.c.j., aditya, d. and pereira, m. (2023). a study exploring soft skills in higher education. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 14(1), 136–153. 138 world, we must also focus on achieving equitable, inclusive progress to equip and enable the world’s people to thrive in the jobs of the future (khadzir & sumarmi, 2020; talentcorp, 2014). present study based on the presented graduate skills gap problem, the present study aims to explore the effect of people’s perception of skill development in heis in the uk. to do this, researchers conducted an online survey distributed to a number of students across the uk to gauge the skills that are currently taught in heis. research has shown that in order to effectively evaluate a curriculum it is essential to gather views from both students and graduates (eyal & cohen, 2009). moreover, the survey was also sent to recent graduates (who graduated within the past 3 years) and graduates who graduated more than 3 years ago to get an understanding of the confidence in the skills taught, which soft skills were used and utilised in their current positions, and to obtain information about what skills they should have been taught that are essential to their current role and future aspirations. the research question of the study is: what is the perception of skills development in hei of students and graduates in the uk? materials and methods design the current research is a questionnaire design. developing skills, confidence levels in skills and career adaptability served as the dependent variables, and career status (three levels) served as the independent variable. a combination of the kruskal wallis test, mann-whitney u test and a pairedsamples t-test were conducted to explore the aims of the study and to test for differences on the dependent variables between students and graduates. participants a total of 420 individuals (277 female, 132 male, 2 non-binary, 2 who prefer to self-identify and 7 individuals who did not indicate their gender) participated in the study. in relation to age, 74.3% (n = 312) were between 18-25 years old; 17.1% (n = 72) were between 26-35 years old; 6.0% (n = 25) were between 36-45 years old; 1.0% (n = 4) were between 46-55 years old; 1.2% (n = 5) were between 5665 years old; and .5% (n = 2) did not disclose their age. in terms of ethnic group membership, 40.5% (n = 170) of participants were of asian descent; 37.6% (n = 158) were of white descent; 12.1% (n = 51) were of black descent; 6.0% (n = 25) were of 'mixed' heritage; 2.6% (n = 11) were 'other', and 1.2% (n = 5) preferred not to say. finally, in relation to the career stage of the participants, 80.5% (n = 338) were students; 8.8% (n = 37) indicated they were recent graduates (graduated within the past 3 years) and employed; 8.1% (n = 34) of participants were in graduate employment for more than 3 years, and 2.6% (n = 11) identified they were a recent graduate (graduated within the past 3 years) and unemployed. participants had to be over the age of 18 and should currently be studying or have studied in the uk in order to take part in the study. participants were recruited via social media. materials the study collected data via an online questionnaire using qualtrics and consisted of approximate 18 questions demographics participants were asked about their age, gender, religion, ethnicity, and career stage. career status participants who were students were asked a set of questions about their studies, e.g. town of study, name of institution, degree and discipline. students were asked whether they had a job and if this is full-time or part-time. otermans p.c.j., aditya, d. and pereira, m. (2023). a study exploring soft skills in higher education. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 14(1), 136–153. 139 participants were asked questions about their previous qualifications, e.g. town of study, name of institute, their highest level of educational qualification and discipline studied. they were then asked about their job title, the industry they are working in, and the skills they need on a daily basis. recent graduates were also asked what skills they would have liked to have developed to be prepared for their current job. graduates and unemployed were then asked if they had a job since graduating and if yes, they were asked about that job title, the industry they were working in and the skills they needed on a daily basis. finally, they were asked how long they have been unemployed. recent unemployed graduates were asked what skills they need to develop in order to get a job. graduate employment for more than 3 years were then asked about their job title, the industry they are working in, and the skills they need on a daily basis. these participants were also asked how they have become confident in soft skills and the training they received from their employer. finally, they were asked about what skills they would like to develop further. participants who reported that they were in graduate employment for more than 3 years were asked about their previous qualifications, e.g. town of study, name of institute, the highest level of educational qualification and discipline. developing skills participants were asked to complete and rate 28 items each on a particular soft skill that their university is currently developing (students) or had developed (graduates). examples of soft skills included: team working skills, problem-solving skills, and leadership skills. each item was scored on a 5-point likert-type scale (1 = strongly disagree, 5 = strongly agree). all participant categories completed this section. confidence in skills participants were asked to rate how confident they are in the same 28 soft skills. examples of soft skills included: job interview skills, networking skills, and time management skills. each item was scored on a 5-point likert-type scale (1 = strongly disagree, 5 = strongly agree). all participants completed this section. career adaptability scale the career adapt-ability scale (caas) (savickas & porfeli, 2012) measures concern of one’s career (e.g., thinking about what my future will be like), control of one’s career (e.g. making decisions by myself), curiosity of one’s career (e.g., probing deeply into questions that i have) and confidence about one’s career (e.g., working up to my ability) as psychosocial resources for managing occupational transitions, developmental tasks and work traumas. a combined measure of this scale (e.g., items 124) measure career adaptability which is how flexible someone is to their career. this questionnaire was used in this study to explore participants' adaptability in the workplace. there are 24 items that are rated on a 5-point scale (1 = not strong, 5 = strongest). the questionnaire was field-tested in 13 countries and the internal consistency for this questionnaire was excellent across all countries. in more detail, cronbach’s alpha for the overall scale was α = .95 and alphas for the subscales were α = .88 for concern, α = .89 for control, α = .91 for curiosity and α = .92 for confidence (savickas & porfeli, 2012). all participants had completed this section, excluding the participants who have been in graduate employment for more than 3 years. see table 1 for cronbach alpha for the current study. table 1. cronbach alpha for the current study. career status concern control curiosity confidence overall adaptability s (n = 338) .862 .856 .855 .875 .943 ge (n = 37) .811 .564 .806 .723 .876 gu (n = 11) .861 .827 .762 .869 .911 otermans p.c.j., aditya, d. and pereira, m. (2023). a study exploring soft skills in higher education. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 14(1), 136–153. 140 note: s = student, ge = recent graduates who are in employment and gu = recent graduates who are unemployed. procedure prior to collecting data, the authors obtained ethics approval from a research ethics committee at the authors’ educational institution (29917-a-feb/202131389-1). the data was gathered using convenience sampling, recruiting participants primarily using social media. first, participants read the participant information sheet that explained the purpose of the study and signed an informed consent sheet online. second, participants were then directed to the survey which consisted of demographic items including specific demographic questions in relation to their career status. participants were then taken to the questions about their skills. finally, participants read a debriefing form that explained the purpose of the study in detail and also included contact details. participation was strictly voluntary; no financial or other inducements were offered to participants. results all analyses were conducted using spss 26 (ibm, 2019). missing participants a total of 1004 participants started the survey but not all completed it. as a result, these participants were removed. in more detail, of these participants, 131 did not fill in the consent form, 112 did not continue after the location of the study, 84 were not eligible as they answered 'none of the above' to the career state question, 95 students did not complete the survey after the demographics, 17 recent graduates did not complete the survey after demographics, 28 graduates who are employed for 3 + years did not complete the survey after demographics, 1 recent graduate did not complete survey after demographics. a total of 115 of the participants indicated that they did not study in the uk and were subsequently removed. finally, 1 participant did not engage with the survey and were removed. this led to a total of 420 responses that met the criteria for inclusion. students: developing skills and confidence in skills students were asked how they felt their educational institutions were developing a subset of soft skills. the means and standard deviations for each skill are shown in table 2. a paired-samples t-test was conducted to explore differences between how the students felt that the university was developing their skills and how confident they felt in those skills. the results can be found in table 3. table 2 means and standard deviation for the skills that students report as currently being developed at university. development at university confidence in skill skill mean standard devia,on mean standard devia,on communica:on 3.88 .90 3.64 .86 team working 3.93 .93 3.80 .84 listening skills 3.86 .98 3.98 .79 ability to work under pressure 4.09 .94 3.72 .86 crikcal thinking 4.10 .97 3.64 .89 otermans p.c.j., aditya, d. and pereira, m. (2023). a study exploring soft skills in higher education. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 14(1), 136–153. 141 willingness to learn 3.79 1.00 3.98 .94 alenkon to detail 3.88 .95 3.82 .91 planning skills 4.02 .95 3.77 .93 ability to take responsibility 4.09 .93 4.01 .86 professionalism 4.08 .98 3.90 .94 emokonal intelligence 3.46 1.16 3.74 .99 public speaking 3.61 1.09 3.28 1.10 ability to create ideas 3.86 .97 3.57 .99 problem solving 3.95 .90 3.77 .83 conflict management 3.57 1.08 3.49 .92 leadership skills 3.57 1.12 3.51 .98 ability to show empathy 3.49 1.13 3.96 .94 ability to write a cv 3.44 1.25 3.49 1.02 job interview 3.33 1.25 3.14 1.12 ability to be resilient 3.73 .99 3.64 .92 networking skills 3.54 1.15 3.27 1.13 time management 4.01 .96 3.64 .98 stress management 3.51 1.22 3.33 1.02 self-confidence 3.57 1.15 3.52 1.01 ability to take construckve crikcism 3.88 .96 3.71 .94 organisakon skills 3.90 .96 3.79 .88 ability to adapt to changes 3.95 .96 3.83 .91 ability to give construckve crikcism 3.78 1.02 3.62 .91 stress management 3.88 .90 3.64 .86 self-confidence 3.93 .93 3.80 .84 ability to take construckve crikcism 3.86 .98 3.98 .79 organisakon skills 4.09 .94 3.72 .86 ability to adapt to changes 4.10 .97 3.64 .89 ability to give construckve crikcism 3.79 1.00 3.98 .94 otermans p.c.j., aditya, d. and pereira, m. (2023). a study exploring soft skills in higher education. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 14(1), 136–153. 142 table 3 below represents the data from the students perception of skills developed at university and their confidence. table 3 paired samples t-test for students’ perception of skills being developed at university and their confidence in those skills. skill t p d communica:on 3.79 < .001** .21 team working 2.16 .03** .12 listening skills 1.84 .07 .10 ability to work under pressure 6.14 < .001** .33 cri:cal thinking 7.95 < .001** .43 willingness to learn 3.25 .001** -.18 aqen:on to detail 1.07 .29 .06 planning skills 4.32 < .001** .24 ability to take responsibility 1.32 .19 .07 professionalism 2.84 .005** .15 emo:onal intelligence 3.63 < .001** .20 public speaking 4.67 < .001** .25 ability to create ideas 4.67 < .001** .25 problem solving 3.32 .001** .18 conflict management 1.45 .15 .08 leadership skills .76 .45 .04 ability to show empathy 7.02 < .001** .04 ability to write a cv .071 .48 .04 job interview 2.71 .007** .15 ability to be resilient 1.60 .11 .09 networking skills 4.38 < .001** .24 time management 6.09 < .001** .33 stress management 2.54 .011** .14 self-confidence .76 .45 .04 ability to take construc:ve cri:cism 2.66 .008** .15 organisa:on skills 1.85 .07 .10 ability to adapt to changes 1.96 .05** .11 ability to give construc:ve cri:cism 2.97 .003** .16 note: this table demonstrates the difference between the skills being developed at university and the student’s confidence in those skills. degrees of freedom for paired samples t-test are 37. ** signifies significant results. otermans p.c.j., aditya, d. and pereira, m. (2023). a study exploring soft skills in higher education. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 14(1), 136–153. 143 overall, students feel that their university is developing their communication skills, team working skills, listening skills, ability to work under pressure, critical thinking skills, willingness to learn, planning skills, professionalism, emotional intelligence, public speaking, create ideas, problem-solving skills, show empathy, job interview skills, networking skills, time management skills, stress management skills, ability to take constructive criticism, adapt to changes, ability to give constructive criticism but do not feel confident in these skills. these were significant in table 3. however, students felt that their university could improve in teaching listening skills, attention to detail, ability to take responsibility, conflict management, leadership skills, ability to write cv, ability to be resilient, self-confidence and organisation skills. these were not significant in table 3. graduates: developing skills and confidence in skills the data from graduates who were employed and graduates who have been graduates for more than 3 years were merged together. the data were merged due to the small sample of graduates who filled in the survey. graduates were asked if their educational institutions had developed a subset of soft skills. descriptive statistics for each soft skill can be seen in table 4. a paired-samples t-test was conducted to explore differences between how graduates felt their institution had developed their skills and how confident they felt. results are shown in table 4. table 4 means and standard deviation for the skills that graduates report as developed at university and their confidence. development at university confidence in skill skill mean standard devia,on mean standard devia,on communica:on 4.04 .82 4.10 .76 team working 3.97 .84 4.27 .65 listening skills 4.04 .92 4.23 .68 ability to work under pressure 4.23 .93 4.28 .64 crikcal thinking 4.27 .96 4.08 .87 willingness to learn 4.10 1.03 4.42 .71 alenkon to detail 4.10 .93 4.11 .84 planning skills 4.18 .85 4.20 .80 ability to take responsibility 4.27 .83 4.48 .67 professionalism 4.20 .98 4.39 .71 emokonal intelligence 3.63 1.17 3.93 0.90 public speaking 3.96 1.02 3.66 1.04 ability to create ideas 3.83 .97 3.86 .83 problem solving 4.20 .79 4.03 .77 conflict management 3.45 1.14 3.62 .88 leadership skills 3.72 1.03 3.90 .91 otermans p.c.j., aditya, d. and pereira, m. (2023). a study exploring soft skills in higher education. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 14(1), 136–153. 144 ability to show empathy 3.54 1.04 4.08 1.08 ability to write a cv 3.25 1.36 3.73 1.04 job interview 3.04 1.49 3.63 1.09 ability to be resilient 3.79 1.03 4.15 .77 networking skills 3.62 1.19 3.61 1.21 time management 4.13 .94 3.97 1.07 stress management 3.69 1.19 3.68 .97 self-confidence 3.86 1.05 3.79 1.03 ability to take construckve crikcism 4.00 .93 3.82 .99 organisakon skills 3.99 .87 4.11 .64 ability to adapt to changes 3.93 .88 4.11 .82 ability to give construckve crikcism 3.75 1.01 3.80 .87 stress management 4.04 .82 4.10 .76 self-confidence 3.97 .84 4.27 .65 ability to take construckve crikcism 4.04 .92 4.23 .68 organisakon skills 4.23 .93 4.28 .64 ability to adapt to changes 4.27 .96 4.08 .87 ability to give construckve crikcism 4.10 1.03 4.42 .71 table 5 below represents the data from the graduates perception of skills developed at university and their confidence. table 5 paired samples t-test for employed graduates’ perception of skills being developed at university and their confidence in those skills. skill t p d communica:on -.46 .65 -.05 team working 2.59 .012** -.31 listening skills 1.33 .19 -.16 ability to work under pressure -051 .61 -.06 cri:cal thinking 1.58 .12 .19 willingness to learn 2.70 .009** -.32 aqen:on to detail 0.12 .90 -0.01 planning skills -.11 .91 -.01 ability to take responsibility 1.73 .087 -.21 otermans p.c.j., aditya, d. and pereira, m. (2023). a study exploring soft skills in higher education. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 14(1), 136–153. 145 professionalism 1.51 .14 -.18 emo:onal intelligence 2.08 .04** -.25 public speaking .200 .049** .24 ability to create ideas -.23 .82 -.03 problem solving 1.54 .13 .18 conflict management 1.08 .28 -.13 leadership skills 1.25 .22 -.15 ability to show empathy 3.96 <.001** -.47 ability to write a cv 2.99 .004** -.36 job interview 3.35 .001** -.40 ability to be resilient 2.84 .006** -.34 networking skills .09 .93 .01 time management 1.17 .25 .14 stress management .09 .93 .01 self-confidence .45 .66 .05 ability to take construc:ve cri:cism 1.63 .11 .19 organisa:on skills 1.04 .30 -.12 ability to adapt to changes 1.48 .15 -.18 ability to give construc:ve cri:cism -.47 .64 -.06 note: this table demonstrates the difference between the skills developed at university and the graduate’s confidence in those skills. the degree of freedom for paired samples t-test is 70. ** signifies significance. results showed that educational institutions developed communication skills, listening skills, ability to work under pressure, critical thinking, attention to detail, planning skills, ability to take responsibility, professionalism, ability to create ideas, problem-solving, conflict management, leadership skills, ability to show empathy, time management skills, ability to take constructive criticism, organisational skills, adapt to changes and ability to give constructive criticism and that graduates are quite confident in these skills. graduates have practised team working skills, willing to learn, in employment based on what they have been taught in school. this was significant. however, educational institutions could do more in relation to emotional intelligence, public speaking, ability to write cvs, job interview skills, ability to be resilient, networking skills, stress management and self-confidence. this was not significant. comparing confidence in skills between students and graduates graduates felt more confident than students in communication skills, team working skills, listening skills, ability to work under pressure, critical thinking skills, willingness to learn, attention to detail, planning skills, ability to take responsibility, professionalism, public speaking, ability to create ideas, problem solving skills, leadership skills, job interview skills, ability to be resilient, networking skills, time management, organisation skills, and ability to adapt to changes (all u < 10121.50, all p < .029). there was no significant difference in confidence level between graduates and students in the following skills: emotional intelligence, conflict management, ability to show empathy, ability to write otermans p.c.j., aditya, d. and pereira, m. (2023). a study exploring soft skills in higher education. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 14(1), 136–153. 146 a cv, ability to take constructive criticism, and the ability to give constructive criticism (all u > 10587.50, all p > .098). career adaptability scale adaptability score a kruskal-wallace test was conducted to determine whether there is an effect of career status on the level of adaptability. the results indicate a trend towards significance h(2) = 5.71, p = .058 (figure 1). graduates who are employed showed higher adaptability (md = 89.00, n = 37), followed by students (md = 83.50, n = 338) and graduates who are unemployed (md = 78.00, n = 11). follow-up mannwhitney u tests were conducted to compare the career adaptability score between the students, the graduates who are employed, and the graduates who are unemployed. results revealed a significant difference in the adaptability score between students (md = 83.50, n = 338) and graduates who are employed (md = 89.00, n = 37), u = 4906.50, z = -2.15, p = .031, r = .11. results also showed a significant difference in the adaptability score between graduates who are employed (md = 89.00, n = 37) and graduates who are unemployed (md = 78.00, n = 11), u = 115.50, z = -2.16, p = .031, r = .31. there was no significant difference between students (md = 83.50, n = 338) and graduates who are unemployed (md = 78.00, n = 11), u = 1584.00, z = -.84, p = .40, r = .04. concern a kruskal-wallace test was conducted to determine whether there is an effect of career status on the level of concern. the results indicate no significant differences h (2) = 1.28, p = .53. students had the highest level of concern (md = 10.00, n = 338), followed by graduates who are employed (md = 19.00, n = 37) as well as graduates who are unemployed (md = 19.00, n = 11). control a kruskal-wallace test was conducted to determine whether there is an effect of career status on the level of control. the results indicate no significant differences h (2) = 4.56, p = .10. graduates who are employed had the highest level of concern (md = 23.00, n = 37), followed by graduates who are unemployed (md = 22.00, n = 11) and students (md = 21.00, n = 338). curiosity a kruskal-wallace test was conducted to determine whether there is an effect of career status on the level of curiosity. the results indicate no significant differences h(2) = 4.00, p = .14. graduates who are employed had the highest level of curiosity (md = 22.00, n = 37), followed by graduates who are unemployed (md = 21.00, n = 11) as well as students (md = 21.00, n = 338). confidence a kruskal-wallace test was conducted to determine whether there is an effect of career status on the level of confidence. the results indicate significant differences h(2) = 12.68, p = .002. graduates who are employed showed the highest levels of confidence (md = 24.00, n = 37), followed by students (md = 21.00, n = 338) and graduates who are unemployed (md = 20.00, n = 11). follow-up mann-whitney u tests were conducted to compare the confidence scores between students, graduates who are employed, and graduates who are unemployed. results showed significant differences in the confidence scores between students (md = 21.00, n = 338) and graduates who are employed (md = 24.00, n = 37), u = 4087.50, z = -3.47, p < .001, r = .18. there was also a significant difference in the confidence scores between graduates who are employed (md = 24.00, n = 37) and graduates who are unemployed (md = 20.00, n = 11), u = 101.00, z = -2.53, p = .011, r = .36. there was no significant difference between students (md = 21.00, n = 338) and graduates who are unemployed (md = 20.00, n = 11), u = 1702.00, z = -.48, p = .63, r = .03. otermans p.c.j., aditya, d. and pereira, m. (2023). a study exploring soft skills in higher education. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 14(1), 136–153. 147 figure 1. scores for each of the subscales of adaptability for the three career groups; s = students, ge = graduates who are employed, gu = graduates who are unemployed; ** p < .001, * p < .05. discussion the aim of the current study was to explore students’ and graduates’ perceptions of the soft skills taught in hei in the uk. through the distribution of a survey, it was found that there are a number of skills that students believe are taught at universities, but they do not feel confident in some soft skills that are taught at hei. similar results can be found for graduates. the results will be discussed in more detail below. students do not feel that their university is developing certain skills as they do not feel comfortable in applying those skills (e.g. job interview skills, ability to write cv and general emotional intelligence) when they graduate. graduates feel confident in skills because they are able to practise the skills taught at university in current employment. there are more things that universities could do to develop these skills to ensure students feel more confident upon graduation. for a subset of skills, graduates felt more confident than students. graduates who were employed had a higher adaptability score compared to students and graduates who are unemployed. from the four subscales, there was no effect of career status on the level of concern, control and curiosity. however, graduates who were employed were more confident than students and graduates who were unemployed. recently, advance he published a comprehensive narrative to the literature from 2016 to 2021 on the topic of employability in he (dalrymple et al., 2022). findings indicate a variety of concepts that need to be discussed about employability within the sector and five are highlighted here. firstly, there is a need to distinguish clearly between 'hard' and 'soft' skills and robust measures of accountability of employability-initiatives. secondly, authentic assessments should be incorporated into the curriculum to enhance students’ employability which is in line with our findings and recommendations. thirdly, a stronger collaboration is required between the graduate job market and educational institutions to align the needs of graduate employers and the skills developed during education, which is one of our recommendations too. fourth, career planning will remain crucial although there should also be a strong emphasis on embedding forms of employability learning into the curriculum and all this should consider inclusivity and be tailored support. fifth, implementing work-based learning, placements, internships, or extracurricular employability-enhancing activities are crucial for skills development. overall, engagement of employability in the curriculum is essential. students felt that their university could improve in developing listening skills, attention to detail, ability to take responsibility, conflict management, leadership skills, ability to write cv, ability to be resilient, self-confidence and organisation skills. it would be beneficial if these can be embedded within the curriculum where possible, otherwise via the facilitation of extracurricular activities. effective communication in project teams is essential, but not often taught. a crucial element in teamwork is feedback which includes both peer feedback and instructor feedback (donia et al., 2018). otermans p.c.j., aditya, d. and pereira, m. (2023). a study exploring soft skills in higher education. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 14(1), 136–153. 148 this will help students with being able to take and give criticism. one way for students to practise and gain feedback on their team skills is through team-based assessment tasks using a rubric. in a recent study, students completed the rubric for themselves and for each of the students in their team. results showed that this was a very successful way for students to develop teamwork skills including feedback by allowing feedback to be focused and consistent (vaughan et al., 2019). presentation skills are a fundamental skill that should be taught, and communication skills training guides usually advise presenters to record their presentations to improve communication skills by being more self-aware (taylor, 2016). students could also submit a reflection on their presentation. this will, in turn, improve self-awareness (oh et al., 2015). improved self-awareness is key to a whole host of skills measured in this study for example leadership skills (showry & manasa, 2014), and emotional intelligence (moreno-fernandez et al., 2020). another way to improve emotional intelligence is to get students to engage in role playing. this has been effective in improving emotional intelligence and empathy in counselling students and is common practice (rismi et al., 2020). role play has also been useful for developing leadership skills (daley & baruah, 2021; edelman & knippenberg, 2018). pedagogical strategies for improving listening skills are to engage in and practice metacognition in listening (uggen, 2013). by practising active listening and improving communication skills, which students feel that the university is improving, students will also improve their conflict management skills. educators could host workshops on employability modules to improve conflict management by maintaining a positive attitude and practice managing their emotions (moreno-fernandez et al., 2020; valente & lourenço, 2020). more importantly, students should learn how to compromise which will lead to better collaboration and team working skills. to improve attention to detail, students should engage in games and puzzles and embrace a slower pace when completing tasks (dickter et al., 2018). it is important that educators help students focus on small achievements, set small goals, seek out positive experiences (by not procrastinating), consider a rewards system and assist them in practising self-acceptance (kaya et al, 2021; mutiara & astuti, 2021). moreover, self-confidence comes from networking and mingling (karsudianto, 2020), which is an area a lot of students are not confident in. see notes on networking for strategies on how to incorporate this in learning. according to psychological research in order to improve the ability to take responsibility students need to be punctual, get organised, should not procrastinate, not complain, be dependable, be accountable and be willing to earn someone's trust (succi & canovi, 2020). educators can provide this to students as a self-checklist for engagement. to improve organisation skills in students, educators could show students how to use visual tools such as gantt charts, use a checklist or a to-do list which helps students stay on track with tasks with established priority and identify small goals and effectively meet them (rumohr, 2018). this, in turn, develops self-confidence. willingness is essential for learning and includes motivation related to cognition and emotion (hotifah & yoenanto, 2020). therefore, willingness to learn is a prerequisite for success (tymon, 2013). willingness to learn is not a concept that can be taught as a lesson, this is something that needs to be incorporated throughout the curriculum by keeping students engaged with the tasks and activities set. it also includes a component of motivating students, encouraging students, and reflection. being able to present yourself is crucial when you are graduating and looking for a job. here is where both cv writing and job interview skills come in. an interview is for many people a nerve-wracking, anxiety-provoking experience especially in the preparation time leading up to the interview. training is crucial to improve interview performances. although graduates feel relatively confident in these skills, there is still much more that can be done in educational institutions to get students ready for the graduate job market, preparing their cvs and preparing them for the (many) interviews they will likely have before getting their first graduate job. many educational institutions have dedicated career support for students, but engagement with these professional services is relatively low (kapadia, 2018). many institutions organise mock interview panels/events, but again uptake of these is relatively otermans p.c.j., aditya, d. and pereira, m. (2023). a study exploring soft skills in higher education. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 14(1), 136–153. 149 low compared to the size of student cohorts. therefore, more work and promotion can be done in this area, for example embedding the career support services more into the curriculum. academics and working together with career support staff creates a community of support that will be beneficial not only for the student experience but also for their employability skills development. this has been proven to be beneficial in other settings such as academics and clinicians working together to prepare nursing students to work in mental health settings and can be expanded to other areas too (curtis, 2007). in addition, developing authentic assessments where students practice, among other skills, oral presentation skills will improve their employability skills and their job interview skills (sokhanvar, et al., 2021). finally, with the increasing use and advances of technology, by using virtual reality and artificial intelligence, systems and products are created that can support students to prepare and practice for their interviews (stanica et al, 2018). resilience is an essential skill for professional development and a skill that is often not easy to measure or define which makes teaching resilience harder compared to some of the other transferable skills. a recent study by silva et al., (2020) using a quantitative approach showed that teaching social skills improves resilience in graduates. this was evident as the students who developed social skills (by receiving support, developing oral presentation skills, by articulating and by participating in discussion, etc.) had increased resilience levels compared to students whose social skills had not reached high levels. therefore, resilience is a skill that is interlinked with the development of other skills, but resilience can still be developed through a variety of activities including case studies, impromptu activities as well as developing skills such as goal setting, problem-solving skills, peer-to-peer support and teamwork. most importantly, encouraging students to fail and to learn, regroup, and try again will boost their resilience. for many people, failure is not an option, but by changing this mentality to embrace failure, success can also be achieved (smith & henriksen, 2016). comparing confidence in skills between students and graduate graduates felt more confident in communication skills, team working skills, listening skills, ability to work under pressure, critical thinking skills, willingness to learn, attention to detail, planning skills, ability to take responsibility, professionalism, public speaking, ability to create ideas, problem solving skills, leadership skills, job interview skills, ability to be resilient, networking skills, time management organisation skills and ability to adapt to changes. there is a possibility that the reason for this difference is that graduates have had an opportunity to exercise these skills and also have been provided feedback in the context of the workplace. students have not had these opportunities yet. it is for this reason that students require feedback when they develop these skills in university to have an opportunity to improve these skills before they enter the workplace. based on these results, it is evident that employability in he needs improvement in curriculum design due to the discrepancy in confidence and the skills identified between graduates and students (eyan & cohen, 2009). career adaptability scale the results from the career adaptability scale showed that graduates are more adaptable than students and those who are unemployed. this suggests that for a student to become adaptable, they should be exposed to a real working environment in the form of placements, internships or volunteering positions. this difference in adaptability could be due to a difference in confidence between employed graduates and students and unemployed graduates. graduates have had more exposure to situations, interactions with other people, what it means to be in a working environment including the tasks and responsibilities. in addition, graduates have also gone through the process of writing their cv, applying for jobs, getting job interviews and receiving an offer. all these experiences and exposure have led to an increase in confidence levels. however, more work can be done to also increase confidence levels in students as mentioned above. the development of these employability skills do not have to wait till one is a graduate, all of this can start during a students’ time at university. limitations and future work otermans p.c.j., aditya, d. and pereira, m. (2023). a study exploring soft skills in higher education. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 14(1), 136–153. 150 a few limitations to this research should be noted. for example, there was an unequal distribution of data collected between students and graduates. researchers could have collected more graduate data to gain more insight into the use of skills taught at institutions. an additional limitation is that the researchers did not consider previous experience or extracurricular activities students engaged in. if future research replicates the current study, it would be good to consider gathering this type of data. future researchers could conduct a longitudinal study to investigate the long-term implications of applying the recommendations during the time students are studying. additionally, researchers could conduct this research in different countries to investigate the views of students in different countries. finally, researchers could conduct interviews with industry professionals to identify which skills graduates are missing. recommendations based on the results of this study coupled with the literature, the current study provides some recommendations for educators in developing their students’ employability skills. universities should be clear on the skills that assignments will nurture. 1. feedback on communication skills in any capacity should be practical with guidance for future presentations. there should also be an opportunity to discuss feedback with the student. presentations could also be recorded and played back by students for self-reflection to improve self-awareness. 2. assignments where there is the inclusion of team/group work should include feedback from the educator as well as anonymous peer feedback. by doing this, the student will be accountable for their engagement and will also be involved in giving and taking constructive criticism. however, this peer feedback could be reviewed by the educator who can also provide feedback to the peers about their peer feedback. 3. educators could encourage passion about the topic taught. they could create real-life assignments which will elicit a willingness to learn resulting in life-long learners. choosing reallife assignments will also foster solution-based problem solving. 4. assignments should include a project management component as this promotes organisation skills and time management. 5. more opportunities for students to develop professionalism outside of the classroom. some examples include networking events and conference attendance for final year projects. this would improve students' networking skills if they are encouraged to engage in networking at these events through unassessed observations. 6. to further improve networking skills, educators could consider including speed dating activities in the classroom, guest speakers for their modules from non-academic backgrounds and attendance of the relevant career events. 7. educators should consider improving emotional intelligence by implementing role play in their modules. other means of improving emotional intelligence include the analysis of silent videos and negotiation tasks. 8. educators could consider debates to assist in nurturing leadership, conflict management and communication skills. 9. to improve public speaking, educators could include non-assessed presentations on a topic of the students own choice. thereby fostering creativity, communication skills and encouraging engagement. another means of improving public speaking is an assessment on non-verbal communication whereby students present a topic of their choice but only use non-verbal language with words that are muddled up. feedback from educators needs to be clear and honest. feedback from peers could be considered to improve the ability to take and give constructive criticism. otermans p.c.j., aditya, d. and pereira, m. (2023). a study exploring soft skills in higher education. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 14(1), 136–153. 151 10. students should have autonomy in their studies. this can be done by giving students the opportunity to choose their assignments. in turn, this will foster creativity and ability to create ideas. 11. educators should consider providing a tailored cv experience rather than using facilities which provide general cv guidance. this could be in the form of invited speaker talk from industry or drawing on the educator’s own experiences as well as peer feedback on their cvs. 12. educators could practice interview skills with the job specifications provided by the student. however, consideration of educators' workload is important. 13. encourage students to practice mindfulness as a strategy to cope with stress and become more resilient in the workplace and whilst studying. 14. implement a reflective component in assignments to showcase the skills that students have learned and are comfortable with. practising reflection could also assist students in assessing their outlook on any given scenario, allowing them to improve their awareness, set clear goals, identify and learn from their mistakes and be more self-reflective. feedback from educators could comment on how students are reflective. 15. to enable students to adapt to change, it is important to incorporate this into the employability curriculum. for example, making changes to the topics taught or implementation on new assignments. conclusion using data from students and graduates in the uk gathered through a survey, this research identified issues within the heis in teaching employability skills. based on these results and consultation of the literature researchers propose some recommendations for employability educators to implement in their curriculum which after implementation could reduce the employer-graduate skills gap. acknowledgements the authors would like to thank the research assistants that helped recruit participants. without your help we would have not have reached the number of participants that we did. declaration of interest statement the authors declare that they have no conflict of interest. references ahmad, f. s., velu, b. k. d. v., zaidin, n., & shariff, s. a. entrepreneurship education for industrial professional: the influence of communication, teamwork, leadership and innovative soft skill on job performance. international journal of recent technology and engineering (ijrte) 8(3s3). https://doi.org/10.35940/ijrte.c1037.1183s319 chartered institute of personnel and development (cipd) (2021, may). learning and skills at work survey. https://www.cipd.co.uk/images/learning-skills-work-report-2021-1_tcm18-95433.pdf curtis, j. 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(2021). how individual experiential backgrounds are related to the development of employability among university students. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(2), 114-130. 114 the journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability issn: 1838-3815 (online) journal homepage: https://ojs.deakin.edu.au/index.php/jtlge/ how individual experiential backgrounds are related to the development of employability among university students andreas eimer1 and carla bohndick2 corresponding author: andreas eimer (andreas.eimer@uni-muenster.de ) 1university of muenster, https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5136-2576 2university of hamburg, https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1079-8098 abstract university students have different backgrounds and varied experiences. this diversity has frequently been examined with regard to performance in higher education. however, much less attention has been paid to its significance concerning employability. the investigation of this potential relationship is the focus of this study. in this research, 429 students at a german university were assessed on the strength of their employability, which here is defined as a multi-factorial construct. the career resources questionnaire (crq) was used (hirschi et al., 2019) which is a comprehensive instrument that analyses the self-assessed strength of twelve essential career resources amongst respondents. the results were then related to several individual preconditions: existing or non-existing commitment to voluntary work, sporting activity or sporting inactivity and being a first-generation student (fgs) or a continuinggeneration student (cgs). these characteristics were chosen, because they are commonly represented in the student population. in addition, some socio-economic implications are discussed. significant differences were found between the participant groups. some results correspond with the findings of existing studies, others lead to new explanatory approaches. based on the overall findings, recommendations for career counselling as well as for seminars in career orientation are given. for example, students' experiences outside the university environment can be used in career counselling to strengthen perceived employability or a supportive approach to first-generation students can lead to the development of careerrelated strengths. keywords: employability, volunteering, sport, firstgeneration students, higher education, career resources, perceived employability introduction in many countries of the world, employability is high on the economic agenda. with rising student numbers (unesco international institute for education planning [iiep], 2017) a career in academia is only one option for graduates. most students regard a higher education degree as a preparation for their professional life. high student numbers combined with a diverse student population, a varied and dynamic labour market, and the expectation of students to be well prepared for a professional life puts the focus on employability (oecd, 2017). interestingly, different countries see the need to strengthen students’ employability from different angles. for example, it is a competitive aspect between us-american higher education institutions, while in the uk we see a discussion about https://ojs.deakin.edu.au/index.php/jtlge/ mailto:andreas.eimer@uni-muenster.de https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1079-8098 eimer, a., & bohndick, c. (2021). how individual experiential backgrounds are related to the development of employability among university students. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(2), 114-130. 115 graduate skills often sparked by the government (department for business innovation & skills, 2016) and driven by graduate employment league tables. in the middle east and northern africa (menaregion) the strong employability of graduates is meant to decrease the high unemployment rates and to help the economy grow. in this way, governments in the region aim to stabilize the social structures after the revolutionary movements of the arab spring in the early 2010s (murata, 2014). moreover, in australia and singapore, for example, graduates’ success in the labour market is a sales argument to advertise international degree programs to the world (e.g. international education association australia [ieaa], 2019; nusnews, 2016). in germany, employability is one of a number of defined outcomes from studying at a higher education institution and is anchored in a number of official declarations and regulations (eimer et al., 2019). reflecting on the related literature, moreau & leathwood (2006) focus on the relevance of students’ individual preconditions for their (prospective) employability. it is relevant to know more about these preconditions: if students differ in these aspects, support services – for example careers services – might need to adapt to these heterogeneous circumstances. counsellors in individual counselling sessions and teachers in employability workshops can thus better address these differences and cater for the individual developmental needs and potentials of the students. this means, it is not enough to merely identify heterogeneity, it is also important to develop solutions for how governments and higher education institutions can support students from different backgrounds in achieving not only their study goals but their employability too. this study aims to provide some practical guidance in this respect. context of this study employability as a multi-factorial construct employability can be described as a multi-factorial construct in which various influencing factors play a role. in this vein, employability can be understood as an umbrella term for the existence of certain qualities, which lead to objective and subjective career success (ng et al., 2005). this means that people who score highly in the employability related constructs have a higher probability of achieving objective and/or subjective career success than people who score lower in these constructs. objective career success is usually characterized by criteria such as salary or promotions, whereas subjective career success is related to individual perceptions of one’s own career such as job or career satisfaction. there are several studies which focus on the potential correlation between single factors and objective and/or subjective career success, e.g. the influence of selfefficacy (abele-brehm & spurk, 2009), personality traits (sutin et al., 2009), self-esteem (kammeyermueller, judge, & piccolo, 2008), networking (wolff & moser, 2009). hirschi (2012) gives a comprehensive overview of the scientific literature on factors strengthening employability, also applying the construct of objective and subjective career success. hirschi's approach offers a particular advantage as he combines a large number of factors identified through prior research, which correlate to objective and subjective career success, into a single coherent model. the career resources model focuses on factors that can individually be developed and is less aimed at relatively stable traits or characteristics (such as personality traits or gender) and in addition these factors as a whole show a stronger correlation with indicators of subjective rather than objective career success (hirschi et al., 2019). this model and the questionnaire based on the model was applied in this study (cf. 3.3). focus of this study this research focused on the influence of volunteering, participating in sports and being a firstgeneration student on the development of employability. volunteering is defined here as working or eimer, a., & bohndick, c. (2021). how individual experiential backgrounds are related to the development of employability among university students. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(2), 114-130. 116 providing services free of charge, including for example helping other people and improving social situations. participating in sport is defined here as regularly taking part in sporting activities – either individually or through a sports club, but not being a professional athlete. in this project, being a first-generation student means being the first member of the family seeking an academic degree. these three individual preconditions of employability were selected for several reasons. first, the three aspects considered meant the inclusion of a large group of students. a survey conducted in 2020 in the uk demonstrated significant numbers of young people engaged in voluntary work, e.g. 38.8 % of the 16to 24-year olds in england in 2019/20 (department for digital, culture, media and sport [uk], 2020). being active in sport is also common in the student population, for example documented by the large sports programs almost all universities offer. finally, we see a high number of first-generation students, in the academic year 2015-16 totalling 56 % of all undergraduate college students in the us (rti international, 2019). in addition, brunton (2017) found that only one out of the eight examined universities integrated sport into their university strategy with the explicit intention to achieve positive effects beyond physical fitness. they advocate for more research into the outcomes of sports on other parameters such as recruitment, retention, graduate employability, mental health, and student satisfaction. in general, there has been little research on the relationship between participating in sport and graduate employability, which was a further reason to include this aspect in this study. if involvement in sport and voluntary work enhances the employability of students, this could benefit all students. however, it is known that the individual strength of employability also depends on socio-economic aspects (lehmann, 2019). family social networks facilitate access to volunteering opportunities and one's own financial means often are needed to work as an unpaid volunteer (lehmann, 2019). these factors may mean first-generation students are disadvantaged compared to continuing-generation students. this will be explored further in the section ‘practical implications’. individual preconditions this study is based on self-assessed employability and thus sheds light on an individual’s perspective on one's own sense of being prepared for the world of work, focusing on an understanding of employability that centres on the development of a holistic ‘graduate identity’ (hinchliffe & jolly, 2011). this approach differs significantly from a definition of employability based on fixed skills, which places human capital in the form of formally learned skills at the centre. on the one hand, the authors of this paper share the many criticisms of an approach only focusing on human capital (hinchliffe & jolly, 2011). lists of skills do not take into account a number of other factors e.g. biographical differences and prerequisites as well as other forms of capital beyond human capital (e.g. social capital). at the same time, it is known that first-generation students, in particular, focus on formal qualifications acquired during their studies and neglect other elements that are important for professional success (e.g. networking) (lehmann, 2019). adopting a tick box approach to skills development could produce skewed employability profiles and indirectly reinforce respondents’ assumptions of the sole importance of human capital. the approach advocated here, therefore, is consciously based on subjective perception and covers aspects that go beyond formal qualifications and skills. voluntary work in general, research demonstrates that acquiring working experience has a positive impact on the development of students’ employability and specifically on a number of personal attributes such as confidence and self-efficacy (millard, 2020; muldoon, 2009). in addition, gaining this experience adds to the social capital of students (goodman & tredway, 2016). this study adopted a particular focus on volunteering due to the likely intrinsic motivations for individuals to engage in this activity, taking the source of motivation well away from a pure monetary value. for example, students may eimer, a., & bohndick, c. (2021). how individual experiential backgrounds are related to the development of employability among university students. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(2), 114-130. 117 be motivated by their own personal values, interests and career perspectives in the field and these aspects are addressed in the career resources questionnaire (crq) applied in this study. a number of studies, which are relevant for this research, have described the different effects volunteering can have on students’ employability and made reference to strengthening confidence (astin, say, & avalos, 1999; barton, bates, & o'donovan, 2017; millard, 2020) and building social capital, such as networks (bourner & millican, 2011). other studies describe the development of hard and soft skills, knowledge and occupational expertise (barton et al., 2017; jackson, 2012; soutootero, ulicna, schaepkens, & bognar, 2012). bourner and millican (2011) found evidence that volunteering helps students explore their strengths and talents, which can lead to greater clarity about future career plans. you (2020) found a positive relationship between doing community service and career motivation. finally, a flemish study by hustinx et al. (2005) shows that many students give up volunteering when they enter university, prioritising their time to their study obligations. in summary, from the literature it may be suggested that students who engage in voluntary work might score higher in the crq-resources which indicate occupational expertise, soft skills, confidence, clarity, and networking in comparison with students who are not active in volunteering. conversely, it could be possible that students who are engaged in voluntary work during their studies might do so at the expense of their university engagement. sport there is very little research on the effect sport might have on student employability (allen et al., 2013). this fact is remarkable in the light of governmental recommendations, for example in the uk and on an eu level, to consider the effects of sport in a broader context. official reports advocate for more research into the effects of sport not only on health status, but also on other aspects, such as employability etc. (hm government, 2015; the council of the european union, 2014). sportsociologist jay coakley (2015) takes a more sceptical stance towards the effect of sport on different individual qualities. he sees the great sport myth (gsm) as a reason that governments invest large sums of public money in sports infrastructure based on the assumption that sport has positive effects on academic motivation and personal development. in a comprehensive secondary analysis (allen et al., 2013), it was shown that graduates who are active in sports earn a higher average salary and score more highly in a number of work relevant soft skills than graduates who are inactive in sports. perry (2014) describes sport as supporting mental toughness. it is suggested that these factors which enhance clarity and confidence, can lead to higher employability. in contrast, other studies point to the negative effects sport can have on students’ study behaviour. a us study by dwyer and gellock (2018) describes the potentially high amount of time some students can spend on sporting activities, which can then conflict with study activities (e.g. internships). other studies (martha, grélot, & peretti-watel, 2009) refer to other negative impacts including the connection between sports activities of students and increased alcohol consumption and the possible negative impact on these students’ studies. overall, the literature provides some insights into how students who participate in sports might score higher in soft skills, confidence, and clarity, but lower in engagement in their studies than students not doing sports and yet still going on to achieve higher salaries. first generation there are findings that draw attention to the socio-economic differences between fgs and cgs: first-generation graduates earn less than continuing-generation graduates ten years after eimer, a., & bohndick, c. (2021). how individual experiential backgrounds are related to the development of employability among university students. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(2), 114-130. 118 completing college, this being due to continuing-generation students being more likely to work with employers associated with higher pay (manzoni & streib, 2019). a us qualitative exploratory study (tate et al., 2015) found that first-generation students possess a smaller career/professional network compared to continuing-generation students. although interestingly, the first group described themselves as more motivated, self-reliant, and adaptable. the results and level of self-efficacy of being first in family to engage in higher education are inconsistent. in a us study (gervais, 2014), first-generation students showed less self-efficacy, however this group did not differ from cgs in their levels of motivation. whilst knutson (2011) found no significant differences of academic self-efficacy between first-generation and continuinggeneration students. further research from the us (gibbons & borders, 2010) showed a group of prospective first-generation college students with lower self-efficacy, higher negative outcome expectations, and more perceived barriers than school students from families with a typically stronger academic background. more than 2,000 undergraduate students from a us university participated in a study on career aspirations (raque-bogdan & lucas, 2016). results showed no differences between fgs and cgs on college self-efficacy, college outcome expectations, and career expectations. interestingly, however, the authors found in first-generation students an individualistic mindset in that they alone are responsible for their fate (raque-bogdan & lucas, 2016, p. 258), which makes a high level of involvement very likely. at the same time, this individualistic stance could make first-generation students hesitant to make use of institutional support, which is one resource relevant in this research. jenkins et al. (2013) found that first-generation students reported lower levels of social support from family and friends than continuing-generation students. in summary, this research presents arguments that fgs may have smaller career networks, weaker social support and eventually a lower income than cgs. at the same time, there are suggestions that fgs show high levels of self-responsibility and are as motivated as cgs. the results around the development of self-efficacy are inconsistent. it is acknowledged that these impacts linked to fsg observed in the literature need to be simplified in our hypotheses in order to formulate testable assumptions. methodology hypotheses this study aimed to investigate the effect of volunteering, participating in sport and being a first generation higher education student on employability. based on the research literature presented above, the hypothesis is that the following differences may be observed between the respective comparison groups as shown in table 1. table 1: hypotheses crq-dimension volunteers sports participants first generation occupational expertise + n/a n/a job market knowledge n/a n/a n/a soft skills + + n/a involvement + confidence + + n/a clarity + + n/a eimer, a., & bohndick, c. (2021). how individual experiential backgrounds are related to the development of employability among university students. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(2), 114-130. 119 institutional support n/a n/a study challenge n/a n/a n/a social support n/a n/a networking + n/a career information. gathering n/a n/a n/a continuous learning n/a n/a n/a note. + scoring significantly higher in employability than comparison group, scoring significantly lower in employability than comparison group, n/a: not assigned, i.e. no hypothesis formulated on this aspect research design this quantitative field study was conducted from june to july 2020 with 26 university teachers from various disciplines being asked to pass on a web link to their students requesting they complete an online questionnaire. 429 students completed the questionnaire. a random sampling methodology was adopted in this study. research participants the sample consisted of current full-time students from a traditional research university in germany. the participants were studying for various qualifications: bachelor (38.7 %), master (24.7 %), phd (3.0 %) and the german degree in law and teachers’ training, the staatsexamen (32.6 %), which is equivalent to a master’s degree. the participants were asked by their professors to complete the questionnaire anonymously. the participants were informed that the results of the survey would be used for a research project on the employability of students. participation in the survey was anonymous and completely voluntary. the participants were informed about their rights. an ethics approval was not required. in total, 429 persons completed the online questionnaire. 72 % of the respondents categorized themselves as female, 26.6 % as male, and 0.7 % as diverse. the age range was 18 to 55 years, the mean being m = 22.8 years, sd = 3.83. 92.8 % of all respondents ranged between the age of 18 and 27, the largest group being the 23-years olds (16.1 %). the distribution between the study programs is as follows: 33.6 % natural sciences, 25.4 % law, 22.9 % social sciences, 15.4 % arts, 9.1 medicine, and 3.5 % business. students enrolled in more than one study program explain the percentage of over 100 %. measuring instrument we used the career resources questionnaire (crq) for students in the validated german version (hirschi et al., 2019). the crq asks for the participants’ self-assessment on a five-tiered scale: disagree strongly (1), disagree a little (2), neither agree nor disagree (3,) agree a little (4), agree strongly (5). each dimension was surveyed with at least three items, in some cases four items. this crq comprises 12 resources for students (13 for employees), which are grouped into four categories: 1) knowledge and skills with the resources occupational expertise, job market knowledge, and soft skills; 2) motivation with the resources involvement, confidence, and clarity; 3) environment with the resources institutional support, study challenge, and social support, and eimer, a., & bohndick, c. (2021). how individual experiential backgrounds are related to the development of employability among university students. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(2), 114-130. 120 4) activities with the resources networking, career information gathering, and continuous learning. the 12 resources of the career resources model are explained as follows:  occupational expertise: job-specific knowledge and skills;  job market knowledge: general knowledge about the labour market and its developments;  soft skills: skills and competences applicable to a wide range of occupations;  involvement: emotional attachment to one’s studies;  confidence: belief that one's own career can be successfully managed;  clarity: clarity and self-determination of career objectives;  institutional support: support of career development by university/college;  study challenge: opportunity to apply and develop personally important skills;  social support: support for career development from other people;  networking: extent to which social contacts are established, maintained and used to develop one's own career;  career information gathering: the extent to which one collects information on career opportunities;  continuous learning: the extent to which one continuously expands and updates workspecific knowledge and skills (cf. hirschi et al., 2018, 2019). the crq for students comprises 38 items. the internal consistencies (cronbach's alpha) ranged from .70 to .92. the descriptors for the crq can be seen in table 2. the crq was followed by additional questions formulated by the authors to identify first-generation students, students who volunteered and students who participated in sports. other aspects were also included, for example the discussion tone within the family on the topic of work, which, however, are not considered further in this paper. eimer, a., & bohndick, c. (2021). how individual experiential backgrounds are related to the development of employability among university students. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(2), 114-130. 121 table 2: measurement instruments, crq-sample items, and intercorrelations crq-dimension sample item k m (sd) α 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 1 occup. expertise ‘i possess profound knowledge in my desired occupation.’ 3 3.18 (0.78) .74 2 job market knowl. ‘i have a good knowledge of the job market.’ 3 2.42 (1.00) .91 .39 3 soft skills ‘i have many skills that i could use in a range of different occupations.’ 3 3.82 (0.81) .87 .42 .26 4 involvement ‘i feel strongly attached to my studies.’ 3 3.96 (0.81) .76 .27 .10 .07 5 confidence ‘i am capable of successfully managing my career.’ 4 3.68 (0.77) .84 .59 .33 .44 .32 6 clarity ‘i have clear career goals that reflect my personal interests and values.’ 3 3.52 (1.10) .92 .43 .38 .21 .26 .49 7 institut. support ‘my university/college actively supports my career development.’ 3 2.94 (0.94) .87 .30 .18 .15 .37 .38 .20 8 study challenge ‘my current studies fully challenge my skills.’ 3 2.94 (0.94) .87 .30 .13 .18 .57 .36 .23 .46 9 social support ‘i know many people who support me in my career development’. 4 3.50 (0.83) .73 .35 .22 .24 .30 .44 .26 .42 .35 10 networking ‘i frequently utilize contacts with other people to advance my career.’ 3 2.80 (1.00) .85 .42 .46 .29 .21 .37 .32 .24 .20 .45 11 career inf. gathering ‘i regularly collect information about career opportunities.’ 3 2.68 (1.15) .91 .31 .73 .21 .03 .17 .28 .08 .04 .08 .42 12 continuous learning ‘i continuously develop my workrelated abilities.’ 3 3.48 (0.74) .70 .57 .46 .39 .43 .50 .40 .31 .42 .30 .52 .39 note. k = number of items per scale; α = cronbach’s alpha; significant correlations are depicted in bold (p < .05) eimer, a., & bohndick, c. (2021). how individual experiential backgrounds are related to the development of employability among university students. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(2), 114-130. 122 data analysis all calculations were done in r (r core team, 2020), using the package lavaan for structural equation modelling (rosseel, 2012). for the analyses, the crq was specified as described in hirschi et al. (2019) but without the second-order factors. the model had a good fit with χ²(599) = 1255.223, p < .01, cfi = .93, rmsea = .05, p > .41. a model with strict measurement invariance across groups also fit the data well, with χ²(1288) = 2079.934, p < .01, cfi = .915, rmsea = .054 for voluntary work, χ²(1288) = 2213.067, p < .01, cfi = .902, rmsea = .058 for sport, and χ²(1288) = 2149.983, p < .01, cfi = .910, rmsea = .056 for first generation. to compare the latent means between the groups, the loadings and the manifest intercepts were restricted to be the same between the groups by setting the latent intercepts of one group to zero. the latent intercepts of the other group can therefore be interpreted as the deviation to the first group. if the specific value is significantly different to zero, this means that the means of both groups are significantly different. results the differences between the three groups are presented in table 3. table 3: differences in latent means between groups crq-dimension volunteers sports participants first generation occupational expertise 0.22 0.23 0.21 job market knowledge 0.14 0.15 0.15 soft skills 0.24* 0.51* 0.16 involvement 0.11 0.21 0.03 confidence 0.24* 0.57* -0.06 clarity 0.04 0.06 0.37* institutional support 0.14 0.30* 0.07 study challenge 0.10 0.16 0.03 social support 0.29* 0.46* -0.25* networking 0.23 0.31* 0.01 career information gathering 0.05 0.10 0.26* continuous learning 0.21 0.39* 0.04 note: * p < 0.05. volunteers for the groups of volunteers and non-volunteers significant differences were found in the latent means for the predictors soft skills, confidence and social support. in these areas the volunteers scored higher than the group of non-volunteers. accordingly, these findings are in line with our hypotheses concerning soft skills and confidence. conversely, this study does not support the hypotheses around occupational expertise, clarity, and networking. sports participants for the groups of sports participants and non-sports participants, significant differences were found in the latent means for the predictors soft skills, confidence, institutional support, social support, eimer, a., & bohndick, c. (2021). how individual experiential backgrounds are related to the development of employability among university students. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(2), 114-130. 123 networking and continuous learning. in these areas the group of sports participants scored higher than the group of non-sports participants. accordingly, the original hypotheses regarding soft skills and confidence are supported. conversely, the survey results do not support the hypotheses around involvement (where a negative correlation may have been expected), and clarity. in addition, the survey demonstrates a positive correlation for institutional support and social support, whereas it was assumed there may have been no difference in these areas between the two groups. first generation for the groups of first-generation students and the continuing-generation students, significant differences were found in the latent means for the predictors clarity, social support, and career information gathering. in the areas of clarity and career information gathering the group of firstgeneration students scored higher than the group of continuing-generation students. however, for the area of social support the group of the first-generation students scored lower than the group of continuing-generation students. accordingly, the hypothesis regarding social support is in agreement with these results. conversely, the hypotheses around involvement, institutional support and networking are not supported, whereas differences were found for clarity and career information gathering, where it was expected that there may have been no difference between the two groups. discussion employability is an important aspect in higher education and the research demonstrates that individual prerequisites and the personal development of career resources are related. this paper has focused on a closer examination of some of these individual influencing factors. in doing so, the authors have turned their attention to those factors that affect a particularly large number of students and from which insights for career counselling and seminars in career education can be derived. the study was able to show that the strength of individual career resources does indeed vary in the light of individual differences in experiential backgrounds. in particular, the results of existing research could be confirmed that students who are active in voluntary work and sports show higher levels of soft skills and confidence (allen et al., 2013; barton et al., 2017; bourner & millican, 2011; jackson, 2012; perry, 2014) than students who are not involved in these areas. these findings suggests that extra-curricular activities, even if they are in very different fields, in fact offer opportunities for the development of soft skills and confidence. in addition, this study shows a connection between volunteer engagement and sports activities from one perspective and the strength of the perceived social support from another perspective. the hypothesis that extracurricular activities may impair academic involvement (dwyer & gellock, 2018; hustinx et al., 2005) was not supported. taken together, these results suggest that there is a positive effect of external student involvement on career resources. with regard to first-generation students, it was particularly interesting that the hypothesis that their perceived institutional support might be weaker than that of continuing-generation students was not confirmed. also not confirmed was the hypothesis that the professionally relevant network of fgs may be weaker than that of cgs. at the same time, however, fgs were found to be more pronounced in terms of professional clarity and career information gathering than the continuousgeneration students. these results call for caution in viewing first-generation students too strongly from a deficit-oriented perspective, even if this study confirmed the presumed weaker social support (jenkins et al., 2013). the following sections explore the results for the three groups in more detail. volunteers the fact that volunteers outperform non-volunteers regarding soft skills, confidence, and social support appears plausible. in their volunteer work, students are exposed to a number of new eimer, a., & bohndick, c. (2021). how individual experiential backgrounds are related to the development of employability among university students. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(2), 114-130. 124 situations and challenges. this fact makes it very likely for these students to develop new skills. helping others will create positive feedback and this then strengthens confidence. in addition, working together for common goals and based on shared values connects the individuals involved and can lead to supporting each other even in areas beyond the shared tasks. interestingly, in this survey volunteers score higher in three out of four categories of the career resources model (hirschi et al., 2019; hirschi et al., 2018) applied here: knowledge and skills, motivation, and environment. this is a broad basis for potentially setting resources gain spirals in motion (halbesleben et al., 2014). this means that even career resources that were not primarily changed by the activity could be strengthened. despite some references in the scientific literature, the hypotheses presented here on occupational expertise, clarity and networking (rothwell & charleston, 2013) were not confirmed. regarding occupational expertise, the phenomenon of perceived employability (jackson & wilton, 2017) might interfere: students can have a quite narrow view of their expertise and regard only those fields that are closely linked to their study programs as relevant to their future working life. knowledge and skills acquired elsewhere are often not perceived as professionally relevant which can be the case for experience from voluntary work, too. the fact that in their self-assessment volunteers did not score higher than non-volunteers in clarity and networking could indicate that students see their volunteer work as disconnected from their fields of study. therefore, they might not see this activity as helpful to clarify job perspectives or to reach out to potential employers. sports participants the sports participants scored higher than the participants not doing sports in the career resources soft skills and confidence, which is in line with the respective hypotheses. sportspersons can strengthen their soft skills such as cooperation, conflict resolution and communication skills for example through team sports. it may be suggested that this effect is increased when the sports participants additionally engage in managerial tasks in their clubs. productive handling of defeats, but also self-affirmation through sporting success and good results in competition are likely to contribute here. on the other hand, assumptions that sports participants would score higher on clarity than the comparison group were not supported. if it was assumed that the group of sports participants is also characterised by special mental toughness (perry, 2014), this quality does not transform into clarity around career goals in this study. this may show that students require more than just determination to be clear about their career goals, also needing specific information and targeted guidance. while it might be assumed that being active in sport might also correlate with a lower involvement in higher education or with poorer academic performance, this was not confirmed. some research points to this, particularly in connection with increased alcohol consumption among students who do sport (martha et al., 2009; partington et al., 2010). presumably, this is more a socio-cultural behaviour in some countries, but is less common at german universities. first generation the group of first-generation students reported weaker social support than the group of continuinggeneration students. this result is consistent with previous research. lack of academic support from family and friends, and possibly different values between first-generation students and their private environment may lead to this individual impression. mostly seen by researchers as a deficit, tate et al. (2015) found that this lack of social support might turn into a strength: it might motivate firstgeneration students to be successful on their own, becoming a role model for siblings. in this context, the positive correlation between being an fgs and career information gathering can be seen: when these students perceive their social support as relatively weak and feel a stronger individual responsibility, it seems plausible that they look for external sources of information about eimer, a., & bohndick, c. (2021). how individual experiential backgrounds are related to the development of employability among university students. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(2), 114-130. 125 potential career perspectives that they cannot get in their private environment. similarly, their greater clarity could be explained: having no family role model but being motivated to succeed in higher education it is comprehensible that they more intensively try to clarify their individual perspective than cgs with their supporting background and network. furthermore, it was assumed that for fgs the opportunity of an academic education was significant, which is why a stronger involvement for fgs was hypothesised. this hypothesis, however, was not supported by the results of this study. in the career resources questionnaire (hirschi, 2012; hirschi et al., 2019) the resource of involvement is defined as an emotional connectedness with the higher education sphere. in this emotional aspect, we might find the explanation that fgs – although working in a disciplined, ‘involved’ way on their study success – might nevertheless feel emotionally unaffiliated with the university and thus less involved. in one study, weak involvement in the sense of low level ‘campus connectedness’ moderated higher levels of barriers to be associated with more negative career outcome expectations (ma & shea, 2019). finally, our assumptions that fgs would score lower in their self-assessment of institutional support and in networking than cgs were not supported. based on previous research (raque-bogdan & lucas, 2016) it was assumed that fgs are less likely to accept institutional support because of their strong sense of individual responsibility for their study success. in this sample, the students did not hesitate to make use of career support offered by their university. in addition, they rated their networks just as strong as cgs. practical implications with rising student numbers in many regions of the world, it is important for higher education to address the issue of heterogeneity. students are increasingly diverse – and this applies not only to their preconditions for their study programs, but also to the different experiences, which ultimately affect their employability. this means that teaching and promoting employability at universities should also take account of individual differences. career counsellors for example need to take into account the individual differences that they become aware of through their guidance sessions. it is important for them to point out aspects to students that are strong elements in their future professional profiles. this could also help promote students’ perceived employability. often students are not fully aware of which experiences, knowledge and attitudes are relevant and helpful in their future careers. overall, from the results of this study it can be concluded that volunteer work correlates positively with the degree of employability. this could lead to the view that volunteer work should be integrated into the curriculum. however, a cautious approach is advisable here: the external framework could demotivate students who are intrinsically motivated to engage in voluntary work. we know this phenomenon as the over-justification effect, when intrinsic motivation and external rewards interfere (rothwell & charleston, 2013). however, motivated students should be encouraged to engage in voluntary work and everyday study should allow time for this (greenbank, 2014). in addition, those students, who wish to be supported in this engagement e.g. by professional development planning (pdp) or opportunities to reflect on their experience, should get appropriate offers of support by their he institutions (barton et al., 2017). it is well-known that young people from wealthier families are more likely to volunteer than those from socially weaker families (the national council for voluntary organisations [ncvo], 2019). they may also have access to stronger social networks when looking for volunteering opportunities. it would be worthwhile for counsellors and other university representatives to think about measures that also give underprivileged groups better opportunities to engage in volunteering, so that students from these groups can also benefit from its positive effects on their employability. eimer, a., & bohndick, c. (2021). how individual experiential backgrounds are related to the development of employability among university students. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(2), 114-130. 126 initial evidence suggests that students often find it difficult to see what positive qualities relevant for employment are developed through sport (greenbank, 2014). this is where counsellors can raise awareness amongst their students and encourage their focus precisely on this growth in competence through sport. this can contribute to their perceived employability. in brief, as a result of this study it is recommended that students be encouraged and supported to engage in voluntary work and to gain beneficial experiences in sport rather than making these activities compulsory. when counsellors work with first-generation students, one aim might be to build up additional strengths that are (individually and initially) lacking. on the other hand, counsellors should also be aware of the particular strengths that many first-generation students already possess, such as their goal orientation and their self-responsibility. in any case, various studies including this one highlight that it is prejudiced to regard first-generation students primarily through a deficit-oriented lens. in addition, career counsellors, who have been first-generation students themselves, are well placed to support their students by self-disclosing this aspect of their own biography (krieger cohen & johnson, 2020). in this way, career counsellors can mitigate first-generation students’ feelings of isolation and of insecurity regarding their future careers and above that strengthen fgs’ emotional connectedness with their institution and he in general. whilst it is not always possible to specifically address individual differences in group sessions in comparison with 1:1 counselling, nevertheless the topic of heterogeneity can be approached and discussed in group settings. one simple way to do this in practice is to invite the participants to share their diverse backgrounds. this can lead to diversity also becoming visible in terms of professional development and making it easier for participants to discuss their own biographies in an appreciative and supportive environment. thus, they can see the value of their individual development in a way that is detached from external expectations and values. this study focuses on individual preconditions for the development of employability, however as mentioned previously in this paper socio-economic aspects must also not be forgotten. career education professionals, whether they are conducting individual counselling or offering workshops, should ensure that students are fully aware that they are not the only consideration in terms of future success of their careers. the labour market situation, the economic and social situation, geographical factors or political developments, for example, are all factors which generally are beyond the direct control of the individual (moreau & leathwood, 2006). discussing these facts with students, and clarifying what the sphere of personal influence is can also reduce insecurity and help to ultimately strengthen employability. limitations and need for further research this paper presents some insights into the correlation between individual prerequisites for learning and the development of employability. however, some limitations need to also be acknowledged. the sample comes from only one university in germany. as mentioned at the beginning of the paper, employability is an internationally relevant aspect in higher education with nationally specific points of view. therefore, the relevance of individual preconditions for the development of career resources could be examined in other countries and from other cultural backgrounds, too. the results presented here are from a cross-sectional study. it would be important to investigate how the influence of factors applied in this study potentially develop over a longer period of time and what influence the differences of individual sub-groups have from a longitudinal perspective. as mentioned previously, there is evidence (hu et al., 2020; lehmann, 2019; raque-bogdan & lucas, 2016) that the socio-economic status is an important influencing factor on employability and career aspirations for both, first-generation and continuing-generation students. this aspect needs further eimer, a., & bohndick, c. 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(2021). how individual experiential backgrounds are related to the development of employability among university students. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(2), 114-130. 130 you, j. w. (2020). the relationship between participation in extracurricular activities, interaction, satisfaction with academic major, and career motivation. journal of career development, 47(4), 454–468. https://doi.org/10.1177/0894845318802108 https://doi.org/10.1177/0894845318802108 kamil, m.a., & muhammad, a.m. (2021). professional communication competence in english for occupational purposes (eop) courses: a systematic review and proposal of a framework. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(2), 260– 278. 260 the journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability issn: 1838-3815 (online) journal homepage: https://ojs.deakin.edu.au/index.php/jtlge/ professional communication competence in english for occupational purposes (eop) courses: a systematic literature review and proposal of a framework maisarah ahmad kamil1 and ahmad mazli muhammad2 corresponding author: maisarah ahmad kamil (maisarah@uitm.edu.my) 1universiti teknologi mara, malaysia 2akademi pengajian bahasa, universiti teknologi mara, malaysia abstract this paper reports a systematic literature review that was conducted to explore the areas of research pertaining to english language workplace communication needs in order to design courses in english for occupational purposes (eop) that can better meet the demands of the industry. articles from scopus, sciencedirect and emerald insight were extracted following the five-step method of conducting a systematic literature review. in total, 133 articles were analysed. from the analysis, it was found that most studies focused on examining the needs of the learners, or the needs of the industry; very few studies triangulated the findings between different stakeholders to obtain a better picture of the needs, wants, and gaps between the target situation and the present situation. additionally, most studies focused on language tasks required and did not pay due emphasis on the competencies required to perform the tasks well. thus, the outcome of this review is a proposed theoretical model to develop professional communication competence among new graduates that is intended to be used in a future study to address the gaps found in this review. practically, the review also sheds light on gaps that exist in current research that can be addressed in future research, especially for higher education institutions (heis) that are working to design and develop courses in eop to improve english language communication skills for employability. keywords: communicative competence, english language, workplace communication, needs, graduate employability, professional communication background graduate employability has long been identified as an important agenda in malaysia. like many countries, employability in malaysia is measured by new graduates’ ability to obtain employment within six months of leaving the university. however, the term ‘employability’ itself is more than just obtaining any job. according to the malaysian education blueprint 2013-2025, that was released by kementerian pendidikan malaysia (kpm) (otherwise known as the malaysian ministry of education [moe]) (2013), graduate employability is defined as graduates obtaining employment: (1) in an area related to their field of study, (2) based on their level of qualifications, and (3) at a salary consistent with the market rate for entry-level graduates in their chosen fields (zainuddin et al., 2019). to ensure https://ojs.deakin.edu.au/index.php/jtlge/ mailto:maisarah@uitm.edu.my kamil, m.a., & muhammad, a.m. (2021). professional communication competence in english for occupational purposes (eop) courses: a systematic review and proposal of a framework. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(2), 260– 278. 261 that graduates leave the university with appropriate employability skills, the malaysian qualifications framework (mqf), which all higher education institutions (heis) need to adhere to for its programmes and qualifications, was revised in 2017 to focus on five clusters of learning outcomes, which are: (1) knowledge and understanding, (2) cognitive skills, (3) functional work skills, (4) personal and entrepreneurial skills, and (5) ethics and professionalism. notably, these requirements apply to both content courses and skills courses (including language learning). english has long been considered as the main language of communication in global business (zainuddin et al., 2019), and malaysia is one of several countries that has established english as the lingua franca of its multinational corporations. in 2016, malaysia was included as a country that uses english as an official or de facto official language in a report titled ‘english at work: global analysis of language skills in the workplace’ by the university of cambridge local examinations syndicate (ucles), emphasising the importance of the english language in workplaces in malaysia. in malaysia, english is formally taught in schools as a compulsory subject beginning from standard 1 in primary school to form 5 at the end of secondary school. the sijil pelajaran malaysia (spm, or malaysian certificate of education), which is compulsory for students finishing secondary school, has english as one of its five compulsory subjects. prior to entering university, students are then required to sit for the malaysian university english test (muet), which tests students’ reading, writing, speaking, and listening skills. the test measures and classifies students’ proficiency levels into four ‘bands’, where bands 1 and 2 indicate extremely limited and limited users, while bands 3 and 4 indicate modest to fluent users. depending on the field of study chosen, these students are then subject to several compulsory english language courses in university, and the medium of instruction for the content courses of many universities in the country is also english. for some universities in malaysia, an additional exit test is conducted to further measure their proficiency level upon leaving the university. yet, despite having eleven years of formal education of the english language alongside learning in english in university, local studies (agus et al., 2011; ahmad tajuddin & abdul hamid, 2017; d'silva, 2020; kenayathulla et al., 2019; ting et al., 2017) and newspaper reports (dzulkifly, 2018; lim, 2004) have time and again cited poor command of english as one of the main reasons why malaysian graduates are unable to obtain employment. in the malaysian education blueprint (2013-2025), the main concerns of employers in hiring new graduates include graduates’ poor command of the english language and lack of good communication skills, as surveyed by jobstreet in 2011. some industries have also made clear that they would not hire graduates who do not meet the minimum english proficiency level required in the organisation (sarudin et al., 2013), which establishes the crucial link between english language command and graduate employability in the country. however, it should be noted that this phenomenon is not exclusive to malaysia alone. in fact, many countries where english is learned as a second or foreign language, but which generally uses the language as the de facto business language, face similar issues. for instance, erling (2015) cited numerous past studies which found that finding employment in australia is more challenging for those with lower english language proficiency, especially in demonstrating written and oral communication skills. in the context of bahrain and the middle east, thomas et al. (2016) also cited poor english language capability as one of the constraints of new graduates, while on the flipside, having good english communication skills is considered a unique selling point to employers. this has also been cited in other countries, such as china (fan et al., 2017; yao & du-babcock, 2020), iran (akbari, 2016; karimi & sanavi, 2014), taiwan (lu, 2018; spence & liu, 2013) tanzania (wilson mwakapina, 2020), norway (hellekjær & fairway, 2015), bangladesh (ahmmed et al., 2020), and more. as a result, heis internationally have continued to face the challenge of incorporating communication competencies into their curriculum design (abelha et al., 2020), especially as an attempt to respond to accusations that they are producing graduates who lack the necessary soft skills to contribute to kamil, m.a., & muhammad, a.m. (2021). professional communication competence in english for occupational purposes (eop) courses: a systematic review and proposal of a framework. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(2), 260– 278. 262 the workplace (jackson, 2010). erling (2015) highlighted that for heis, the critical issue lies in developing a sustainable and integrated approach to improve proficiency. in the context of malaysia, the underlying question is clear: after receiving at least eleven years of formal instruction in the english language, coupled with tertiary education that is mainly delivered in english as its medium of instruction, what is missing? is there anything else that can be done in universities to better prepare students to meet industry needs? the report in the australian context by erling (2015) noted the issue of using standardised language tests, as there seemed to be little evidence to suggest that they are valid and reliable instruments to measure employability even though some may predict academic achievement (mohamad et al., 2020). this was echoed by a study conducted by sarudin et al. (2013) who found that some employers have considered developing their own in-house standard tests if convincing assurance to current english language standards is lacking, as also mentioned by erling (2015). while the concerns seem systemic in nature, the malaysian education blueprint (2013-2025) alluded to the need for heis to establish ongoing communication and collaboration with industries to ensure courses remain relevant to industry needs, which by extension also translates into producing workready graduates who are equipped with the necessary communication skills to succeed. in the context of heis in malaysia, each hei often has its own language centre that provides english language courses and conducts research to ensure they are equipping students with the necessary communication skills required for their field of study. such courses usually fall under the umbrella of english for occupational purposes (eop) or english for specific purposes (esp). this has led to studies of university-industry mismatch or educational mismatch (abdullah, 2013; hanapi & nordin, 2014; kenayathulla et al., 2019) to identify the needs of the industry and determine whether current eop courses have addressed such needs. yet, the findings seem inconclusive and recent research continues to call upon language competence as an issue among new graduates. this calls for the need to conduct a systematic review to ascertain the scope of research that has been conducted in this area so far to ascertain other areas of study that can be pursued. thus, the purpose of this review is to determine the scope of research that has been done to define and determine the english language competence levels required by fresh graduates to increase employability, and the extent to which current studies of existing eop courses have addressed these needs. the following research questions were thus developed: 1) what are the main research issues related to the identified needs of effective workplace communication? what gaps still exist in current research? 2) what communication competencies have been identified as important for graduate employability? methodology according to hallinger (2013), systematic literature reviews can help point the way toward productive conceptualizations, topics and methodologies for subsequent research and enhance the quality of theoretical and empirical efforts of scholars to contribute to knowledge production (p. 127). thus, conducting a systematic literature review was necessary to explore the areas of research that have been conducted to inform further research to understand how heis can develop communication competence in the teaching and learning of eop/esp courses. in conducting the review, the following steps were followed: (1) formulation of research questions, (2) identification of key words and examination of review according to key themes, (3) selection of articles that adhere to the research criteria, (4) assessment of articles and assortment into a database, and (5) extraction of results into a synthesis in the final discussion (briner & denyer, 2012; khan et al., 2003). kamil, m.a., & muhammad, a.m. (2021). professional communication competence in english for occupational purposes (eop) courses: a systematic review and proposal of a framework. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(2), 260– 278. 263 search strategy according to hallinger (2013), in conducting a systematic literature review, a researcher must ensure that the search methods adopted are comprehensive, systematic and justifiable (p. 133). however, there is no ideal number that can be coined as an ‘optimal’ number of studies that should be included in a review. the first step towards developing a search strategy concerns the variables that are addressed in a study’s research aims. to determine the key terms to be included in the review, the examination of existing issues that have been identified in the literature is important. the scope of this study covers the role of heis to address english language communication competence to increase employability. to understand the communication competencies required, key terms such as ‘communication competence’ and ‘workplace communication’ were used. also added as a key term was ‘needs’ as it may shed light on studies that have been done to determine the specific communication needs of employers as directed by the malaysian education blueprint (2013-2025). we also include ‘english for specific purposes’ and ‘english for occupational purposes’ to determine the extent to which heis have also sought to address the issue. therefore, the following key terms were used to identify relevant literature for the analysis: table 1: search keywords first keyword second keyword third keyword ‘workplace communication’ or ‘communication competence’ or ‘english language’ or ‘english communication’ ‘needs’ or ‘workplace needs’ or ‘workplace’ ‘english for specific purposes’ or ’english for occupational purposes’ or ‘esp’ or ‘eop’ the online databases of scopus, web of science and sciencedirect were used to source the literature. from the initial search, 159 eligible articles were extracted and assessed, and after excluding irrelevant papers using the quality criteria, 133 were used for this systematic review due to their relevance to the topic. inclusion and exclusion criteria the inclusion and exclusion criteria to select relevant literature to be included in a review are ideally informed by the review’s questions and objectives (briner & denyer, 2012), as this provides a scope through which the identified literature can then be examined. at times, the abstracts of the articles may provide sufficient information for the researchers to determine whether to include or exclude the study from the review, however, where information in the abstract is not sufficient, an examination of the full paper would then be required. in this study, the following criteria were used to determine the relevance of the papers for this review. kamil, m.a., & muhammad, a.m. (2021). professional communication competence in english for occupational purposes (eop) courses: a systematic review and proposal of a framework. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(2), 260– 278. 264 table 2: inclusion and exclusion criteria inclusion criteria the research concerns studies done to uncover the english language needs of workplaces, or on graduates’ readiness to enter the workplace. the research papers are written in english. the research papers are published between 2010 and 2021. the research papers are journal articles or conference proceedings. the full article of the publication is available. exclusion criteria the research relates specifically to intercultural communication competence needs, language needs for the disabled, or studies within the school setting. the research papers are theses, dissertations, or book chapters. the research does not meet other quality criteria of this research. regarding the selection of conference proceedings in this study, particular attention was paid to the quality criteria of the articles as noted in the next section. conference proceedings in this study were recognised as a useful source of additional knowledge, especially to ensure that the review had explored published materials in depth. the conferences from which the proceedings originated were examined to ensure relevance to the areas of this study, with the number of times the articles have been cited, also noted. quality criteria apart from examining the selected papers based on the given inclusion and exclusion criteria, another criteria that may contribute towards a quality review is the process of ensuring that the papers meet certain quality standards to be included (briner & denyer, 2012). this requires a critical appraisal of each article to examine both the quality level of the study conducted as well as whether such studies should be included in the review or not. there are numerous checklists or considerations that a researcher may adopt, such as the guidelines below for qualitative research by cohen and crabtree (2008) and for quantitative by briner and denyer (2012): table 3: quality criteria qualitative research (cohen & crabtree, 2008) quantitative research (briner & denyer, 2012) 1. research ethics 2. theoretical and practical importance 3. clarity and coherence of the written report 1. clarity and basis of research questions and/or hypothesis 2. sample selection appropriateness 3. validity and reliability measures kamil, m.a., & muhammad, a.m. (2021). professional communication competence in english for occupational purposes (eop) courses: a systematic review and proposal of a framework. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(2), 260– 278. 265 4. appropriateness and rigour in methods adopted 5. role of reflexivity or addressing of researcher bias 6. validity and credibility 7. reliability measures 4. appropriateness of research design 5. appropriateness of data analysis and inferences made while it was important for this review to exclude certain studies from the discussion that do not meet the quality criteria, notes were made in terms of the weaknesses of the studies, such as instances of lack of rigour, appropriateness of the research design selected, issues of validity and reliability, and more. this was to identify the potential gaps and areas of further research that may be appropriate for a further study in the field. characteristics of included studies from the studies reviewed, a large number of research and needs analyses have been conducted to identify the needs of industry pertaining to english language communication skills required. the breakdown of the related studies is as explained below. figure 1: publication year it is interesting to note that from 2010 to 2020, research interest seemed to fluctuate, however, the differences between the numbers of publications were not significant. the constant publications, however, demonstrate the continuous interest in understanding the english language communication needs of the industry. 5 12 12 13 10 10 11 15 10 11 12 5 publication year kamil, m.a., & muhammad, a.m. (2021). professional communication competence in english for occupational purposes (eop) courses: a systematic review and proposal of a framework. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(2), 260– 278. 266 table 4: countries country number of relevant publications country number of relevant publications malaysia 30 usa 2 hong kong 10 bahrain 1 australia 8 bangladesh 1 iran 7 canada 1 romania 5 czech republic 1 saudi arabia 5 dubai 1 taiwan 5 finland 1 thailand 5 mexico 1 indonesia 4 netherlands 1 pakistan 3 oman 1 turkey 3 qatar 1 china 2 south africa 1 greece 2 sri lanka 1 new zealand 2 ukraine 1 russia 2 from the publications extracted, interestingly, malaysia had the highest number of relevant publications, demonstrating the crucial nature of the study as heis work to meet the standards set by the malaysian education blueprint (2013-2025). with the exception of australia, most studies also focused on countries where english is learned as a second or foreign language. however, in the case of australia, a number of studies focused on the needs of non-native speakers of english who are working in the country. a further examination of these studies showed a trend in the samples that were collected. specifically, the most common samples were from undergraduate students, academics/instructors, industry representatives, alumni, and experts (the latter two being the least common in past studies). the actual breakdown of the study samples is shown in table 2. kamil, m.a., & muhammad, a.m. (2021). professional communication competence in english for occupational purposes (eop) courses: a systematic review and proposal of a framework. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(2), 260– 278. 267 figure 2: research sample interestingly, the highest number of research focused on obtaining perspectives from industry practitioners only, or undergraduates only. very few studies have attempted to triangulate the perspectives of multiple stakeholders, which is a practice and requirement that has been agreed upon by many needs analysis scholars (brown, 2016; hutchinson & waters, 1987). it is concerning, therefore, to find that this practice is not commonly reflected in current research. table 5: research areas research areas number of studies perceptions of english language needs 72 studies uses of english in the workplace 17 studies designing, developing and/or validating esp courses, materials and/for assessments based on workplace needs 33 studies comparison between esp courses, materials and/or assessments with workplace practices 5 studies perception of current english language performance and capabilities 6 studies from table 5 above, most studies that have been done in the area relate to the perceptions of english language proficiency and competency needs for the workplace, followed by efforts that have been done to design, develop, and/or validate esp courses based on identified needs. it should be noted that a number of the articles extracted had overlaps between the research areas, however, due to the interest of this study in examining the perceptions of language needs, articles with more than one research area are categorised under the first area (perceptions of english language needs) for analysis purposes. 0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 students only academics only industry only students & academics students & industry academics & industry students, academics & industry others research sample kamil, m.a., & muhammad, a.m. (2021). professional communication competence in english for occupational purposes (eop) courses: a systematic review and proposal of a framework. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(2), 260– 278. 268 when examined further, only the first and second research areas in table 5 seemed to be the most relevant to provide an understanding of the communication needs of workplaces. the next section discusses the results of the analysis of these two research areas. results and discussion from the analysis conducted, the studies were done in various contexts, including maritime (ahmmed et al., 2020; alibakhshi & labbafi, 2021), engineering (adnan, 2019; baklazhenko, 2018; gözüyeşil, 2014; masduki & zakaria, 2020; panyawong-ngam et al., 2015; spence & liu, 2013), medicine (arumugam & kaur, 2011), mechatronics (ranasuriya & herath, 2020), pest control (hee & zainal, 2018), human resource (moslehifar & ibrahim, 2012), information technology (fareen, 2018), military and/or aviation (alshabeb et al., 2017; sari & sari, 2020), architecture (palea et al., 2012) and a combination of multiple industries (al-buainain, 2011). the figure below shows the types of research methods that have been conducted to identify the english communication needs of the workplace. a number of studies examined the needs, wants and lacks of language using the model of hutchinson and waters (1987) (arumugam & kaur, 2011; liu et al., 2011; sari & sari, 2020) as well as dudley-evans and st john (1998) (alshabeb et al., 2017; arumugam & kaur, 2011; hee & zainal, 2018). however, it should be noted also that the majority of the research analysed did not even mention a guiding needs analysis method in their report. figure 3: research methods in terms of the research method adopted, the number of quantitative, qualitative, and mixed methods approaches adopted did not vary significantly. however, where quality considerations are concerned (briner & denyer, 2012), there were very little justifications given for the reason of choosing one design over another. additionally, for quantitative studies, most of the instruments adopted or adapted were based on an existing instrument or model that has been constructed for that particular field. for instance, the study by ahmmed et al. (2020) that examined the language needs of the maritime industry was partially based on a questionnaire that was developed from existing literature and the maritime english model course 3.17. similarly, one questionnaire used by gözüyeşil (2014) was adapted by a needs analysis questionnaire used by the university of auckland, new zealand, for non-english background students. palea et al. (2012), in contrast, drafted their questionnaire from researching international curricula and peers’ professional experience. alibakhshi and labbafi (2021), 0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 quantitative qualitative mixed methods research method kamil, m.a., & muhammad, a.m. (2021). professional communication competence in english for occupational purposes (eop) courses: a systematic review and proposal of a framework. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(2), 260– 278. 269 on the other hand, developed an instrument through qualitative interviews to extract the appropriate task-based learning needs. for many of the instruments, a list of tasks (e.g. writing reports, giving presentations, answering inquiries, etc.) for each language skill was given, and the participants were asked to indicate which of the tasks they most frequently use in the workplace. however, this raises several questions. firstly, with regards to instruments that were self-developed, where did the list of tasks originate from? is there a possibility that some tasks were not included in the instrument? also, there is a limitation whereby most instruments focused on the communicative tasks that need to be performed, but did not examine what competence looks like when conducting the tasks. such research seemed to overlook the crucial issue of overall communicative ability, which is reflected through the pragmatic use of language in both oral and written communicative events (kaburise, 2016). most important communication skills in examining the individual skills required, many claim that the four skills (reading, writing, listening and speaking) are equally important (adnan, 2019; alshabeb et al., 2017; arumugam & kaur, 2011; ranasuriya & herath, 2020). others reported the perception that productive skills (speaking and writing) are the most essential for business communication (baklazhenko, 2018; fareen, 2018; singh & raja harun, 2020). however, there are also others who believe that writing is the most common skill practiced in the workplace (spence & liu, 2013), yet some posit that speaking skills are the most needed skill (moslehifar & ibrahim, 2012), as it is also the skill that is tested the most among recruiting agencies (ahmmed et al., 2020). panyawong-ngam et al. (2015), on the other hand, considered listening as the most important skill, followed by writing and reading. one study identified speaking, writing, interpersonal and visual communication as the most important skills for the workplace in the context of civil engineering (masduki & zakaria, 2020). one quantitative study conducted by al-buainain (2011) that examined the use of english involving 644 respondents across various industries, claimed that speaking was the most used skill in the workplace. however, the same study also emphasised that the skills should not be examined in isolation as a correlation analysis of the different skills (reading, writing, speaking, listening and translation) showed that all skills positively correlate with each other. from the analysis, however, reading-writing and listening-speaking had the highest linear correlation compared to the other pairs. while some jobs/industries were found to have significant differences in the extent of english used as well as the skills needed, al-buainain (2011) stressed that it remains unclear whether this reflects the use of english as determined by the job, or if it only reflects the nature of the materials used. he also maintained that the results do not reflect actual use, but rather discusses frequency of use, illustrating an area of research that could be further examined through an analysis of the use of english in different industries. this argument by al-buainain (2011) supports the theoretical discussion of chastain (1998) who noted that communicative performance consists of both the receptive and productive skills. according to chastain (1998), a logical assumption is that the receptive skills (listening and reading) precede the productive skills (speaking and writing) in the language learning process. davies (1982) supports this view in his discussion of fluency, where he claims that fluency is essential in receptive skills but are merely desirable in productive skills. in any case, the measurement of language ability has long been a major issue in curriculum and language studies (attan et al., 2013), and according to bachman (1990), any attempt to measure an ability must first be premised by an understanding of the skill to be measured, and how exactly to measure it. it should also be noted that there are various interpretations to how observations and ability can be measured, due to the numerous views of communicative competence that also exist (attan et al., kamil, m.a., & muhammad, a.m. (2021). professional communication competence in english for occupational purposes (eop) courses: a systematic review and proposal of a framework. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(2), 260– 278. 270 2013). for instance, the extensive study conducted by ahmad tajuddin and abdul hamid (2017) found that it is pertinent for graduates to not only have skills in interpersonal communication, presentation, speaking, listening, writing and non-verbal communication, but that they should also have competence in content knowledge, culture, linguistics, critical thinking and tasking skills as well. she mentioned the importance of knowing the ‘what’ and ‘how’ of communication. nevertheless, despite the majority consensus that all four skills are important in the workplace, this study found that higher focus was given in elaborating the needs of writing skills and speaking skills compared to reading and listening. the findings are presented in the subsequent sections. needs of writing skills in terms of writing skills that have been identified by past studies, the following table lists the six most common tasks that graduates are expected to perform when they enter the workplace. table 6: most common writing communicative tasks communicative tasks researchers writing emails (adnan, 2019; ahmmed et al., 2020; chan, 2014; fareen, 2018; hee & zainal, 2018; masduki & zakaria, 2020; ranasuriya & herath, 2020; spence & liu, 2013; thomas et al., 2016) writing reports (ahmmed et al., 2020; alshabeb et al., 2017; chan, 2014; fareen, 2018; masduki & zakaria, 2020; singh & raja harun, 2020; spence & liu, 2013) writing business letters (fareen, 2018; spence & liu, 2013) writing proposals (spence & liu, 2013; thomas et al., 2016) writing memos (alshabeb et al., 2017; ranasuriya & herath, 2020; spence & liu, 2013) preparing presentation slides (spence & liu, 2013; thomas et al., 2016) one study that examined the competence level required for writing tasks was conducted by attan et al. (2013), who provided written scripts to industry practitioners to obtain their feedback regarding the written quality of the scripts. based on a scale rating of ‘1 = extremely limited writer’ to ‘6 = effective writer’, the study found that the respondents believed a ‘3 = functional writer’ could satisfactorily meet the workplace requirements if given extra assistance and time to learn in the workplace. interestingly, some also shared that greater emphasis should be placed on knowledge of the topic and critical thinking skills over language proficiency. attan et al. (2013) found two major categories to measure graduating students’ written assessment competence, which are: (1) contribution to task (comprising knowledge of topic; maturity of thought, problem solving, and analysis of topic), and (2) language and organisation (comprising of planning, effective linking, accurate language, variety of sentences, and varied vocabulary). needs of speaking skills studies have also been conducted to identify the speaking skills needed in the workplace. as with writing skills, speaking skills have also been examined based on the tasks that need to be performed. kamil, m.a., & muhammad, a.m. (2021). professional communication competence in english for occupational purposes (eop) courses: a systematic review and proposal of a framework. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(2), 260– 278. 271 the table below lists the six most common speaking tasks that graduates are expected to perform in the workplace. table 7: most common speaking communicative tasks communicative tasks researchers giving oral presentations (adnan, 2019; belwal et al., 2017; gözüyeşil, 2014; hee & zainal, 2018; moslehifar & ibrahim, 2012; ranasuriya & herath, 2020; spence & liu, 2013) attending meetings and seminars (hee & zainal, 2018; singh & raja harun, 2020; spence & liu, 2013) communicating with customers or clients (hee & zainal, 2018; moslehifar & ibrahim, 2012; spence & liu, 2013; thomas et al., 2016) handling telephone calls (moslehifar & ibrahim, 2012; singh & raja harun, 2020; spence & liu, 2013) giving and receiving instructions (masduki & zakaria, 2020; sari & sari, 2020; singh & raja harun, 2020) participating in social conversations (masduki & zakaria, 2020; moslehifar & ibrahim, 2012; sari & sari, 2020; singh et al., 2014; spence & liu, 2013; yao & dubabcock, 2020) in terms of spoken competency, fareen (2018) found that there is a need for prospective employees to develop competencies in discussing, persuading, convincing and negotiating in english. rapport building was also highlighted as a valuable skill, as well as the ability to recognise when to be concise and when to be detailed when communicating. in the context of china, yao and du-babcock (2020) found social talk to be an important aspect of spoken communication. however, it should also be noted that very few studies attempted to identify the actual competencies needed to develop effective speaking skills, whether for oral presentations or for interpersonal relations. identified challenges in terms of challenges in using the english language, studies have found that graduates face challenges in sustaining conversations (alshabeb et al., 2017; arumugam & kaur, 2011), comprehending and answering questions (arumugam & kaur, 2011), giving instructions (arumugam & kaur, 2011), organising ideas (moslehifar & ibrahim, 2012), explaining logically (moslehifar & ibrahim, 2012) and paraphrasing (moslehifar & ibrahim, 2012). some studies also found that respondents feel a lack of vocabulary is a challenge (gözüyeşil, 2014) especially for spoken language (adnan, 2019; alshabeb et al., 2017; sari & sari, 2020), and some reported spelling mistakes (fareen, 2018), inaccurate grammar use (sari & sari, 2020) and pronunciation issues (fareen, 2018; sari & sari, 2020) as issues to be solved. interestingly, a study by chan (2014) also found writing negative messages to be a particularly challenging task for written communication. kamil, m.a., & muhammad, a.m. (2021). professional communication competence in english for occupational purposes (eop) courses: a systematic review and proposal of a framework. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(2), 260– 278. 272 discussion from the analysis of the review of studies conducted, it is clear that much research has been conducted to determine the communicative tasks and events that fresh graduates and employees need to conduct in the workplace. some studies were conducted with a specific context in mind such as for nurses, medical assistants, engineers, pilots, and others, while some looked at the workplace across industries to determine the most common needs. for the latter, it seemed that there is a general consensus of common communicative tasks in both speaking and writing that are used in the workplace. however, little has been elaborated on ways to determine and differentiate levels of competence in performing such tasks. this raises an issue whereby knowing what tasks need to be performed does not translate into understanding what may be required to perform the task well. we noticed that very few studies took this step further to look beyond the communicative tasks into the competencies needed to effectively complete such tasks. this was also raised by thomas et al. (2016) who posit that while employers often request for high levels of english, the exact measurements to this request remains vague. at the theoretical level, this way of viewing communication skills based on the communicative tasks within communication functions (savignon, 1972; van ek, 1976) has been criticised by canale and swain (1980), as it neglects issues such as appropriateness and does not provide any description of the rules of language use. thus, based on the analysis in this study, the following gaps in current research have been identified: 1. firstly, more studies need to be conducted that triangulate the perspectives of different stakeholders where needs analysis on english language skills is concerned. this supports the views of various needs analysis experts who emphasise the importance of uncovering different perspectives such as from learners, employers and educators to identify the most pertinent needs of esl (brown, 2016; dudley-evans & st john, 1998; hutchinson & waters, 1987). 2. next, future studies could look at how certain communicative tasks should be conducted, rather than focus on what communicative tasks are commonly performed in the workplace. this would provide a better perspective of the competencies required to meet the communicative needs of the industry. 3. following this, one area of study that could be further explored is in developing relevant modules or learning tools that can increase students’ communicative competence to make them more employable. to sum, based on the review conducted, much research could still be undertaken locally and internationally to determine the competencies required for professional communication for graduate employability. a holistic study that not only looks at different stakeholders’ viewpoints, but also different aspects of competence, could further inform how communication competence can improve graduates’ employability when entering the workplace. it is evident from the current analysis, that research to date has only touched on the surface of what seems to be a very pressing concern not just in malaysia, but also internationally, suggesting that deeper research into the area is warranted. these findings also resonate with a few other published articles, such as by chan (2014), who discusses the nature and variety of english used in the workplace and the intertextual nature of workplace texts as important issues to be studied further. where the study of communicative competencies is concerned, davies (1980) who examined studies of adolescent and adult second language learners, posits that receptive skills should be emphasised at the early stages of introductory classes, but that productive skills should not. additionally, bhattacharyya (2018) argues that effective communication constitutes the use of adequate structures, discourse and rhetorical features apart from just language abilities, which suggests the need to kamil, m.a., & muhammad, a.m. (2021). professional communication competence in english for occupational purposes (eop) courses: a systematic review and proposal of a framework. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(2), 260– 278. 273 examine the productive skills, which are speaking and writing, especially for higher education which serves as the last institution before students enter the workforce to become employees. as a result of the findings of this study, a framework is proposed for future needs analysis studies that focus on determining the communicative competencies needed for graduate employability, particularly for tertiary education. the framework is primarily concerned with the productive skills on the premise that the learners will have developed listening and reading fluency at the primary and secondary levels of education by the time they enter tertiary education. of course, we also recognise that this is often untrue, as evidenced by the observation by chastain (1998) who argued that second language learners often do not acquire the receptive skills necessary to function in a second-language communicative situation. yet, as argued by chastain (1998), davies (1980) and davies (1982), this is more pertinent in early education than in higher education, especially for countries like malaysia where students have obtained eleven years of formal english language education before entering university. proposed conceptual framework there have been numerous communicative competency models proposed in the past, such as by hymes (1972), munby (1978), and canale and swain (1980). the model of canale and swain (1980) sought to examine three main competencies, which are (1) ‘grammatical competence’, referring to knowledge of lexical items and of rules of morphology, syntax, sentence-grammar semantics, and phonology (p. 29); (2) ‘sociolinguistic competence’, which refers to sociocultural rules of use that examined appropriateness as well as rules of discourse; and (3) ‘strategic competence’, which refers to the verbal and nonverbal communication strategies that are adopted to compensate for breakdowns in communication. later on, canale (1983) made a further distinction between sociolinguistic competence and a new competence that he called ‘discourse competence’, which refers to mastery of how to combine grammatical forms and meanings to achieve a unified spoken or written text in different genres (p. 9). it is this competence model that is adopted in designing the proposed conceptual framework below. based on the review, much research has focused, in part, on discourse competence by looking at the communicative tasks to be performed, and slightly on sociolinguistic competence by looking at some common communicative events that fresh graduates will encounter in the workplace. thus, to develop overall pragmatic competence in communicating in the workplace, the following framework is proposed: kamil, m.a., & muhammad, a.m. (2021). professional communication competence in english for occupational purposes (eop) courses: a systematic review and proposal of a framework. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(2), 260– 278. 274 figure 4: conceptual framework (based on canale, 1983) the framework in figure 4 sits within the context of the workplace. according to knapp et al. (2017), language, both written and spoken, are central to any kind of work applied in the business context, as similarly claimed by kaburise (2016). thus, speaking skills and writing skills are the focus behind developing professional communication competence according to this framework. also, consideration should be given to the area where speaking and writing overlap, such as in writing emails or when conducting verbal reporting, as highlighted by knapp et al. (2017) and chan (2014). thus, the written skills, spoken skills and the overlapping skills between these two will need to be examined based on the needs for grammatical competence, sociolinguistic competence, discourse competence and strategic competence in the workplace setting as a proposed framework to develop professional communication competence for fresh graduates upon entering the workforce. conclusions and implications the systematic literature review conducted has shed light on several important findings. firstly, there remains numerous areas of research that could be conducted. specifically, future research can focus beyond the language tasks of the workplace and pay more attention on especially the competence level required to execute such tasks well as a way to inform future language and communication curriculum design for higher education. next, more research needs to be conducted that triangulates findings between different stakeholder needs, such as between industry representatives, alumni, experts, and academics. also, merely identifying the tasks and competencies required may not shed light on the validity of the materials or assessments designed; thus, another research area would be to look into the validity of such materials in light of the needs of the various stakeholders. this review has several implications. firstly, for the context of malaysia specifically, the review clearly shows the extent to which this topic has garnered research interest, which reflects local heis constant efforts to meet the standards set by the malaysian education blueprint (2013-2025) and the malaysian qualifications framework (2017) to increase students’ english communicative abilities and achieve higher employability in the country. practically, the review also sheds light on the gaps that exist in current research that can be addressed in future research. for heis working to design and develop courses in esp and eop to improve communication skills for employability, the findings of this review may also be useful to examine the scope of writing and speaking communicative tasks that have been identified by past studies. kamil, m.a., & muhammad, a.m. (2021). professional communication competence in english for occupational purposes (eop) courses: a systematic review and proposal of a framework. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(2), 260– 278. 275 this review was not without its limitations. firstly, the articles retrieved only came from a search of online databases and did not, for instance, employ other search methods such as extracting articles from the reference lists of the original articles. this was emphasised by briner and denyer (2012), who posited that arguably, the most ideal review would include all studies and data relevant to the research question, including even unpublished and grey literature. thus, there is room for improvement to further extend this review by incorporating those sources in a future study. references abdullah, a. g. k. 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(2019). english language and graduate employability. education + training, 61(1), 79-93. https://doi.org/10.1108/et-06-2017-0089 https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ijll.20200801.11 https://doi.org/10.1108/et-06-2017-0089 aboagye, b., & puoza, j. c., (2021). employability of mechanical engineering graduates from sunyani technical university of ghana. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(2), 185–205. 185 the journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability issn: 1838-3815 (online) journal homepage: https://ojs.deakin.edu.au/index.php/jtlge/ employability of mechanical engineering graduates from sunyani technical university of ghana bernard aboagye1 and julius caesar puoza2 corresponding author: bernard aboagye (autobeespoly@yahoo.co.uk) 1department of mechanical engineering, sunyani technical university, ghana. orcid: 0000-0003-2912-7948 2department of mechanical engineering, sunyani technical university, ghana. orcid: 0000-0001-5364-8650 abstract although the government of ghana gives considerable attention to technical education to accelerate national development, some graduates remain unemployed for years after graduation. in this study, employability of mechanical engineering graduates from sunyani technical university of ghana is presented. it assessed the employment status and duration of unemployment of the graduates, identified the factors that hinder their employability and the challenges that require attention prior to graduation of students, and made suggestions for improvement. respondents of the study were 131 graduates from 2014-2017 graduation years, comprising 50% of graduates from each of the program options in the department. the sampling techniques used were purposive and stratified random sampling techniques. a questionnaire was the research instrument used for data collection and it was administered using e-mails, whatsapp and phone calls. the results revealed that the employment status of the graduates was about 84% with the duration of unemployment about 29%, 41% and 19% for one, two and three years after their national service respectively. the main factor hindering employability of the graduates was inadequate practical skills since more attention was given to theory at the expense of practical work. the main challenge which requires attention prior to graduation of students was the lack of job-seeking skills. the department should therefore, focus more on the practical element of the programs by increasing the practical hours and partner with industry for curriculum development, more internship opportunities and industrial tours, and organise seminars on job acquisition processes prior to graduation of students to enhance employability of the graduates. keywords: employability status, unemployment duration, mechanical engineering graduates, ghana introduction the past and present governments of ghana have given considerable attention to technical education (afeti & adubra, 2014) because it provides practically-oriented manpower capacity for accelerated socio-economic development of the nation (ministry of education, 2012). the metamorphosis of technical education in ghana was from technical institutes in the 1950s to polytechnics in 1991 with subsequent promulgation of the polytechnic law, 1992 (pndcl 321), which upgraded the polytechnics to tertiary status in 1993 (amoa-mensah, 2007; boakye-agyeman, 2006; government of ghana, 1992, https://ojs.deakin.edu.au/index.php/jtlge/ aboagye, b., & puoza, j. c., (2021). employability of mechanical engineering graduates from sunyani technical university of ghana. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(2), 185–205. 186 1991; nsiah-gyabaah, 2005). the polytechnics were mandated to run programs and courses at the middle-level of technical training to promote middle-level manpower development (government of ghana, 1991). thus, in 1994, the polytechnics started running programs leading to the award of certificates in higher national diploma (hnd) in the fields of manufacturing, commerce, science and technology, applied social science, applied art and also to provide opportunities for skills development, applied research and publication of research findings (government of ghana, 2007). in 2016, the technical universities act, 2016 (act 922) was enacted and amended in 2017 to convert the polytechnics to technical universities to enable them to provide high-level manpower in the fields of technical and vocational education and training (tvet), engineering, science and technology, applied arts and related disciplines for socio-economic development of the nation (government of ghana, 2016, 2017). in line with the numerous reforms in the technical education in ghana, sunyani technical university which started in 1967 as a technical institute to offer technical and vocational education and training to students, was also upgraded to a polytechnic status in 1997 by the polytechnic law, 1992 (pndcl 321). the polytechnic law mandated sunyani polytechnic to provide career-focused education in engineering, science and technology, technical and vocational, applied arts and related disciplines with hands-on experience and entrepreneurial development to meet the higher and middle level manpower needs of the country (government of ghana, 1992). the sunyani polytechnic was also converted to sunyani technical university in 2016 by the technical universities act, 2016 (act 922 as amended) along with other polytechnics in the country. in accordance with the technical universities act, 2016, the sunyani technical university provides higher education and award degrees, diplomas and other certificates in engineering, science, and technology-based disciplines as well as technical and vocational education and training (tvet), applied arts and related disciplines with hands-on experience and entrepreneurial development to meet the higher and middle level manpower needs of ghana. the university is made up of four faculties namely; faculty of applied science & technology, faculty of built environment & applied art, faculty of business and management studies, and faculty of engineering. there are 15 academic departments with 19 hnd programs. the department of mechanical engineering is one of the three departments under the faculty of engineering. in line with the mandates of the sunyani technical university, the department of mechanical engineering was established to produce highly qualified middle level manpower in the field of mechanical engineering through hands-on practical teaching methodologies and industrial practice in order to acquire the necessary knowledge and practical skills in mechanical engineering at the nontertiary and tertiary levels to meet the demands of industry. in 2011/2012 academic year, the department commenced running programs in mechanical engineering with options in plant, automobile and production leading to the award of certificates in higher national diploma in mechanical engineering. as at the end of 2018/2019 academic year, the department had graduated over 400 students into the job market. the curricula of the higher national diploma mechanical engineering programs were designed to equip the graduates with excellent employment potential to enable them work effectively and efficiently in industries such as manufacturing, automobile, transport, mining, energy, telecommunication, construction, health, water supply, small and medium scale enterprises (smes), education and research institutions, and other related industries. the graduates should also possess the best of entrepreneurial outlook to enable them establish and manage their own businesses. however, the employability of graduates produced into the job market largely depends on the quality of education provided to the students. according to sahu, shrivastava and shrivastava (2008), the quality of technical education largely depends on how effective the management of the institution executes its functions and responsibilities, the availability of the required infrastructure, the quality of lecturers, students’ attitude towards learning, level of partnership with industry and availability of resources for research and development. in order to ensure quality education and improve the aboagye, b., & puoza, j. c., (2021). employability of mechanical engineering graduates from sunyani technical university of ghana. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(2), 185–205. 187 employability of graduates, all the major stakeholders in technical education in ghana including the government of ghana, regulatory and supervisory bodies, management and staff of the technical universities in ghana and students, use their quota to produce graduates who meet the expectations of employers in the country. for instance, the government of ghana provides financial support for infrastructure, equipment and staffing, among others, for quality technical education through the ghana education trust fund (getfund) and the university management augment the government’s support with internally-generated funds (igf) while the regulatory and supervisory bodies ensure that quality of education is not compromised (british council, 2016; ministry of education, 2012). notwithstanding these concerted efforts to ensure quality technical education and improve the employability of graduates, unesco (2010), nuffic ( 2011), kigotho (2014) and baah-boateng (2015) reported that there were some inadequacies in the training of graduates in engineering and technology in ghana including inadequate supply of instructional materials, large class sizes, inadequate practical training facilities and equipment and weak linkages between the training institutions and industry. consequently, there is a mismatch between skills possessed by graduates of tertiary education and what is needed by industries. the situation has resulted in unemployed engineering graduates in the country. unemployment is one of the main challenges on the job market in ghana. the national labour commission revealed that there were about 700,000 unemployed graduates in ghana (biney, 2015; jonah, 2011). donkor (2014) attributed the unemployment situation in ghana to the fact that most private universities in ghana train people whose skills do not meet the requirement of employers. the problem of the unemployed graduates is also attributed to the inability of the graduates to apply the knowledge acquired because most tertiary institutions in ghana only teach the theoretical aspect of courses at the expense of the practical work (ezit, 2014; sasa, 2018). consequently, some university graduates remain unemployed for more than 3 years (biney, 2015). according to aryeetey (2011), 50% and 20% of graduates from polytechnics (now technical university) and traditional universities in ghana remain unemployed for two years or three years respectively, after their national service. the situation has created undue tension and desperation among the graduates and parents leading to the formation of the unemployed graduates association with a series of demonstrations against the government of ghana to provide the needed job opportunities for the graduates (biney, 2015). notwithstanding this, years after the department of mechanical engineering had graduated students into the job market, no feedback had been sought or received from the graduates on their employment and elements that could be improved by the department to significantly increase the employability of the graduates from the department. this study presents the employability of mechanical engineering graduates from sunyani technical university of ghana. it assessed the employment status and unemployment duration of the graduates, identified the factors that hinder the employability of the graduates and the challenges that require attention prior to graduation of students, and made suggestions for improvement. the findings of the study would not benefit only the department of mechanical engineering of sunyani technical university, but would enable those in other technical universities in the country to review and restructure the existing and future programs to enhance the employability of the graduates especially, at this time that all the departments prepare to run four-year programs in bachelor of technology in mechanical engineering. literature review an unemployed person is one who is of working age (e.g., 15+ years in ghana) and who is searching for work, is available for work and without work (ghana statistical service, 2015). the engineering graduates’ unemployment menace is an increasing problem in several countries around the world (dalrymple & cox, 2006) including ghana and other developing nations. according to (williams, 1976), aboagye, b., & puoza, j. c., (2021). employability of mechanical engineering graduates from sunyani technical university of ghana. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(2), 185–205. 188 in developed countries with universal education, the educational institutions are not normally blamed for unemployment. however, in developing countries, the general belief is that inept educational delivery is a leading cause of the high graduate unemployment rates. for instance, donkor (2014) attributed the unemployment situation in ghana to the inability of most private universities in ghana to train people to meet the skills requirement of employers. ezit (2014) and sasa (2018) attributed it to the inability of the graduates to apply the knowledge acquired because most tertiary institutions in ghana only teach the theoretical aspect of courses at the expense of the practical work. however, motsoeneng, schultz and bezuidenhout (2013) opined that the engineering work is very complex and requires several skills because of the multi-disciplinary nature of the profession. thus, technologybased engineering work such as mechanical engineering requires theoretical knowledge and a large number of skills; some of which are technical, generic, management and social (motsoeneng et al., 2013). additionally, it requires integrity, self-esteem, leadership, teamwork, problem-solving and creativity (frimpong, 2011), of which very little is taught and learned in school (trevelyan, 2008). spinks, silburn and birchall, (2007) classified these skills required by industries into technical, personal and business skills but asserted that the engineering companies mostly highlight the technical skills, probably because they form the fundamental requirement for every engineer and prerequisite for learning new technologies. according to (motsoeneng et al., 2013), engineering work requires both technical and social skills as such, theoretical knowledge, engineering principles, technical skills and management skills. azami et al. (2009a) reported that some of the technical skills and attributes that employers consider before employing engineering graduates include the capability to acquire and apply knowledge of engineering fundamentals, knowledge in application and practical oriented engineering, technical skills in specific engineering disciplines, the ability to utilise a systemic approach to design and evaluate operational performance, competence in theoretical and research engineering and the ability to design and conduct experiments and analyse and interpret data. spinks et al. (2007) and smith and kruger (2008) stated that in addition to technical skills, employers expected engineering graduates to possess generic skills such as communication skills and interpersonal skills. cai (2013) contended that employers also look for knowledge, good personality attributes, ability to adjust to the culture of the company and the willingness to learn continuously. azami et al. (2009a) stated that employers place considerable importance on the ability to communicate effectively with both engineers and nonengineers, ability to work effectively in a team and as an individual, and ability to lead. according to spinks et al. (2007), employers look for engineering graduates who have the potential to develop business and commercial skills including developing appropriate management skills. azami et al. (2009c) and lisá, hennelová and newman (2019), stated that the expectation of employers is that the engineering graduates should be well equipped with requisite employability skills to make them fit into their organisations and perform effectively immediately they are employed. additionally, employers expect the engineering graduates to possess relevant skills, such as aptitude to communicate effectively, problem solving skills, interpersonal skills and other personal qualities (azami et al., 2009b; lee, 2003; shahrin et al., 2004). however, according to a research conducted by the british council (2016), employers do not expect fresh graduates to be fully trained to work as soon as they were employed but they are interested in attitudes, competencies and basic skills of the new graduates they employed. this was affirmed by mohamad et al. (2019) who asserted that most employers recently consider the soft skills possessed by graduates more than their academic qualifications. thus, engineering graduates should acquire the essential employability skills for effective use of their knowledge and technical skills in their organisations (azami et al., 2009b; kamsah, 2004; shahrin et al., 2004). yet fresh graduates do not meet the skills expectations of their employers (cyphert & lyle, 2016; perkins & nigel, 2015) and many engineering graduates complete their education without the essential basic skills and employers need to provide further training after employment. the situation has contributed immensely to the continuous growth of unemployment in aboagye, b., & puoza, j. c., (2021). employability of mechanical engineering graduates from sunyani technical university of ghana. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(2), 185–205. 189 ghana and the world at large (baah-boateng, 2015; bhaduri, banerjee, & moughari, 2015; biney, 2015; constantinescu, 2015). methods before the study began, ethics approval was obtained from the university research directorate. the head of department of mechanical engineering was informed about the study and permission was sought to collect data on the graduates from the assistant registrar of the department. verbal consent was obtained and assurance given to maintain the confidentiality of the data requested from the department. the data on graduates from the department of mechanical engineering including number of graduates, program options, year of graduation, phone numbers and e-mail addresses and other background information were collected from the department. the names of the graduates were exempted from the data collected from the department to ensure anonymity and protect the privacy of the graduates. a questionnaire was the research instrument used for data collection. the data collection tool was cautiously developed to ensure that all creativities were applied to gather data without compromising on accuracy. pre-testing of the questionnaire was carried out with a sample of ten graduates in the sunyani municipality to structure the questions and make them clearer before the questionnaire was administered to the graduates. a copy of the questionnaire has been included as an appendix to the paper. the purposive and stratified random sampling techniques were used to select the graduates for the study. the department of mechanical engineering had graduated over 400 students into the job market from 2014 to 2019 as shown in table 1. however, the study purposively targeted four consecutive cohorts of graduates who completed their hnd mechanical engineering program between 2014 and 2017. this was because the 2018 graduates had just completed their national service and were yet to be employed while the 2019 graduates had just started their national service and were not due for employment. thus, including these categories of graduates in the study would result in a false conclusion. since the department runs the hnd mechanical engineering program with options in plant, automobile and production, the graduates were stratified into these program options and the respondents were randomly selected from the options to ensure that each of the program options were equally represented. the stratified sampling was used to ensure that respondents were selected from each of the program options offered at the department. in all, the respondents of the study were 131 graduates from the department who completed from 2014 to 2017. fifty percent (50%) of the graduates from each of the program options offered at the department were selected from each of these graduation years as the respondents for the study. the questionnaire used for data collection was a semi-structured questionnaire consisting of structured, closed and open-ended questions. the questionnaire was grouped into employability status and unemployment duration of the graduates, the factors that hinder their employability, and suggestions from the graduates for improvement on the hnd program. in the questionnaire, a list of factors hindering employability of graduates often cited in the literature (baah-boateng, 2015; kigotho, 2014; nuffic, 2011; unesco, 2010) was prepared for the respondents to choose from. additional space was provided to enable the graduates to add to the list provided. this provided the opportunity for the challenges that require attention prior to the graduation of students to be identified. the graduates were also asked to mention the courses they were offered during their hnd program that, in their opinion, needed further attention. the selected graduates were contacted by phone to inform them of the study and seek their consent to partake in the study. the questionnaire was sent to the graduates via e-mails and whatsapp messages to solicit the required information. ethical considerations were satisfied by obtaining verbal consent and preserving the confidentiality of respondents. the graduates were then contacted, again by phone, to inform them about the questionnaire. the administration of the questionnaire lasted for eight weeks to allow adequate time aboagye, b., & puoza, j. c., (2021). employability of mechanical engineering graduates from sunyani technical university of ghana. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(2), 185–205. 190 for the respondents to complete the questionnaire. at the end, all of the 131 questionnaires were successfully completed and the responses were returned via e-mail. the highest standard of ethics was maintained at all times during engagement with the respondents. the data collected was entered manually, organised in relation to the objectives of the study and stored in microsoft excel worksheet. the worksheet was set up with the variables as columns and the respondents as rows. the data analysis was primarily quantitative and supported with qualitative analysis to present the results of the study. the processing of quantitative data obtained from the survey was done by coding, editing, classification and entered into a database developed on microsoft excel. the data was examined to discover any obvious input errors, and to clarify noticeable discrepancies within the data sets. since a substantial share of the data collected was unconditional, the data were analysed using microsoft excel and presented in the form of percentages in tables and charts to enable comparison to determine differences between various categories. the responses from questions which were open ended were summarized and discussed. table 1: hnd mechanical engineering graduates from 2014 2019 program option/year 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 total plant (number of graduates) 18 30 41 37 38 25 189 automobile (number of graduates) 21 21 37 41 48 30 198 production (number of graduates) 0 0 6 10 5 5 26 total 39 51 84 88 91 60 413 source: department of mechanical engineering, sunyani technical university results and discussion background of graduates used for the study the study used 131 graduates for the assessment comprising 123 graduates who were not employed before admission and eight students who were already employed before being admitted to pursue the hnd program. the graduates who were employed before admission were not included in the assessment of employment status and unemployment duration of the graduates. however, they were included in the study to tap into their rich experiences and to acquire information for the remaining parts of the study. the details of the graduates used for the study including the program options and the years completed are shown in table 2 while the employment status of graduates before admitted is shown in figure 1. the department of mechanical engineering admits students from technical schools, senior high technical schools, and senior high schools (shs). in this study, students from technical schools and senior high technical schools were classified as technical students since they acquired some technical knowledge and technical skills before being admitted unlike those students from senior high schools who neither acquired any technical knowledge nor technical skills before admission. the department of mechanical engineering of sunyani technical university admits more students from technical schools than shs. the number of students in the two categories used for the study is depicted in figure 2. aboagye, b., & puoza, j. c., (2021). employability of mechanical engineering graduates from sunyani technical university of ghana. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(2), 185–205. 191 table 2: number of graduates used for the study program option/year 2014 2015 2016 2017 total plant (number of graduates) 9 15 20 19 63 automobile (number of graduates) 11 10 19 20 60 production (number of graduates) 0 0 3 5 8 total 20 25 42 44 131 figure 1: employment status of graduates before admitted figure 2: previous schools of graduates number employed before admitted, 8 number unemployed before admitted, 123 technical school, 117 senior high school, 14 technical school senior high school aboagye, b., & puoza, j. c., (2021). employability of mechanical engineering graduates from sunyani technical university of ghana. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(2), 185–205. 192 employment status of graduates from the department overview of employment status of graduates many parents spend their meager resources to educate their children to improve their chances of securing good employment. however, graduate unemployment is very alarming in ghana (biney, 2015; jonah, 2011). despite the alarming graduate unemployment situation in the country, this study revealed that about 84% of the 123 graduates selected for the study were employed as shown in figure 3. figure 3: employment status of graduates segmentation of the employed graduates the employed graduates were categorized into type of employment, type of employer and field of employment. out of the 84% of the graduates who were employed, 47% had secured permanent employment while 14% and 7% respectively, had secured contract and temporary employment. as much as 32% were employed by the ‘nation builders corps’ (nabco) which is a 3-year contract program scheduled to end in september, 2021. the government of ghana considers the private sector as the engine of growth and provides an enabling environment for the private sector to establish industries in the country to reduce the unemployment menace in the country. the study revealed that 40% of the graduates were employed in the private sector. the government of ghana employed 58% including the nabco employees. only 2% of the graduates have been able to establish and manage their own workshops with some apprentices under their care. out of the 84% of the graduates who were employed, 68% were in the mechanical engineering establishments while 4% and 28% were in other engineering fields and non-engineering fields respectively. the segregation of the employed graduates is shown in figure 4(a-c). employed 84% unemployed 16% aboagye, b., & puoza, j. c., (2021). employability of mechanical engineering graduates from sunyani technical university of ghana. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(2), 185–205. 193 (a) type of employment; (b) type of employer; (c) field of employment figure 4 (a-c): segmentation of the employed graduates employment status of graduates from technical schools and senior high schools according to azami et al. (2009c) and lisá et al. (2019) employers expect fresh engineering graduates to be well equipped with requisite employability skills to perform effectively immediately they are employed. the study investigated whether graduates who were admitted from technical schools and thus, had some technical skills before admitted to pursue the hnd program, had a better chance of securing jobs than those who were admitted from senior high schools (shs) and had no technical skills. the study revealed that about 83% of graduates admitted from technical schools were employed while about 79% of those from shs were employed as displayed in figure 5. although more of the graduates admitted from technical schools were employed than those from shs, there was no significant difference between the two. this was attributed to the fact that employers do not only place a high premium on the practical skills and knowledge related to the fields of study, but consider other skills and attributes that are essential at the workplace (british council, 2016). this could also mean that the department was able to provide the requisite training to those students from shs who were admitted without technical skills and brought them to the same level as those admitted from technical schools to enable them to compete on level grounds for the available job opportunities. permanent 47% temporary 7% contract 14% nabc o 32% govern ment 58% privat e 40% self-employed 2% mechanical engineering 68% other engineering 4% non engineering 28% (a) (b) (c) aboagye, b., & puoza, j. c., (2021). employability of mechanical engineering graduates from sunyani technical university of ghana. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(2), 185–205. 194 figure 5: employment status of graduates from technical and senior high schools employment status of graduates of various program options the department of mechanical engineering runs hnd mechanical engineering programs with options in plant, automobile and production. the study investigated which of the program options offered by the department of mechanical engineering of sunyani technical university had the better chance of securing jobs. it was observed that over 85% of graduates from plant and automobile options were employed while 57% of graduates from production option were employed as shown in figure 6. this means that graduates from plant and automobile options have better chance of securing jobs than those from production. this is attributed to the shift from the manufacturing to other sub-sectors such as industry, mining and quarrying, construction, and electricity and water; resulting in persistent diminishing in growth of the manufacturing sub-sector in ghana (enu & havi, 2014). additionally, due to low enrolment of production students in the department, the number of production graduates used for the study was far lower than that of plant and automobile options and this also might have contributed to the low percentage of production graduates employed. figure 6: employment status of graduates of various program options 82.9 78.6 0.0 10.0 20.0 30.0 40.0 50.0 60.0 70.0 80.0 90.0 admitted from technical school admitted from senior high school g ra d u a te s (% ) employed unemployed 85.2 85.5 57.1 14.8 14.5 42.9 0.0 10.0 20.0 30.0 40.0 50.0 60.0 70.0 80.0 90.0 plant automobile production g ra d u a te s (% ) employed unemployed aboagye, b., & puoza, j. c., (2021). employability of mechanical engineering graduates from sunyani technical university of ghana. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(2), 185–205. 195 employment status of various graduation years the study also investigated the employment status of graduates of various graduation years. it was observed that 90% of the 2014 graduates were employed. the percentage decreased to 76% in 2015 and decreased further to about 74% in 2016 but increased to about 80% in 2017. the decline in the percentage of employed graduates in 2015 and 2016 was attributed to the embargo placed on the government sector employment, but the lifting of the embargo and the government’s flagship program, dubbed ‘nation builders corps’ (nabco), resulted in the rise of the employment of the 2017 graduates. the nabco program was rolled out just after the 2017-year group had completed their national service and thus, they took advantage and joined the program. indeed, 16 out of the 35 graduates employed from the 2017-year group, constituting 45.7% were employed by the nabco program. the employment status of various graduating years is shown in figure 7. figure 7: employment status of various graduation years status of graduates who were employed before admitted as discussed above, the eight graduates who were already employed before admission to pursue the hnd mechanical engineering program were exempted from the assessment of employment status of the graduates. however, the study assessed the impact of the hnd program on the status at their workplaces. the study revealed that 62% of this category of graduates were promoted after the hnd program as displayed in figure 8. the remaining 32% claimed that they also qualify for promotion but the positions to be promoted to were occupied by their colleagues with equal qualifications. however, their salaries were increased after the hnd program and would be promoted when the appropriate positions become vacant. 90.0 76.0 73.8 79.5 11.1 26.3 29.0 45.7 0.0 10.0 20.0 30.0 40.0 50.0 60.0 70.0 80.0 90.0 100.0 2014 2015 2016 2017 g ra d u a te s (% ) year employed nabco aboagye, b., & puoza, j. c., (2021). employability of mechanical engineering graduates from sunyani technical university of ghana. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(2), 185–205. 196 figure 8: promotion of graduates who were employed before admitted duration of unemployment of graduates although the unemployment situation in ghana is alarming, 29.1% of the graduates from the department secured employment within the first year, 40.8% within the second year and 19.4% within the third year after their national service. this means that about 70% of the graduates from the department secured employment within two years following their national service, contrary to the assertion of aryeetey (2011) that 50% of graduates from polytechnics/technical university and traditional universities in ghana remain unemployed for two years. again, over 89% of graduates from the department secure employment within three years after their national service with less than 11% remaining unemployed for more than three years after their national service. this also contradicts the claim by aryeetey (2011) that 20% of graduates from polytechnics/technical university and traditional universities in ghana remain unemployed for three years but affirmed the position of biney (2015) that some university graduates remain unemployed for more than three years. this indicates that the unemployment duration of graduates from the department is shorter than previously thought. the unemployment duration of graduates is shown in figure 9. figure 9: unemployment duration of graduates promoted 62% salary increased 38% 29.1 40.8 19.4 6.8 3.9 0.0 5.0 10.0 15.0 20.0 25.0 30.0 35.0 40.0 45.0 1 2 3 4 5 g ra d u a te s (% ) years aboagye, b., & puoza, j. c., (2021). employability of mechanical engineering graduates from sunyani technical university of ghana. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(2), 185–205. 197 factors hindering employability of graduates the factors that hinder the employability of the graduates from the department are displayed in figure 10. over 63% complained that they were not taken through adequate practical skills while 42% could not have an adequate internship while in school. consequently, they lacked the necessary practical skills expected of graduates from a technical university. this was attributed to inadequate practical training facilities and equipment, and weak linkages between the training institutions and industry (baah-boateng, 2015; kigotho, 2014; nuffic, 2011; unesco, 2010). about 53% of the graduates think that lack of jobs in the country and lack of previous experience prevented them from getting employment. this contradicted the british council (british council, 2016) assertion that the unemployment situation in ghana is caused by the lack of employability of the graduates and not lack of jobs in the country, but affirmed the assertion by azami et al. (2009c) and lisá et al. (2019) that employers expect engineering graduates to be well equipped with requisite employability skills to make them fit into their organisations and perform effectively immediately they are employed. in addition, about 56% attributed their unemployment to their inability to locate job vacancies, 39% said that some employers require a first degree instead of hnd, 35% to lack of interview skills and 27.5% to lack of curriculum vitae (cv) writing skills. the introduction of the bachelor of technology (b-tech) in mechanical engineering (top-up) program in the department would solve the problem of employers requiring a first degree instead of hnd and the graduates are encouraged to take advantage of the program and upgrade themselves. the ability to locate job vacancies, cv writing skills and interview skills are part of employment seeking processes but they are not given much attention in the hnd curriculum and need to be addressed to improve the employability of the graduates. figure 10: factors impeding employability of graduates impact of national service placement on employability of graduates the national service secretariat of ghana has the mandate to post graduates to organisations where the services of the graduates are needed. in this regard, mechanical engineering graduates are posted to both engineering and non-engineering related organisations for the one-year national service. 52.7 52.7 42.0 63.4 27.5 55.7 10.7 14.5 35.1 38.9 0.0 10.0 20.0 30.0 40.0 50.0 60.0 70.0 g ra d u a te s (% ) aboagye, b., & puoza, j. c., (2021). employability of mechanical engineering graduates from sunyani technical university of ghana. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(2), 185–205. 198 during this one year, those who are posted to mechanical engineering related organisations have the opportunity to acquire more practical skills and relevant experience to increase their chances of securing jobs after national service. those posted to non-engineering related organisations also acquire some skills and experience but these may not be relevant to their field of study. the study investigated whether the national service placement affected the chances of the graduates in securing employment. the study revealed that at least 80% of the graduates posted to mechanical engineering related organisations, other engineering related organisations, and non-engineering related organisations had secured employment as shown in figure 11. thus, there was no significant effect of national service on the chances of securing a job, since there was little difference in the percentage of graduates employed from the three categories. this means that irrespective of the organisations where graduates are posted for their national service, they have an equal chance of securing jobs as those posted to mechanical engineering related organisations. this was because, in addition to the practical skills and knowledge related to the fields of study, employers place a high premium on other skills and attributes that are essential at the workplace (british council, 2016) which could be acquired in any organisation where the graduates were placed for their national service. figure 11: impact of national service posting on employability of graduates courses proposed by graduates for improvement the graduates were asked to comment on the courses they were offered during their hnd program and thought those courses needed further attention. as displayed in figure 12, the graduates suggested that courses such as thermodynamics, computer literacy, plant maintenance and work services, workshop processes and practice, refrigeration and air-conditioning and autocad should be reviewed to include more practical work. this compelled the authors to review the components of all the courses offered under the hnd programs in the department. the results indicated that the percentage ratio of theory hours to practical hours was about 60%: 40% which is inadequate for practically-oriented programs and should possibly be increased to a ratio of theory hours to practical hours of 40%: 60%. surprisingly, about 32% of the graduates suggested that plant maintenance and work services should be reviewed. according to the graduates, the course was full of theory instead of the practical work they were expecting. indeed, the majority of the graduates who wanted a review of that course claimed that they did not see any maintenance activities in the course and thus, called it: ‘plant theory, 69.1 4.1 26.8 84.7 80.0 81.8 15.3 20.0 18.2 0.0 10.0 20.0 30.0 40.0 50.0 60.0 70.0 80.0 90.0 mechanical engineering other engineering non engineering g ra d u a te s (% ) national service placement employed unemployed aboagye, b., & puoza, j. c., (2021). employability of mechanical engineering graduates from sunyani technical university of ghana. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(2), 185–205. 199 not plant maintenance’. this course is offered to plant students only and thus, all 32% of the graduates who wanted the review were plant students. this means about 42 graduates constituting over 66% of the graduates from the plant option wanted a review of this course. such a high percentage necessitated a thorough review of the course content of plant maintenance and work services for adequacy of practical work. it was revealed that the students were offered the course for two years starting from semester 3 to semester 6. the course has two hours of theory and two hours of practical work per week making it a three-credit hour course. in the course outline, no practical activities were found in semester 3 but several practical activities were found in semesters 4, 5 and 6 as shown in table 3. it was obvious from the review that the course had adequate practical activities to prepare the students to acquire the needed practical skills to meet the expectation of employers, contrary to the claim by the students that there were no practical activities in the course. this means that the student perception was that more attention was given to theory at the expense of practical work (ezit, 2014; sasa, 2018). this could be averted if the practical component of the course was dissociated from the theory and given separate credit hours as found in automobile workshop practice which is a purely practical course offered by the students in the automobile option for two years starting from semester 3 to semester 6. the industry is a key stakeholder in engineering education and its views should be incorporated in the curricula development process. in this regard, the department could involve industrial experts in the curricula development and review, as practiced in the competency based training (cbt) curricula development. this would ensure that the curricula that are relevant to industry needs were developed to ensure that the skills possessed by graduates from the department meet the needs of industry. industry experts could also be invited to play active roles in the delivery of the curricula through practical activities, workshops and seminars. figure 12: proposed courses for review 6.1 11.5 32.1 13.0 7.6 3.1 9.2 0.0 5.0 10.0 15.0 20.0 25.0 30.0 35.0 g ra d u a te s (% ) aboagye, b., & puoza, j. c., (2021). employability of mechanical engineering graduates from sunyani technical university of ghana. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(2), 185–205. 200 table 3: identified practical activities in plant maintenance and work services semester (course code) identified practical activities semester 3 (mce 205) nil semester 4 (mce 206) 2.5 carry out planned lubrication; comment on types and effects lubrication 2.6 assemble and dis-assemble of mechanism and machines 2.7 participate in equipment repair and acceptance procedures 2.8 carry out major machinery and equipment repairs – maintenance 2.9 carry out the servicing and upkeep of plant equipment (e.g., steam boilers, machine tools, etc.) 2.10 carry out the servicing and upkeep of turbines, pumps, conveyors, cranes, compressors, valves, heat exchangers semester 5 (mce 305) 2.3 participate in identification and location of faults 2.4 participate in the use of flow diagrams for algorithmic analysis 2.5 use dependency charts 2.7 participate in multiple problem analysis 2.8 participate in the trouble shooting and diagnosis of fault of specific and selected industrial equipment and machinery 4.6 carry out hydro pressure test semester 6 (mce 306) 1.7 participate in the practical identification, installation, assembly/disassembly, maintenance/servicing, and troubleshooting of pumps and compressors 1.8 participate in the practical identification, installation, assembly/disassembly, maintenance/servicing, and troubleshooting of heat exchangers 1.9 participate in the practical identification, installation, assembly/disassembly, maintenance/servicing, and troubleshooting of low-pressure boilers 1.10 participate in the practical identification, installation, assembly/disassembly, maintenance/servicing, and troubleshooting of control elements (including valves, cylinders, sensors, steam traps, and storage devices) 1.12 recognize pipe circuits and be able to identify installed components; carry out practical pipe fitting, inspection, maintenance and troubleshooting 1.9 select instruments for checking alignment 2.1 participate in maintenance procedures for current engine designs 3.1 carry out the examination and testing of installations, motors, and switchgears 3.2 have working knowledge of rewinding of motors and generators 3.3 participate in bench tests 3.4 carry out the testing and calibration of instruments 3.5 prepare reports and records 3.6 plan and prepare layout of typical workshops and stores feedback from graduates on what needed improvement the graduates were asked to provide feedback on what the department could implement to improve the employability of graduates. about 76% of the graduates suggested that the department should focus more on the practical training because that is what the employers look for before offering aboagye, b., & puoza, j. c., (2021). employability of mechanical engineering graduates from sunyani technical university of ghana. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(2), 185–205. 201 employment. about 34% of the graduates confessed regret that they had not taken their studies seriously, especially the practical work. they therefore, admonished the current and future students to be more serious with their studies to enhance their employability. other suggestions include more industrial tours, a longer internship period, partnerships with industry and seminars on job acquisition processes such as curriculum vitae writing skills, how to locate job vacancies and interview skills. another issue raised by the graduates was that, some employers expect them to carry out all mechanical engineering work in their organisations, irrespective of the program option the graduates were offered in school. they therefore, suggested that opportunity should be given to the students to partake in all the workshop activities in the three programs options run by the department to equip them to face the challenges presented. this feedback from the graduates affirmed the results of the british council (2016) follow-up graduate interviews with selected graduates in ghana. the main suggestions from the graduates are shown in figure 13. figure 13: suggestions from graduates challenges that require attention prior to graduation of students this study revealed that the graduates from the department were well trained and equipped with requisite employability skills to meet the satisfaction of employers. however, some challenges were identified that require attention prior to the graduation of students. these include curriculum vitae (cv) writing skills, how to locate job vacancies and interview skills as shown in figure 10. these are part of the employment seeking processes but they are not given much attention in the hnd curriculum and needed to be addressed prior to graduation of the students to improve the employability of the graduates. offering seminars with experts from industry to inform the students prior to graduation would address these challenges and improve the employability of the graduates. 18.3 13.7 75.6 19.8 22.1 2.3 34.4 11.5 6.9 4.6 11.5 0.0 10.0 20.0 30.0 40.0 50.0 60.0 70.0 80.0 g ra d u a te s (% ) suggestions from graduates aboagye, b., & puoza, j. c., (2021). employability of mechanical engineering graduates from sunyani technical university of ghana. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(2), 185–205. 202 conclusion the study sought to assess the employment status and unemployment duration of the graduates, identified the factors that hinder the employability of the graduates and the challenges that require attention prior to graduation of students and made suggestions for improvement. the graduates have been contacted for feedback on their employment status and unemployment duration. the factors that hinder their employability and elements that could be improved by the department to significantly increase the employability of the graduates have been identified. this study has also highlighted the key challenges that require attention prior to graduation of students and suggestions have been provided for improvement. the employment status of the graduates was about 84%, out of which about 47% have secured permanent employment, 32% were employed by the ‘nation builders corps’ (nabco) while 14% and 7% had secured contract and temporary employment respectively. the duration of unemployment was about 29%, 41% and 19% for one, two and three years after their national service respectively. the main factor hindering employability of the graduates was inadequate practical skills since more attention was given to theory at the expense of practical work. the main challenge which requires attention prior to graduation of students was the lack of job-seeking skills. although the employment status and duration of unemployment of the graduates were encouraging, their employability is principally hindered by inadequate practical skills and lack of job-seeking skills. the department should focus more on the practical aspect of the program by increasing practical hours, advising the students to take the practical work seriously and partner with industry to pave the way for more internships opportunities and industrial tours to enable the students to acquire adequate practical skills before graduation. the ratio of theory hours to practical hours should be 40%: 60% and to avert the situation where more attention was given to the theory at the expense of the practical work, the practical component of the courses should be dissociated from the theory and given separate credit hours as in automobile workshop practice which is purely practical course offered by the automobile option for 2 years starting from semester 3 to semester 6. the department should involve industrial experts in the curricula development and review to ensure that the curricula that are relevant to industry needs were developed to ensure that the skills possessed by graduates from the department meet the needs of industry. industry experts should also be invited to play active roles in the delivery of the curricula through practical activities, workshops and seminars. the department should also organise seminars on job acquisition processes such as curriculum vitae writing skills, how to locate job vacancies and interview skills prior to graduation of the students. although entrepreneurship is a course in the hnd mechanical engineering curriculum, its contents should be widened to include soft skills which would develop the behaviour and attitude of the graduates as well as their job-seeking skills. the 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(1976). the school leaver in developing countries. london: university of london institute of education. https://www.universityworldnews.com/post.php?story=20140327191835351 https://yen.com.gh/109415-main-unemployment-ghana.html aboagye, b., & puoza, j. c., (2021). employability of mechanical engineering graduates from sunyani technical university of ghana. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(2), 185–205. 205 appendix study on employability of mechanical engineering graduates from sunyani technical universities of ghana– questionnaire for graduates 1. sex: □ male □ female 2. year admitted: □ 2011 □ 2012 □ 2013 □ 2014 3. program of study: □ plant □ auto □ production 4. background before being admitted: □ technical □ secondary 5. year complete: □ 2014 □ 2015 □ 2016 □ 2017 6. employment status before being admitted: □ employed □ unemployed if employed before being admitted, go to 14 else continue 7. place of national service: □ mechanical engineering □ other engineering □ non engineering 8. employment status after completion of national service: □ employed □ unemployed if unemployed go to 13 9. year of employment after national service: □ 2015 □ 2016 □ 2017 □ 2018 10. type of employment: □ permanent □ temporary □ contract □ nabco 11. type of employer: □ government □ private □ self employed 12. field of employment: □ mechanical engineering □ other engineering □ non engineering 13. what challenges did you encounter when looking for job? (tick as appliable and add more if any) no challenge 1. lack of jobs in the country 2. lack of previous experience 3. inadequate practical skills 4. lack of communication skills 5. lack of confidence 6. lack of interview skills 7. 8. 9. 10. if unemployed before being admitted, go to 15 14. what change has occurred in your job position as a result of your hnd program? □ promoted □ increase salary □ changed from nonmechanical engineering to mechanical engineering job. 15. if there has been no change, why? .................................................................................................................................................................. .................................................................................................................................................................. 16. which courses do you think should be reviewed and why? .................................................................................................................................................................. .................................................................................................................................................................. 17. what do you think could be done to improve the performance of our graduates on the job market? .................................................................................................................................................................. .................................................................................................................................................................. amirova, g., & valiyev, a. (2021). do university graduate competences match post-socialist labour market demands? evidence from azerbaijan. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(2), 332–347. 332 the journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability issn: 1838-3815 (online) journal homepage: https://ojs.deakin.edu.au/index.php/jtlge/ do university graduate competences match post-socialist labour market demands? evidence from azerbaijan gulsabah amirova1 and anar valiyev2 corresponding author: gulsabah amirova (gnamirova@gmail.com ) 1institute of education of the republic of azerbaijan 2school of public and international affairs, ada university abstract the recruitment and selection process in companies is becoming more complicated as employers place more emphasis on ‘intangible personal qualities’ rather than specialised skills. employers also require graduates to adapt to the workplace on completion of their education. in particular, following the bologna declaration in 1999, the expansion of higher education across europe has resulted in the questioning of the quality of the graduate labour market. to gain further insight into the mismatch between the employability skills of graduates on the one hand and labour market demands on the other, this paper examines the case of azerbaijan, a country that is slowly entering the global network. the study synthesised and analysed 24 ‘transferable’ soft skills and competences critical for improved graduate employability, resulting in a shortlist of the top five competences as ranked by azerbaijani employers and graduates. more than 2,500 students from six major universities participated in the study which found that there is a huge discrepancy between the skills needed by students and the job market when compared with what is taught at university. furthermore, it revealed that the absence of these necessary skills is a major factor preventing students from finding jobs. keywords: graduate employability, soft skills, transferrable skills, graduate success, generic skills, school to work transition, higher order skills, quality in higher education introduction it is undeniable that the labour market is increasingly influencing trends in higher education all over the world (scott, connell, thomson, & willison, 2017; rutkowski, 2015; teichler, 1999). states have come to realise the crucial role that education plays in creating a strong and competitive socioeconomic foundation (boden & nedeva, 2010). improved skills increase employability as they enable workers to perform their jobs more efficiently, use new technology and innovate (del carpio, kupets, muller, & olefir, 2017), allowing firms to move up value chains. graduate employability is also considered a long-term means of enriching the ‘professional well-being and career development’ of university students (kumar, 2007). this multi-faceted issue is becoming a high priority for stakeholders, including government, higher education institutions, students and employers (aliyev, valiyev, & rustamova, 2011). recent scholars have shortlisted the main stakeholders as students\graduates, employers and universities, while others include government, creating a trifold relationship model between universities, policy makers and the labour market (bacevic, 2014). the issue can be scrutinized both at micro (students, their families) and macro https://ojs.deakin.edu.au/index.php/jtlge/ mailto:gnamirova@gmail.com amirova, g., & valiyev, a. (2021). do university graduate competences match post-socialist labour market demands? evidence from azerbaijan. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(2), 332–347. 333 (stakeholders–educators, government, labour market) investment levels which suggests increasing interest in the undeniable socio-economic implications and benefits of higher education, something that can also be scrutinized from a cost-benefit (funding vs outcome) and governance perspective (holmes, 2013; kinash, mcgillivray, & crane, 2016). as the demand for higher education institutions to develop more mobile, resilient, skilled and knowledgeable students has grown, the uk and mainland european countries have developed a stronger appreciation of the importance of higher education and the inherent skills necessary for the formation of a knowledge-based economy. in particular, following the bologna declaration in 1999, the expansion of higher education across europe has resulted in the quality of the graduate labour market being questioned (andrews & higson, 2008; scott et al., 2017; harvey et al., 2002). thus, it is widely acknowledged that it is very important for universities to produce students with the ability to find or create work after they graduate. background: transition from the soviet system until independence, the education system in azerbaijan primarily followed soviet-wide structures. however, education has undergone several reforms in the past 28 years that have had significant positive and negative impacts. the azerbaijani constitution stipulates that every citizen has a right to receive an education. children can begin primary education at six or seven years of age. the state provides free secondary education. general education consists of three levels: primary school (grades 1-4 for students aged 6-9), middle school or general secondary education (grades 5-9 for students aged 10-14), and upper school (grades 10-11). starting from the mid-1990s azerbaijan switched to a three level system in higher education. the first level is a bachelor’s degree that requires four years of study at university. then, students have the option of studying for a masters degree for another two years. interested students may apply for admission to institutions granting doctoral degrees. after finishing doctoral studies and successfully defending a dissertation, an individual receives a phd. that is equal to the kandidat degree of the old system. awardees of phds need to defend another dissertation to receive the title of doctor of science. despite switching to the new western system, remnants of the old system remain. in most western institutions granting phds, there is no additional title such as doctor of science. the reforms involved changing the name of kandidat to phd., but the system remained the same due to fierce opposition from the old guard of doctors and kandidats. table 1: azerbaijan’s education system study level duration grades pre-school (typically for children between 3 and 6 years old). pre-primary education general education primary education 4 years 1-4 general lower secondary education 5 years 5-9 full secondary education 2 years 10-11 vocational education professional or technical institutions (former ptu-for manual and basic skills) 3 years secondary specialised education (former tekhnikum) 2 to 4 years higher education bachelor 4 years master 2 years doctoral 4 years and further after achieving independence in 1991, azerbaijan began to revise many government policies including its obsolete education system. the introduction of private higher education institutions amirova, g., & valiyev, a. (2021). do university graduate competences match post-socialist labour market demands? evidence from azerbaijan. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(2), 332–347. 334 along with public heis, actions to join the european educational platform and the revision of the education system in line with the bologna process and its standards, were just some of the most ambitious steps. however, only a small share of private universities were truly competitive. despite many long-term strategic plans and governmental statements there is still a lack of coordination between higher education and rapidly changing labour market demands (sadirkhanov, 2009). currently, there are 51 higher education institutions in azerbaijan, 39 public and 12 private, located mostly in the capital city, baku, with its population of about two million (state statistical committee, 2020). the total number of students, 167,677, with 153,000 currently enrolled in public universities, and the remaining studying in private universities. despite state policy initiatives to promote youth employment and skill development in accordance with market demands, real in-the-field implementation still remains insufficient (valiyev & babayev, 2021). researchers only began to study the labour market situation after 2003 with random (irregular) surveys with the support of the international labour organisation (ilo). reports as well as government statistics showed that despite all the government’s efforts the situation with graduate employment remained problematic. thus, around 11% of all inactive people (238.8 thousand) in the country are graduates of higher education institutions (ssc, 2019). in particular, the majority of inactive graduates have qualifications from fields including health, education and the humanities. meanwhile, there is a shortage of graduates qualified as financial managers and agricultural experts. for instance, half of the graduates of higher education institutions specialised in education-a sector that provides only 8.6% of employment and rather low salaries. meanwhile, this group of people is widely seen as lacking vocational skills and may become unemployed. the government adopted a strategic roadmap in 2016 to address, among other things, human capital development in order to foster labour productivity, sustainable economic growth, competitiveness in the production sector and the integration of the country into global markets. this issue has become even more problematic when we consider that he institutions are the key suppliers of the skilled and qualified labour force in azerbaijan. every year, graduates face a rapidly changing and very competitive employment sector. to increase the chances of employment, graduates need to have certain non-qualification\nontechnical skills i.e. those skills currently most valued by employers. some literature also refers to such skills as ‘soft’ skills. the importance of higher educational institutions nurturing ‘high level specialists….taking into account requirements of society and labour market’ has become the silver lining of the government’s educational and development policy in azerbaijan (state statistical committee of the republic of azerbaijan, 2018). senior government officials emphasised during the osce 26th economic and environmental forum in 2018 that fundamental questions which still require answers are what qualities the individuals of tomorrow will need and how to promote growth beyond material improvement. as integration in the global knowledge economy is becoming an increasingly urgent call to all countries around the world, states, including such developing countries as azerbaijan, are recognising the role of heis in boosting innovation, competitiveness and economic development. nevertheless, the capacity of heis to operate as dynamic platforms for such efforts still remains underdeveloped to an extent. in 2013 the education development strategy was approved by the president of the republic of azerbaijan. it delineates the importance of reforming the education system to foster a more competitive education ecosystem which is able to keep pace with global practices and integrate advanced technological infrastructure. according to the world bank report of 2018 there is a need for strategic reforms to increase the relevance of higher education as it feeds into economic competitiveness of the country. the term ‘investment in the education of people’ nowadays has gained a much broader definition, linking skills with productivity (osce, 2018). meanwhile, there is a lack of comprehensive research in azerbaijan scrutinising the quality of higher education output i.e., readily employable graduates. these limited studies emphasise the paradox that while the challenges in graduate employment persist there is a growing demand in the labour market for skilled employees (sadirkhanov, 2009). amirova, g., & valiyev, a. (2021). do university graduate competences match post-socialist labour market demands? evidence from azerbaijan. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(2), 332–347. 335 one of the driving factors of unemployment and inactivity among those with higher education is a lack of competitive skills. in this regard, based on the results of the step employer skill survey carried out in azerbaijan in 2013, a serious skill shortage was detected, especially concerning technical, cognitive and socio-behavioural skills, coupled with employers’ high expectations (rutkowski, 2015). hence, the skills gap refers not only to technical skills but also to higher-order cognitive skills and socio-behavioral skills. by their nature, these results show subjective perceptions of employers. and these perceptions reflect not only the objective conditions, but also, potentially, unrealistic expectations on the part of employers. nonetheless, the results signalled a skill problem in azerbaijan, and employers’ criticism of the quality and relevance of education could not be easily disregarded (rutkowski, 2015). that was confirmed by deputy minister of education, mr. idris isayev, who indicated that the biggest challenges to achieving higher employment among young people is the mismatch between education or training on the one hand and the demands of the market on the other. such a mismatch is the major threat to azerbaijan’s future. it is noteworthy that the quality of higher education has been a major target of government policy for the last decade in azerbaijan. the state strategy of the azerbaijani republic on the development of education adopted in 2013 clearly states that developing human capital is the cornerstone of stronger global competitiveness for azerbaijan and successful integration into the world economy. as such, the main purpose of the strategy is to foster the development of human capital, to nurture modern skills and knowledge in individuals, through a combination of practical skills and knowledge, and of competence along and academic knowledge (republic of azerbaijan, 2013). literature the concept of graduate employability refers to the job or work that students are able to access within a short period after graduating from university (qs, 2019). according to the international student survey 2019 results (qs, 2019), 58% of respondents chose universities with a high employment ranking, 56% prioritised universities which promote access to students’ preferred industry, and a further 58% chose universities that enabled them to quickly find a job right after graduating. thus, employability is a key deciding component in future students’ decision-making regarding university choice. the scope of graduate employability also decides where in the ranking the university stands. although the topics of graduate employability and generic employability skills have been examined closely within the last four decades, the focus has nonetheless been on developed economies such as the uk, germany, australia, and the usa (kinash, mcgillivray, & crane, 2017; teichler, 1999). nonetheless, attention has increasingly shifted to central and eastern european countries, as well countries in asia and middle east (cai, 2013; bacevic, 2014; el-annan, 2012). successful school-to-work transition forms the basis of positive economic, social and political changes in society and should be regarded as the most valuable human resource investment on a national level (el-annan, 2012). one region where relatively little study has been carried out on this question is eastern-european post-communist countries. an exhaustive study conducted in poland, hungary, lithuania and slovenia in 2002-2003 analysed the labour market entry of university graduates, concluding that school-to-market transition still remains highly sensitive to labour market conditions and recommended that cooperation between the labour market and higher education policy makers should be fostered (zamfir, militaru, mocanu, & lungu, 2018). another post-socialist state, ukraine, has displayed a somewhat fragile economic performance and lower production compared to peer countries, despite high literacy rates and a significant number of university graduates (del carpio et al., 2017). according to a world bank report in 2011 graduate skill gaps are limiting the performance of companies in ukraine according to 40% of firms representing four key sectors of the economy (agriculture, food processing, information technology [it], and renewable energy) (del caprio et.al., 2017). thus, a better skills development strategy has the potential to overcome structural challenges by improving firms’ performance and increasing the productivity of the ukrainian economy (del carpio et al., 2017). such unmet employability skill needs undermine the efficiency and performance amirova, g., & valiyev, a. (2021). do university graduate competences match post-socialist labour market demands? evidence from azerbaijan. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(2), 332–347. 336 of companies and there is no reason to think that this applies to post-communist countries any less than to other regions. according to archer and davidson (2008), with reference to the international employer barometer (ieb), around a third of employers are dissatisfied with the employability skills of graduates. they claim that recent graduates generally lack team-working, communication, and problem-solving skills. 86% of employers consider the acquisition of soft skills to be a relevant factor of employability, as many graduates find it hard to express themselves. meanwhile, the council for industry and higher education (cihe) stresses that higher educational institutions lie at the heart of the services that should help students of all disciplines develop marketable skills i.e. those necessary in a workplace and of instant value to employers (these include soft and hard skills, numeracy and literacy skills) (archer & davison, 2008). similarly, the flash eurobarometer survey was conducted among all 27 eu member states, along with norway, iceland, croatia and turkey upon the request of the directorate-general for education and culture (gallup organisation, 2010). this survey verified the importance of various skills and abilities in the successful employment of graduates, as well as employers’ satisfaction with such skills. according to the survey, although skills such as teamwork (67 %) or computer literacy (88 %), as well as communication skills were considered to be important during recruitment, almost half of the recruiters reported a lack of graduates with the necessary level of such skills and capabilities. the 2016 report by the organization on economic cooperation and development (oecd), ‘survey of adult skills’, also emphasises the growing importance of information-processing and other cognitive and interpersonal skills in today’s technologically equipped society, and links skill proficiency to the labour market and social outcomes. the survey of adult skills is a product of the oecd’s programme for international assessment of adult competencies (piaac). the purpose of this international survey is to measure the key cognitive and workplace skills needed for individuals to participate in society and for economies to prosper. this survey is conducted in more than 40 countries including, among oecd member states, slovenia, turkey, estonia, greece, hungary, latvia, lithuania and, among non-oecd states, bulgaria, croatia, georgia, kazakhstan, kyrgyzstan, serbia and moldova. the world bank (2011) confirms that moderate-income cluster countries aspiring towards more advanced status must focus on the role of heis as a source of skills supply, enhanced innovation and research capacity. in early 2000 the european training foundation (etf) launched ‘the black sea labour market reviews’ project (a series of country reports and cross-country comparisons) to conduct a comparative analysis of challenges and trends in the labor market and employability across armenia, azerbaijan, belarus, georgia, republic of moldova and ukraine. according to bardak et al. the report findings emphasised that underinvestment adversely affected the quality of education across the board, consequently labour market demands are not met by the skill and knowledge supply provided (2011). in focusing on azerbaijan, this paper draws attention to one post-soviet country that, for a short period of time (2004-2014), benefited from a uniquely high income of oil revenues and, as a consequence, experienced a skills mismatch of a particularly severe kind. azerbaijan is a country of 10 million people located in the south caucasus. its population has been steadily increasing in recent years. the country became independent in 1991 after the collapse of the soviet union. azerbaijan is considered a middle-income country with a gdp per capita of $usd 4,739 in 2018 (world bank, 2021). the human development index in 2017 was 0.754 which put the country in a relatively high human development category – 80th among 189 countries (undp, 2020). the country’s economy has undergone dramatic changes, integrating into the global economy and, as a result its labour market has been shaped by the demands of the modern world. despite the efforts of global integration and the de-industrialisation of the economy, foreign investment has been concentrated mainly in the oil sector, creating limited employment opportunities for non-oil areas of the economy. the extraction sector accounts for merely 0.8% of the total employment in the country which still underperforms in affecting overall youth employment. recruiters express serious concerns with the lack of graduates from higher education institutions equipped with appropriate cognitive and socio-behavioral skills (valiyev, 2020). over the last few years oil output has declined, something which has been accompanied by a significant drop in oil prices. however, during this amirova, g., & valiyev, a. (2021). do university graduate competences match post-socialist labour market demands? evidence from azerbaijan. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(2), 332–347. 337 period consumption and government spending remained elevated. the labour market has also faced significant distortions and challenges. an important question that arises is how the education sector has reacted to these changes. are education institutions in azerbaijan able to supply the necessary skills and competences to students to get desired jobs? in order to answer these questions, this study examined the perceptions of two main stakeholders students and employers. the perception of current graduates was analysed using two different approaches – the weight given to various shortlisted soft skills by the students and the level of the same skills being taught at their respective universities (as evaluated by students). any deviation between the weight given to a specific skill and the level of integration of the skill into the university’s curriculum serves as evidence of a skill gap. the research questions which underpin this study are:  what mismatch, if any, exists between the (soft) skills that employers see as important and expect to observe during graduate employment and those demonstrated by university graduates?  which skills do students believe will help increase their employment prospects? taken together, we can thus discover from these measures if there is a major mismatch between ‘employability skills’ as perceived by those stakeholders (handel, 2003). data collection and methodology soft skills terminology there is a diverse range of definitions of ‘soft’ or ‘non-academic’ skills in the scholarly literature. for the purposes of this paper, we have synthesised those definitions to create a useable baseline measurement. the international employer barometer (ieb) study for the council of industry and higher education has discovered that the majority of employers perceive social skills and personality type as more important than the degree qualification of potential employees, with only 60% rating ‘good degree qualification’ as ‘important’ (gallup organsiation, 2010). according to the survey findings, the labour market seeks ‘soft’ skills such as communication and team working in new graduates among the most critical capacities (archer & davison, 2008). the ieb findings are especially noteworthy considering the findings of the institute of directors (iod) in 2007 delineating the ‘top ten’ skills and qualities iod members rated as ‘must haves’ for graduates: honesty and integrity; basic literacy skills; basic oral communication skills; reliability; being hardworking and having a good work ethic; numeracy skills; a positive, ‘can do’ attitude; punctuality; the ability to meet deadlines; and team-working and co-operation skills. moreover, a 15 year long research study by economists in oecd countries has validated the importance of personality traits—such as conscientiousness, persistence, work motivation, extraversion, emotional resilience, ability to work with others, and willingness to bear risk—in determining labour market and other educational outcomes over an individual’s lifetime (pierre et al., 2014). these skills, often defined in the literature as ‘transferable’ or ‘soft’ skills, have been given various definitions in ranging from analytical and critical thinking, problem-solving abilities, interpersonal skills, teamwork, leadership skills, recognition of lifelong learning (jonbekova, 2015), communication skills, self management skills, planning, organisational skills, and enterprise and initiative skills (el-annan, 2012). some scholars define employability skills as skills which are necessary to gain employment and progress in a workplace (yorke, 2004, as cited by cai, 2013). on the other hand, del carpio et al., referring to borghans and colleagues (2008), divide cognitive skills into basic academic capacities (such as literacy) and more complex skills (such as critical thinking and problem-solving) (del carpio et al., 2017). brown and scase bring out the role of innovation, experimentation and creativity skills sought out by employers in the recruitment of graduates. some literature even includes courtesy and friendliness, caring and empathy, loyalty and integrity as critical soft skills (pierre et al., 2014; schomburg & teichler, 2006). amirova, g., & valiyev, a. (2021). do university graduate competences match post-socialist labour market demands? evidence from azerbaijan. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(2), 332–347. 338 for the purpose of this paper, 24 ‘transferable’ soft skills and competences critical for improved graduate employability have been synthesised from the literature (see table 2 below) and the top 5 are as ranked by employers and graduates. table 2: shortlisted ‘transferrable’ skills surveyed 1. basic knowledge of profession 14. initiative and entrepreneurial skills 2. oral communication in native language 15. analytical skills 3. writing in native language 16. applying theoretical knowledge in practice 4. knowledge of second language 17. research 5. ms office skills 18. information management (searching and locating information from various sources) 6. planning and time management 19. self-evaluation\self-analysis 7. creativity 20. ability to work in a multinational and diverse team 8. problem-solving 21. innovation 9. decision-making 22. self-confidence 10. teamwork 23. computer\it skills 11. adaptability (flexibility, resilience) 24. interpersonal skills 12. leadership 13. ability to work autonomously the list of skills in table 2 is compiled based on several criteria. the first was to attempt to equally include the soft and hard skills into the list of competences covering a wide range of abilities. next was the inclusion of those skills and competences identified in the world economic forum’s report, the future of jobs (world economic forum, 2016). finally, the list had to include the competences and skills that are required in the country to become a successful employee of a company. the list also includes information from a content analysis of local websites designed to help students find a job. analysis of these websites made it possible to narrow down the skills and competences required by employers. surveys this study primarily employed data from a survey conducted between october 15th, 2018 and may 15th, 2019. the survey was conducted during a 7-month period in four different time frames. the reason for such a long survey period was to catch the responses of students at various points in their studies. samples of students in six major universities were chosen (ada university, the university of economics, the university of languages, azerbaijan pedagogical university, azerbaijan technical university and baku state university) representing a large portion of the student population in azerbaijan. the universities were selected based on their student population, quality of education (ranking) as well as specialisations taught at these institutions. research participants were representatives of social sciences (education, philology), finance\economics and technical areas amirova, g., & valiyev, a. (2021). do university graduate competences match post-socialist labour market demands? evidence from azerbaijan. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(2), 332–347. 339 (engineering, it) to provide a broader coverage and more diverse representation. the study included 2515 students.1 self-administered surveys were conducted among students in their third and fourth years, as they seemed better placed to answer the questions having several years of student-life experience behind them and a relatively clear idea and plan for the future. the survey used non-probability sampling, namely purposive sampling. the researchers chose the groups and sections that had classes during the survey days from specific department and schools. this specific type of sampling was selected in order to reach the target sample quickly and without having to consider proportional sampling. with this type of sampling the researchers were able to get the opinions of the target population conveniently, but it is likely that this led, as in comparable studies, to researchers over representing those subgroups in the population that were more readily accessible. the process of respondent selection used a standard methodological approach employed elsewhere. the surveying process followed the standard procedure used in the country: interviewers were introduced to the class; the purposes of the survey were explained in detail during the next 3-5 minutes and the survey was distributed. it was conducted anonymously without students indicating their names. as such no ethics approval was necessary. student questionnaires consisted of two parts. the first part asked students to rank a given list of soft skills based on how they saw their role\importance for employability. the second part of the survey asked students to rank the same set of soft skills from their perceived level of teaching of these skills at their respective universities. the questionnaires used by the researchers contained items covering different aspects of the students’ education background, their perception, knowledge and competences, as well as students’ assumptions about, needs for, and visions of, their future employment. the average expected margin of error varied between departments (technical vs nontechnical), but none was greater than 5%. within a 35-day period researchers conducted selfadministered surveys in the groups and covered around 2,500 students. the surveys were distributed in azerbaijani. the researchers and assistants of the survey process were able to control the absence of interactions between survey participants to eliminate any problems. to measure the level of certain non-technical skills imparted in certain institutions, respondents were asked to rank a set of skills based on the level taught at the hei they study(ied) on a 5-point scale, where 5 means ‘taught at a high level’, and 1 means ‘not taught at all’. all respondent categories were also asked to choose a shortlist of the most important skills (from the same set) that would (have) help(ed) them in finding jobs. interviews beyond the surveys, the researchers conducted semi-structured, qualitative\individual interviews with experts ranging from university administrators to representatives of different employment sectors and professional recruiters\headhunters. interviewees were asked to provide general information about: a) their companies\institutions, and b) their history of recruiting recent graduates and their experience in evaluating the soft skills of graduate employees. the selection of employers was based upon those with experience of graduate recruitment, so that they would be able to comment on labour market expectations of recent graduates in terms of non-technical skills, and be well-placed to identify any skills mismatch or gap. the purpose of the interviews was to identify the level of graduate the population and its match or mismatch with the employment sector’s expectations. interview questions served the purpose of identifying the need for skills emanating from the labour market, and the preference of employers for particular soft skills and non-technical traits. interviewers used the same skills set and definition as those used in student surveys. one main limitation of this study was the geographical constraint. researchers mostly focused on the azerbaijani sections of densely populated universities located in baku and were 1 social sciences – baku state university, azerbaijan pedagogical universit, azerbaijan university of languages; finance business – university of economics, ada university; technical azerbaijan technical university, ada university. amirova, g., & valiyev, a. (2021). do university graduate competences match post-socialist labour market demands? evidence from azerbaijan. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(2), 332–347. 340 forced to leave out regional heis. this was partly due to the method of data collection. the researchers used mostly non-random probability sampling among the students of the main universities of azerbaijan. however, all of these universities are located in baku and regional universities were not covered. moreover, many small and medium scale universities were not covered due to limited time and resources. another limitation could be the failure to separate respondents from each other and limit interactions with them. moreover, despite the fact that the surveys were anonymous, the impact of factors such as administrative influence (surveys were conducted during the class) could not be ruled out. however, these factors are unlikely to have undermined the reliability of the data substantially and it remains reasonable to generalise the results to the general student population. the interviews were conducted during the times of the surveys since the questionnaires were collected from students within 7-8 months period. the mixed methods approach of using surveys and interviews was supplemented by observations while working in the institutions. analysis and discussion as seen in table 3, the gender distribution of respondents varied depending on specialisation (e.g. more female students in pedagogy, and more male students in technical and financial areas). of the total respondent population, 37% were men and 63% women. in addition, 56.9% were in year 3 and the remaining 43.1% were year 4 students. such distribution is common in the country since certain specialisations are traditionally dominated by either females or males respectively. thus, the pedagogy, languages and medical schools are usually chosen by females, while economics and technical subjects are dominated by males. such gender distribution negatively affects the employability of graduates since certain areas could be understaffed by gender, while another is overpopulated. such a situation was prevalent in soviet times and continued even after the collapse of that system. it is worth mentioning that certain professional stereotypes about females and males are prevalent in society e.g. the profession of engineer is often considered inappropriate for females, while males are not encouraged to choose the professions of linguist, librarian, translator or teacher. table 3: summary of respondent demographics name of university by gender study year male female total year 3 year 4 total baku state university 12.4% 87.6% 100% 1.3% 98.7% 100% ada university 45.6% 54.4% 100% 38.0% 62.0% 100% azerbaijan technical university 80,0% 20.0% 100% 56.1% 43.9% 100% university of economics 63.4% 36.6% 100% 62.4% 37.6% 100% azerbaijan university of languages 4.8% 95.2% 100% 49.5% 50.5% 100% azerbaijan pedagogical university 10.3% 89.7% 100% 87.5% 12.5% 100% skills students participating in the surveys seemed willing to indicate the number and level of skills and competences that they had received in university, as well as their perception of what they need to get jobs in the market. the results, shown in table 4, below indicate that a significant majority of students emphasised the importance of foreign language (72%) and computer skills (52%). the amirova, g., & valiyev, a. (2021). do university graduate competences match post-socialist labour market demands? evidence from azerbaijan. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(2), 332–347. 341 distribution of answers shows that, on average, almost half of respondents have a high appreciation of social skills such as ‘interpersonal skills’ (almost 30%) and ‘self-confidence’ (almost 40%). these values differ slightly between universities and genders. nevertheless, a notable contrast can be observed in the answers of respondents with regards to the importance of certain skills (as perceived by students themselves) for their employability prospects and the extent to which those skills are imparted at their universities. table 4: importance of employability skills as perceived by respondents skill name response percentage foreign language 72.1 % knowledge of profession 67,1 % computer literacy 52,3% self-confidence 38,6% spoken native language proficiency 33,4 % interpersonal skills 26,6% figure 1: students’ perception of soft skills: taught vs needed figure 1 is based on responses by the surveyed students to two main questions: 1. what is the level of teaching of the set of skills at your university? and 2. how important are specific soft skills for your future employability opportunities? the level of importance given by students to certain shortlisted skills (likert scale) is demonstrated on the grey bar, while the perception of the level of teaching of the same skills they receive in their respective higher education institutions is depicted on the blue bar. overall they assessed the entire set of 20+ skills, and the graph demonstrates those skills where there was the greatest difference between importance of\need for the skill and the level at which it is taught at the university. the numbers on the vertical axis show the number of students who responded to this question. for example, for computer skills 1400 students indicated it as highly important for employability but practiced on a weak level at their universities. the same was true of interpersonal skills. amirova, g., & valiyev, a. (2021). do university graduate competences match post-socialist labour market demands? evidence from azerbaijan. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(2), 332–347. 342 an obvious discrepancy is easily visible between the importance given by students to certain skills (‘needed skills’) and the level at which those skills are currently practiced at students’ respective heis. special attention should be paid to such critical cognitive and socio-emotional skills as selfconfidence, problem-solving, application of theory in practice, decision-making and self-analysis. in addition, tangible yet non-technical skills such as computer skills (researchers assumed these referred to basic office programs e.g. outlook), internet (data search, collection and processing), and innovation also show the highest discrepancies. the lack of the aforementioned skills in fresh graduates was also verified by interviewees and identified as one of the significant causes of unemployment of inexperienced students. furthermore, figure 2 below is a visual representation of the third part of the survey, where students were asked to shortlist the five top skills they believe have the biggest impact on their employment opportunities. the answers showed that according to the majority of students’ perceptions, knowledge of a second language (mostly english) and professional knowledge would help them to find jobs more quickly and move through organisational structures more smoothly. in addition, transferrable skills such as self-confidence, computer skills, interpersonal skills and creativity were also noted by all respondents, which is another argument corroborating the findings of the first and second parts of the research. figure 2. list of skills stated by students meanwhile, it is obvious from the analysis of answers that the overwhelming majority of respondents realised the importance of soft skills in their future careers and professional life and have a clear insight into when such skills are not being imparted adequately in their respective heis. some students, in their comments, added other soft skills that they believed would increase their opportunities for successful employment such as stress\pressure management, planning, selfconfidence, time management, and task prioritisation. another significant category evaluated by respondents as important for employability was creativity and teamwork with 19% and 18%, respectively. 17 % of students also responded with innovativeness\innovation. it is notable that in addition to the first sections of the survey in the open-ended part (‘comments’) a majority of students indicated that knowledge of various foreign languages (english and other) was important in selecting fresh graduates for starting positions at various companies. recognition of the role of foreign language knowledge is natural, considering the growing number of international companies operating in the country. overall the results of the survey depict a positive indication that students are knowledgeable about the expectations of the labour market in terms of the demand for soft skills in entry-level positions. they are also aware of gaps in the quality and level of soft skill teaching in their respective hei. amirova, g., & valiyev, a. (2021). do university graduate competences match post-socialist labour market demands? evidence from azerbaijan. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(2), 332–347. 343 labour market the majority of interviewees claimed that the skill levels of university graduates do not correspond to the current demands of their company\institution. they are forced to put their new recruits through a training and orientation process prior to full-time employment. combined with limited opportunities for practical experience within the framework of university education (sadirkhanov, 2009), a lack of soft skill projects, trainings and activities in higher education further exacerbates the chance of finding a job. sometimes, they (graduates) are lacking even basic interview skills, which causes them to fail the recruitment process at the very early stages (despite how knowledgeable they are) (interviewee n1). all respondents representing the labour market noted that although there is a constant and acute need for graduate employees it is difficult most of the time to allocate a suitable candidate with the necessary level of professional knowledge and personality from hundreds of possible candidates. the interviewees believed that a strong university education is highly important for effective employment, and recognised from experience in practice the drawbacks related to a lack of soft skills in making the transition period smoother. sometimes we meet a graduate with very high gpa or excellent knowledge of the profession. however, the same candidate may suffer through the job adaptation period due to a lack of communication, time management and teamwork skills (interviewee n2). that picture coincides with reports from other countries too. a number of other reports of individual employers (e.g. mincer, 1991) showed that employers were facing challenges in finding employees who had the required skills set despite the universities’ major role being to build marketable skills in graduates. studies reported that recruiters faced problems filling vacancies with the right people (cappelli, 2015). among the valued skills, communication skills, the ability to question facts and analytical and problem solving skills were highest in the ranking. the inability to find the right candidates for vacancies is called a skill gap (cappelli, 2015, p.252). cappelli (2015) introduced this term to emphasise the role of education in enhancing students’ employability skills prior to employment, regardless of the further development of employees that would take place internally in a workplace. moreover, another economic term introduced by cappelli, namely skills shortage (2015, p. 252), denotes a job-related skill deficiency in graduates. these skills are those that differ from organisation to organisation and refer to a lack of relevant field-related knowledge and skills by graduates. as in previous studies, the skills most appreciated in our survey were soft skills (communication), thinking skills (analysis, critical thinking, problem solving), the ability of candidates to offer innovative approaches to work (cappelli, 2015), and finally discovery-based skills, such as critical thinking and reasoning among others (susman, 2015). a lack of these skills in candidates is called skill problems (cappelli, 2015, p. 253), which may lead to job mismatches. employers identify mismatches as the primary source of business inefficiency and the cause of productivity scarcity. representatives of the government institutions in azerbaijan also believe in the importance of imparting certain soft skills and competences as part of university education. they emphasised that such skills play a critical role not only in finding jobs but also for a successful transition into work and for professional growth. the objective of the entire education system, in particular of higher education in azerbaijan is to produce competent and skilled professionals who are able to work in a multicultural, diverse and dynamic environment, locally and globally (interviewee n3). another point emphasised by employees was the ‘ability to think outside of the box’ which also can significantly facilitate the successful employment and career growth of fresh graduates. as mentioned by one of interviewees, the employers expect certain personality traits and qualities from graduates, thinking that if a graduate has completed a university degree, it means they know amirova, g., & valiyev, a. (2021). do university graduate competences match post-socialist labour market demands? evidence from azerbaijan. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(2), 332–347. 344 how to acquire and apply knowledge. however, the same interviewees mentioned a lack of such acumen in the students they interview and subsequently employ. finally, all of the interviewees confirmed that such soft skills as interpersonal skills, time management, teamwork, foreign language and computer skills etc. often have an even stronger impact on the final decision of employers than the mere possession of a university diploma. a 2017 report by the american chamber of commerce in azerbaijan (amcham) with the support of the ministry of education (including a recruitment survey among companies and enterprises operating mainly in banking and the oil\gas sectors as the country’s most developed sectors) indicates that the vast majority (almost 70 %) of respondents found it challenging to find suitable candidates for graduate recruitment. in particular, graduates from public universities, lacked nontechnical skills as communication skills (58 %), teamwork skills (42 %), presentation skills and others. a commonly held view was that students lacking the aforementioned skills fall behind their peers. another challenge discovered during interactions with heis in this study was facilitating students’ understanding of the importance of such soft skills. it is noteworthy that currently azerbaijan is not participating in this international survey. the mismatch between education and employability remains one of the most serious challenges for countries like azerbaijan. a recent program adopted by the government stated that the number of youths not in education, employment and training (neet) is around 23% (valiyev, 2019). in keeping with the sustainable development goals (sdg) the government plans to reduce it to 15%. in order to get to this goal there are many challenges for the government. the quality of education remains a problem in many state universities. teaching methods and textbooks do not meet modern standards. faculty and students believe that there is not enough modern academic literature in azerbaijani, which creates problems for students who only speak the native language. among major issues facing education is the mismatch between specialisations at universities and labour market demands. despite attempts to modernise and diversify the education system, the field still remains highly state-controlled even to the extent that the exact number of places at each higher education institutions, i.e. the student quotas, is approved by the cabinet of ministers of the republic of azerbaijan on an annual basis. the process of identifying this list and forecasting for each specialisation (if there is any) is opaque. industry is completely disengaged from this process. interviewed recruiters noted that, as a result of this mismatch, there is ‘an army of teachers and economists’ with no job prospects ahead of them, negatively affecting the progress on sdg 8. a recent survey conducted by a youth agency shows that 60% of 8,921 surveyed youths work in areas that are not relevant to their university degree (nayora, 2018). moreover, as a result of centralisation, universities fail to produce specialists required by the market. the recent imf article iv consultation statement also echoed this problem noting that continued skill mismatches emphasise how critical it has become to prioritise and optimise public spending on education (imf, 2019). the lack of skills is also exacerbated by the fact that out of a workforce of 4.8 million, around 2.8 million – or 60% – have only a secondary education, which does not provide the necessary skills to master many kinds of job. moreover, around 355,000 people or 8% have only a basic education. meanwhile, the proportion of people with a vocational education is around 5.3%. people with secondary specialised education make up around 15%. people with a higher education total 769,900, making up around 16.5%. the biggest problem here is that around 1.4 million people with secondary or basic education are young people aged 15–34 years. this indicates that in a decade or so a large proportion of the population will be without real skills or competences. the number of people with a vocational education is very low. lifelong learning will thus play a significant role in overcoming this problem. one of the reasons behind the lack of skills among graduates is the low quality of education in azerbaijan, which does not equip graduates with the required skills. it is unclear whether universities in azerbaijan consider such questions as ‘what kind of specialists are needed in the labour market?’ or ‘is there a need for syllabus adjustment in higher education institutions to produce competitive graduates?’ if these questions are not being considered, then they clearly should be. in terms of why the quality of education remains low, there could be several explanations. most of the investments and expenses in education are directed toward material amirova, g., & valiyev, a. (2021). do university graduate competences match post-socialist labour market demands? evidence from azerbaijan. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(2), 332–347. 345 goods, such as the construction of new schools and equipment. however, this equipment does not enhance the quality of education. there are many anecdotal examples of new computers with high speed internet being purchased for schools, only for pupils to be forbidden from using these resources. low salaries for teachers and faculties make them disinterested in the quality of education. the deterioration of the education system at university level also affects schools. graduates of universities that train teachers use outdated resources and materials. in addition, after graduating from university, future teachers trained in baku prefer to stay in baku and teach there rather than go to the regions. widespread corruption leads to a situation in which these future teachers need to pay ‘fees’ in order to be assigned to baku schools. thus, teachers are assigned to schools based on their ability to pay the ‘fee’, not for their qualifications. many qualified graduates remain unemployed or switch to other jobs. problems with the low quality of education and mismatches in the labour market have caused various ministries to establish their own universities for educating future employees. thus, the ministry of emergencies, tourism, border service, national security, customs, state oil company, ministry of foreign affairs, ministry of internal affairs, have opened their own academies and universities. the skills received at these institutions allow graduates to get jobs in the respective ministries. however, the highly narrowed specialisation of the graduates does not allow students to change their profile or place of work and decreases workforce mobility. conclusion according to the 2013 state strategy on education development (repubic of azerbaijan, 2013), the role of education is not only limited to imparting the necessary skills and competences required by the economy, but also includes preparing future citizens capable of successfully integrating into life and society and supporting life-long learning. the strategy clearly notes the need to closely align educational curricula with the socio-economic development priorities of the state, to identify and integrate into education those skills and competences which best serve the purposes of the economic development of the country. yet recent global events related to the covid 19 pandemic as well as a continued slump in oil prices in world markets, affected many countries of central eurasia. many of them had already begun to experience signs of recession as early as 2020. however, the pandemic forced quarantine and economic downturn has sent many of these countries into a potentially long-term economic and social crisis. azerbaijan has not only been hit by reduced economic activity and the implications of quarantine and lockdown, but has also suffered from volatility in the oil market. the economy of the country depends heavily on oil and gas resources and record drops in prices have left the government in an extremely difficult situation. since the 2015 economic crisis the government has initiated certain reforms but these have not been enough to cope with the current crisis. this is the deepest and most severe crisis that the country has experienced since 1993 and is likely to be felt, more than anywhere else, in the labour market. the crisis will force many small businesses to shut down. against a backdrop of funding cuts, the government will also be likely to stop hiring recent graduates and may even lay off many governmental employees. this will also have implications for the education sector. in post-covid azerbaijan traditional areas of employment will suffer hardship while new types of jobs requiring different skills and competences will emerge. universities will face an increase in drop-outs due to the economic crisis and the limited resources of the population to invest in education. moreover, universities will be challenged by the need to introduce a new set of skills and competences and to change their curricula (elder et.al, 2015). higher education institutions will continue to lose their advantage to independent online platforms such as coursera and others that offer more skill-based courses than are available in the universities. in the end the market will also react with dramatic changes in requirements. at some point employers may stop hiring based on bachelors or masters diplomas and may require more internationally recognised certificates in project management, accounting, financial management, engineering etc. moreover, humanities and social sciences will be hit hard since the demand for these disciplines has been driven mostly by a government sector that will suspend further hiring. in these conditions azerbaijani universities will amirova, g., & valiyev, a. 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(2018). school-to-work transition of higher education graduates in four european countries. compare: a journal of comparative and international education, 50(1), 36–52. https://www.routledge.com/personal-academic-and-career-development-in-higher-education-soaring/kumar/p/book/9780415423601 https://www.routledge.com/personal-academic-and-career-development-in-higher-education-soaring/kumar/p/book/9780415423601 https://president.az/articles/9779 https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/ny.gdp.pcap.pp.cd?locations=az https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/18793665211046066 ramnund-mansingh, a., & reddy, n. (2021). south african specific complexities in aligning graduate attributes to employability. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(2), 206-221. 206 the journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability issn: 1838-3815 (online) journal homepage: https://ojs.deakin.edu.au/index.php/jtlge/ south african specific complexities in aligning graduate attributes to employability aradhana ramnund-mansingh1 and nikita reddy1 corresponding author: aradhana ramnund-mansingh (aradhana.mansingh@mancosa.co.za) 1mancosa honoris united universities, south africa abstract south african higher education (he) cannot be compared to any other country’s he systems due to the unique political landscape and structural narrative that it has undergone. subsequent to the reorganisation of heis in 2004, a number of complexities arose. these included accessibility to education across race and the alignment of the south african heis to global pedagogic benchmarks. with the changing political landscape, transformations within higher education, socio economic inequities and changes in the workplace, researchers failed to cognize the impact of these factors on graduate employability. changing graduate attributes to align with a decolonised curriculum and fourth industrial revolution (4ir) workspaces were transiently underway when covid-19 set a new narrative for the future of employability. this paper seeks to identify the impact of workplace changes and its direct influence on successful graduate employment and integration into the he curriculum. the work environment has cursorily moved from 4ir to an advanced stage of the 4ir, where there is a full emphasis on digitisation, non-localised workspaces and is an ostensible playground for digital natives (generation z). this paper provides a systematic review of literature in the south african he contexts that pertains to graduate attributes for employability within the workplace. the adoption of malleable secondary data will allow for an understanding of the relationship between changing workplace environments and expectations from graduates. this correlation is directly linked to graduate attributes which students need to comply with from year one. the paper will provide context to changes which are required for the future success of graduates, and whether graduate attributes are adequate preparation for employability. a clinical model is recommended with an intervention to manage the risk factors of decolonisation of curriculum, the 4ir and multi-generational workplace and responses to covid-19. keywords: higher education, employability, 4ir, graduate attributes, decolonisation, covid-19 introduction the south african ‘landscape’ is unique as attempts are made to rectify socio-economic inequities resultant from the historical separatist apartheid legislation. these historic inequities have had an impact on both the rising unemployment rates and the significantly high enrolment rate in higher education institutions (heis). although unsettled by the covid-19 pandemic since march 2020, the south african he sector has been in a state of turmoil since 2004. the year 2004 was a momentous year that marked the re-organisation of he structures to make way for a system that is mutually https://ojs.deakin.edu.au/index.php/jtlge/ mailto:aradhana.mansingh@mancosa.co.za ramnund-mansingh, a., & reddy, n. (2021). south african specific complexities in aligning graduate attributes to employability. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(2), 206-221. 207 inclusive to all races in a previously divided country. however, this structural re-organisation was met with challenges of institutional cultures, corporatised structures which eroded the tenets of academic freedom, a colonialised curriculum and an intention to benchmark against global heis (ramnund, 2019; bentley, habib, & morrow, 2006; bitzer, 2009). amidst the institutional challenges, students suffered their own obstacles including the lack of finances to attend university, language barriers, and infrastructure obstacles exacerbated by geographic location and unaffordability to secure much needed resources. this became glaringly evident during the covid-19 pandemic, when students were rendered vulnerable and had to return to their homes during the hard lockdown of level 5 in march 2020. students who would rely on resources such as printing, computers, library and wi-fi at the he campuses were left incapacitated. numerous students live in geographic areas which had no data connectivity or infrastructure. students could not afford expensive data bundles for online classes when the priority was for their families to survive amidst poverty and job loss (maluleke, 2019; seedat-khan & ramnund-mansingh, 2021; sahu, 2020). current and prospective students began losing their motivation to obtain a tertiary qualification, being disillusioned at the alarmingly high unemployment rate, which is currently intensified by the covid-19 pandemic. the general household survey (2019) indicated a school dropout rate of 230 000 which has now trebled within covid-19 to approximately 730 000 (macupe, 2021). employability in itself is expansive in that workplaces are rapidly transforming to align with 4ir trends. organisations are utilising advanced technological applications for their processes of recruitment and selection. heis need to consider priming students for a competitive south african job market as well as making them employable globally. taking these research gaps into consideration, this paper explores the current he curriculum and graduate attributes in alignment with the current workplace. deliberations in this discussion will respond to the historic inequities related to he in south africa, and current endeavours to decolonise the curriculum. these reflections are paralleled against the transforming workplace which has been affected by 4ir trends and a multi-generational workforce. research questions that will be explored in order to address the purpose of the paper include understanding concepts of employability and graduate attributes, recognising the impact of decolonising of the curriculum and its relationship to employability, identifying workplace transformation resulting from 4ir trends and the expectations of graduates in a technological advanced 4ir and multi-generational workspace. these will be explored in a south african specific context. literature review employability defined there is contention and variability with regard to definitions of employability, as it lacks a universally accepted definition. scholars of diverse disciplines conceptualise varied definitions, and criticism for a precise and unambiguous definition is called for. for purposes of this paper, a detailed description by mohee and putty-rogbeer (2020) is utilised, employability is not a static characteristic pertaining to an individual but rather a dynamic variable linked to the enhancement of skills, aptitude and knowledge within heis and as required by the labour market and society in general. drawing from the lifelong learning paradigm, employability is concerned with developing the ability in individuals for continuous learning within formal, informal or non-formal contexts. in this line, online and distance learning providers are considered as very influential in providing the necessary wherewithal for lifelong employability (p.1). he focuses on employability as a collective in understanding the supply, demand and conditions of the labour market. li and sun (2019), suggest that employability can be individualistic, and ramnund-mansingh, a., & reddy, n. (2021). south african specific complexities in aligning graduate attributes to employability. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(2), 206-221. 208 dependant on different global regions. employability is referred to as career exploration or prediction and perception of individuals' external environment and job changes (li & sun, 2019, p. 2). moreover, employability plays a significant role in the attributes of graduates in order to function effectively and be successful in a career (onyeike & onyeagbako, 2014). graduate attributes function beyond employability and have relevance to every aspect of the student’s experience at a hei which include linkages such as curriculum renewal, work related learning and personal development planning (mccabe, 2010). employability can be considered as a two-pronged approach as it deals with the structural approach offered by heis and a more individualistic approach of the perceived knowledge and skills required for the workplace. a chronological analysis of research by yorke and knight (2006), dacre pool and sewell (2007), bridgstock (2009) and hinchliffe and jolly (2011) indicates the evolution of employability dimensions for heis. consistently similar with four dimensions, dacre pool and sewell (2007), add on a fifth dimension of emotional intelligence. drawing from these dimensions, römgens, scoupe and beausaert (2020) developed a comprehensive structure of employability dimensions for heis. this includes components of application of disciplinary knowledge, transferable generic skills, emotional regulation, career development skills, self-management and self-efficacy. this all-inclusive design is effective for the current employability platform, taking into consideration that economies and industries are in a constant state of flux. mohee and putty-rogbeer (2020) have expanded this and identified seven transferable skills including creative problem-solving skills, teamwork, communication skills, soft skills, promotion of entrepreneurship, integrated career guidance and counselling and internationalisation. as an extension of their framework, mohee and putty-rogbeer (2020) consider similar skills to that of römgens et al. (2020). gupta and garg (2020) maintain that heis need to produce employable graduates by intellectual creativity development which is required for effective problem solving, independent thinking, conflict resolution through negotiation skills and other 21st century skills (p.4). the heis responsibility in the development of student attributes is a constant thread throughout their strategic plan which includes learning, teaching and research. these attributes applied to different contexts shape students into graduates. employability is not an outcome, but rather a process to be aligned with projects such as work integrated learning. bennett et al. (2017) advocate for a pedagogical shift towards processual approaches in which responsibility for employability development is shared by academic and professional staff, students, and leadership (p. 59). this process and objectives of employability relies extensively on the alignment and partnership of key stakeholders including government and industry (smith, bell, bennett, & mcalpine, 2017). graduate attributes graduate attributes play a synergistic role in employability and prepare students for employment. the graduate attributes promoted by each university are often different due to the competitiveness of the higher education sector and the importance for universities to be different or distinctive from each other to attract students and build their brand (wong, chiu, copsey-blake, & nikolopoulou, 2021, p.2). some of the common graduate attribute examples include creative and critical thinking; problem solving, teamwork and communication skill; professionalism and leadership readiness; and intercultural and ethical competency. reports from industries in australia and the united kingdom confirm that while universities excel in imparting content related knowledge, the graduates lack practical business related skills such as communication (jackson, 2012). employers sought and prioritised graduates who possess practical competencies and 21st century skills such as problem solving and communication, with little to no mention of cultural understandings and attitudes towards inclusion and diversity (oraison, konjarski, & howe, 2019, p. 189). the expansion of businesses globally, multi-generational workspaces, attributes such as inclusivity and diversity should be a fundamental part of graduate attributes for employability. ramnund-mansingh, a., & reddy, n. (2021). south african specific complexities in aligning graduate attributes to employability. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(2), 206-221. 209 studies (gill, 2018; ruge, tokede, & tivendale, 2019) have found a high correlation between successful graduate attributes and collaborative consultations with professional bodies. engagement with industry and professional bodies cement the design of consistent graduate attributes. whilst curricula and graduate attributes are often developed with industry involvement that endeavours to address the gap between academic goals and industry needs (gill, 2018), research findings suggest that these gaps continue to exist. there is an intense focus on graduate attributes at australian heis, where the outcome for graduates is to develop them to a stage of being professionally ready (ruge et al., 2019). this definition is underpinned by reviewing the curriculum and amalgamating it with personal and professional attributes. amidst all the research, due to the structural variables in south africa, the recommended approach by scott, mclean, and golding (2019) would auger well as they recommend peer mentoring for the successful attainment of gradate attributes. transforming employability through the higher education lens competition in the labour market in south africa is excessive due to the lack of jobs for skilled graduates. the unemployment crisis is currently a global one with the covid-19 pandemic. the unpredictable economies have resulted in companies shrinking their workforce. according to zakaria, yussof, ibrahim and tibok (2020), the expansion and supply of global he delivery as well as global economy has influenced on the hiring needs of the employer. the employer’s decisions to hire graduates are based on the quality and abilities that the graduate possesses in addition to the tacit knowledge and skills. however, both heis and students have become more aware and acknowledge the change in the employment patterns, and are determined to work towards incorporating employable attributes in the relevant qualification programmes (zakaria et al., 2020). zakaria et al. (2020) posit that there are claims from various stakeholders, mainly employers who describe graduates from universities as individuals who do not completely acquire the relevant employable attributes that are deemed essential in the workplace. heis conceptualise skills and qualities of graduates differently. there is common terminology used such as transferable skills, key skills, soft skills, generic attributes, employability skills, competency, core skills and understanding tacit knowledge. the idea and concept of graduate employability embrace a thorough but allinclusive view on the required quality of a graduate in a community (zakaria et al., 2020). there are two main aspects to consider for employability such as discipline-specific skills and transferrable skills. according to wickramasinghe and perera (2010) subject skills are key aspects of the graduate’s career in terms of providing knowledge and skill. they also note that transferable skills are the competencies which the graduate can apply in various job structures and professions throughout their career (zakaria et al., 2020). research (wickramasinghe & perera, 2010; zakaria et al., 2020; wimalasiri, 2015) validates that in a demanding and competitive labour market, students are made aware of the reality and that the role of their chosen academic qualification is influential in their employment outcomes. this has been acknowledged as a value added to acquire employability attributes in order to gain a competitive advantage in the industry. students now realise the importance of these attributes which are developed through the university curriculum, as well as qualities of personal growth. a study by morrison (2014) confirms the views of lecturers’ that the expectation from employers from heis is to provide graduates with specific employability and leadership skills. these attributes are critical thinking, ability to articulate and self-confidence. additionally, the most common attributes graduates leave the university with are communication skills, information management, leadership, teamwork and ethics. wimalasiri (2015) asserts that specific roles in the workplace requires a blend of various transferable skills, self-management, business acumen, literacy and numeracy skills. ahmadi and helms (1997) rationalise that graduates have a tendency to start their working life in larger companies as the jobs offered are not only attractive but also capable of uplifting a person’s social status. studies by lau ramnund-mansingh, a., & reddy, n. (2021). south african specific complexities in aligning graduate attributes to employability. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(2), 206-221. 210 and pang (1995) on undergraduate perceptions in a university in hong kong highlighted five attributes that influenced their decisions on careers. these attributes are opportunity for professional development, promotions, attractive salary, matched career development plan and excellent training. according to student perspectives on employers’ selection criteria, they indicate computing skills, the ability to work in teams, fluency in english and graduates’ personality type are some of the most common employability skills. alumni, industry and professional associations play an important role in boosting the employability of graduates. however, there is very little interaction among heis with alumni and industry. there is a constant need for collaboration between these parties to ensure curriculum is developed in a way that it can serve both the need of employer/industry partner and the need of the student in order to transform and acquire the adequate graduate attributes suitable for employment. there are opportunities for graduate recruitment programmes and virtual internships which are available for graduates who have access to platforms which advertise these. very few organisations partner with heis regarding these opportunities. these collaborations have been further distressed by covid-19 which has rapidly forced educational institutions to move towards an online mode of delivery due to social distancing and the lock down protocols (ali, 2020). buckenmeyer (2010) iterates that computer technology provides the opportunities that were not available prior to the third industrial revolution, to enhance teaching and learning through simulations of complicated and time consuming scenarios. the current challenges for he sector is on how to produce graduates as forward thinkers with creative ideas and relevant skills to operate in a digital space whilst still contributing to the organisations productivity. according to oke and fernandes (2020), the debate needs to realign from computer technology and focus on the transformation of the teaching and learning process inclusive of digitalisation by embracing 4ir. this shift will benefit the educational sector from the technology revolution and provide opportunity to address the predicament regarding the roles and effectiveness of digital technology in teaching and learning (oke & fernandes, 2020). employability within a 4ir context penprase (2018) advances that as a result of the previous industrial revolutions, industrialisation has been firmly entrenched within the global economy. the third industrial revolution introduced machinery in the form of computers. this revolutionised work and communication, by channelling information expediently. 4ir underpinned by the use of digital technology goes beyond computers and e-materials. this is therefore compatible with a learner centred approach for the effective enhancement of student’s experience in the learning journey. according to oke and fernandes (2020), 4ir, which is perceived as a fusion of many technologies and perceived to blur the boundaries between the physical, digital, and biological spheres, is now attracting increasing attention from policymakers, business practitioners, and academics (p .31). technology innovations, including the application of smart devices with various uses including social media may reduce face to face social interaction substantially. this could affect the acquisition of relevant required skills with the limitation of developing soft skills such as emotional intelligence, interpersonal skills and communication amongst youth (oke & fernandes, 2020). while many global entities including business and heis have embraced many facets of the digital evolution component of 4ir, countries in the global south including south africa lag severely behind. this is due to a number of factors. although heis in south africa transformed in accordance to the he act 101 of 1997, curriculum used during the apartheid structures were still in use post transformation (bitzer, 2009). noting the global need to digitally transform, the council for higher education in south africa undertook firm decisions to prioritise the requirements. it served no purpose to digitise a colonialized curriculum with the inclusive and transformed heis. thus, decolonisation of the curriculum took precedence over digitisation. additionally, south africa like other countries in the global south continue to grapple with infrastructure for digital technology, ramnund-mansingh, a., & reddy, n. (2021). south african specific complexities in aligning graduate attributes to employability. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(2), 206-221. 211 especially within rural geographic areas, which are generously populated (seedat-khan & ramnundmansingh, 2021). mohd abas, yahaya and din (2019) suggest that the advancement in technology such as artificial intelligence (ai), robotics, and biotechnology will cause disruption to business models and labour markets over the next five years. the highly dynamic and competitive working environment of the twenty-first century demands a more innovative and flexible approach. an important distinction in current workplace practices is the reliance on applied technology and digital communities. digital technology provides people with the benefit of interaction and communication with family and friends despite their work and study constraints. the concept of digital literacy refers to as a set of competencies required for inclusion in a knowledge society. this comprises of knowledge, skills and behaviours concerning the effective use of digital devices such as smartphones, tablets, laptops and desktop for collaboration, communication, and advocacy. hence indicating the focal shift from desktops to data attached devices which is inclusive of social media (mohd abas et al., 2019). the covid-19 pandemic has highlighted the severe lack of digital infrastructure within south africa. this is being addressed as the african union (au) has in place a comprehensive 50-year master plan which focuses on smart city infrastructure aligning to digital transformation and is fundamental for 4ir progression (ramlachan, ramnund-mansingh, & naidoo, 2021). while countries in the global north were well prepared for online teaching and learning as covid-19 lockdown protocol were initiated, the resource scarcity and digital infrastructure inadequacy has lamed countries such as south africa during these pandemic times. the impact on business and he will have far reaching implications for years to come. a multi-generational workforce a multitude of challenges plague graduates, including a dynamic 4ir workplace. the current workforce is a fluctuating space with multiple generations working together. this is significant for a number of reasons, the most noteworthy is their varying work ethic. from baby boomers to the workplace newbies which are generation z or digital natives and everyone in between, share different traits including the generational upbringing to the work ethic and the manner in which they adapt and utilise technology. there has been a substantial shift in priorities. earlier workplace generations such as baby boomers and generation x focused on job security, structured work days, and face to face interactions (ozaydin, 2019; lewis & wescott, 2017). this has been completed transmuted by the generation y and z. they thrive on finding the job that best suits them even if they move jobs every few years. they search for flexibility and ideally are able to choose the organisation they would like to work at in terms of their personal value alignment with the organisational culture. generation z are determined to be highly connected, living in an era of high-tech communication, technology driven lifestyles and prolific use of social media (gaidhani, arora, & sharma, 2019, p.2806). technology forms a large part of their identity. generation z are entrepreneurial, entitled and materialistic. in the workplace, they prefer flexibility, personal freedom and environment that nurtures development (schawbel, 2014; bascha, 2011; generational white paper, 2011). due to the substantial focus on flexibility and personal freedom, the gig mode of employment appeals to generation z. the gig economy has become a significant part of the current workspace. no formal academic definition of the gig economy is available (de stefano, 2015; abraham, haltiwanger, sandusky, & spletzer, 2019), although a working definition is the fundamentally changing the nature of work, with marked declines in full time and regular employment, more jobs classified as self-employed, more micro-business owner, contingent work, working as freelancers (however defined) or holding more than one job (brinkley, 2016, p. 6). gig employees undertake this paid work structures, voluntarily. the benefits to them is the flexibility of time and the ability for them to gain a multitude of skill sets. global changes will keep the gig economy relevant but with varying complexities. being in a technological space, means that one job is accessible to millions of ramnund-mansingh, a., & reddy, n. (2021). south african specific complexities in aligning graduate attributes to employability. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(2), 206-221. 212 individuals throughout the world which effects the supply demand principles and the market value thereof (green, 2018). the positive implications for the younger generation z (also known as digital natives) is that they have opportunities to explore a diverse set of skills and experiences, globally (donovan, bradley, & shimabukuru, 2016). the contention with regard to gig employees are their general employees’ rights, the right to organise and the right to bargain. these employees are seen as independent contractors and fall outside of the ambit of labour legislation. the 4ir has introduced technological innovations which are contributing towards extraordinary consequences on humanity and society, including business operation processes. moreover, social media platforms, including facebook, instagram, twitter and linkedin have altered the fundamental building blocks of the way in which we interact with each other. linkedin learning and other massive open online courses (mooc) platforms are transforming the way professional information, including teaching and learning, are disseminated. these platforms have considerable implications for he and employability. with the generation z fixation on social media, it allows for employability and individual marketing via career and professional platforms such as linkedin. mooc online platforms, such as linkedin learning and providers such as udemy allow individuals to upskill themselves on varied skills that stimulate them. these learnings align with their profile for gig employment. methodology this article provides a systematic review of literature in the south african and global he context that pertains to graduate attributes for employability within the workplace. secondary desktop resources proved useful. due to the vulnerability and uncertainties of the covid-19 global pandemic, this method is both cost-effective and safe. the purpose of primary research generally should be to fill in gaps in existing knowledge. these gaps cannot be identified without an understanding of the existing knowledge base. the term does not imply anything about the importance of the information, only that it is being used for research beyond the specific informational need that prompted the original gathering of the data. all primary research may ultimately become someone else’s secondary source (stewart & kamins, 1994, p. 4). data sources were accessed through google scholar, scopus and ebsco. information sources and search strategy an extensive literature search was conducted in august 2020. the search included scientific academic articles from both south african and global sources. based on the authors’ reflective experience in academia and industry practice, a need was recognised. south african specific challenges needed to be understood through a global lens. eligibility criteria globally, he and the 4ir trends within the workplace should align, in theory. south africa has unique challenges created by the political history and socio-economic inequity which continues to exist. matters of a decolonised curriculum and attempts to enter a workforce within a country of 30% unemployment, as well as industries continuing to grapple with varying 4ir technologies and trends, were at the forefront of the study. therefore, in considering the eligibility criteria, themes and key words surrounding the key concepts were highlighted. these themes provide context to these specific tribulations. there is disconnect between the curriculum design and the workplace success. therefore, criteria used for developing the clinical model was dissected to understand the framework of graduate attributes, employability and the 4ir perspective including a multigenerational workforce, which plays a significant role in employability success. subsequent to examining the global agenda against the south african back drop, the clinical model was designed to mitigate the risk factors impacting on employability and the preparation thereof. at this stage ramnund-mansingh, a., & reddy, n. (2021). south african specific complexities in aligning graduate attributes to employability. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(2), 206-221. 213 amidst the changes brought about by the global pandemic, research will be remiss not to include covid-19 as an identified risk. study selection process the screening of titles and abstracts was conducted by one researcher (am) to maintain consistency. the literature review themes were split and independently reviewed by both researchers. several discussions took place among the researchers to present reviews to each other. articles were deselected based on a lack of suitability which were in most cases a country specific incongruity which was not consistent with the study at hand. data extraction this paper followed an interpretivist research paradigm with a qualitative approach and analysis of data. data extraction focused on a comprehensive literature framework and outcomes related to graduate employability, attributes and the covid-19 pandemic. both researchers independently extracted data addressing criteria of these specific themes and how they would contribute to a clinical solution. researchers added their comments to the table, any discrepancies were resolved via email or an online zoom meeting. an in depth reading of data was explored followed by abstracting and identification of themes to form basis of the clinical intervention table. theoretical underpinning the paper is underpinned by connectivism which is a learning theory based on the principle that knowledge starts with a connection. the process of obtaining knowledge begins with the individual who makes connections between entities (nodes) (goldie, 2016). these nodes consist of individuals, groups, systems, fields, ideas or communities and can be accessed via internet technologies such as electronic databases, web search engines and online information resources, or through personal learning networks and socialization into the disciplinary context. the network of connections is expanded and continues the cycle of knowledge growth. the two aspects of connectivism in which learning occurs are the ways students interact in and between network nodes, and how they make connections between learning and the spaces in which they find themselves (long & fynn, 2018). long and fynn (2018) posit that there are four key terms including operation interaction, wayfinding, sense-making and innovation interaction. these concepts describe the distinct but interlinked processes that underpin learning in professional programs which require learners to develop a contextual sense of the theory and application of skills derived from the theories of the discipline. this interaction aligns graduate attributes to employability. since each node that a student experiences throughout their journey in a higher education institution forms part of the student’s developmental process; and alignment with each of the nodes contributes towards the employability of the graduate. the link between theory and application discerns both challenges and opportunities. this link requires an extension of the conceptualisation of how, when and where students learn. therefore, heis require further engagement from facilitation of students, curriculum in various faculty, and the practice to meet the demands of a dynamic marketplace (long & fynn, 2018). discussion and recommendations scholarship on employability is exhaustive, as is the alignment of graduate attributes. the research gap lies in the south african specific context and literature. after review of significant studies in the subject matter, a clinical intervention model is recommended. there are three identified risk areas which are explored. these include decolonisation of the curriculum, advancing 4ir specific skills and response to crisis such as covid-19 pandemic. ramnund-mansingh, a., & reddy, n. (2021). south african specific complexities in aligning graduate attributes to employability. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(2), 206-221. 214 decolonisation of the curriculum there is a need for curriculum reform towards decolonisation or africanisation within south africa’s heis (mendy & madiope, 2020). the current curriculum is aligned with discriminatory frameworks which entrench past and current prejudices of material inequalities (jansen, 1998; heleta, 2016). these skewed systems of education will impact on the manner in which graduate attributes are translated. this will prove problematic for future graduates who enter a workplace with jaded lens as no congruency will exist between the he curriculum and the workplace. decolonisation is particularly important within a south african context as education has been deeply rooted in structural inequities which endorse the colonised historical perspective. the educational system the country inherited from its colonial legacy has been thought not to be responsive to the needs of the country and its students’ teaching and learning experiences (mendy & madiope, 2020, p.7). the reformed decolonised curriculum will reflect the current realities of south africa, indicative of the economic, political and social constraints. the south african workplaces seek graduates who are able to immerse themselves in south african specific issues. conflict related matters of race, mutual inclusivity and varying cultural expectations dominate the south african workplace. specific cultural and linguistic colloquialisms and social norms play a significant part in the workplace. international organisations seek south african graduates for key personality attributes that emanate from an arduous history such as that of resilience and diplomacy. this is gleaned from separate research by unger (2013), who similarly identifies that positive traits such as resilience can be developed from negative circumstances. these include the impact of nurture, environment and cultural variation. these are all factors which can be underpinned by a decolonised and holistic education system. a 4ir workplace lewis (2020) advances that the concept of 4ir transforms the way we work and live. the introduction of various technologies and machinery such as robotics, genetic modifications, driverless vehicles, artificial intelligence (ai), the internet of things (iot), nanotechnology, 3-d printing, and biotechnology; are transforming our behaviours, relationships, and causing us to question the meaning of humanity. computers are now capable of inspecting and counting inventory faster and more efficient than humans can. 3d printers are capable of constructing a house in less than 24 hours. robotic arms can now replace lost limbs. advances such as these make it clear how 41r will impact the way we work and how we work (lewis, 2020, p. 349). the most discernible attribute of the 4ir is the technological component of artificial intelligence, robotics and the internet of things. these are some of the critical skills set for employability. higher education should play a considerable role in this. in south africa the education disparities remain startling. private schooling curriculums have incorporated the aspects of 4ir into their curriculum, but the almost 23 000 public schools are left wanting. president ramaphosa announced early in 2020 that 200 public schools will introduce coding and robotics into the foundation phase curriculum (lindeque, 2020). this has been halted by the covid-19 pandemic, but only constitutes less than 1% of the schools. the disparity lies in the fact that if higher education introduces these technologies as graduate attributes translated into employability skills, it will severely disadvantage the majority of students from public schools who do not have a basic understanding of these concepts and application. aspects of coding, robotics and artificial intelligence (ai) are integral 4ir workplace skills irrespective of the roles graduates are to fulfil. the human resources fraternity, for example, are embarking recruitment and selection techniques such as gamification interviews and assessments. the workplace is becoming a technological hub and graduates without these advanced skills are not only disadvantaged from the south african job market but the global job market as well. born and drori, (2015) contend that both the workforce and the way work gets done are dramatically changing. business operations are reshaping with the assistance of new collaborative ramnund-mansingh, a., & reddy, n. (2021). south african specific complexities in aligning graduate attributes to employability. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(2), 206-221. 215 and social technologies. the inflow of the generation y and z employees into the workforce is creating a new dynamic. this requires a unique organizational response in terms of the skill set required. there are two key components within a 4ir workplace. these include a diverse workforce made up currently, of four different generations, and a technological way of adopting operational practices. the current dynamic has changed since generation z are now introduced in the workplace. society delegates these generational personalities and characteristics into stereotypes, which align with the environmental influences that affect their beliefs, values, personalities, and expectations (jones, 2017, p. 22). studies conducted by constanza at al. (2012) on preferences of different generations provide substantial insight to the demands and expectations and best mechanisms to recruit and retain the different generations. although these studies are generic, it is adequate to inform a south african workforce. the challenge of a multigenerational workforces is aggravated in south africa by issues such as a lack of tolerance towards race, culture and gender which have been long entrenched by historic apartheid legislation. accordingly, while global workplaces contend with multi-generations, equitable solutions for gig employees and organisational learning cultures, south africa’s complexities vary as much of it is guided by retribution seeking legislation to equalise and balance workplace diversity. compliance with legislation such as the bbbee act 53 of 2003, the employment equity act 55 of 1998 and the king iv report on corporate governance 2016 take precedence in organisational acquiescence. these transformed south african workplaces impact directly on the type of graduate required for the workplace. however, the 4ir workplace requires preparation and digital upskilling of graduates at south african heis to become employable. these skill sets need to meet the needs of a digital economy which prepares graduates for both a south african and a global workspace (bremner & laing, 2019). according to bremner and laing (2019), universities need to be mindful that they fully address the changing skills requirements of future employers (p. 2). these are all facets pertaining to the complexities for south african graduates to become employable. the gig economy is a key part of contemporary workspaces. the gig economy is defined as contract or part time work but contextualised slightly different (brinkley, 2016). it is derived from the musical gig, where individuals choose a gig lifestyle to have control of their hours and the number of jobs they work while attaining a greater skills set. while it may allow flexibility for individuals to attend to matters such as studies or family responsibilities, it is detrimental in a number of ways. currently there is contention in the regulation of these jobs, specifically in the risk of hours being limited without notice or terminating the employment completely. there are no formalised benefits with the gig employment. the gig economy has been critiqued as it relates to its potential for accelerating ‘fragmentation’: breaking down once-whole jobs into discrete task elements, each of which is then auctioned to the lowest bidder (healy, nicholson, & pekarek, 2017, p. 7). in south africa, it is forecasted that the gig economy will be positive in the alleviation of some of the high unemployment. while this may hold true, the global critique of it being unregulated makes it increasingly volatile in a south african labour market. covid-19 impact on employability objectives the impact of the global pandemic has been encumbering in a number of ways. public he students suffered gravely during the hard lockdown when they had to evacuate residences and return to their homes. they grappled without resources and data connectivity, another resultant circumstance from the structural inequalities of the historical apartheid legislation. students were negatively impacted by their lack of knowledge of technology and online platforms, while they attempted to navigate through the semester of studies and assessments. however, these challenges provide positive outcomes for future graduate attributes. once they were able to return to university, they were exposed to an international way of things, which were consistent with 4ir workplaces, to an extent. by default, during the pandemic, they had to self-teach by the use of electronic platforms in order to ramnund-mansingh, a., & reddy, n. (2021). south african specific complexities in aligning graduate attributes to employability. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(2), 206-221. 216 communicate, attend lectures and complete assessments. fortuitously, a global pandemic created an opportunity for thousands of students to develop technological savviness. the impact is far reaching as it provides a basic framework for online work opportunities globally and within the country. the transformed online teaching pedagogies within covid-19 has paved the way for employability post-graduation. a clinical intervention the following table provides a clinical intervention by outlining the various influencing factors and the skills sets required for graduates to be employable in a south african perspective. the intervention is designed by dr ramnund-mansingh as her specialist discipline area is clinical sociology. table 1: clinical intervention model aligning graduate attributes to employability employability skills set south african specific risks response clinical intervention varied skills for employability: balanced world view (inclusive system science model) working with a multitude of people across generations communication initiative reliability problem-solving resilience teamwork organization and planning self-management leadership learning technological savvy conflict management crisis management a colonised he curriculum little progress made to decolonise the curriculum  curriculum must be aligned to south african specific examples  resources must be south african specific  theoretical frameworks need to underpin south african realities  this is a base point for changes in employability skills set, as this will impact on the entire construction of reality a skewed perspective of content impacts on world view changes in constructions of reality 4ir specific skills personal skills associated with 4ir competencies  enhanced curriculum design to incorporate application type assessments to evaluate personal traits  curriculum design to integrate simulated workplace scenarios and team based interactions to evaluate professional skills set  technological mindsets and proficiency evaluated by specialised modules professional skills associated with 4ir competencies technical proficiencies associated with 4ir ramnund-mansingh, a., & reddy, n. (2021). south african specific complexities in aligning graduate attributes to employability. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(2), 206-221. 217 to align with coding and robotics, depending on current skills level covid 19 managing a global crisis at national level  transform perspectives of the global pandemic into positive ones  align positive skills enhanced by the pandemic with employability skills  holistic mind-set in employment searches nationally and globally  skills of graduates must include a programme of personal and professional personality traits. managing the pandemic at international level. socio-economic impact and unemployment table 1 provides a detailed clinical sociological intervention and explicates the factors influencing the employability from graduate attributes, emanating from south african associated risks which include the decolonisation of the he curriculum, 4ir specific skills and responses to covid-19. the intervention provides responses and clinical interventions to generic employability skills by taking cognisance of the south african specific risks. the above clinical model was transferred into the lotus flower analogy (figure 1), which symbolises a lotus flower that emerges from murky waters representing varying challenges that students encounter. this includes lack of technological understanding, access to resources and poor data connectivity infrastructure. in the beginning the bud lies below the dense waters of darkness and uncertainty which represents the south african specific risks. the flower gradually gravitates towards the warmth of the sun through acknowledgement of confronted risks. the evolution of the lotus flower is the ascent through the murky waters, a metaphor for the clinical intervention derived through knowledge and research, as it continues reaching out to the sun regardless of the environment. the final stage is when the lotus bud blossoms into a beautiful flower which is recognised as the attributes of an employable graduate. ramnund-mansingh, a., & reddy, n. (2021). south african specific complexities in aligning graduate attributes to employability. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(2), 206-221. 218 employable graduate attributes risk1: colonial curriculum risk 2: 4ir risk 3:covid-19 • technological mind set • work intergrated learning • assessement type • work place senario simulations • transform student perspectives • personal and performance traits • employability skills (soft skills) • holistic mind set • curriculum alignment • resources available • theoretical framework • employability skill set figure 1: the lotus flower analogy to align the risks with employable graduate attributes conclusion while the world grinds to a screeching halt with the global covid-19 pandemic, south africans view it as a calamity on their list of dilemmas. graduate employability is critical in a country grappling with the structural inequalities that political democracy should have long rectified. he is the link between graduates and employment in a country where unemployment was steadfast at almost 30% before covid-19. while the world responds to the 4ir trends, south african he had to decolonise a somewhat fallacious colonial curriculum. the need for higher education to respond is urgent as the power of 4ir technologies for either positive social impacts or devastating environmental damage is upon us, as is the potential for irreversible loss of control over networks of powerful ai agents with increasing autonomy within financial sectors and within urban infrastructure (penprase, 2018, p. 217). the double edged sword comes into play when there is such significant competition for fewer jobs and this is when a 4ir curriculum is of importance. the need for heis to provide work integrated learning is vital in the development of graduates. this provides students with the opportunity to apply their knowledge and skills within a professional setting, whilst under supervision (hall, pascoe & charity, 2017). this paper discussed the literature of the progression of graduate attributes and what is required for employability, while creating adequate knowledge of the multi-generational workplace. responding to this is a clinical model with designed clinical interventions in order to respond to the three key areas of decolonisation of curriculum, 4ir skills and covid-19. it is evident that these core aspects need to be addressed in entirety to equip students with the necessary skills to enter a job market nationally or globally. additionally, there is an opportunity to join the gig world economy which is conjectured to impact positively for the high unemployment in the country. while the gig economy may allow some workers to smooth their volatile incomes, it is unlikely (on its own) to help large numbers of jobseekers who face other significant barriers to entering employment (healy et al., 2017, p. 9). as with covid-19, the transition in private he systems was seamless, so too is private higher education taking the lead in equipping their students with employability skills. currently programmes are being piloted, while short courses to enhance employability skills sets are being designed and executed. a key limitation of the study included only research that have been published in scientific and verified sources. there may be other innovative models that have either not been captured, still in experimental phase or have never considered the impact of a pandemic. due to covid-19 and locked down regulations, researchers could not conduct a case based study with research methods and tools to conduct primary data collection. therefore, the clinical intervention model aligning graduate attributes to employability can be applied in a he facility as a case study for future areas of ramnund-mansingh, a., & reddy, n. 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(2022) embedding employability skills into vocational education and training: what works best for students’ selfevaluation and aspirations? journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 13(1), 20–36 20 the journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability issn: 1838-3815 (online) journal homepage: https://ojs.deakin.edu.au/index.php/jtlge/ embedding employability skills into vocational education and training: what works best for students’ self-evaluation and aspirations? olga romanova1 corresponding author: olga romanova (oromanova@hse.ru) 1national research university higher school of economics, moscow, russia abstract this paper investigates how the explicit integration of employability skills into vocational education and training (vet) affects students’ perceived skills. while perceived or selfevaluated skills often represent inaccurate perceptions of real skills, they nonetheless play a profound role in graduates’ career decisions. confidence resulting from positive selfevaluation supports efforts and aspirations during the school-to-work transition. it may therefore be considered an important educational outcome supporting employability. the purpose of the present study is to enrich the understanding of the relationship between students’ self-evaluation of their employability skills and different teaching practices. our analysis examines the self-evaluations and entrepreneurial intentions of russian vet students collected by the monitoring of education markets and organizations in 2020 (n = 9,178). it focuses on the social, self-learning and entrepreneurial skills that are part of the vet national curriculum. our findings show that the explicit embedding and integration of employability skills into the curriculum is significantly related to the positive self-evaluation of social and self-learning skills. moreover, students who are explicitly taught entrepreneurial skills are more likely to want to start their own business after graduation. despite its effectiveness, the explicit integration approach turns out not to be dominant. further research on the reasons behind this is needed for the development of properly informed policy. keywords vocational education and training, employability skills, selfevaluation, explicit instruction, entrepreneurial aspirations, social skills, self-learning skills introduction transferable skills emerged on the educational agenda in the second half of the twentieth century, and interest in them has been rapidly increasing ever since. in particular, research on transferable skills has doubled in the field of vocational education and training (vet) over the period 2010-2019 (calero lópez & rodríguez-lópez, 2020). this attention is usually justified by two interconnected reasons (e.g., fajaryati, budiyono, akhyar, & wiranto, 2020; mcgunagle & zizka, 2020). the first relates to the preparation of students for the modern world of work that requires more than traditional qualifications. it underscores the necessity to provide young people with skills that facilitate a smooth school-to-work transition and speed up adaptation after employment. the other argument addresses the challenges of the unprecedented speed of socio-economic and technological transformations. it substantiates the need to develop employability skills for the sake romanova, o. (2022) embedding employability skills into vocational education and training: what works best for students’ selfevaluation and aspirations? journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 13(1), 20–36 21 of long-term competitiveness on the labour market, arguing that graduates with such skills will be capable of building more flexible and diverse career paths. even if structural changes occur in the labour demand, workers will be able to switch to alternative employment opportunities more easily. in general, it is widely assumed that transferable skills increase the effectiveness of workers across various economic sectors (harris & clayton, 2018; international labour office, 2007). this is the reason why different countries have introduced frameworks for developing transferable skills at educational institutions. some of the frameworks are exclusively focused on job-related skills – for example, the core skills for work developmental framework in australia (australian government, 2013). others also encompass skills required for well-being and social inclusion– for example, key competences for lifelong learning in the eu and general competences in russia (eu council, 2018; ministry of education and science of the russian federation, 2018). even greater diversity is found among the terms used to label the new intended educational outcomes: 21st-century skills, soft skills, key competences, transferable skills, employability skills, etc. (bakar, 2011). in this paper, this phenomenon is interchangeably called ‘transferable skills’ and ‘employability skills.’ while the employability skills concept is recognized to be important by most experts, it often implies only the actual acquisition of skills. however, the self-evaluation of employability skills also plays a significant role in students’ career decisions despite its lack of accuracy (dunning, heath, & suls, 2004; ng & earl, 2008). in fact, students’ decisions are mostly informed not by their actual skill levels but by their self-beliefs. this is the reason why self-evaluations or self-beliefs are sometimes considered to be employability skills in their own right (baartman & ruijs, 2011; sewell & george, 2009; wood & olivier, 2004). we still lack sufficient empirical evidence to gain an understanding of how transferable skills are developed in vet and what initiatives impact their enhancement (calero lópez & rodríguez-lópez, 2020). even less evidence exists about how to promote the positive self-evaluation by vet students of their capacity to apply employability skills to vocational and personal problem-solving. in the present study, i address the latter issue by citing some new evidence on the relationship between the type of employability skill integration into the vet curriculum and students’ self-evaluations of their social and self-learning skills. furthermore, perceived entrepreneurial skills are investigated by modelling predictors of student aspirations to start their own business 2-3 years after graduation. the study focuses on the russian case. it employs the data of a vet students survey (n = 9,178) conducted by the monitoring of education markets and organizations (memo) in 2020. memo was initiated by the ministry of education and science of the russian federation in 2002. it is annually updated and implemented by the national research university higher school of economics. its purpose is to collect and analyse data on recent trends in education. it typically addresses such issues as the choice of educational programmes, attitudes to new policies, involvement in innovations, funding, etc. its main objective is to provide decision-makers at different levels of education with additional information for designing evidence-based policies. the investigated employability skills are a part of the current russian national curriculum, and so all the vet schools in the sample are obliged to teach them. it should also be kept in mind that, due to memo’s unusual data collection method in 2020 (non-probability sampling), the results are limited in terms of generalizability. literature review employability skills the notion of transferable skills appeared in the 1970s (kechagias, 2011). in 1972, unesco published a report entitled ‘learning to be: the world of education today and tomorrow’, which laid the foundations for a neoteric paradigm of educational reform. the report aimed to address new challenges in the socio-economic development of western countries relating to globalization and technological innovation. one of unesco’s key messages for the new policies was that education ‘… prepares people for a type of society which does not yet exist’ (faure et al., 1972, p. romanova, o. (2022) embedding employability skills into vocational education and training: what works best for students’ selfevaluation and aspirations? journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 13(1), 20–36 22 13). thus, it is necessary to educate students to be not only professionals but also life-long learners who possess universal skills that allow them to succeed at totally different jobs. the abovementioned recommendation led to the development of various programmes. national examples include scans in the usa (kane et al., 1990), the mayer committee in australia (australian education council mayer committee, 1992), the multifaceted concept of ‘handlungskompetenz’ developed in germany in 1996 (weigel, mulder, & collins, 2007), etc. at the international level, the issue was addressed by the oecd project ‘deseco’ (rychen & salganik, 2003), the world bank project ‘skills toward employability and productivity’ (sanchez puerta & rizvi, 2018), the eu council ‘recommendation on key competences for lifelong learning’ (eu council, 2018), etc. the developed frameworks differ in terms of their focus. some of them aim exclusively to improve graduates’ outcomes on the labour market. others also encompass general well-being and social inclusion. thus, they can be analytically divided into two types – employability skills and key skills/competences – which in fact often overlap (e.g., communication skills are crucial for success in both the professional and the private environment). for the sake of simplicity, both types are called ‘transferable’ or ‘employability’ skills in this paper. based on the consensual employability concept (römgens, scoupe, & beausaert, 2020), they are defined as skills that support the ability of an individual to obtain and maintain employment, including the option of being self-employed, throughout his/her work-life. concerning the integration of employability skills into the curriculum, the literature distinguishes between three main approaches (chadha & nicholls, 2006; cranmer, 2006; fraser, duignan, stewart, & rodrigues, 2019): • ‘total embedding’ – implicitly teaching skills by ‘dissolving’ them in the main course context; no explicit methods of assessment are applied • ‘explicit embedding and integration’explicitly teaching skills along with the main course content; the skills are assessed overtly • ‘parallel development’teaching skills in separate courses; the skills are assessed apart from other educational outcomes explicit integration is said to have the highest impact on curriculum effectiveness. the other approaches are opposed to each other and found more problematic. parallel development is criticized for the lack of connections to other academic tasks, while total embedding may result in students being unaware about the development of their employability skills (cranmer, 2006). the latter criticism is supported by recent evidence from spain, which is notorious for its high youth unemployment. spanish students complain about the lack of explicit teaching of transferable skills and feel that they are not being taught them sufficiently (altuna et al., 2021). the significance of explicit instruction is underscored not only by student opinions but also in research and policy recommendations (durlak et al., 2011; unicef, 2019). explicit instruction refers to teaching that is characterized by ‘a series of supports or scaffolds, whereby students are guided through the learning process with clear statements about the purpose and rationale for learning the new skill, clear explanations and demonstrations of the instructional target, and supported practice with feedback until independent mastery has been achieved’ (archer & hughes, 2011, p. 1). in other words, it teaches transferable skills in a way that is visible to students. we argue that explicit teaching is a critical element of the successful integration of transferability skills into the curriculum. it is not so important whether employability skills are taught as a separate course or embedded into an existing one. in fact, this choice partly depends on the specific national skills framework. for instance, entrepreneurship skills (which are often found on the national employability skills agenda) may require ‘parallel development,’ because they incorporate highly domain-specific components (basic accounting, law, taxes, etc.). this knowledge can compete with the traditional content of some vocational courses and make it is unrealistic for a teacher to provide all the expected outcomes within the limited time framework. romanova, o. (2022) embedding employability skills into vocational education and training: what works best for students’ selfevaluation and aspirations? journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 13(1), 20–36 23 self-evaluation self-evaluation is a crucial element of cognition. in the literature it is investigated from the perspectives of global and domain-specific self-evaluation (orth, dapp, erol, krauss, & luciano, 2021), self-efficacy (bandura, 1997; klassen, 2002), expectancies using the expectancy–value theory of motivation (wigfield & eccles, 2000; doménech-betoret, abellán-roselló, & gómez-artiga, 2017), self-rated abilities (brown, lent, & gore, 2000), and so on. all of these multiple constructs overlap to some extent, as they focus on people’s self-beliefs about their own capacities (valentine, dubois, & cooper, 2004). it has long been known that such beliefs predict actions (sewell & george, 2009). in fact, they might be even more important than actual skills insofar as a person can avoid some activities altogether due to his or her low self-evaluation of the required skills. for instance, he or she may not apply for a particular job. such behaviour would decrease the chances of positive labour market outcomes expressed in both employability and wages. it is also well-known that people are not very accurate in the self-evaluation of their capacities (dunning, heath, & suls, 2004; narciss, koerndle, & dresel, 2011) and usually tend to overestimate their own skills and competences (taylor & brown, 1988; chen, 2003). this phenomenon is called ‘positive self-evaluation bias’ and seems to contribute to individual psychological comfort and wellbeing (bouffard & narciss, 2011). nevertheless, self-evaluation positively correlates with the actual level of skills and performance. there is mixed evidence on the strength of this correlation: some researchers argue that it varies from medium to small (jackson, 2013; narciss, koerndle, & dresel, 2011), while others speak of a strong dependence (hewitt, 2015). from the socio-cognitivist point of view, this correlation implies a complex relationship in which the actual acquisition of skills leads to positive self-beliefs, which in turn support efforts in the related activities. thus, people with more positive self-beliefs are more likely to develop the respective capacity further (bandura, 1997). this makes positive self-beliefs valuable for learning. we use students’ self-evaluations of their employability skills as a proxy for the corresponding educational outcomes at vet schools. this has some limitations, however. even though these predictors are mainly based on the literature about the development of transferability skills, our analysis should not be interpreted as evidence for/against predictors of the acquisition of objective skills. our aim is to contribute to the study of how employability skills should be taught to improve students’ perceived skills and expected self-confidence after graduation. entrepreneurial aspirations aspirations are a key component of the entrepreneurial process despite the fact that they do not always result in an actual enterprise (bogatyreva & shirokova, 2017). entrepreneurial aspiration refers to the intention to start one’s own business at some point in the future. it is considered to be the best predictor of future behaviour and is thus extensively investigated by researchers (piperopoulos & dimov, 2015). the factors known to influence entrepreneurial intentions include age, gender, personality traits, educational attainment, etc. (liu, lin, zhao, & zhao, 2019). at the same time, the evidence is mixed about the possibility of raising entrepreneurial aspirations through entrepreneurial education. many studies report that entrepreneurial courses positively affect students’ intentions to establish an enterprise (hoang, le, tran, & du, 2021; pittaway & cope, 2007; liu, lin, zhao, & zhao, 2019). however, other researchers say that the effects are unclear (walter, parboteeach, & walter, 2011) or even negative (oosterbeek, van praag, & ijsselstein, 2010). therefore, it would be valuable to introduce additional data into the academic discussion. romanova, o. (2022) embedding employability skills into vocational education and training: what works best for students’ selfevaluation and aspirations? journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 13(1), 20–36 24 research background the russian system of vocational education and training is predominantly school-based: less than 3% of students study at work-based ‘dual vet programmes’ (russian university of technology, 2020). students can choose between two options: (1) training programmes for skilled workers and (2) midlevel training programmes. both programmes are open to secondary graduates (typical age: 15-16 years) and upper-secondary graduates (typical age: 17-18). vet programmes for secondary graduates last a year longer, as they also cover the general upper secondary curriculum. all vet graduates can apply to universities, so the educational system is characterized by high permeability. the key difference between the two types of vet programmes is that their graduates receive different qualification levels. training programmes for skilled workers pertain to levels 3-4 of the international standard classification of education 2011 (isced). mid-level training programmes are longer and more difficult, corresponding to isced 5. further information in english about the russian vocational education and training system may be found in the report ‘russian vocational education and training (vet) system’ (kopnov et al., 2018). in russia, transferable skills are usually called ‘general competences’. they became part of the national vet curriculum in 2010, when the competence-based approach (cba) was introduced. thus, transferable skills may be considered to be a part of the national cba framework. the latter is not unique: career and citizenship competences, which conceptually overlay general ones, are also included in the cba framework in china and the netherlands (chen et al., 2021). the list of general competences was completely revised in 2015 and then further updated in 2018. the reasons and arguments behind these changes were not publicly articulated. today, general competences are considered to be a key part of the vet agenda and perceived as a powerful tool for assuring the long-term competitiveness of graduates on the labour market. the most recently updated list contains 11 competences that are described in detail. they are unified for all vet programmes (isced 3-4, isced 5) and occupations. every student of the russian vet system is expected to master the same list of general competences and be able to • elaborate ways of solving professional tasks in different contexts • find, analyse and interpret necessary information for professional performance • plan and realise his or her professional and personal development • work in teams and interact effectively with colleagues, supervisors and clients • communicate orally and in writing in the official language, taking the social and cultural context into account • adopt a civic and patriotic attitude, exercise informed behaviour on the basis of traditional human values, and apply anti-corruption standards • promote environmental protection and resource saving and act effectively in emergencies • use physical training to preserve and improve his or her health during professional activity and maintain the necessary level of physical fitness • use information technologies in professional activity • use professional documentation in national and foreign languages • plan entrepreneurial activity in the professional sphere (ministry of education and science of the russian federation, 2018) the contemporary national curriculum does not prescribe any teaching methods or didactic principles for developing general competences at vet schools. when these competences were first introduced, teachers were simply summoned to promote active learning in their classrooms (ministry of education and science of the russian federation, 2013). it was assumed that such practices as group discussions, role playing, and case studies would foster the acquisition of both vocational and employability skills. the same methods along with project-based learning are advocated by russian academics and educational practitioners specialising in competence-based vocational education (romanova, 2021). the principal innovative ideas are to provide students with romanova, o. (2022) embedding employability skills into vocational education and training: what works best for students’ selfevaluation and aspirations? journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 13(1), 20–36 25 opportunities to solve complex problems, put them at the centre of the education process, and make them actively engaged in the construction of their own competences. such constructivist ideas were intensively developed in the ussr during the 1920s before being abandoned in favour of more rigid and traditional schooling (froumin & remorenko, 2020). today, pedagogies based on constructivism are once again becoming a guiding principle for educational practice at all levels of russian education. it should be said that general competences have not been supported with prescriptions for changing the content of vet programmes. vet schools and even individual teachers must add new elements to the curriculum on their own in order to attain the expected educational outcomes. while this approach might seem inadequate, it is not nationally specific. rather, it is a part of current international curriculum development, which is moving from content-oriented to outcome-based design (priestley and biesta, 2013). the outcomes of education in contemporary curricula ‘…tend to be less prescriptive (or vaguer depending on one’s outlook) …’ (priestley and biesta, 2013, p. 4). specific assessment procedures are not prescribed, and general competences are not separately graded in vet credentials. one expects transferable skills to be embedded into all general and vocational courses without the enforcement of accountability mechanisms. thus, vet schools can choose between explicit and total integration. they can also employ parallel development when the state-regulated time limitations on the programme and the schools’ financial and teaching staff resources allow. all of this leads to very heterogeneous practices of developing general competences. however, there is still insufficient evidence today to decide which of these practices are superior. in this study, i provide some data on how widespread the explicit integration of employability skills is in existing russian vet curricula. integration is considered explicit if students are aware that they are being taught employability skills or that these skills will be assessed. the main objective of the present study is to test the following hypothesis: the explicit integration of employability skills into the vet curriculum predicts more positive student self-beliefs about social, self-learning and entrepreneurial skills. data collection and methodology we took our data from the project ‘monitoring of education markets and organizations (memo) 2020’ implemented by the higher school of economics. the project conducted an online sociological survey in early 2021. the survey employed all-russian quota sampling that took the following stratifying characteristics into account: the region where the vet school is located, the type of ownership (public or private), and the type of vet programme (isced 3-4 or isced 5). the descriptive statistics of the chosen variables are presented in table 1. the number of observations is provided for each variable to describe the sampling variation due to missing values. the present study focuses on the self-evaluation of social and self-learning skills. they were chosen insofar as they are an integral part of the russian national compulsory vet curriculum. these skills have been found in all versions of the list of general competences, so that schools and teachers have had enough time to develop practices for their enhancement. simultaneously, these skills are among the most important aspects of employability, as identified by the megatrends in skills needs (australian industry and skills committee (aisc), 2016). the respondents were asked to evaluate the sufficiency of their possession of these skills for problem-solving in private and vocational contexts from poor to excellent (5-point likert scale, see appendix a). they self-reported on • their ability to interact/collaborate with other people (self-evaluation of social skills) • their ability to identify and acquire the right skills to achieve goals (self-evaluation of selflearning skills) less than 2% of respondents chose the answer ‘very poor’ (table 1). as a result, the data was recoded into 4-point dependent variables with ‘very poor’ and ‘poor’ combined into one variable. to romanova, o. (2022) embedding employability skills into vocational education and training: what works best for students’ selfevaluation and aspirations? journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 13(1), 20–36 26 answer the research questions, these dependent variables were tested with ordered logistic regressions. table 1: descriptive statistics (n= 9178) % number of participants weighted number of observations (participants) 9 178 dependent variables self-evaluation of social skills 9 178 1 – very poor 1.44 2 3.31 3 15.88 4 39.60 5 – excellent 39.76 self-evaluation of self-learning skills 9 178 1 – very poor 1.39 2 1.99 3 17.25 4 45.49 5 – excellent 33.88 students who want to start their own business 2-3 years after graduation 51.87 8 821 independent variables explicit integration students that were told how to develop social skills by their teachers 55.2 9 178 students that were told how to develop self-learning skills by their teachers 52.4 9 178 students that were told how to develop entrepreneurial skills by their teachers 42.5 9 178 students whose social skills were assessed by teachers 58.62 9 178 students whose self-learning skills were assessed by teachers 53.2 9 178 gender, age, and academic achievements male 50.8 9 178 average age, years 18.7 9 082 students’ grades 9 178 students who usually receive the grade ‘low/fail’ 1.1 students who usually receive the grade ‘satisfactory’ 7.7 students who usually receive the grade ‘good’ yet sometimes the grade ‘satisfactory’ 40.3 students who always receive the grades ‘good’ or ‘excellent’ 43.2 students who always receive the grade ‘excellent’ 7.8 infrastructural and organisational setting at vet schools diversity of learning activities1, mean [standard deviation] 0.0007 [0.93] 9 178 1the result of factor1 analysis with subsequent oblique rotation on a group of 7 questions about what percentage of seminars and practical training sessions of the respondents included group work, individual practical work, public presentations, writing lectures, participating in discussions, and solving cases. the respondents could choose one of three options: under 30%, from 30% to 70%, over 70%. the kaiser meyer olkin (kmo) value of 0.8992 indicates the high quality of the model. our analysis identified 1 factor that explains the diversity of students’ learning experiences. romanova, o. (2022) embedding employability skills into vocational education and training: what works best for students’ selfevaluation and aspirations? journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 13(1), 20–36 27 modernity of acquired technologies 7 917 students who evaluate technologies that they learn at their vet school as ‘cutting-edge’ 10.5 students who evaluate technologies that they learn as ‘modern and used at leading enterprises’ 15.9 students who evaluate technologies that they learn as ‘relatively modern yet not the most up-to-date’ 40 students who evaluate the technologies that they learn as ‘obsolete’ 10.4 students who are unable to evaluate the modernity of the technologies that they learn 9.2 evaluation of the state of classrooms 9 178 poor 6.3 satisfactory 51.8 good 42 evaluation of the state of learning equipment, including equipment used for authentic vocational training 9 178 poor 7.3 satisfactory 49.5 good 43.3 to obtain data on explicit instruction, the survey asked students if their teachers had told them how to develop a particular skill and if the teachers had assessed this skill. according to the survey results, over half of the students were not taught entrepreneurial skills explicitly. the situation with social and self-learning skills was just slightly better. only 55.2% of vet students reported that they were told how to develop social skills and 58.6% confirmed that their teachers had assessed their social skills. explicit instruction of self-learning skills was less widespread: 52.4 % of students were told how to develop self-learning skills and 53.2% were aware of being assessed in this domain. entrepreneurial intentions were addressed by modelling the relationship between the aspirations of students to start their own business 2-3 years after graduation (binary variable) and learning experiences. a logistic regression was used for this part of the study. the data set has missing values in the infrastructural setting variables that lead to a considerable attrition of the sample. the problem is tackled with a stepwise presentation of the regression models. results the students’ grades have a statistically significant positive relationship with their self-evaluation of their social and self-learning skills (table 2). an exception is the group that usually receives the grade ‘low/fail’. such a result might be explained by the fact that this group consists of academically highrisk students, who tend to have unrealistically high beliefs about their capabilities (klassen, 2002, narciss, koerndle, & dresel, 2011; lynn, holzer, & o'neill, 2006). student’s beliefs about their self-learning capacities are more strongly related to better grades than their beliefs about their social skills. for instance, students who always receive the grade ‘excellent’ are 3.5 more likely to evaluate their self-learning skills as being high in comparison with students who usually receive the grade ‘good’ yet sometimes the grade ‘satisfactory’. the corresponding ratio for social skills is only 2. age is not related to students’ self-evaluation of analysed employability skills. gender also does not seem to be statistically significant for the self-evaluation of social skills. however, males have higher odds of having positive beliefs about their self-learning abilities than females. romanova, o. (2022) embedding employability skills into vocational education and training: what works best for students’ selfevaluation and aspirations? journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 13(1), 20–36 28 table 2: ordered logistic regression modelling of the self-evaluation of employability skills (social and self-learning skills), odds ratio model specification social skills (1 model) social skills (2 model) self-learning (1 model) self-learning (2 model) gender (0 female, 1 male) 0.997 (0.0532) 1.015 (0.0594) 1.120** (0.0605) 1.136** (0.0678) age (years) 1.009 (0.0119) 1.001 (0.0133) 1.003 (0.0123) 1.005 (0.0150) academic achievements (reference group: students who usually receive the grade ‘good’ yet sometimes the grade ‘satisfactory’) usually receive the grade ‘low/fail’ 0.567 (0.244) 0.708 (0.281) 0.372* (0.188) 0.490 (0.247) usually receive the grade ‘satisfactory’ 0.665*** (0.0765) 0.675*** (0.0862) 0.766** (0.0884) 0.779* (0.100) always receive the grade ‘good’ or ‘excellent’ 1.460*** (0.0830) 1.451*** (0.0908) 1.784*** (0.104) 1.794*** (0.115) always receive the grade ‘excellent’ 2.054*** (0.241) 1.889*** (0.234) 3.542*** (0.415) 3.599*** (0.448) students were told how to develop the corresponding skill by their teachers (0 no, 1 yes) 1.331*** (0.0800) 1.191*** (0.0790) 1.334*** (0.0800) 1.240*** (0.0815) students’ skills were assessed by their teachers (0 no, 1 yes) 1.685*** (0.105) 1.576*** (0.108) 1.608*** (0.0978) 1.528*** (0.103) diversity of learning activities 1.634*** (0.0509) 1.491*** (0.0532) 1.872*** (0.0613) 1.680*** (0.0634) evaluation of the modernity of technologies taught to students (reference group: modern technologies used at leading enterprises) cutting-edge technologies 1.198 (0.136) 1.371** (0.169) relatively modern technologies 0.950 (0.0749) 0.845** (0.0681) obsolete technologies 0.819 (0.0994) 0.773** (0.0960) unable to evaluate the modernity of taught technologies 0.826* (0.0924) 0.712*** (0.0786) state of classrooms (reference group: satisfactory) poor 0.854 (0.141) 0.592*** (0.109) good 1.600*** (0.118) 1.452*** (0.104) state of learning equipment (reference group: satisfactory) poor 1.055 (0.168) 1.185 (0.209) good 1.332*** (0.0973) 1.452*** (0.104) observations 9 082 7 833 9 082 7 833 note(s): 1) *** — significance level of 1%, ** — significance level of 5%, * — significance level of 10%. 2) analysis gives odds ratio instead of coefficients. 3) standard errors were calculated using the robust method. romanova, o. (2022) embedding employability skills into vocational education and training: what works best for students’ selfevaluation and aspirations? journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 13(1), 20–36 29 as to the indicators of the explicit instruction of employability skills, they show a positive relationship with the corresponding self-evaluation that is statistically significant at a 99% confidence level. the diversity of learning experiences was also significantly related (significance level of 1%) to self-beliefs about social and self-learning skills. a more diverse student learning experience is associated with more positive self-evaluation. vet students that report the use of more modern vocational technologies in instruction have higher odds of positive self-beliefs about self-learning skills. at the same time, the perceived modernity of technologies is not significant for the self-evaluation of social skills, except for the case when students are unable to make such a judgment. this inability is negatively related to both selfevaluations. presumably, it is explained by the unawareness, uncertainty, and low self-confidence of students who are incapable of drawing conclusions about whether their vocational training is relevant to contemporary labour market demand or not. their actual employability skills are low, which they evaluate with relative accuracy given the overall positive self-evaluation bias of the whole sample. entrepreneurial aspirations are related to gender (table 3). males are 1.16 times more likely to want to start a business than females. academic achievements are also significant for entrepreneurial aspirations: the better the grades received by students, the higher their odds of wanting to become entrepreneurs. table 3: logistic regression modelling the aspiration to start one’s own business 2-3 years after graduation (0 – lack of aspiration, 1 – aspiration), odds ratio model (1) (2) gender (0 female, 1 male) 1.159*** (0.0657) 1.157** (0.0657) age (years) 1.003 (0.0103) 1.004 (0.0103) academic achievements (reference group: students who usually receive the grade ‘good’ yet sometimes receive the grade ‘satisfactory’) usually receive the grade ‘low/fail’ 0.921 (0.319) 0.934 (0.322) usually receive the grade ‘satisfactory’ 0.784** (0.0900) 0.793** (0.0914) always receive the grades ‘good’ or ‘excellent’ 1.149** (0.0704) 1.136** (0.0698) always receive the grade ‘excellent’ 1.439*** (0.162) 1.402*** (0.158) told by teachers how to develop entrepreneurial skills (skills to start and maintain a business) (0 no, 1 yes) 1.291*** (0.0733) observations 8 743 8 743 notes: 1) *** — significance level of 1%, ** — significance level of 5%, * — significance level of 10% 2) analysis shows odds ratio instead of coefficients 3) standard errors were calculated using the robust method the explicit instruction of entrepreneurial skills has a positive relationship with entrepreneurial aspirations that is statistically significant at a 99% confidence level. students who reported explicit entrepreneurial instruction were 1.4 times more likely to have entrepreneurial aspirations than students who did not have such a learning experience. romanova, o. (2022) embedding employability skills into vocational education and training: what works best for students’ selfevaluation and aspirations? journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 13(1), 20–36 30 discussion the variable ‘diversity of learning activities’ reflects the modernization of instruction in russian vet. teachers who offer more diverse student experiences embed active learning into their classroom practices. they regularly combine traditional lectures and individual practical work with discussions, presentations, groupwork, etc. while such innovations were prescribed by the first competencebased national vet curriculum in 2010, some educators are apparently still struggling to introduce them. the obtained results highlight the importance of active learning for student self-evaluation of social and self-learning skills. these results are in line with previous studies that measured the impact of active learning on the acquisition of transferable skills (arsenis, flores, & petropoulou, 2021; durlak et al., 2011; shah, 2013). student self-beliefs about social and self-learning skills are positively related to explicit instruction. this correlation remains statistically significant even after controlling for the diversity of student learning experiences. it implies that explicit instruction by itself is capable of improving student selfevaluation. in practice, this means that it is insufficient to introduce, e.g., discussions in the classroom. such discussions or any other learning activities must be followed with comments on employability skills. students should be informed about the features that characterize the higher levels of these skills and about the ways of attaining them. furthermore, they should be provided with individual feedback on their current skill levels. apparently, such an approach raises student self-beliefs and self-confidence by helping them not only to master employability skills but also to reflect on the process of their enhancement. according to our results, the explicit instruction of entrepreneurial skills positively correlates with entrepreneurial aspirations. this corroborates past research showing the beneficial effects of entrepreneurial education on student intentions to start a business (hoang, le, tran, & du, 2021; pittaway & cope, 2007; liu, lin, zhao, & zhao, 2019). furthermore, our analysis reveals gender differences in entrepreneurial intentions. female students are less likely to have the intention to start a business in comparison to male students. these results support previous studies on gender inequality in the field of entrepreneurship (haus, steinmetz, isidor, & kabst, 2013; liu, lin, zhao, & zhao, 2019; steinmetz, isidor, & bauer, 2021). the final point that merits discussion is student evaluations of the learning environment. just as learning experiences, they serve as a predictor of more positive self-evaluations. it should be said that students are generally loyal to their vet schools and rarely assess their classrooms and learning equipment as poor. they tend to evaluate the learning arrangements as satisfactory or good. thus, the analysis focuses predominantly on a comparison of ‘satisfactory’ and ‘good’ evaluations. the resulting pattern is the following: students who believe that their learning equipment and classrooms are good are likely to have more flattering self-beliefs about employability skills. these results could be interpreted differently. one may argue that they are due to the less critical attitude to reality of some students who evaluate both themselves and their environment with a significantly positive bias. however, another plausible explanation is that russian vet schools are very heterogeneous in terms of the quality of infrastructure and teaching staff. some vet schools have more resources that allow them to make the learning environment more attractive, hire better teachers, and provide more incentives and training for current employees. students in such ‘prosperous’ schools have more opportunities to acquire higher levels of both real and perceived employability skills, which would subsequently underpin their career decisions. on the contrary, students from less prosperous and usually smaller vet schools are disadvantaged with regard to the learning environment and teacher qualifications. thus, the undertraining of employability skills might be considered as a new and growing facet of education inequality. romanova, o. (2022) embedding employability skills into vocational education and training: what works best for students’ selfevaluation and aspirations? journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 13(1), 20–36 31 conclusion the present study provides evidence for the importance of explicitly embedding and integrating employability skills into the vet curriculum. we showed that explicit instruction has a positive relation to the self-evaluation of social and self-learning skills among vet students. moreover, it positively correlates with student entrepreneurial aspirations. therefore, explicit embedding is recommended for the inculcation of transferability skills by vocational education and training providers. employability skills are an obligatory part of the russian national vet curriculum. therefore, our analysis was based on the assumption that all the analysed vocational schools are involved in innovation to some extent. depending on the skill, 42–48 % of vet students reported that they had not been explicitly taught transferable skills by teachers. these results might imply that many vet teachers prefer the total embedding of employability skills into their courses. they do not draw students’ attention to social, self-learning or entrepreneurial skills because of the belief that these skills are developed indirectly through learning activities focused on domain-specific competences. however, our data may also imply that teachers simply neglect the task of embedding employability skills into their courses due to certain beliefs or objective constraints. this matter requires further study. in addition, our analysis shows that diverse learning experiences are beneficial for student selfevaluations of the employability skills considered here. the rise of the diversity of student experiences in the russian setting is related to the integration of active learning methods into teaching practices. even though these methods were prescribed by the national curriculum in 2010, they are still far from being omnipresent. this shows the importance of political interventions aimed at promoting active learning methods at russian vet schools. such policies must consider the heterogeneity of vet financing in different regions. references altuna, u. j., cruz, i. e., aierbe, b. a., madinabeitia, e. a., & marko, j. i. 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(2004). a self-efficacy approach to holistic student development. south african journal of education, 24(4), 289–294. https://hdl.handle.net/10520/ejc32009 appendix a questions from the questionnaire used in the study. the whole questionnaire is available in russian at: https://www.hse.ru/data/2021/01/20/1349406212/anketa_student_spo.pdf fut5. please rate your ability to use the following skills to carry out professional and private tasks from 1 (no skill at all) to 5 (excellent mastery) skill 1 2 3 4 5 search for, analyse and interpret information (this variable was not used in our analysis) 1 2 3 4 5 ability to interact/cooperate with others 1 2 3 4 5 identify and acquire the right skills to achieve goals 1 2 3 4 5 trud21. would you like to start a new business (with or without employees) to sell goods or provide services on your own or together with others within 2-3 years after graduating from your vocational school (or within 2-3 years after graduating from the university if you are planning to enrol in it)? more likely not 1 more likely yes 2 romanova, o. (2022) embedding employability skills into vocational education and training: what works best for students’ selfevaluation and aspirations? journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 13(1), 20–36 35 are you already running a business or are self-employed? (category excluded from our analysis due to very small numbers) 3 fut3. did your teachers assess the following skills during your studies at this vet school? (select all the answers that apply) ability to interact/cooperate with others 1 ability to search for, interpret, and analyse information 2 ability to start your own business / entrepreneurial skills 3 ability to identify and acquire the right skills to achieve goals 4 did not assess any of the above 5 fut4. did your teachers tell you during your studies about how to develop the following skills? (select all the answers that apply) ability to interact/cooperate with others 1 ability to search for, interpret, and analyse information 2 ability to start your own business / entrepreneurial skills 3 ability to identify and acquire the right skills to achieve goals 4 did not talk about how to develop the above skills better 5 fam2. your age: __________________ (full years) stud1. what grades did you mostly get at your vet school during the past school year (2019/2020)? (select one answer) mostly unsatisfactory grades (‘2's’) 1 mostly satisfactory grades (‘3's’) 2 mostly good grades (‘4's’) yet also some ‘3's’. 3 only good and excellent (‘4's’ and ‘5's’) 4 only excellent grades (‘5's’) 5 tech19. how up-to-date are the technologies you are learning at your institution? (select one answer) cutting-edge technologies that are not yet available in real production 1 state-of-the-art technologies used at leading firms 2 relatively modern technologies that could be more up-to-date 3 yesterday's technologies that are no longer on the market 4 don't know or can't tell 5 stud5. how would you rate the following conditions at your vet school? (select one answer in each line) condition of study spaces low/poor average/sa tisfactory high/good condition of training equipment, including equipment for authentic vocational training low/poor average/sa tisfactory high/good questions used in factor analysis romanova, o. (2022) embedding employability skills into vocational education and training: what works best for students’ selfevaluation and aspirations? journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 13(1), 20–36 36 fut11. what percentage of your seminars and workshops at your vet school, including online courses, were conducted in the following forms during the past year (2019/2020)? (select one answer in each line) students working in groups on an assignment or project under 30% from 30% to 70% over 70% individual practical work by students (solving training exercises, laboratory work, project work) under 30% from 30% to 70% over 70% student oral reports or presentations under 30% from 30% to 70% over 70% independent student search for information on the issue being studied under 30% from 30% to 70% over 70% writing down course material from dictation or copying it from the board/slides under 30% from 30% to 70% over 70% involvement in class discussions under 30% from 30% to 70% over 70% applying theoretical knowledge to solve case studies or practical tasks under 30% from 30% to 70% over 70% re 1576 pitan (formatting final) pitan, o.s. and muller, c. (2023). assessment of strategies for preparing graduates for the disruptive workplace: evidence from nigeria and south africa. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 14(1), 15–30. 15 the journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability issn: 1838-3815 (online) journal homepage: https://ojs.deakin.edu.au/index.php/jtlge/ assessment of strategies for preparing graduates for the disruptive workplace: evidence from nigeria and south africa oluyomi susan pitan 1, 2 and colette muller 2 corresponding author: oluyomi susan pitan (pitan.oluyomi@lcu.edu.ng) 1 department of arts & social science education, faculty of education, lead city university, ibadan, nigeria 2 school accounting, economics and finance, college of law and management studies, university of kwazulunatal, durban, south africa abstract this study examined the extent to which experiential learning and career guidance activities, as strategies for equipping students with transferable skills, are used by higher education (he) in two african countries, nigeria and south africa to prepare students for the volatile labour market. the contributions of the two strategies to students' preparedness for work, after controlling for the possible effects of gender and type of university, were also determined. perceptions of students (n=865) from six universities in the two countries, on their level of exposure to the two strategies, were analysed. hierarchical regression was used to control for the influence of gender and type of university, while findings from the two countries were compared using mann–whitney u tests. students from both countries agreed that the two strategies jointly and individually have significant positive influences on their preparedness for work. however, the students alleged that their universities are not exposing them adequately to these strategies. students from nigeria believed they are exposed adequately only to experiential learning, while those from south africa demonstrated inadequate exposure to both strategies. the effects of gender and type of university on students' responses were significant only among south african students. this study has highlighted the extent to which sampled universities adopt the two strategies in preparing their students for work and has offered suggestions on how to address the identified inadequacies in students’ exposure to the strategies. also, results of the differences in students' perceptions have established the role of dominant contextual differences in employability development, which should be acknowledged when making quantitative comparisons in higher education between countries. keywords career guidance activities, employability, experiential learning, gender, hierarchical regression, higher education, mann–whitney u tests of comparisons, transferable skills; type of university attended introduction faced with continued economic uncertainty and the imminent and inevitable challenges of a disrupted workplace, designing and implementing strategies that equip students with relevant skills to navigate the future world of work are imperative to higher education (he) providers worldwide. according to christensen (1997, 2006 as cited in granger & bazaz, 2018) disruptions in workplaces are anomalies, which emerge when new entrants or new technologies create pressure points, which threaten the status quo, such as a company’s existing innovation and market position, the ability to sustain work, and threats to revenue and cost structures. it is the action of completely changing the traditional way pitan, o.s. and muller, c. (2023). assessment of strategies for preparing graduates for the disruptive workplace: evidence from nigeria and south africa. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 14(1), 15–30. 16 the labour market operates as a result of using new methods or technology (amenduni, et al., 2022). according to amenduni, et al., these changes occur as a response to a complex set of interrelated factors, including technological advancement (powered by the 4th industrial revolution), environmental challenges and health emergencies (such as the covid-19 pandemic). an important characteristic of the disrupted labour market is that technology is going to dramatically reshape the workforce with increased demand for high skilled employees through a continued shift from manufacturing to services. another notable feature is a change in patterns of work with more people becoming self-employed and choosing short term and part-time work over permanent jobs (oliver, 2015). the pace at which the 4th industrial revolution (4ir), the covid-19 pandemic, and globalization continue to evolve makes it difficult to predict the impacts of the accompanied disruptions on the state of the future world of work. nevertheless, it is expected that these issues will bring profound and rapid changes in all sectors (teng, et al., 2019). a taste of such changes was witnessed during the pandemic, where workers were forced to work remotely from home. workers who were not resilient, adaptable or flexible, and those who were not technologically adept, faced the risk of losing their jobs with reduced opportunities for alternative employment. the clear challenge thus posed for he is around how to develop graduates with the requisite skills of resilience, adaptability and flexibility to operate successfully amidst the disruptions in the workplace. unprecedented expansion in the provision of he with graduate employability at the forefront of measures that rank universities has resulted in graduate employability being a central objective of contemporary he, (oliver & tucker, 2020). therefore, as he institutions globally continue to compete for students and tuition revenue, institutions that go beyond the development of purely academic or discipline-specific skills and knowledge (roberts, 2018), and that offer innovative experiential programs focusing on the development of students’ abilities to conceptualize their future work through learning the practice of the discipline, can help differentiate them in a crowded marketplace. the changing nature of work has meant that companies, including prominent ones such as google, apple, ibm and accounting firms, are actively shifting focus away from only degree requirements to alternative methods of measuring graduates’ preparedness for work (østergaard & nordlund, 2019). core among these measures is multi-skilling. multi-skilling is the ability of an employee to possess or be trained in more than one skill or area of expertise. multi-skilling stresses the essence of transferable skills such as adaptability, flexibility, resilience, innovation, interdisciplinarity, communication, interpersonal, analytical, ict and emotional intelligence skills (world economic forum, 2018; seet et al, 2018; fraser, et al., 2019; panchanathan, 2019; hayes, et al., 2022). table 1 below shows descriptions of the skills. these transferable skills are not specifically related to a job, task or academic discipline but can be used across a multitude of situations and work settings (jackson & tomlinson, 2020). despite the predictions that computers, robots and artificial intelligence will be substituted for human labour and disrupt the pattern of work (oliver, 2015), the argument is that unique human skills are not easily replicated by artificial intelligence and other disruptive technologies. this is particularly true of skills, which encourage and facilitate creativity, analytical and critical thinking, collaborative activity, complex communication and adaptability as they prepare workers to be flexible and cope with the rapid workplace changes that result from disruptive technologies (seet, et al, 2018). the implication is that institutional employability strategies in he should expose students to activities that equip them with transferable skills and enable them to make appropriate connections between theory and practice. pitan, o.s. and muller, c. (2023). assessment of strategies for preparing graduates for the disruptive workplace: evidence from nigeria and south africa. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 14(1), 15–30. 17 table 1: descriptions of transferable skills needed for navigating the disruptive workplace skill name descriptor adaptability ability to thrive in diverse environments. being willing and able to adjust to changing conditions. this involves being able to notice change, and being able to find new approaches and alternatives to respond to this change analytical ability to collect and analyse information, solve problems and make decisions. such skills as research, critical thinking, problem-solving, creativity and data analysis are examples of analytical skills communication being aware of how communication affects others; asking questions; listening actively; showing respect in all communications, oral and written; social skills. emotional intelligence it refers to the ability to identify and manage one's own emotions, as well as the emotions of others. flexibility ability to respond to changes quickly and with ease information and communication technology (ict) ability to understand and operate a wide range of technology software. for example, data management, online research, desktop publishing etc. innovation ability to turn creative ideas into worthwhile solutions that result in the introduction of new goods or services or improvement in offering goods or services interdisciplinarity ability to collaborate with others, who are not in your field in solving a problem interpersonal and teamwork skills that contribute to working and relating successfully well with other people resilience ability to persevere in the face of challenges and bouncing back after setbacks. it also involves learning from those setbacks, accepting own mistakes and learning from them for universities to produce work-ready graduates, it is imperative that how students acquire transferable skills receive attention. several strategies, such as career management competencies, work experience, extracurricular activities, overt and covert strategies, have been identified to develop students’ employability (jackson & wilton, 2017; fraser, et al., 2019). this study focused specifically on experiential learning (el) and career guidance activities (cga), given their potential to be effective at equipping undergraduates with necessary skills that are transferable across jobs. rather than relying on graduates’ or employers’ views in determining graduate preparedness for work, this research concentrated on students’ perceptions. responses from students, who are the direct beneficiaries of he employability strategies offer more insight on employability (dacre pool, et al., 2014). this is because they are the ones who are directly involved in the process of getting prepared for the future job. they know and will (to a reasonable extent) portray the situation exactly the way it is. that is, whether they are being exposed to these strategies or not. although, according to tomlinson (2008) and al-harthi (2011); the students are yet to experience the real world of work, they are aware of the future challenges in terms of the link between their university experiences and required skills in the labour market. this paper consolidated two independent studies undertaken among undergraduates at six universities in two developing countries nigeria and south africa. much of the research on students' employability has focused on developed countries, where both institutions and students have a relative advantage as compared to those in developing countries given that they are better resourced and that institutions typically have well-established arrangements for integrating employability into the curriculum. the limited existing research in developing countries necessitates this type of research, which augments both the developed and developing country literature on employability. pitan, o.s. and muller, c. (2023). assessment of strategies for preparing graduates for the disruptive workplace: evidence from nigeria and south africa. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 14(1), 15–30. 18 the purpose of the study was to examine how the sampled universities are responding to the skills demand of the disrupted workplace vis-à-vis the use of el and cga as strategies for preparing graduates for work. by comparing the responses of students from the two countries, this study also highlighted the influence of contextual factors on the development of employability. this comparative insight is one of the unique contributions of this research to the existing literature in the field of employability. in addition, the effect of gender and type of university attended on students’ perceptions of employability was interrogated. the following research questions were posed: rq1: what are the respective perceptions of nigerian and south african students on the level of their exposure to the identified strategies (cga and el)? rq2: is there any significant difference between students’ perceptions in the two countries? rq3: what are the overall and relative contributions of cga and el to students' perceived level of preparedness for employment in each of the countries after controlling for the possible effects of gender and university attended? higher education (he) and graduate employment outlook in nigeria and south africa although, he consists of both a university and a non-university sector (i.e., polytechnics, monotechnics, and colleges of education), in this study, he will be used as synonymous with universities only. as with labour market outcomes for university graduates in numerous countries, university graduates in nigeria and south africa experience a relative advantage in the labour market. despite this, there are challenges such as unemployment, underemployment, discrimination etc that these graduates contend with in the labour market. at the time of data collection, the total youth unemployment rate in south africa was 55.2% and 31% for university graduates (aged 15–34) (statistics south africa, 2019), while in nigeria, the unemployment rate for graduates by the fourth quarter of 2020 was 28.8% (statista, 2022). among the major causes of graduate unemployment in the two countries, is the mismatch between the training provided at universities and the skill sets required by the job market (ohei & brink, 2019; okolie et al., 2021). in nigeria, the extent of the skills mismatch among employed university graduates was 60.6%, with deficiencies in communication, information technology, decision-making, critical thinking, interpersonal relationships, entrepreneurial and numeracy skills being identified (pitan, 2016, p. 1). similarly, in south africa securing employment as a university graduate can be challenging given a lack of critical transferable skills and employers’ preference for ‘work-ready’ individuals with industry knowledge (walker & fongwa, 2017). apart from the graduate unemployment rate in south africa, variations in the duration of unemployment experienced by graduates based on characteristics such as the type of university attended, race, ethnicity and course of study are also observed (oluwajodu, et al., 2015). in addition, inherent social, political and economic structures, such as favouritism and nepotism, which all downplay meritocracy, skill and competence (imhonopi & urim, 2018), negatively impact graduates. disparities in gender, race, and type of university attended tend to be accentuated in the south africa graduate labour market. in south africa, men experience higher participation rates and higher earnings than women with similar levels of qualification and experience (anand et al., 2016; muller, 2019). in nigeria similar research among university graduates revealed no significant difference in the unemployment duration between male and female graduates (pitan & adedeji, 2016). another critical influence on graduate’s employment outcomes in south africa is that graduates of highly rated universities tend to have better employment prospects than those from low-rated universities (walker & fongwa, 2017; pitan & muller, 2019). also, in nigeria, the type of university based on ownership (that is, whether it is owned by the federal government, state government or the private sector) had a significant influence on graduates’ employment outcomes (pitan & adedeji, 2016). however, the present research appears to be the first to consider the effect of type of university attended based on pitan, o.s. and muller, c. (2023). assessment of strategies for preparing graduates for the disruptive workplace: evidence from nigeria and south africa. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 14(1), 15–30. 19 ranking on students' perception of their employability in nigeria. the classification by rating and prestige was adopted in this study for ease of comparison between the two countries (seeber, 2020). to ensure the alignment of university curricula to the demands of the industry, there are ongoing efforts and initiatives in place in many of the universities in the two countries. for example, in south africa, universities typically make effort to provide career services to students and offer them a variety of extracurricular activities (british council, 2015). also, many certain universities in nigeria have institutionalised arrangements for students’ participation in industrial work experience in which, undergraduate students are exposed to between 3 and 6 months of industrial attachment at least twice before they exit the university. in addition, to ensure that students are not only prepared academically but also for work; universities in both countries are making efforts for students to develop an entrepreneurial culture. for instance, it is now mandatory in several nigerian universities for students to offer courses in entrepreneurship while in south africa also, programs such as the entrepreneurship development programme (edp) are in place in certain universities (british council, 2015). nevertheless, concern in respect of the inclusivity, implementation and effectiveness of initiatives remains (okolie, et al., 2021). strategies for students’ preparedness for work (spw) in this article, students’ (perception of their) preparedness for work (which henceforth will be referred to as spw) refers to students’ perception of themselves as being aware of and equipped with the skills needed to succeed in job search, in the performance of necessary duties when commencing employment, and in becoming flexible in the labour market (hayes, et al., 2022). for this research, employability and spw will be used interchangeably. while there are numerous strategies for spw, the focus of this research was on two strategies – el and cga which have been identified by numerous employability studies as essential to equip undergraduates with almost all (if not all) the transferable skills, necessary to navigate the disruptive labour market (jackson & wilton, 2017; tomlinson, 2017; fraser et al., 2019; oke & fernandes, 2020). for example, through their practical dimensions, all the forms of graduate skills, which tomlinson (2017) referred to as ‘capitals’, that is, human, social, cultural, psychological and identity capitals, can be achieved through el and cga. experiential learning (el) according to kolb’s model of el (as cited in morris, 2020, el activities expose students to real-world, tangible experiences, give them opportunities for reflection and discussion, and enable them to establish a link between theoretical academic knowledge and practice in the workplace. following kolb’s model, el refers to teaching and learning experiences that take place outside the confines of classroom walls, and which equip students with real-world skills through hands-on and applied learning (roberts, 2018; claiborne, et al., 2020). in the context of this work, such el activities comprise, inter alia, students’ exposure to work experience through work-based learning, internships, industrial attachment or work placement (or as may be used in different contexts), industry visits, employer involvement in course design and delivery, witnessing visits from alumni who share information about potential career paths and opportunities in their companies, community service, laboratory activities, simulation and all forms of practical sessions (jorre de st jorre & oliver, 2018; claiborne, et al., 2020). researchers such as jackson & wilton, (2017); ngwane (2017); jorre de st jorre & oliver, (2018); pitan & muller (2019); garcía-aracil, et al, (2021) showed that el gained as undergraduates, has a significant and positive influence on student preparedness for work. these employability studies revealed that students’ exposure to el developed the necessary transferable skills to ensure a competitive edge and flexibility in the disrupted job market (panchanathan, 2019). such transferable skills included effective communication, being innovative, leadership, interdisciplinarity, interpersonal relationships, creativity, analytical thinking, reflection, self-confidence, self-efficacy, emotional intelligence, professional contacts and professional qualities. pitan, o.s. and muller, c. (2023). assessment of strategies for preparing graduates for the disruptive workplace: evidence from nigeria and south africa. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 14(1), 15–30. 20 jorre de st jorre & oliver (2018) and mason et al (2009) conducted independent qualitative studies among undergraduates in the uk to assess the influence of different employability skills initiatives on spw. their findings revealed that structured work experience and employer involvement in curriculum design and delivery (for example providing material and ideas for student projects, formal membership of course advisory panels and giving guest lectures) have clear positive impacts on spw. garcía-aracil et al., (2021), confirmed the significant relationship between el and spw and observed that these activities involve the development of transferable skills such as interpersonal, communication and participative and organizational competencies. career guidance activities (cga) cga as a strategy for enhancing spw refers to all activities that provide students with career information, advice and guidance. such activities include training on cv preparation, job search, job applications and interview preparation, self-presentation, communications skills, career-self management skills, decision making and work etiquette. frameworks and theories such as watts’ seminal dots model, illustrate the relevance of cga for spw (law and watts, 2003). according to the dots model, cga are planned experiences designed by the university to facilitate the development of self-awareness, opportunity awareness, decision learning and transition learning in students. the dots model was empirically tested and substantiated among undergraduates in nigeria by pitan & atiku, (2017). the implication was that for students to be adequately prepared for work, possession of decision-making skills (being able to weigh up personal factors to make a well-informed and realistic career plan); opportunity awareness skills (knowing employment opportunities that exist and what their requirements are); transition learning skills (having job-search and self-presentation skills) and self-awareness skills (ability to identify and articulate one's interests, skills, abilities and values as they affect career plans) are prerequisites. cga as a strategy for spw aids students’ ability to articulate the possession of desired attributes and present them to employers and has the potential to develop resilience and adaptability skills in students (jackson & tomlinson, 2020). therefore, it is essential that students, after acquiring extensive knowledge and skills at university, receive assistance and guidance in communicating their achievements and the benefits of such achievements to prospective employers through application forms, cvs, interview activities and job search. other than preparing students for immediate jobs, cga constitutes a major strategy that equips students with transferable skills such as resilience, adaptability, flexibility and self-efficacy that prepare them to adequately cope with the inevitable and impending challenges and stress of the disruptions and structural changes to the labour market (bridgstock et al., 2019; tomlinson, 2017 and jackson & tomlinson, 2020). such challenges include having to change jobs frequently or start one's own business, the loss of a job, underemployment or sustained unemployment. as with he in other countries, the approach to students’ engagement with el and cga differs from one institution to the other in the sampled countries according to the type of university, its organisational structure, its conceptions of graduate employability and the policy context in which the institution operates (bridgstock et al, 2019). influence of control variables: gender and type of university rather than following the norm of posing a series of directional questions, this study examined whether the effects of el and cga on students’ perceived employability remain significant after accounting for the influences of gender and type of university attended. this approach is consistent with earlier claims that such control variables, which may mediate between employability and employment processes should not be overlooked in the measurement of employability to minimize the inconsistency of the results (ergün & şeşen 2021, pitan & muller, 2020). although the direction of influence of gender (being biologically male or female) on students’ perceptions of their level of preparedness for work remains unclear, multiple studies confirmed that gender does affect students’ perceptions of their level of preparedness for work (donald, et al., 2018; pitan, o.s. and muller, c. (2023). assessment of strategies for preparing graduates for the disruptive workplace: evidence from nigeria and south africa. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 14(1), 15–30. 21 monteiro, et al., 2016). this present study also assumed that gender will have a significant influence on spw. in addition, and as confirmed by okay-somerville & scholarios (2017) students’ perceptions of their level of preparedness for work are likely to differ according to the type of university they attend. students from highly-rated universities may perceive themselves as more prepared for work than their counterparts from low-rated universities. in this study, the 'type of university' refers to the reputational category of the university attended by a student, for example whether the university is high rated, or low rated. of the six universities under investigation, three (two from nigeria and one from south africa) were categorised as ‘high-rated’ and three (two from nigeria and one from south africa) as ‘low-rated’. according to the ranking web of world universities (2023), the three high-rated universities are among the top 10 universities in their respective countries and among the top 20 in sub-sahara africa. methodological approach procedure and respondents a descriptive survey research design was adopted for the study. for logistical reasons, purposive sampling was used to select two relatively accessible universities in south africa and four in nigeria. the two universities in south africa were selected from one province out of the south africa’s eight provinces. as mentioned earlier, one of the two universities from south africa is a high-rated university while the other is categorised as low-rated. according to south africa’s classification of her he institutions, the high-rated university is a traditional university that provides theoretically oriented degrees and the low-rated one is a comprehensive university, which offers a combination of academic and vocational degrees with diplomas. the four universities from nigeria were also chosen from one geo-political zone out of the six in the country. these four universities comprised two federal universities, one state, and one private university. the two federal universities were categorised as high-rated while the state and the private fall under low-rated universities. final-year students across different disciplines were purposely chosen because their exposure to and awareness of el, cga and employability would be greater as compared to new university entrants. prior to data collection in each of the countries, ethical clearance certificates (with protocol reference numbers hss/0866/015 and hss/0061/017 for the nigerian and south africa studies respectively) were obtained from the requisite ethics committee in the researchers' institution. informed consent that described the confidentiality of responses, a participant's right to withdraw at any time without penalty, and the voluntary nature of participation were attached to the questionnaire for all respondents. in total, 1050 paper-based adapted questionnaires were administered in the two countries. from these, 865 completed responses (a response rate of 82.38%) were returned. these 865 final-year students comprised the respondent base for this research. a summary of the respondents' characteristics relating to gender and type of university attended is shown in table 2. table 2. respondents’ demographic profile characteristics nigeria south africa combined n % n % n % gender male (0) 198 42.8 166 41.3 364 42.1 female 265 57.2 236 58.7 501 57.9 type of university high-rated (0) 222 47.9 203 50.5 425 49.1 low-rated 241 52.1 199 49.5 440 50.9 total 463 100 402 100 865 100 pitan, o.s. and muller, c. (2023). assessment of strategies for preparing graduates for the disruptive workplace: evidence from nigeria and south africa. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 14(1), 15–30. 22 instrument the items on the instrument were based on the results of the pilot study, exploratory factor analysis (efa), as well as previous models (dacre pool, 2020) and empirical studies (jackson & wilton, 2017) of students’/graduates’ employability. the dependent variable, a ‘student’s preparedness for work’ (spw) scale, was measured with three items. considering the skills they have acquired, respondents were asked to rate their level of preparedness for work. the three items on the spw scale are: (1) i am aware of graduate employability & the skills recruiters expect; (2) i am aware of the employment opportunities open to me; and (3) i feel confident that i will be able to find appropriate work after leaving the university. for this scale, cronbach alpha scores of .85 and .74 were achieved for the nigerian and south african samples respectively. to measure the strategies for preparing students for work, two scales (cga and el), each with fifteen items, were used (see table 3). the cronbach alpha scores for these scales in the two countries ranged from .82 to .86, suggesting acceptable internal consistency and reliability of the items (pallant, 2013). a five-point likert rating scale ranging from strongly disagree (1) to strongly agree (5) was used for both the dependent and the independent variables. analysis a descriptive analysis of means and standard deviations along with mann–whitney u tests of comparisons were used to answer research questions 1 and 2 (see table 3). hierarchical regression analysis was conducted specifically to answer research question 3 (see table 4). dummy variables were created in the regression for gender and type of university attended. for gender, the base variable was male, and for the type of university, the base variable was a low-rated university. results and discussion level of students’ exposure to el and cga: comparison between nigerian and south african universities to gain insight into the level at which the sampled universities were equipping students with transferrable skills, the research examined students’ levels of agreement with fifteen questions relating to their exposure to el and cga. to understand the effects of context on the development of employability, the research also explored if there were basic differences between students’ perceptions of their exposure to these strategies in the two countries. experiential learning (el) the level of agreement of south africa students to the items on the el scale showed that their level of exposure to el was below adequate level. comparisons of mean scores indicate that for el scale and all the items under it (except one) there was a statistically significant difference in the responses of students across the two countries. students from universities in nigeria recorded a higher mean score (72%) than their counterparts from south africa (66.6%). the only item with no significant difference is ‘i have been exposed to work experience at least twice.’ students' level of agreement with this item was below the threshold level of 3.5 for samples in the two countries. the large and significant difference in the extent to which students were exposed to el in the two countries reflects contextual differences in institutional arrangements for students’ engagement with el, especially work experience. in most universities in nigeria, students’ industrial work experience (siwes) is integrated into the curriculum. however, the effectiveness and the quality of the programme in achieving the desired goal of developing transferable and entrepreneurial skills among students are questionable (okolie, et al., 2021). for example, this opportunity does not apply across all disciplines and, as revealed in students’ response to item 2 majority of the students that participated did so only once. jackson & wilton (2017) argue that for work experience to be effective; it should be made mandatory for students from all fields at least twice before exiting the university. if the universities will not be responsible for exposing students to el in all fields of study, then they pitan, o.s. and muller, c. (2023). assessment of strategies for preparing graduates for the disruptive workplace: evidence from nigeria and south africa. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 14(1), 15–30. 23 should educate them on its relevance for their future employability. the significance of work experience exposure as an undergraduate cannot be over-emphasised as it is regarded as the optimum technique for the development of transferable skills (tymon, 2013). in contrast to what is obtainable in nigeria, there are limited formal arrangements for student work placements in south africa universities, particularly for students at less reputable universities who are from disadvantaged backgrounds (british council, 2015; walker and fongwa, 2017). students' low level of agreement with items 1, 2 and 6 confirmed that many were not engaged in el activities. other el activities where south africa students are inadequately engaged are career fairs, career workshops and employers' participation in project presentations (items 7, 8 and 9). south africa students’ inadequate exposure to el aligns with ohei & brink (2019) and walker & fongwa, (2017). using a mixed method approach ohei & brink (2019), probed the problems that graduates encounter when entering the labour market in south africa and explored why graduates are not obtaining their desired jobs in their profession. their findings showed that the majority of such graduates have limited work experience and cannot apply the knowledge acquired in the university to the workplace setting. also, 85% of the graduates in ohei & brink’s (2019) study believed that lack of work experience was a reason for not being shortlisted. career guidance activities (cga) one area of concern around students’ exposure to cga was that the mean ratings in the two countries were below the threshold level of 3.5. students from both countries indicated that their respective universities were not exposing them adequately to cga. the analysis of the individual items under cga further showed that the students were deficient in the presentation skills (i.e. cv and job application writing skills and skills to succeed at job interviews), needed to convince prospective employers about their suitability for a job. walker & fongwa (2017) and donald, et al. (2018) suggest that students’ responses of inadequate acquisition of presentation skills may be the result of a large percentage of students not participating in activities developing these skills at university. according to walker & fongwa (2017), this is particularly true of some reputable universities in south africa, where because career services are run as a co-curricular activity, students may not be aware of these services’ existence or importance in respect of work preparedness; or are unable to attend due to academic timetable commitments. this indicates that not only should the universities provide careers services, but that appropriate measures, such as frequent orientation programmes and incorporation of career education into courses from the first year, should be instituted to encourage and create awareness among students on the necessity of cga for the development of skills needed to succeed in the world of work (bridgstock, et al, 2019). the mean difference between the two countries showed that there was no significant difference between students' responses for aggregate scores for cga and four of its five individual items. the only item that recorded a high significant difference was item 1, (services of career counselling are made available to me). there was a higher level of agreement among south africa students on this question than among students from nigeria. the result of inadequate availability of services of career counselling to students from nigeria is also a confirmation of past studies (okolie et al., 2020; british council, 2015) which found that most universities in nigeria lack guidance and counselling units, and where they existed, they were either dysfunctional or underutilised. for example, of the 14 universities, including from south africa and nigeria, that participated in the british council study only four had a fully functioning career service. nine had a career service, but with inadequate staffing or funding to function fully while one had no career service. in several of these universities, only one person is available to attend to all the activities of the career’s office. in certain cases, career service is just one of the services subsumed under the student office, where several other services such as general academic guidance and personal counselling are provided. what these suggest is that in some universities, careers services are not functioning fully as expected. pitan, o.s. and muller, c. (2023). assessment of strategies for preparing graduates for the disruptive workplace: evidence from nigeria and south africa. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 14(1), 15–30. 24 table 3: students' exposure to cga and el -comparison between nigeria and south africa nigeria (n= 463) south africa (n=402) mean difference items mean sd standard error of mean mean sd standard error of mean z-score career guidance activities 3.43 .87 .041 3.47 .87 .044 -0.71ns services of career counselling are made available to me 3.26 1.14 .053 3.68 1.11 .055 -5.45*** i have knowledge & understanding of career opportunities 3.73 .95 .044 3.75 1.00 .050 -0.29ns i have the skills to make successful written applications 3.52 1.09 .051 3.49 1.01 .055 0.43ns i can produce an up-to-date cv targeted to applications 3.26 1.14 .053 3.20 1.27 .063 0.71ns i have acquired the skills to succeed in job interviews 3.38 1.17 .055 3.25 1.24 .062 1.3ns experiential learning 3.60 .733 .035 3.33 .96 .048 4.90*** i have been exposed to work experience through an internship or work placement 4.04 1.13 .052 3.31 2.38 .119 6.4*** i have been exposed to work experience or placement opportunities at least twice 3.11 1.24 .058 3.14 1.37 .068 0.33ns i have awareness of workplace structures and practice 3.79 1.01 .047 3.51 1.31 .065 3.63*** i have the skills to succeed in employment as i reflect on my progress 3.67 1.00 .047 3.53 1.17 .058 1.97* i have the opportunity to take part in simulations and case studies 3.65 .84 .040 3.50 1.19 .060 1.94* i have had the opportunity to visit local employers 3.38 1.20 .056 3.13 1.42 .071 2.81** i have listened to employers about employment opportunities and their skill requirements 3.62 1.13 .052 3.36 1.24 .062 3.13*** i have experienced employers’ participation in programme delivery or project presentation 3.52 1.16 .054 3.23 1.23 .062 3.45*** i have witnessed alumni visit to talk about their career paths and opportunities in their company 3.41 1.25 .058 3.14 1.30 .065 3.25*** i have been encouraged to seek new skills to increase my employability 3.78 1.25 .053 3.41 1.21 .060 4.46*** notes: ns p⩾0.05; *p<0.05; **p<0.01; ***p<0.001 pitan, o.s. and muller, c. (2023). assessment of strategies for preparing graduates for the disruptive workplace: evidence from nigeria and south africa. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 14(1), 15–30. 25 determinants of students’ perceived level of preparedness for work table 3 below illustrates the results of the hierarchical multiple regression analysis used to assess the ability of cga and el to predict spw while controlling for the influence of gender and the type of university attended. preliminary analyses ensured that the estimation assumptions in respect of normality, linearity, multicollinearity and homoscedasticity were not violated. gender and type of university attended were included in model 1 and explaining 0% and 14% of the variance in spw for nigeria and south africa, respectively. after entry of the cga and el in model 2 the total variance explained by the model was 45% for nigeria and 38% for south africa. the two strategies explained an additional 45% (nigeria) and 23% (south africa) (of the variance in spw after controlling for gender and the type of university attended. in nigeria, only cga and el were significant in both models 1 and 2 while for south africa, both the students' characteristics (gender and type of university) and the two measures of spw were statistically significant in both models. el and cga in accordance with extant literature (tymon, 2013; garcía-aracil et al.,2021) the results indicated that, overall, the two strategies have significant positive influences on spw among students in the two countries after controlling for the effects of gender and type of university attended. comparing the relative contributions of each strategy, el is the highest contributor to spw in the two countries with (40%, p<0.001) and (31%, p<0.001) in nigeria and south africa respectively. cga contributed (35%, p<0.001) and 28%, p<0.001) in nigeria and south africa respectively. with these results, it is confirmed that the two main strategies (el and cga) examined in this study jointly and individually serve as predictors of students' perceptions of their level of preparedness for work. gender and type of university attended consistent with jackson & tomlinson’s 2020 study among australian and uk university students, gender and type of university attended do not have a significant influence on spw in the two models for nigeria (table 4). in contrast, there are significant differences in the influence of gender and type of university attended on spw among south africa students. variations in the results of the influence of gender and university attended in the two countries may be because gender inequality and racial disparities in the type of universities students attend are more pronounced in south africa than in nigeria. in south africa, male students exhibited a higher level of optimism in their level of preparedness for work, which may be a result of existing gender stereotypes and labour market realities whereby males are known to gain access to graduate-level jobs faster than females (anand et al., 2016; pitan & muller, 2020). contrary to expectations, the results reveal a higher level of perceived preparedness for work by students from low-rated universities than those from high-rated ones in south africa. one possible explanation is that students from low-rated universities in south africa, being aware of the disadvantage the type of university attended may pose on their future labour market success (such as being less employable, and having a lower absorption rate into the labour market) are more proactive and more engaging in activities (such as experiential learning) that mediate between university attended and their future employability (pitan & muller, 2019) than those from high-rated universities. also, most of the academics in low reputable universities are conscious of their students’ needs and thus, assist, counsel and encourage them to add value to their academic skills (british council, 2015). pitan, o.s. and muller, c. (2023). assessment of strategies for preparing graduates for the disruptive workplace: evidence from nigeria and south africa. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 14(1), 15–30. 26 table 4: hierarchical regression analysis predicting students’ perceived level of preparedness for work nigeria south africa model 1 model 2 model 1 model 2 variables b se β b se β b se β b se β step 1 gender -.06 .09 -.03ns .03 .07 -.02ns .15 .07 .10* .15 .06 .10 ** type of university .06 .09 .03ns .04 .07 .02ns .54 .07 .36*** .24 .07 .16 *** step 2: cga .37 .05 .35*** .22 .04 .28 *** el .50 .06 .40*** .26 .04 .31 *** f-value 0.51ns 88.33*** 33.56 *** 59.43*** r2 .00 .45 .14 .38 adjusted r2 -.00 .45 .14 .37 ∆r2 .00 .45 .14 .23 notes: ns p⩾0.05; *p<0.05; **p<0.01; ***p<0.001 implications of the study implications for policy and practice one major finding from this research is that students’ exposure to the identified strategies can distinctly influence their employability. the implication is that the sampled universities can enhance their students’ employability by raising the level of student exposure to el and cga. one of the methods by which the universities can achieve this is for the individual bodies that oversee the administration of he in the two countries to mandate all universities to establish a formal arrangement for students' participation in el and cga. they would also need to do a follow-up to ensure compliance and quality. where universities will not be responsible for students’ placement for work experience in all fields of study, it should be a requirement that programmes emphasize the relevance of work experience for future employability so that students can make personal efforts or arrangements to obtain placements. students from south africa were also found to have inadequate exposure to certain other el activities, such as career workshops, employers’ participation in programme delivery or project presentations, excursions and witnessing alumni visit to talk about their career paths and opportunities in their company. these are supposed, real-world activities that are basic to acquiring reflection, selfawareness and opportunity awareness skills. to ensure that students are exposed to these el activities, universities need to develop stronger collaboration with industries and alumni in such activities as curriculum development and delivery, inviting experts from the industry as guest lecturers for student project supervision, building networks and workshops and training on current skills needs of the industry. field trips and site seeing should also be made a priority by different departments in the universities. insufficient exposure of students to cga in both countries suggests that the sampled universities may produce graduates who are ignorant of the ongoing disruptions and the skills demand in the labour market. when they have the required skills, such graduates may not be able to confidently convince prospective employers of their possession of such skills. it therefore, becomes a matter of necessity for higher education institutions (heis) to ensure the provision of and students' exposure to cga such as cv preparation targeted at specific applications, skills to succeed in job interviews and skills to write successful written applications. apart from providing such activities for students, appropriate pitan, o.s. and muller, c. (2023). assessment of strategies for preparing graduates for the disruptive workplace: evidence from nigeria and south africa. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 14(1), 15–30. 27 measures, such as frequent orientation programmes and incorporation of career education into courses from the first year, should be put in place. such measures will encourage and create awareness among students on the necessity of cga for the development of transferable skills needed to succeed in the world of work. another policy implication is the effect of country context on students’ perceptions of their preparedness for work as revealed in the result of the significant influence of gender and type of university on spw among south africa students. this confirms the multidimensionality of employability, which implies that skills and competencies are not the only determinants of students' perception of employability. such issues are particularly relevant in the south africa context, which are to be evidence of inherent inequality rooted in the legacies of apartheid. there is a need for policymakers and heis to find ways of addressing such social processes to develop graduate employability effectively. in making quantitative comparisons on heis between countries, it becomes necessary to acknowledge such prevailing contextual differences. limitations and further study the findings of this research are restricted to the use of perceptions of students who are yet to have real experience of the labour market. nonetheless, and as bandura et al. (2003) confirms selfperceptions are often associated with actual behaviour. to ascertain the sustainability (or otherwise) of students' perceptions, future researchers can conduct graduate tracer studies to track and know the labour market outcomes of graduates post university. an additional limitation is that although this study references literature on the quality of el and cga, this research did not assess the quality or effectiveness of the el and cga strategies used in the universities sampled. such extension is recommended for future research. in addition, subsequent research should consider the influence of other demographic and contextual factors such as the course of study, age, race/ethnicity, religion and family background that may influence students' perceptions and how to overcome the resulting stereotypes. conclusion in an ever-changing world of work, universities are increasingly being called upon to not only depart content knowledge to graduates, but to ensure that students are adequately engaged with tools and strategies that will equip them with the necessary transferable skills to secure employment (or start their businesses) and be able to meet the demands of the workplace. this study has determined the overall and relative contributions of cga and el to students' perceived level of preparedness for work in nigeria and south africa after controlling for the possible effects of gender and type of university. more importantly, it assessed the extent to which el and cga as means of equipping students with transferable skills are being used in he in the two countries to prepare graduates for the disruptive labour market. one significant contribution of the study to the existing body of knowledge on spw is that university students from both countries agreed, after controlling for the effects of gender and type of university attended; that the two strategies (el and cga) jointly and individually have significant positive influences on their preparedness for the labour market. among the two strategies, el was found to be the highest contributor to spw in the two countries. despite the significant positive influences on spw, further analysis indicated that the universities in the two countries are not adequately exposing their students to these strategies. students from nigeria demonstrated adequate exposure only to el, while those from south africa demonstrated inadequate exposure to both el and cga. however, the quality and the length of work experience offered by nigerian universities are issues of concern. for example, many of the students who claimed to have been exposed to the work experience were exposed only once. inadequate exposure of students to these strategies in both countries is a signal that the sampled universities may produce graduates who lack competence and who are unprepared for the challenges of disruption in the job market. when they have the required skills, such graduates may not be able to confidently convince prospective employers of their possession of such skills. in respect of gender and the type of university attended on spw, there are pitan, o.s. and muller, c. 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(2022). perceptions of student teamwork in professional programmes in higher education: a comparative study of spain and south africa. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 13(1), 94-108 94 the journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability issn: 1838-3815 (online) journal homepage: https://ojs.deakin.edu.au/index.php/jtlge/ perceptions of student teamwork in professional programmes in higher education: a comparative study of spain and south africa gabrielle nudelman1, claudia kalil1, elena navarro-astor2, and jane english1 corresponding author: gabrielle nudelman (gabrielle.nudelman@uct.ac.za) 1professional communication studies unit, university of cape town, south africa 2school of building engineering, universitat politècnica de valència, spain abstract teamwork is a fundamental employability skill and, as such, is fostered in professional programmes. this study presents a comparative analysis of higher education students' perceptions, development, and experiences of teamwork at two universities: one in south africa and the other in spain. these study sites provided a fruitful opportunity for comparison, given their contextual similarities. through a survey of 395 3rd and 4th-year students of professional degrees, the authors explored how these students developed the teamwork skills required within their curricula. the findings showed that respondents from both institutions perceive teamwork similarly, but there are significant differences in how these skills are developed. while most south african respondents had participated in courses focused on team functioning, the spanish had learnt to function in teams during project work. furthermore, the south african sample was more aware of the impact of socio-cultural factors on team functioning than the spanish one. the former reported feeling marginalised due to their race, gender and language to a greater extent than the spanish. the paper outlines the potential benefits of successful teamwork, such as improving social cohesion. the results could be useful to policymakers and lecturers designing context-specific interventions to develop students' teamwork skills. keywords employability, teamwork, workplace readiness, higher education, south africa, spain introduction graduates from professional programmes entering the workplace need to be equipped with disciplinary knowledge. architects must design buildings, engineers must solve technical problems, and accountants must manage financial records. however, besides carrying out these specialist actions, graduates must exhibit transferable skills that will determine how they perform their work. these skills, including leadership, communication, problem solving and teamwork, are variably known as soft skills, generic, key or transversal competencies and employability skills (tight, 2021). they are considered fundamental to the dual considerations of finding employment and performing it adequately. this paper focuses on teamwork. the international labour organisation (ilo) classifies teamwork as one of four broad skill categories required by employers that need to be integrated into education programmes (international labour office, 2013). more specifically, in south africa and spain, where nudelman, g. (2022). perceptions of student teamwork in professional programmes in higher education: a comparative study of spain and south africa. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 13(1), 94-108 95 this research emanates, teamwork is a core requirement for higher education programmes. the south african qualifications authority (saqa) has formulated seven critical cross-field competencies that underpin all national qualifications in the country. the second of these states that graduates must be able to 'work effectively with others as a member of a team, group, organisation, community' (saqa, 2000). spain is a member of the european higher education area (ehea), a body formed to increase staff and students' mobility across european borders and facilitate employability (ehea, n.d.-b). the ehea (emphasising preparation of students for the workplace) requires the integration in all programmes of generic 'soft skills' (ehea n.d.-a), including the ability to work in teams. spanish education authorities and the national agency for quality assessment and accreditation (aneca) have procedures for designing, approving, monitoring, and assessing their qualifications (bezanilla et al., 2019). in fact, spanish higher education regulations have established learning objectives expressed in terms of competencies (ministerio de educación y ciencia 2007). these policies mean that students in south african and spanish tertiary institutions should be exposed to teamwork activities. yet, as shown below, there are many complexities around students' teamwork experiences that impact the efficacy of teaching and learning activities to develop teamwork competency. ramsden (2003) asserts that for educators to improve their teaching, they need to listen to and learn from their students. in the context of teamwork pedagogy, interventions should be grounded in the students' understanding of teamwork, including the factors that constrain and enable its development in a university context. since pedagogy's success largely relies on student engagement and feedback, their voice should be considered when assessing approaches for promoting teamwork within a curriculum (wilson et al., 2018). this paper outlines the findings of research carried out at universities in south africa and spain. students enrolled in professional programmes were asked to reflect on their teamwork experiences during their studies. the purpose of the study is threefold: • explore students' perceptions of teamwork • understand how students develop teamwork skills in higher education • gather data about students' experiences of teamwork in the context of diversity and inclusion developing teamwork in higher education teamwork skills can be generally understood as behaviours and attitudes that enable effective team functioning (mathieu et al. 2008). the looseness around the definition of "team", however, can lead to a lack of clarity regarding the determinants of effective teamwork. katzenbach and smith's (1993, p. 113) classic definition of a team is "a small number of people with complementary skills who are committed to a common purpose, set of performance goals, and approach for which they hold themselves mutually accountable". here, teamwork is understood as the actions, time and effort contributing to developing mutual purpose, work products, decision making and accountability. popular teamwork theories have been posited over the years, including team effectiveness models by tuckman (1965), katzenbach and smith (1993) and hackman (2002). in recent years, shifts in the contemporary workplace have expanded a more fluid conceptualisation of teams given geographic dispersion, remote work and collaborative technologies (benishek & lazzara, 2019). teamwork thus remains a dynamic and multidimensional construct, and empirical and theoretical research into its determinants is ongoing (benisheck & lazzara, 2019; roberts et al., 2022). with a specific focus on higher education, the literature regarding students' development of teamwork skills falls into two categories. in the first category, encouraging teamwork skills in students is seen as an end in itself. these studies highlight that contemporary graduates entering the workplace will need to work in teams and that these will often be multicultural, multidisciplinary and international (riebe et al., 2016; marasi, 2019; bravo et al., 2019). therefore, students must become nudelman, g. (2022). perceptions of student teamwork in professional programmes in higher education: a comparative study of spain and south africa. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 13(1), 94-108 96 familiar with how to work positively and productively within teams so that they can transfer these skills to the workplace. in the second category, working in teams at university is seen as a means through which graduates can learn a host of other vital competencies. these include intercultural competence (de hei et al., 2020; alcalá del olmo fernández et al., 2020), critical thinking (plotnikova & strukov, 2019), creativity (lee, 2018) and communication (koris & vuylsteke, 2020). teamwork literature in higher education also focuses on teaching initiatives developed to this end. marasi (2019) utilised creative games, including small-group role-play and improvisation, to develop undergraduate students' teamwork skills. casper (2017) used lego blocks to encourage communication and collaboration with groups of 5-7 students who worked together to create different structures. yet, there is also evidence that some educators place more emphasis on the final product (i.e. on the quality of completion of the task undertaken by the team) than on building the skills and attributes that students need to work productively together (riebe et al., 2016). students may be placed in groups and set to work on a collaborative task without any input into team development. while this approach to teamwork development has been used within higher education for decades, it has been shown that teamwork does not automatically occur as a consequence of putting people together and instead requires guidance and mentorship (ghannam & ahmad, 2020; marasi, 2019). one tension highlighted within the scholarship of student teamwork relates to the challenge of working in socially diverse teams. students engaging in multicultural teamwork report various challenges, including differences in work orientation, language and communication issues, and fears of causing offence, which can lead to avoidance and disengagement (reid & garson, 2017; riebe et al., 2016). research by shaw (2004) shows that teams that are diverse in terms of gender, age and nationality may even place some students at a disadvantage when it comes to performance and grade outcomes. however, the impact of social diversity on team functioning in higher education has not to date been studied in great detail (riebe et al. 2016). this paper begins to address this gap with a particular focus on students' experiences in south africa and spain. study context south africa and spain the data was gathered at the university of cape town (uct) and the polytechnic university of valencia (upv). while the host countries are continents apart and differ historically, geographically, economically and demographically, there are commonalities. both countries are relatively young democracies, with south africa's first democratic elections in 1994 and spain's democratic constitution adopted in 1978. since then, both countries have had to balance the development of just, equitable societies with the pressures of global capitalism (ornellas et al., 2017). to remain viable in international markets, both south africa and spain have implemented policies based on neoliberalist ideals, such as increasing privatisation and the prioritisation of market-driven over social commitments. this has resulted in the 'deterioration of social cohesion, lack of social protection, decreased welfare support, increasing inequality, failure to address previous grievances and rising risk' for vulnerable citizens (ornellas et al., 2017, p. 538). as a result, both are characterised by high unemployment levels: south africa a 29.2% unemployment rate in 2020; spain a 15.5% unemployment rate (international monetary fund, 2021), almost double the euro area average. in terms of education, both countries have low enrolment rates, high attrition rates and high grade repetition (do vale, 2016). south africa appears last in the ranking of maths and science education in 135 countries (baller et al., 2016). while not fairing as dismally, students in spain score below the organisation for economic cooperation and development (oecd) average in mathematics and science (oecd, 2019). both countries face the challenge of youth unemployment and high neet rates [not in education, employment or training] (holte et al., 2019; lópez rupérez & garcía, 2020). nudelman, g. (2022). perceptions of student teamwork in professional programmes in higher education: a comparative study of spain and south africa. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 13(1), 94-108 97 another similarity is that their population is heterogeneous in ethnicity, culture, language, race and nationality. in south africa, the population of 59,62 million is made up of black africans [81%], coloured/mixed-raced individuals [9%], whites [8%] and indian/asians [3%] (maluleke, 2020). there are 11 official languages, various ethnic and religious groups, and an estimated 4.2 million international migrants. most are from mozambique, zimbabwe, lesotho and malawi (moyo, 2020). the spanish population is approximately 47 million (world bank, 2020). there are four official languages and 17 historical autonomous regions, each of which boasts its own culture, customs, dialects and even physical phenotype (ardila, 2020; žiūraitė, 2019). the country became the world's third-largest recipient of immigrants during the 2000s, representing 13.1% of the total population in 2019 (carvalho, 2020; atienza & romo, 2021). there are 6.1 million international migrants in spain, most of whom originate from morocco, colombia and venezuela (instituto nacional de estadística, 2021). spanish is the mother tongue for 89% of the population, catalonian for 9%, galician for 5% and basque for 1%. since the spanish government prohibits the official collection of racial data, statistics relating to the racial demographics are not available (flores, 2015). institutional contexts located in cape town, uct is ranked the top african university according to the quacaquarelli symonds (qs) world university rankings (craig, 2021). upv is ranked the best university in valencia and the ninth in spain (craig, 2021). the student population size is similar at both universities. in 2019, uct student enrolment stood at 29,272 students (uct, 2020) and student enrolment at upv was 28,069 (upv, 2019). the development of teamwork skills, with other professional competencies, is a focus for both institutions. uct's teaching and learning strategy (uct, 2013, p. 179) highlights the need to 'provide students with opportunities to attain a range of transferable and specialist attributes during their studies', with teamwork a prime example of such a transferable attribute. to this end, teaching staff must find ways to embed these attributes into their curricula. also, some professional programmes at uct need to incorporate specific graduate attributes for accreditation by external professional bodies. for example, engineering degrees are accredited by the engineering council of south africa (ecsa). one of ecsa's attributes relates specifically to 'individual, team and multidisciplinary working' (ecsa, 2019) and requires that graduates demonstrate competence to work in teams. where professional accreditation is at stake, incorporating generic competencies into the curriculum, in this case, teamwork, becomes imperative. generic competencies are similarly emphasised at upv. the upv transversal competence institutional project was established in the 2015/16 academic year (upv, 2020). this project required the incorporation of 13 transversal skills into curricula. skill number six relates to 'teamwork and leadership' and requires that students work and effectively lead teams to achieve the common goals of a group of people. at upv, it is mandatory to include these competencies within all courses and ensure that these are appropriately evaluated. this brief context-setting lays out some similarities in the study contexts. students in both countries are undoubtedly affected by the demographic complexities outlined above, impacting their interactions in higher education spaces. uct and upv, both highly ranked universities of similar size, locate the development of transferable skills (including teamwork) within their teaching and learning priorities. in developing teamwork competencies, students must find ways to work across and with the described social differences. these two contexts thus provide fruitful sites for exploring how students experience teamwork within professional programmes. nudelman, g. (2022). perceptions of student teamwork in professional programmes in higher education: a comparative study of spain and south africa. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 13(1), 94-108 98 research question how do students in spain and south africa perceive and develop teamwork skills and experience teamwork in their professional degree programmes? method data for this study was gathered through a teamwork survey conducted from march 2019 to october 2020 in english at uct and spanish at upv. the authors developed the questions to collect data from students on aspects of teamwork experience, on and off-campus. the survey was divided into sections that moved from closed to open-ended questions, combining scaled and matrix questions (easterby-smith et al., 2012; fellows & liu, 2015; babbie, 2020). the rating questions were based on 5-point likert scales (nunnally & bernstein, 1994). the first section focused on respondents' location, field of study, gender and ethnicity. the next section sought information about students' aspirations and experience of their field through study and vacation work. the focus then shifted to theoretical and experiential responses to teamwork, and finally, open questions focused on experience of and feelings about inclusion and perceived reasons for lack thereof. qualtrics xm online survey software was used, which allowed the authors to use cloud-based survey technology to reach a larger number of respondents. the authors distributed the survey link via email and internal announcements. at uct, the survey link was distributed to the faculties of engineering and the built environment and commerce, which offer professional degrees. these degrees focus on a particular workplace activity in industry and commerce (viz. electrical and electronics engineering, mechanical and mech-elec engineering, property studies, information systems, and actuarial science). similarly, at upv, the links were distributed to escuela técnica superior ingeniería de edificación and escuela técnica superior de arquitectura, for students enrolled in building engineering and architectural studies. the responses from 395 participants were analysed, with a gender distribution of 57% male to 43% female respondents and institutional distribution of 46% uct to 54% upv. there was an approximately equal number of 3rd and 4th-year students. however, there was an imbalance in gender at uct, given the predominance of males taking industry-related degrees in south africa (see table 1). the upv sample reflected increased gender balance in spanish architectural schools over the last 12 years (sánchez de madariaga, 2018). regarding race, 81% of the upv sample identified themselves as white/caucasian, 9% as latino, 3% unspecified, and the remaining 7% were arab, mixed, black/african, and asian. the uct sample includes 37% black/african, 36% white/caucasian, 11% indian, 8% coloured and the rest asian, mixed-race and unspecified. table 1: total sample spread university total 3rd years 4th years % female % male uct 183 108 75 33% 67% upv 212 101 111 51% 49% answers to the open-ended survey questions were categorised into themes, and results were analysed by country, ethnicity and gender. nudelman, g. (2022). perceptions of student teamwork in professional programmes in higher education: a comparative study of spain and south africa. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 13(1), 94-108 99 findings perceptions of teamwork participants were asked to choose five elements from a list of 20 that best represented their definitions of teamwork. figure 1 below shows the comparative findings from uct and upv. figure 1. definitions of teamwork at uct and upv respondents at both institutions ranked 'listening to others', 'sharing ideas' and 'coordinating people and tasks' in the top three most important aspects of teamwork. one slight difference was that a higher percentage of respondents at uct ranked 'handling conflicts' as a vital aspect of teamwork (9.8%), while upv respondents placed less emphasis on this (5.5%) and more on solving problems (13.9%). fewer upv respondents highlighted 'acknowledging diverse backgrounds in teams' (3%) and 'acknowledging gender in team members' (0.2%) as essential elements of teamwork than uct respondents. for both universities, 'acting independently', 'being knowledgeable', 'persuading others', and 'negotiating to win' were among the five least important elements. respondents at upv, however, ranked 'upskilling self in relevant areas' higher than the respondents at uct. as students studying towards professional qualifications, respondents at both universities articulated a clear link between teamwork and professional practice, highlighting: 1) teamwork is an important quality for a professional in any field; and 2) successful teamwork depends on a professional approach. concerning the former, one respondent from upv explained, a professional must know how to work in a group, cooperating in the development of the work issue, respecting others' positions and validating their contributions to reach a final result where all the parties have contributed and gotten new points of view in respect to their own (ana, 3rd year, architectural studies, upv). a uct respondent made this link even more explicit, stating that 'to work in a professional sense, an individual must be able to work well and get along with a team. if nobody wants to work with you, then your professional career will suffer' (nkosi, 3rd year, mechanical engineering, uct). here, teamwork skills are seen as a professional imperative. about the latter, a uct respondent said, 'the way one conducts oneself while working in a team should be in a professional manner. language, nudelman, g. (2022). perceptions of student teamwork in professional programmes in higher education: a comparative study of spain and south africa. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 13(1), 94-108 100 etiquette, communication and respect should all be conducted in a professional manner when doing teamwork' (xhanti, 3rd year, mechanical engineering, uct). this intersection of teamwork and professionalism (whereby teamwork is an essential part of professionalism and professionalism is an essential part of teamwork) was prevalent at both universities. when describing the link between teamwork and professionalism, students at both institutions did not refer specifically to teams comprising different races, cultures, languages and genders. instead, the social composition of the group was largely ignored, except by two participants. one uct respondent highlighted that teamwork entails 'knowing how to act in a group setting, how to contribute and how to act amongst a diverse team' (ropa, 4th year, information systems, uct). a upv student mentioned that teamwork implies 'knowing how to respect others and take advantage of the diversity of ideas and methodologies’ (sandra, 4th year, building engineering, upv). aside from these two comments, the findings show that respondents at both institutions take a more generic view of successful teamwork, highlighting one-size-fits-all principles for effective teamwork such as 'knowing your abilities and your limits, being able to recognise them before the rest and asking for help to improve' (carmen, 3rd year, architectural studies, upv), and 'communicating your ideas clearly to the rest of your team members. asking for help if your other members can assist you' (riaz, 3rd year, mechanical engineering, uct). these principles would apply to any team, regardless of whether they are homogeneous or heterogeneous. no explicit mention was made by students at either university of the added complexities of teamwork with socially diverse members. this is despite respondents at both institutions feeling strongly that social inclusion is an important principle to uphold when working in teams. among the uct respondents, 75% considered social inclusion 'very important', and 20% considered it 'important.’ at upv, 62% considered it 'very important', and 31% judged it as 'important'. finally, the values that enable successful teamwork within a professional setting were emphasised. uct respondents explained that teamwork entails: 'being respectful in all interactions' (matthew, 4th year, information systems, uct); 'trusting each other in a team' (tiyara, 4th year, information systems, uct); and 'acting with honesty and integrity’ (nokwazi, 4th year, actuarial science, uct). similarly, upv respondents saw teamwork as: 'the ability to be self-critical and willing to have an open mind' (luis, 3rd year, architectural studies, upv); 'sharing ideas to solve a problem posed at work' (ana, 3rd year, architectural studies, upv); and 'compromise and dedication’ (víctor, 3rd year, architectural studies, upv). there was far more emphasis on the values that underlie effective teamwork than the practices that enable it. development of teamwork competencies amongst the uct respondents, 73% reported having received training in teamwork within their degree programme. their experiences enabling the development of teamwork skills fell into three categories. first, 49% of respondents described courses that explicitly focused on developing teamwork. for example, the actuarial science students had taken a course called 'people management', where they were 'taught how to manage different conflict styles, motivate different people to get work done and when team performance is most optimal' optimal' (anoush, 4th year, actuarial science, uct). the engineering students specified another course called 'professional communication skills', which emphasised enabling teamwork in preparation for the workplace. second, 48% of uct respondents felt they had developed teamwork skills through participating in group projects. in these cases, principles of successful teamwork were not explicitly taught but developed as the respondents navigated the process of working together. the respondents' language when reporting on these experiences indicates some underlying tensions regarding working in teams. for example, one uct respondent said 'we've been forced to work in teams on various projects' (tumelo, 3rd year, mechanical engineering, uct), and another explained, 'this was not necessarily training per se, but rather interaction and having to learn by working in groups’ (katlego, 4th year, actuarial science, uct). the final category of university experiences that uct respondents described as contributing to developing their teamwork skills was non-academic. these nudelman, g. (2022). perceptions of student teamwork in professional programmes in higher education: a comparative study of spain and south africa. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 13(1), 94-108 101 included being a student leader at an orientation week for incoming students and training to be a receptionist at a residence hall. while the number of uct respondents who reported receiving teamwork training during their degrees was high, only 27% of upv respondents expressed the same. only 4% of upv respondents reported having participated in formal courses similar to those at uct, and 6% developed their teamwork skills as part of non-academic university experiences. the remaining respondents (90%) all declared their exposure to teamwork within their academic studies as limited to projects within their courses. for example, one respondent explained '[w]e have carried out many teamwork projects, but no team management guidelines have been given’ (oscar, 4th year, building engineering, upv). another stated 'there are many teamwork projects, but at the beginning nobody tells you how to work in the best way, you learn as you go' (elsa, 4th year, architectural studies, upv). the majority (76% at uct and 63% at upv) had participated in some form of work experience during their studies. many ascribed their development of teamwork skills to this. uct respondents alluded particularly to vacation work related to their studies. for example, one student explained i once went to a community build project. we had to work in groups. within those groups you get different genders, different races and different backgrounds. we had to help each other and organise how we are to share the work. in order to work in harmony we had to have teamwork skills. (sabeehah, 3rd year, architectural studies, uct). another stated 'we had a project where all vacation work students had to create concepts in a group for projects to improve cape town and then present it’ (daniel, 3rd year, mechanical engineering, uct). while some uct respondents reported having had formal teamwork training as part of their vacation work, most explained that teamwork skills were developed as a by-product of working with others. for example, one respondent described how a colleague had wanted to do all the project work himself, and the other group members had had to convince him to let them all participate. they had resolved the situation by letting him take on the parts he was good at and doing the rest themselves. this on-the-job negotiation, compromise, and problem-solving indicate how most respondents developed teamwork skills during their vacation work. as one student said, 'we're mainly just thrown into the mix of a team and expected to work with others to solve a common goal' (sandile, 3rd year, mechanical engineering, uct). the upv respondents' experiences were somewhat different. those who reported having undertaken work experience mainly referred to roles within the hospitality and entertainment industry, not those aligned with their professional fields of study. nevertheless, they shared their experiences developing teamwork skills as waiters, cafeteria workers, summer school instructors and camp counsellors. while the respondents highlighted no formal training for teamwork skills, they did articulate the importance of teamwork for success within these roles. for example, one participant said, 'i work in the hospitality industry, and if you don't work as a team, the service simply doesn't work out in the best way’ (nuria, 4th year, architectural studies, upv). another explained, 'the work involved in a cafeteria happens through task distribution and good communication between team members' (teresa, 4th year, architectural studies, upv). experiences of teamwork the study findings showed that despite extensive teamwork practice at university and in the workplace, many respondents still felt socially excluded when working on team projects (see tables 2 and 3). nudelman, g. (2022). perceptions of student teamwork in professional programmes in higher education: a comparative study of spain and south africa. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 13(1), 94-108 102 table 2. marginalisation during teamwork among uct respondents have you ever felt marginalised when working in teams? number (%) % male % female yes 78 (47%) 45 55 no 87 (53%) 80 20 total 165 (100%) table 3. marginalisation during teamwork among upv respondents have you ever felt marginalised when working in teams? number (%) % male % female yes 87 (42%) 38 62 no 121 (58%) 57 43 total 208 (100%) the proportion of uct respondents who reported feeling marginalised during teamwork (47%) was slightly higher than that of upv respondents (42%). the largest proportion of uct students who felt that they had been marginalised (33%) believed this was due to their race. one respondent described how he 'once worked with a group of white students who were friends, and i was the only outsider. so what i thought did not matter. i always got side-lined.’ (goodness, 3rd year, architectural studies, uct). another explained, 'white people typically assume that my contributions will not be of the ‘appropriate standard.’ i typically have to prove myself’ (khodani, 3rd year, mechanical engineering, uct). these quotes articulate black respondents' experiences of not being integrated within a team because of their race. in addition, several participants also highlighted their belief that their language was the reason for their marginalisation. in particular, students who identified as not speaking english fluently expressed that they were made to feel less valued within the group. a significant proportion (22%) of uct respondents reported that gender was the reason for their marginalisation. in fact, 72% of females reported having had this experience. some referred to the gendered nature of their discipline to explain why they had been marginalised when working in teams. for example, a mechanical engineering student explained, 'i am a female in engineering. being a female in male-dominated fields results in my abilities being overlooked often’ (claire, 3rd year, mechanical engineering, uct). similarly, an actuarial science student said, 'as a woman in a male-dominated field, i often think that the guys in my class do not take my opinion seriously or value my input’ (sukoluhle, 4th year, actuarial science, uct). however, there were also many responses that referred more generally to the biases that female respondents had experienced when working in teams. female students described not being taken seriously, struggling to be heard and being disrespected when working in teams of men. one respondent described how she had been forced to adopt a more combative approach when working in teams, explaining that 'working in male-dominated teams… sometimes means butting head with people just so your point of view is considered' (chantelle, 3rd year, mechanical engineering, uct). the remaining uct participants believed their marginalisation was due to their own lack of skills, experience or education. they alluded to being excluded because they either had less to contribute or could not adequately articulate their contributions. for example, one student described having nudelman, g. (2022). perceptions of student teamwork in professional programmes in higher education: a comparative study of spain and south africa. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 13(1), 94-108 103 'less to offer to the group due to a lack of understanding or being slow to understand what was required/being done’ (phole, 3rd year, architectural studies, uct). as shown in table 3, at 42%, the proportion of upv respondents marginalised during teamwork was similar to the 47% proportion of uct respondents. however, the reasons the upv respondents gave differed greatly from those of the uct respondents. while 51% of female respondents reported marginalisation during teamwork, only 3 upv respondents specifically mentioned gender as the cause. only carlos, a male student in the 4th year of building engineering, cited race as a factor, saying only 'there's lots of racism' when describing his teamwork experience. similarly, only one participant specifically highlighted language as a factor in their marginalisation, stating, 'the people in my group normally did not speak my language, and i felt marginalised’ (amine, 3rd year, architectural studies, upv). one factor that the upv sample highlighted was age. several architecture students described how, when working on a team project that brought together students from different years of study, the students in the lower years were not integrated into the team. laura, enrolled in the 3rd year of architectural studies explained that 'people in higher courses don't take your ideas into account.’ and belén, from the same course, said, 'i was in the second year, they didn't take me into account at all… the people were older than me.’ aside from these comments regarding gender, race, language and age, reasons given by the other upv respondents for their marginalisation related to a lack of generic teamwork skills. for example, one respondent highlighted how they had worked in a team where the members were not committed to the teamwork process. they described how their teammates were '…not sharing ideas. they were working in a group, but each one does his part and then put them together, with little teamwork’ (elena, 4th year, building engineering, upv). another said they had worked in a team where 'every person decided if they want to participate or not' (iván, 3rd year, building engineering, upv), highlighting the lack of buy-in to the teamwork process. a few students described the experience of working in teams where the other members were all friends, resulting in their exclusion from the team experience. martina, a 4th year building engineering student, described this in the following way: 'working with people who are friends with each other, are closed-minded and only support their friend's ideas.’ also, some respondents felt they could not contribute because they were shut out by the louder, more controlling team members. these students did not provide a social reason such as race or gender for this dynamic. instead, they referred to the dynamic itself as the reason for their experience of marginalisation. discussion the previous section outlined the findings related to uct and upv students' perceptions, development, and experiences of teamwork in their professional degree programmes. students at both universities must navigate social complexities such as unemployment, increasing inequality and lack of cohesion in south africa and spain. also, they will have been exposed to the demographic diversity extant in both countries. with their specific focus on teamwork, it is clear that both universities have committed to developing transferable skills within their curricula. on the one hand, this is externally motivated since, as explained in the paper's introduction, both saqa and enea mandate that generic competencies must underpin higher education qualifications. on the other hand, both universities have enacted internal strategies to ensure that students develop these competencies during their degrees. both institutions locate teamwork as a skill that, while developed at university, can be applied in different contexts. this is evident through the word 'transferable' in uct's teaching and learning strategy (uct, 2013) and 'transversal' in upv's project title, both of which allude to the goal of equipping students with skills that they can use beyond university. however, this notion of skills as transferable is not uncontested. some of the critiques of transferable skills are that: they are so generic as to no longer be useful within specific professional disciplines (bennett et al., 2000); skills nudelman, g. (2022). perceptions of student teamwork in professional programmes in higher education: a comparative study of spain and south africa. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 13(1), 94-108 104 cannot be neatly transferred between very different contexts, such as higher education and the workplace (fenwick, 2013); and they fail to explain labour outcomes (holmes, 2013), since even graduates who display teamwork, communication and leadership skills may fail to secure employment. none of these alternative perspectives on transferable skills was articulated by uct or upv respondents. the findings show that respondents have bought into the notion that teamwork can be developed in university courses and will be transferable to their professions once they graduate. this is evident in how respondents from both universities recognised and strongly articulated the link between teamwork and the professional workplace. in addition, the definitions of teamwork provided by the students emphasised non-context specific factors like 'sharing ideas', 'listening to others', and' time management.’ they highlighted universal values like 'respect', 'trust', and 'compromise' as integral to effective teamwork. their emphasis on behaviours, attitudes and values that enable effective team functioning shows that students' understanding of teamwork aligns with definitions from the literature (katzenbach & smith, 1993). finally, respondents from both universities developed similar teamwork skills during their vacation work experiences, even though they worked in different fields. these factors prove that uct and upv respondents accept the uncritical, uncomplicated notion of teamwork as a transferable skill that the universities propound. the findings show that uct respondents were more conscious of the impact of socio-cultural factors on team functioning than were upv students. this is particularly evident in two areas of the findings. first, the uct respondents highlighted 'acknowledging diverse backgrounds in teams' and 'acknowledging gender in team members' as essential elements of teamwork, neither of which was emphasised by the upv respondents. second, 47% of uct respondents reported having felt marginalised during teamwork due to race, gender or language. this is very different from the upv results. while 42% reported having felt marginalised during teamwork, the reasons for this marginalisation were related to factors of age and a lack of generic teamwork skills. given the similarities between the south african and spanish contexts regarding the population heterogeneity, this difference in uct and upv respondents' teamwork experiences is curious. why did uct respondents focus on race, gender and language when describing their experiences of marginalisation during teamwork while upv respondents did not? there are two possible contributing factors to this, which are outlined below. the first contributing factor could be the different approaches to teamwork skills development at the two institutions. the findings showed that 73% of uct respondents reported having received teamwork training during their studies, compared to only 27% of upv respondents. the more nuanced awareness of the impact of race, gender and language on team functioning, as highlighted by the uct participants, could be due to sensitisation to these issues due to explicit teaching of teamwork skills (riebe et al., 2016). this contrasts with the approach of teaching teamwork by simply placing students into groups and expecting them to work together (marasi, 2019). it could be argued that participating in dedicated teamwork training, such as the people management and professional communication skills courses, allowed them to engage more critically with teamwork and to reflect on and articulate their personal experiences. this could explain why upv respondents ranked 'upskilling self in relevant areas' higher than uct respondents. since the upv students' teamwork is related mainly to carrying out group projects, they may rate bringing individual skills to the team highly to contribute to the successful completion of the project. the second factor contributing to the difference between respondents' experiences of marginalisation when working as teams could be the national contexts. with the ongoing legacies of colonialism and apartheid, south africa continues to experience racial, cultural and gender-based fractures. related to the study context, between 2015-2017, the #feesmustfall student protests (langa et al., 2017; gouws, 2017) brought students' experiences of racism, sexism and classism in the higher education sector to the fore of national awareness. the protests led several times to total shutdowns of the country's higher education sector and resulted in ongoing calls for the decolonisation of curricula. this is the social milieu in which the uct respondents go about their nudelman, g. (2022). perceptions of student teamwork in professional programmes in higher education: a comparative study of spain and south africa. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 13(1), 94-108 105 studies, which would account for their heightened awareness of racial, gender and language issues. this deep and abiding focus on race is not present in spain. as highlighted earlier in the paper, the spanish government prohibits the official collection of racial data, which means that the census does not ask questions about race or ethnicity. race is clearly not on the national agenda, and, as such, it follows that most upv respondents would not identify this as a factor in team cohesion. at upv, students in the school of architecture participate annually in group projects in which all secondto fifth-year students work together. this accounts for the upv respondents' experiences of feeling marginalised when working in teams because of their ages and stage of study, given more advanced students may be less willing to collaborate with more junior students. this also reflects shaw's (2004) findings regarding the disadvantages that some students face when working in diverse teams. whether the divergent experiences of the uct and upv respondents can be explained by the nature of the teamwork training provided or by the national contexts (or a combination of these factors), this study shows that student teams in both universities are functioning sub-optimally. over 40% of respondents reported feeling marginalised while working as a team and shared their experiences of being side-lined, disrespected and excluded. in addition, while the respondents acknowledged that teamwork would be a vital part of their future professional roles, the use of words like 'forced' and 'having to' when describing their teamwork experiences indicates a level of resistance. indeed, it is telling that while respondents shared the skills they had drawn on to make their teams functional, no respondents at either university shared any positive teamwork experiences. this is out of synch with other studies in which students highlighted benefits of teamwork, such as the development of new knowledge and skills (lohmann et al., 2019), comradery and mutual support (bashan & holsblat, 2017), and the forging of new friendships (casper, 2017). teamwork has a potential role to play not just in preparing students for the workplace but in bridging the social divides in both countries. thus, more emphasis should be placed on enabling successful teamwork at both universities. conclusion this study presents a comparative analysis of students' perceptions, development and experiences of teamwork at uct and upv, universities in south africa and spain respectively. while these two study sites are geographically distant, they provide a fruitful opportunity for comparison and contrast, given the similarities in their contexts as relatively new democracies with diverse populations and myriad social challenges. while both respondent sets perceived teamwork similarly, there are significant divergences in how teamwork skills are developed at the two universities. at uct, most respondents had participated in courses that focused explicitly on team functioning. at upv, most respondents had received no team teaching but had learnt to function in teams while working on group projects. another difference in the findings related to students' experiences of teamwork. uct respondents reported feeling marginalised due to their race, gender and language while working in teams, whilst upv respondents mentioned age and generally poor team functioning. the study shows that the potential benefits of successful teamwork, such as strengthened social connections and the development of new knowledge, extend beyond preparation for the professional workplace to the improvement of social cohesion. as such, the development of teamwork skills in students warrants further focus at both institutions. policymakers and educators can utilise the results to ensure that interventions developed to this end are context-specific and directly address the teamwork challenges experienced by students at each institution. there is much scope for future research stemming from this study. first, while the study sample included students from different professional disciplines, there would be value in focusing more directly on specific departments at uct and upv. this would allow for more composite explorations of teamwork development that include not only student responses but also curriculum documents, analysis of teamwork teaching interventions and input from teaching staff. second, this study's goal nudelman, g. (2022). perceptions of student teamwork in professional programmes in higher education: a comparative study of spain and south africa. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 13(1), 94-108 106 of comparing the universities in south africa and spain meant that the discussion of the findings from each university was necessarily curtailed. a deeper analysis of the students' experiences at either uct or upv could result in significant findings that could strengthen teamwork skills development at each institution. finally, while this study explored students' experiences of teamwork quite generally, future research could use team theories to evaluate student performance on specific team projects to develop a richer understanding of critical success factors in both contexts. references alcalá del olmo fernández, m. j., santos villalba, m. j., & leiva-olivencia, j. j. 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(2014). editorial. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 5 (1). 1 editorial welcome to volume 5 of the journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability. this web-based journal is an open access publication of peer-reviewed publications disseminating research and best practice in higher education teaching and learning for graduate employability. as universities continue to direct attention to graduate capabilities (also referred to as attributes) and employability, the momentum in curriculum development designed to improve employability continues to grow. it is now widely accepted that it is not sufficient for universities to merely articulate graduate capabilities, they must also accept that they have a responsibility to create a curriculum in which the explicit teaching, learning and assessment of these capabilities is embedded. while on the surface it seems a straightforward matter, the practicalities of designing a curriculum to achieve this are far from simple, and require academics to review their beliefs and behaviours related to teaching and learning. in particular, they are faced with the dilemma of how best to design teaching and learning activities, including work integrated learning opportunities, which will not only enable students to develop and practice ‘employability’ skills, but also engage them. whilst not appropriate for all courses, one approach to addressing this dilemma is through the integration of authentic resources and experiences into the curriculum. the recent nmc horizon report 2014 higher education edition supports the need to focus on developing curricula which incorporate emerging technologies such as social networks and communities of practice, arguing that these can bring real world perspectives to the subject matter, engage students in peer-to-peer collaboration, make content more dynamic and accessible, facilitate group problem-solving and build communication skills, all of which are fundamental to graduate employability. indeed research evidence suggests that employers are unwilling to accept below average levels in these skills for fear of the negative impact they may have on their organisations. similarly, there is growing interest in the ‘flipped’ classroom which sees valuable class time used for the application of knowledge and skills in interactive, project, problem-based, or simulated situations, while students access information in a variety of modes outside of class time. such an approach has the potential to immerse students in authentic and at times unpredictable learning experiences and environments, thereby empowering them when faced with challenge and risk in the workplace. in sharing a range of techniques to embed graduate capabilities into the curriculum it is hoped that we can stimulate discussion around curriculum innovations which have the potential to transform learning and enhance graduate employability. our first article for 2014 reports on the strategy of volunteer workplace-based learning and employability. on behalf of our editorial committee and the journal’s editor, professor beverley oliver, i encourage you to participate, through this journal, in scholarly communication, debate and scholarship in learning and teaching for effective graduate employability. beatrice tucker deputy editor welcome to the first publication of the journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability quin, r. (2010). editorial. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 1(1), 1. 1 editorial welcome to the first publication of the journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability. this peer-reviewed web-based journal is a continuous publication, ensuring that papers have currency and authors are not faced with the long lead time between acceptance and publication that characterises print-based journals. as an ejournal it is available to anyone with access to the internet at no cost. the journal aims to provide a forum for the dissemination of research and evidencebased practice in higher education teaching and learning for graduate employability. graduate employability is an issue of concern to academics, career advisors, students and employers regardless of discipline or profession. we see the journal as a forum that will foster interdisciplinary dialogue among researchers, teacher scholars, careers staff and industry and professional practitioners. for information on the foci of the journal and instructions for authors please visit the website: http://otl.curtin.edu.au/scholarship_teaching_learning/jtlge.cfm we are privileged to launch the journal with an article by mantz yorke. professor yorke is a leading figure in the domain of graduate employability and co-author with peter knight of learning, curriculum and employability in higher education (2003) and assessment, learning and employability (2003). professor yorke’s work is responsible for a revolution in thinking about graduate employability that sees it not simply as a set of skills but as a fundamental aspect of good curriculum design. the journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability would not be issuing its first publication without the help of many people. our thanks to those who agreed to form the editorial board, to those who have generously reviewed papers, to professor beverley oliver the indefatigable deputy editor, and to the tireless editorial assistants dr helen flavell and more latterly linda lilly. professor robyn quin, deputy vice-chancellor, curtin university http://otl.curtin.edu.au/scholarship_teaching_learning/jtlge.cfm cook, e. j. (2022) a narrative review of graduate employability models: their paradigms, and relationships to teaching and curricula. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 13(1), 37–64. 37 the journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability issn: 1838-3815 (online) journal homepage: https://ojs.deakin.edu.au/index.php/jtlge/ a narrative review of graduate employability models: their paradigms, and relationships to teaching and curricula elizabeth j. cook1 corresponding author: elizabeth cook (e.cook@ecu.edu.au) 1strategic and governance services centre, edith cowan university abstract increasingly governments expect universities to improve graduate employment outcomes. universities respond by implementing employability strategies in, alongside and outside curricula, with debates ongoing about whether employability is part of the curriculum, why and how. the context and process of employability is commonly framed in neoliberal and human capital paradigms. some academics are resistant to their university’s employability strategy and programmes often adopt a ‘bolt on’ approach, which is outside the curriculum. at this time, the world is in the midst of multiple crises, linked to sustainability, technology and survival in societies, which are redefining and affecting life and work. with all these tensions in mind, should universities reconsider how they think and act with respect to graduate employability, careers and the world of work? what are the key values of employability paradigms and models, and how do they connect to the curriculum? this paper presents a narrative review of conceptual employability models published in the peer reviewed higher education literature since 2000 with each model positioned on a continuum based on its: (1) paradigm, i.e., underlying beliefs about careers, employability and employment; and (2) relationship to teaching and curricula (i.e., intra-, extraand/or co-). i observe that most models are focused on the employability of individuals (i.e., career, skills, capabilities) and economic success (i.e., markets, knowledge economy, workforce), with limited consideration of wider contributions to local and global career development through social, ecological or technological lenses. models with stronger individualistic focus appear to be less connected to teaching and curricula than models that also focus on others. i discuss the potential implications of these observations for universities and teaching and learning. keywords higher education; graduate employability; career; curriculum; teaching; conceptual models; relational paradigm cook, e. j. (2022) a narrative review of graduate employability models: their paradigms, and relationships to teaching and curricula. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 13(1), 37–64. 38 introduction the covid-19 pandemic has impacted everyone and forced us to reflect on human values and needs in life and work, including the importance of systems, connections and relationships. fresh air, human touch and connections with nature are vital to humankind. as the same time, the climate crisis is highlighted. it is clear that urgent action is required to sustain life and livelihoods. earth’s survival and our success stems on everyone assisting to deal with these issues and challenges – individually, locally and globally. the world our university students will graduate into has changed significantly since the pandemic and will always change, perhaps more rapidly as time goes on. employers, workplaces and individuals are increasingly aware of the importance of connections, relationships, technologies and issues like sustainability and mental health. the workforce is changing shape, how we engage in work has changed and people are calling for change, which requires systems thinking (dunnion & o’donovan, 2014; galbraith, 1999; grohs et al., 2018). students, graduates, teachers and wider society increasingly expect universities to demonstrate commitment to sustainability, including through the curriculum (chankseliani & mccowan, 2021; jones et al., 2021; mccowan, 2019; students organising for sustainability, 2021). as always, humans need to be aware of their interactions and positionality in respect to life and work (to adapt accordingly). but it seems that adaptability and awareness (of self, others, and social, ecological and technological aspects) is becoming more important as life and work increases in complexity. most people need and want to have a positive career influence on local and/or global systems. could universities use employability more as a device to help foster positive change through careers, workforce and employment? is this something that universities and academics might want to do? is it time to rethink the meaning and purpose of ‘employability’? governments are increasingly expecting universities to improve graduate employment outcomes (dearing, 1997; funck & karlsson, 2019; jongbloed & vossensteyn, 2010; organisation for economic co-operation and development (oecd), 2017; williamson, 2019) despite growing numbers of graduates and shrinking, volatile and constrained labour market conditions (jackson, 2020; jackson & bridgstock, 2021), currently exacerbated by the covid-19 pandemic. the complexity and contestation of graduate employability is largely shaped and fuelled by notions of capital (tomlinson, 2017), neoliberal perspectives, and topics such as individual and institutional competition, marketisation and massification of he (olssen & peters, 2005; tight, 2019). graduate employability can be easily confused with graduate employment outcomes, which are a priority of governments internationally (dearing, 1997; jongbloed & vossensteyn, 2010; organisation for economic co-operation and development (oecd), 2016; williamson, 2019). this is because employment outcomes are often used as a proxy metric for graduate employability even though the constructs are not synonymous, nor employability an employment guarantee (oecd, 2017; jackson, 2020; jackson & bridgstock, 2021; yorke, 2006). to clarify the distinction: employability is a process of lifelong and lifewide learning (barnett, 2011) and development, while employment is one of its many possible outcomes (healy, hammer, & mcilveen, 2022; jackson, 2011; jackson & bridgstock, 2021). in australia, where i am based, the federal government has signalled expectations of universities through the introduction of performance-based funding (e.g., wellings et al., 2019) and, more recently, the national priorities and industry linkage fund (department of education, skills and employment, 2021). both policies incentivise universities to increase graduate employment outcomes and, in turn, have resulted in universities including graduate employment outcomes in strategic plans, leading to the development of employability-focused policy and practices (cook, 2021; hewitt, 2020; jackson & bridgstock, 2021). this is cook, e. j. (2022) a narrative review of graduate employability models: their paradigms, and relationships to teaching and curricula. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 13(1), 37–64. 39 neoliberalism in action and the situation is similar in many other countries (hewitt, 2020; norton, 2019; smith et al., 2018). relationship between graduate employability and the curriculum when it comes to how graduate employability agendas relate to the curriculum, there are three common alternatives: 1. intra-curricular, i.e., embedded or integrated within curricula as part of formal learning, and often assessed. for example, work-integrated learning, study tours and capstones (see also artess, hooley, & mellors-bourne, 2017; blackmore et al., 2016; bridgstock, grant-iramu & mcalpine, 2019; kinash, 2015; kinash, crane, & judd, 2016; pegg, et al., 2012). 2. co-curricular, i.e., activities that sit outside curricula but are developed and delivered by universities, often via their career service centre. examples include, professional networking events, leadership and mentoring programs, and community and outreach activities. 3. extra-curricular, i.e., opportunities outside the university, sometimes advertised by the career service centre, for example, paid work or volunteering. while there have been debates and contestations surrounding these alternatives (e.g., bradley, quigley, & bailey, 2021; jackson & bridgstock, 2021; jackson & tomlinson, 2021; thompson, clark, & walker, 2013), i won’t spend time reviewing them here. my stance is that it is useful to invest efforts in embedded and integrated approaches, but this needs to be done within an adequate and renewed paradigm. a reason for this stance is supported by daubney (2021, n.p.) who writes that ‘surfacing employability through curriculum makes it structurally unavoidable for all students to engage with [it].’ daubney argues that academics can help learners realise the ‘innate employability value’ of their chosen discipline through redefined learning outcomes and clearer articulation of knowledge, attributes, skills, and experiences gained through coursework and/or research. while coand extra-curricular practices are largely managed by career services in specialised hubs on campus and online, academics often struggle to integrate employability into their teaching practice. this is understandable because academics are not career experts and current approaches rely on limited resources in the form of personalised support from career advisers and career development learning designers. importantly, not all academics agree with the individualised and human-capital framing of graduate employability agendas and literature that has cemented what this term means for many. although employability is conceptually and methodologically situated under the umbrella of career development and career development learning (see mccredie & mcalpine, 2022), most of the graduate employability literature fails to reference both the depth and breadth of theory and evidence from that field (healy, hammer, & mcilveen, 2022). this is observed in the disconnected manner that universities deliver employability strategies, i.e., careers and employment services remain largely separate from academic disciplines, and law and watts’ (1977) decision learning, opportunity awareness, transition learning and self-awareness (dots) model, from the field of career development, remains venerable in universities. it is promising that recent scholarly discussions are generating interest to bring these fields closer together. for some academics, graduate employability has gained pejorative connotations. for example, academic commentators have argued that graduate employability can have a detrimental impact on the value and purpose of university degrees (tomlinson, 2012; sin, tavares, & cook, e. j. (2022) a narrative review of graduate employability models: their paradigms, and relationships to teaching and curricula. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 13(1), 37–64. 40 amaral, 2019). frankham (2017) goes further, postulating that the culture of performativity in higher education, encouraged by metrics and league tables, can have an opposite effect than is intended, i.e., to not prepare learners for the workplace. although degree quality cannot be measured by the percentage of employed graduates, universities’ international reputations are linked to graduate employment outcomes (e.g., qs quacquarelli symonds limited, 2022), intensifying the pressure on staff. scholars have also observed teacher resistance to employability (osborne & grant-smith, 2017), issues of graduate over-education and overskilling (sloane & marvomaras, 2020), poorer employment outcomes for marginalised groups (pitman et al., 2019), and job uncertainty and social identity disturbance (godinic, obrenovic & khudaykulov, 2020). heightened contention around the construct of graduate employability has created renewed interest in alternative conceptualisations. the next section discusses some alternative views that have emerged. emergent graduate employability paradigms and models: from individualistic to relational the world of work is severely disrupted by the pandemic, and disturbances are expected to continue with ongoing issues and challenges like climate change. this is because the world is not merely complicated, but supercomplex (cilliers, 1998) and turbulent (garretson et al., 2021). henceforth, scholars are exploring ways to ensure that higher education keeps up with changing contexts. for example, lacković (2019) conceived that understandings, perceptions and actions associated with graduate employability should also consider wider perspectives that question employability with respect to society, environment and technology. increasingly scholars (e.g., hooley, 2020; lacković, 2019; walker & fongwa, 2017) assert that the current human capitals approach (e.g., tomlinson, 2017), which originates from the dots model, is restricting and limited when one considers employability’s wider meanings and purposes. they recognise that, although human capitals approaches promote the development of necessary skills and attributes for employment (which are important to address through higher education), they inadequately consider the wider aspects of employability, employment and work, such as associated benefits, impacts, issues, challenges and motivations. similarly, forrier, de cuyper and akkermans (2018) view employability as inherently contextual and relational. they oppose the dominant view focused solely on individuals amassing assets for achieving positive results for themselves. with narratives (both inside and outside the walls of universities) so focused on jobs success and the economy, learners are perhaps in danger of thinking this is all that careers and employment is about, when it is, and can be, so much more. i believe that wider employability understandings, perspectives and actions have much to offer graduates, may better align with the supercomplexity (barnett, 2000a; barnett, 2000b) of life and work, and support better integration of employability with other university strategic change agendas (e.g., sustainability; diversity, inclusion and equality). scholars contend that universities have a social and moral obligation to develop employable graduates who are citizen scholars (arvanitakis & hornsby, 2016; miller et al., 2020; mortari, 2016). these are employed citizens who are motivated and have the capacity to make positive changes happen for themselves and for others. the field of career guidance has a longstanding social justice tradition yet is not often explored in the employability literature. as hooley and sultana (2016) note, social justice is not only about helping individuals, but about broader aspirations and objectives, including enhanced social inclusion, cohesion and solidarity, and ensuring human rights and needs are met. for example, sultana (2020) highlights the importance of ‘authentic work education’ in providing intellectual tools and encouraging moral resolve to imagine more socially just and fulfilling ways of living together. both he and lacković (2019) advocate for enabling learners to gain insights into individual and collective possibilities cook, e. j. (2022) a narrative review of graduate employability models: their paradigms, and relationships to teaching and curricula. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 13(1), 37–64. 41 and responsibilities as vital for addressing the challenges and issues shaping life on earth. perhaps instilling care and respect for other beings and things would help to instil motivations for collective solidarity, which may, in turn, assist in dealing with local and global challenges and issues, while increasing fulfilment in work. sultana (2020) posits that this may benefit human flourishing. hooley, sultana & thomsen (2017) argue that greater emphasis on these aspects by universities may help to balance the dominance of neoliberalism in society. blustein, mcwhirter and perry (2005) and carosin et al. (2021) similarly advocate for the development of critical and communitarian understandings of career, employability and work as a means of contesting responsibilisation, exploring humanness, humanity and world, and attending to issues of sustainability and decent work. the narrative literature review, which follows, explores some of these ideas as they are observed in conceptual graduate employability models published in the higher education research literature since 2020. i have been reflecting on the shifting landscape of life and work, and what it might mean for university teaching, specifically for graduate employability. how can universities better connect employability strategy with the pressing need to tackle broader issues and challenges? are lecturers and students engaged in employability dialogue as part of usual teaching and learning? are students and graduates confident and motivated to make positive contributions in the world through careers? i believe it is possible to improve employability strategies to better reflect broader issues, concerns and challenges and that intra-curricula employability practices are not yet integrated in academic teaching. moreover, i believe that many students experience diminished hope in respect to making positive change as their degree progresses, often due to labour market pressure and discourses focused heavily on economy and jobs. what do you believe? the next section is the narrative literature review (bearman et al., 2012). for each conceptual graduate employability model, i explore its: (1) paradigm, i.e., underlying beliefs about careers, employability and employment; and (2) relationship to curricula (i.e., intra-, extraand/or co-) – rather than implementation or practiced positioning – to judge the likelihood for intracurricular integration, which is of relevance for academics. i discuss the potential implications of my observations for universities and teaching and learning. review of graduate employability models i define a ‘model’ in a document as a framework represented by a diagram (with supporting text) that summarises what the author(s) conceive as included in the construct of ‘graduate employability.’ review questions the following questions guided my exploration of the conceptual graduate employability models: • what are the distinguishing characteristics or features of each model? • what is the relationship (estimated proximity) of each model to teaching and the curriculum, i.e., intra-curricular, or extraor co-curricular? • is there a relationship between orientation (paradigm) and proximity to teaching and curricula across the models? if so, why might that be? • where, on a spectrum of individualistic to relational graduate employability orientations, could each model be positioned? cook, e. j. (2022) a narrative review of graduate employability models: their paradigms, and relationships to teaching and curricula. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 13(1), 37–64. 42 methodology this narrative literature review presents my perspectives on the literature and includes ‘a systematic presentation of the studies’ (bearman, et al., 2012, pp. 626-627) but is not a systematic literature review. narrative literature reviews ‘are [particularly] helpful in presenting a broad perspective on a topic [to] bring practitioners up to date [and] serve to provoke thought and controversy … in a balanced manner’ (green, johnson, & adams, 2006, p. 103). i am a science graduate and place high value on logic, clarity and precision in qualitative research. thus, i have attempted to share as much relevant information as possible to assist readers in making informed decisions about the quality and integrity of this research. so, even though this is a narrative review, it contains more details than is traditionally expected of a review of this type (see bearman, et al., 2012, p. 629). the process undertaken was configurative (gough et al., 2012), not aggregative, to enable critical and interpretive exploration of the conceptual models, their paradigms and relationships to teaching and curricula, for generating new knowledge. it was also a rapid review process, thus making google scholar adequate and appropriate as the chosen tool for searching literature. method search and appraisal i tested key words, aligned to the research questions, in various combinations using google scholar (18-24 january 2021). the following string generated the largest number of relevant sources: [‘higher education curriculum’ or ‘university curriculum’] and [‘graduate employability’ or ‘career development learning’] and [conceptualisation or conceptualization or construct or model] initially, i limited the search to grey literature, books and peer-reviewed journal articles published in english since 2000. this resulted in 1350 documents, which i screened by title and abstract to download only relevant documents. i sorted these documents into three groups: conceptual research; empirical research (including case studies); and technical reports. in reviewing the literature as a whole up to this point, i could already see that authors mainly referred to, and sometimes measured, graduate employability skills and attributes, and/or used employment outcomes as a proxy metric for employability. then, i narrowed the scope to focus only on the conceptual research to specifically target perspectives on graduate employability practices, rather than what had been practiced (case studies) or reported (technical reports). by excluding case study research, i acknowledge that a number of potentially relevant pedagogical approaches may have been excluded but it was my intention focus on the review questions, which emphasise conceptual thinking of the topic. of the conceptual research, 13 documents clearly depicted a graduate employability model, mostly via a diagram or table. these are summarised in table 1 in chronological order. cook, e. j. (2022) a narrative review of graduate employability models: their paradigms, and relationships to teaching and curricula. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 13(1), 37–64. 43 table 1: final 13 conceptual research documents citation title document classification location harvey, locke, & morey (2002) enhancing employability, recognising diversity: making links between higher education and the world of work. report for universities uk uk harvey (2005) embedding and integrating employability journal article in new directions for institutional research uk knight & yorke (2006) embedding employability into the curriculum higher education academy learning and employability series uk holmes (2013) competing perspectives on graduate employability: possession, position or process? journal article in studies in higher education uk penttinen et al. (2013) supporting students' pedagogical working life horizon in higher education. journal article in teaching in higher education finland tomlinson (2017) forms of graduate capital and their relationship to graduate employability journal article in education + training uk clarke (2018) rethinking graduate employability: the role of capital, individual attributes and context journal article in studies in higher education australia bennett (2018) embedding employability thinking across higher education report for australian government department australia dacre pool, gurbutt, & houston (2019) developing employable, emotionally intelligent, and resilient graduate citizens of the future chapter in employability via higher education: sustainability as scholarship uk cole (2019) defining and developing more effective approaches to employability in higher education: a case study of undergraduate sports degrees unpublished dissertation uk cloutman & higgs (2019) developing personal and population employability: understand, pursue and manage. chapter in education for employability (volume 2): learning for future possibilities australia lacković (2019) graduate employability (ge) paradigm shift: towards greater socioemotional and eco-technological relationalities of graduates’ futures chapter in education and technological unemployment uk bridgstock (2020) graduate employability 2.0: enhancing the connectedness of learners, programs and higher education institutions report for australian government department australia cook, e. j. (2022) a narrative review of graduate employability models: their paradigms, and relationships to teaching and curricula. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 13(1), 37–64. 44 synthesis and interpretive analysis i read each document in depth, considering the review questions, and undertook the following steps to synthesise and make observations on the documents: 1. developed a framework to guide interpretive analysis (table 2). 2. using table 2, compared and contrasted perceived graduate employability paradigms (orientations) across the documents. 3. estimated the proximity of each model to teaching and curricula (i.e., intra-, extraand co-curricular), drawing on personal expertise and career experiences of teaching, educational design and career development learning design. 4. created table 3 and figure 4 to summarise and visualise all observations to this point. 5. sorted the reviewed documents into three groups: (1) focused predominately on individuals and skills for personal success; (2) focused on individuals’ skills and success, including social and/or cultural aspects; and (3) encompassing individuals’ skills and success, plus wider considerations for others (both human and more-than-human, e.g., technology and ecology). 6. extracted relevant text from each document using nitro pdf editor, i.e., book chapters from books, and text detailing models, key definitions and practical/pedagogical examples, excluding the rest. this was to ensure that only relevant text was included in word frequency analysis. 7. created three pdfs for analysis, one for each group, using nitro pro editor to merge individual pdfs. 8. ran word frequency queries in nvivo12 to generate three word-clouds (figures 1, 4 and 6) from the three pdfs. this was to show the overall orientation and relationship to teaching and curricula of each group of documents, enabling readers to make their own judgements about what i said i saw. for consistency, the same word frequency criteria were applied for each query: 50 most frequent; minimum length 6 characters; and grouping with stemmed words. 9. noted key observations across these groups. table 2 defines the characteristics of two imagined polar opposite paradigms (or extreme orientations). i created this table as a framework to guide and clarify my understandings of the differences in orientations of authors in respect to employability. lacković’s (2019) book chapter was instrumental in the development of this framework because it clearly defines the prevalent individualistic paradigm and introduces possible ways for defining alternatives. note that these paradigms (orientations) are not exclusive, nor bad or good, but, rather, are imagined as two ends of a spectrum. models cannot be at either end of the spectrum (as they are not black and white) but can be closer to one end or another (as variable shades of grey), depending on the perceived stance of the authors writing in respect to graduate employability. cook, e. j. (2022) a narrative review of graduate employability models: their paradigms, and relationships to teaching and curricula. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 13(1), 37–64. 45 table 2: characteristics of the imagined extreme paradigms of graduate employability, building on lacković’s (2019) conceptualisation of ge paradigm to expand the individualistic towards the relational narrative review findings and key observations this section is organised into the three groups created in step five of the method (above). for each group (subsection), i describe my observations of the models in each document in response to the review questions and show the group’s word-cloud. the relative sizes of the words in each word-cloud reflect the frequency of particular words used by the authors of those documents (in the group). these are my personal analytical observations and how i see this literature as aligned with my review questions. obviously, any qualitative research is personal interpretation, and i have provided the reasons for my analytical positioning. i intend to stimulate discussions about the ways that educational researchers have conceptualised employability and guided its operationalisation, specifically in respect to the curriculum. models focused predominately on individuals and skills for personal success knight and yorke’s (2006) understanding, skills, efficiency beliefs and metacognition (usem) model is heavily focused on developing individual learners’ subject-understandings, skills, meta-cognition and attributes without considerations for others. teaching quality is mentioned without description of pedagogy. the models by harvey, locke and morey (2002, p. 18) and harvey (2005, p. 15) are almost identical and focus on individuals’ employment success. the key difference is that harvey emphasised the importance of university-led employability activities and centralised careers individualistic paradigm relational paradigm individualism focused on self and selves, excluding considerations for others, i.e.: individual employment-related skills, outcomes, characteristics and employment competitive advantage my world, my career future, for me relationalism focused on self, selves and humanistic aspects, such as: interactions with other humans in employment and career considerations for others concerns for equality and social justice our world and our career futures human-driven market-driven higher education neoliberal marketisation students as consumers knowledge economy labour market unemployment and underemployment more-than-human inclusive all above aspects (under relationalism) plus relationships with other things, e.g., environment, other beings, artefacts, technologies, etc., during career and in employment human capital emphasis on developing and possessing human capitals for personal gain all capitals having awareness of, and developing, human, social, cultural, identity and psychological capitals economic economic value of university degrees creation of knowledge economy value for self, driven by financial gain greater good higher education for positive change, beyond values for selves and economy creation of knowledge for sustainability, survival and the greater good cook, e. j. (2022) a narrative review of graduate employability models: their paradigms, and relationships to teaching and curricula. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 13(1), 37–64. 46 supports. while both documents include mention of extra-, intraand co-curricular employability activities, but do not what teaching and learning would entail. penttinen, skaniakos and lairio’s (2013, p. 888) pedagogical working life horizon model is focused on learners’ concerns for their futures to the exclusion of concerns for others. ‘working life orientations’ (i.e., individual relationships, knowledge and skills, and employability) are described as embedded in curricula, without pedagogical details, although they recommend supporting reflection and inquiry. noteworthy recommendations include the need to consider the careers guidance literature and include employability in all degrees to reach all learners. dacre pool, gurbutt and houston’s (2019, pp. 85-89) model is comprised of dacre pool and sewell’s (2007, p. 281) careeredge model and duckworth’s (2016) concept of resilience. drawing inspiration from knight and yorke’s (2003; 2004; 2006) usem and watts’ (2006) dots model, the authors suggest that lecturers, tutors and careers practitioners use this model to support career development learning, reflection and evaluation. however, they don’t not explain ‘how’ (i.e., in respect to pedagogy and the curriculum). while dacre pool, gurbutt and houston’s (2019) model is predominately focused on developing individuals for their own gain, this is not emphasised as strongly by these authors as those previously discussed. the reason i say this is because these authors mention the need for social interactions both for evaluation (see cook, 2021) and the development of emotional intelligence (ei) (see goleman, 1998). dacre pool, gurbutt and houston’s (2019) model has strengths including emphasising intracurricular employability, referencing career development learning theory and highlighting the importance of student wellbeing (reflecting a shift towards learner-centred approaches in higher education). dacre pool, gurbutt and houston’s (2019) recommend using their model to support the audit of graduate employability activities, integrate resilience and ei in curricula, and develop learners who reflect and evaluate their employability, but have not published details to guide such practices. figure 1: word-cloud of models focused predominately on individuals for themselves cook, e. j. (2022) a narrative review of graduate employability models: their paradigms, and relationships to teaching and curricula. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 13(1), 37–64. 47 models focused on individuals’ skills and success, including social and/or cultural aspects holmes (2013) may have been the first scholar to have criticised the individualistic focus of university employability activities. he felt that the approaches to date were too focused on possession (i.e., possessing human capital through skills and attributes) and positioning (i.e., accumulating social capital) of graduates, suggesting that processual aspects (i.e., career management and graduate identity development) were needed as well. i believe that each of these approaches are needed but that there is more to employability, careers and employment than these ideas convey. that is, employability, life and work is not only about preparing individuals for success but should encompass consideration of responsibilities for others (humans and non-humans) and the need for kindness and care on earth. holmes advocates for extraand co-curricular employability approaches (managed by career services), as opposed to intra-curricular approaches, which is against my stance. that said, scholars have used holmes as the basis for curriculum-related research, for example, to explore the impact of pedagogical interventions (see jackson, 2016; tomlinson & jackson, 2019). holmes acknowledges the need for graduates to demonstrate their worth to employers to get jobs but does not consider the potential impacts of social connections and relations on employment prospects and workforce dynamics, arguably stronger any employability training or similar. instead, holmes saw social interactions as instrumental for individual benefit. challenging this notion, i postulate that, because social interactions and everything on earth is relational, graduate employability should be too. cole (2019) steps further from the dominant individualistic view with his dimensions for learning model (p. 256) focused on more than just employment outcomes. this model encompasses learning, life and work in its broadest sense and as part of a complex system. although cole portrays learners as monitoring, articulating and reflecting on their employability and learning, he emphasises the importance of learners developing sociocultural awareness and values through practiced interactions with peers and communities (moving beyond individuals and towards considerations for others). furthermore, cole introduces the model as a scaffold to support the curriculum design process. he emphasises the value of teachers listening to learners’ definitions, perceptions, experiences and critiques of graduate employability, and defines the ‘what’, ‘why’ and ‘how’ of each dimension of learning to support pedagogical practice but does not provide explicit examples to guide lesson planning. in agreeance with other well-informed scholars (e.g., artess, hooley, & mellors-bourne, 2017; blackmore et al., 2016; hewitt, 2020), cole highlights that it is important to involve career services, learning supports and prospective employers in the employability curriculum development process while aligning institutional employability agendas with national frameworks, for example, the he academy’s employability framework (cole and tibby, 2013). bennett’s (2018) employability thinking model (figure 3) is founded on six interrelated employability literacy types – basic, rhetorical, personal and critical, emotional, occupational, and ethical, cultural and social – that she says individuals need to develop. i consider these to be competencies or knowledges. however, some relate to wider society, and bennett (2018) does emphasise the need for individuals to attend to issues of social and cultural difference, and the development of ethically responsible citizens. through employability, bennett is aiming to show how teachers might transform their teaching practice. she has contributed an open-access website (https://developingemployability.edu.au/) with a plethora of resources to assist teachers to use employability. bennett socialises this resource through regular updates on linkedin and twitter. salient features of employability include its strength-based metacognitive approach and emphasis on integrating employability within existing curricula. cook, e. j. (2022) a narrative review of graduate employability models: their paradigms, and relationships to teaching and curricula. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 13(1), 37–64. 48 figure 3: bennett’s (2018, p. 10) literacies for life (employability thinking) model (cc by-sa 4.0) tomlinson’s graduate capitals model (2017, p. 340) is comprised of five capitals – human, cultural, social, identity and psychological, which, he says, are drawn upon by graduates’ transitioning to work and managing their careers (i.e., portrayed as an individualistic focus). however, i have positioned tomlinson’s work at the half-way point of the spectrum because it includes social and cultural capitals, which require social interactions that may result in contributions towards others. i feel that these aspects of employability are described more explicitly than coles’ model, but less explicitly in respect to learning and not at all in respect to pedagogy. however, anecdotally, i am aware that tomlinson’s model has inspired thought in respect to curriculum development for graduate employability at my university (and others as seen in case studies). clarke’s (2018, p. 1931) integrated graduate employability model is an extension of tomlinson’s (2017). while tomlinson (2017) focuses on the application and utility of individuals in respect to labour markets (not on the labour market context itself), clarke (2018) incorporates considerations of labour market supply and demand, other external employmentcook, e. j. (2022) a narrative review of graduate employability models: their paradigms, and relationships to teaching and curricula. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 13(1), 37–64. 49 related factors and how these impact individual graduate outcomes. these additional aspects may include people and materials in networked societies, but this does not appear to be part of clarke’s focus. despite the name of this model, and suggestions that teachers’ scaffold learning to support employability development, clarke does not explain what teaching and learning for employability, using her model, might entail. cloutman and higgs’ (2019, p. 73) employability development (emd) model is described for intra-curricula use but the authors do not provide details to guide its operationalisation (other than, what i perceive to be, loose descriptions that could be inspirational for some). i found no evidence of the use of emd by university teachers, so its effectiveness as a pedagogical approach is yet unknown. cloutman and higgs describe graduate employability as a life-wide and lifelong process of understanding, pursuing and managing by individuals and populations. while they consider workforce considerations (and related effects on individuals and populations), they don’t consider broader relational aspects or the effects of individuals towards others. bridgstock’s (2020) ge2.0 connectedness learning model (figure 2) is unique compared to the models discussed so far. it focuses on developing learners’ ‘capabilities to capitalise upon the affordances of digital and analogue social networks for professional and career development’ (p. v). while ge2.0 aims to connect learners, teachers and university programmes with industries and communities through building authentic partnerships and knowledge-sharing networks, bridgstock does not consider broader employability challenges or how learners may contribute to society through connectedness. bridgstock developed a framework and pedagogic strategies to support the use of ge2.0 (http://www.graduateemployability20.com/). however, some ‘pedagogic’ strategies may be better classified as co-curricular or may be difficult for teachers to use without adequate training and resourcing (e.g., industry/alumni engagement). two noteworthy intra-curricular suggestions posed by bridgstock include: (1) using social media and e-portfolios; and (2) ‘connectedness learning’, which is described as authentic, just-in-time inquiry or problem-based learning activities operationalised in networks or with community/industry. figure 2: brigstock’s (2020, p. 15) graduate employability 2.0 (cc by-sa 4.0) cook, e. j. (2022) a narrative review of graduate employability models: their paradigms, and relationships to teaching and curricula. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 13(1), 37–64. 50 figure 4: word-cloud of models that include social and/or cultural aspects but still focus on individuals’ success model encompassing individuals’ skills and success, and wider considerations for others (human, more-than-human, technology) one model stood alone in this group: lacković’s (2019) relational graduate employability paradigm (figure 5), which comprises three integrated meta-layers of graduate employability: relational recruitability; socio-emotional relationality; and eco-technological relationality. the layers are concentric, with the inner layer, recruitability, incorporating many of the notions discussed in subsection (1) models focused predominately on individuals and skills for success. thus, the basic inner layer is focused on what individuals can do for their own life and work success, a classical graduate employability approach. the middle layer considers family and work interactions, emotions and affect, and interdependencies and concerns for social justice that come into play in life and work, e.g., considerations for how employment decisions relate to other humans in society, not just individuals for their own success. the outermost layer considers wider, more-than-human issues and relationalities, challenges and concerns. for example, technological and ecological aspects of life and work. lacković says that, when combined, the three layers encompass ‘relations with others for individual recruitment, relations to others as humanistic care for the closest and widest society, and the relationality to the ecosystem and technology’ (lacković, 2019, p. 204). i believe that lacković may have chosen the word ‘paradigm’ to describe this model to convey that it is a philosophical and theoretical framework for guiding thoughts and actions in respect to graduate employability. since there are some novel ideas incorporated, and unfamiliar language to many in the fields of education, employability and career development, i will provide further elaboration on each layer after figure 5. cook, e. j. (2022) a narrative review of graduate employability models: their paradigms, and relationships to teaching and curricula. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 13(1), 37–64. 51 figure 5: relational graduate employability paradigm (adapted from lacković, 2019, p. 205) the relational recruitability layer acknowledges the possessive and processual aspects of graduate employability (holmes, 2013), with possessive referring to the individual goal of amassing skills and attributes, and increasing self-awareness and professional identity, and processual referring to universities’ recruitment and transitions work in support of employment outcomes and the process of employability development in individuals. this layer is individualistic, and outcomes focused, but not in a negative sense. as lacković emphasises, this is a necessary component. workforce, labour market and economy (context) could be considered to be part of this layer. for those who assimilate with tomlinson’s (2017) graduate capitals model, the human and identity capitals could be considered here too. the socioemotional relationality layer draws on holmes’ (2013) positional approach to recognise the importance of social and emotional interdependencies in developing employable graduates and that the need to consider equality and justice in respect to employability, employment and workplace dynamics. lacković argues that the impacts of social and emotional aspects (in society, life and work) should be acknowledged in the employability work of universities, including teaching. turning to tomlinson’s (2017) model, the cultural, psychological and social capitals could be considered as relevant to this layer. finally, the eco-technological relationality layer brings in wider ideas than have been traditionally included in published conceptual graduate employability models. there are two parts to this layer, which lacković says are vital to sustaining life and work, now and into the future. the first part incorporates ecological issues and concerns (e.g., the climate crisis), which must be addressed by individuals and workplaces across the globe. employers will cook, e. j. (2022) a narrative review of graduate employability models: their paradigms, and relationships to teaching and curricula. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 13(1), 37–64. 52 increasingly expect graduates to create and innovate, and respond appropriately, in this regard. moreover, students are increasingly advocating for greater attention to matters of sustainability in higher education. the second part incorporates technological aspects relating to graduate employability and employment, including, for example, techno-materials, ways of working and living with technologies, and associated issues and anxieties. also included are topics such as technological advancement and its effects, unemployment due to lack of technical skill, digital collaboration (which requires digital literacy) and social digital entrepreneurship (i.e., using technology to build networks and be an entrepreneur). technological relationality could also include matters such as appropriate use of technology, workplace policy arrangements and rights to do with technology at work, and health and safety concerns (e.g., digital fatigue and ergonomic workspaces). personally, i think human reliance of material objects could be considered as part of this component too. in addition to describing the conceptual basis of the paradigm, lacković provides pedagogical descriptions that may help teachers to use the paradigm in their teaching practices, with learners. she emphasises that the paradigm is intentionally designed for teachers’ who practice dialogic pedagogies (staple for good teaching practice) so that it can be integrated within existing curricula in any discipline. essentially, teachers would develop their existing dialogic activities to integrate disciplinary content with the relational model to challenge learners to share their perspectives, experiences and reflexive contemplations of content and discipline in respect to each meta-layer of the graduate employability paradigm. lacković’s clear intention is for teachers to use the paradigm to expand and diversify what is already part of the curricula. she also suggests the paradigm may help teachers’ (and learners’) to engage in university employability policy, strategy, debates and practices more positively. lacković provides a few pedagogical examples as a good starting point for engaging in teaching with the paradigm. for example, she describes learners developing e-portfolios to explore and share their career experiences using the model’s three layers to guide their reflections and analysis. or learners creating and sharing ‘relational network maps’, showing personal, local and global social interdependencies and related complexities, as they relate to careers and employment. another strength of lacković’s work is her emphasise on engagement and interactions among learners and with teachers to reinforce and deepen learning, while enabling the co-construction of a supportive and caring learning environment. cook, e. j. (2022) a narrative review of graduate employability models: their paradigms, and relationships to teaching and curricula. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 13(1), 37–64. 53 figure 6: word-cloud from lacković’s book chapter focused on contributing to selves and others. comparing the orientations and proximity to teaching and curricula of the reviewed conceptual graduate employability models having presented the ‘relational’ outlook to graduate employability as an emergent paradigm, and an individualistic approach as an established paradigm, i have produced table 3 to summarise my observations in response to the review questions. that is, table 3 compares the orientations and proximity to teaching and curricula of the conceptual models described by authors in the reviewed documents. or, what i see as their positioning on the spectra of: individualistic and relational, i.e., from most to least individualistic as numbered one to 12 in the far-right column; and proximity to teaching and curricula, i.e., from distant to near as numbered one to 12 in the column second from the right. the symbol (=) represents an ‘equal ranking’ of two models on a given spectrum. for example, in table 3 the models by harvey, locke and morey (2002) and harvey (2005) were too similar to distinguish on both spectra and, thus, were assigned the same number in both the ranking columns. cook, e. j. (2022) a narrative review of graduate employability models: their paradigms, and relationships to teaching and curricula. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 13(1), 37–64. 54 table 3: summary of observations in response to the review questions – from individualistic to relational, and proximity to teaching and curricula note: the symbol (=) represents an equal ranking of two models on a given spectrum. citation reference to: ranking on the two spectra: teaching curricula learners or graduates teaching and curricula – distant (1) to near (12) orientation – individualistic (1) to relational (12) knight & yorke (2006) meta-cognition, encompassing learning how to learn, and how to reflect and problem solve. encourages use of assessment to develop the usem model. promotes thinking about how to embed. learners 2 1 harvey, locke, & morey (2002) engagement, reflection and articulation. mentions pedagogy but doesn’t demonstrate it. mentions extra-curricular engagement, work placements and curriculum embedded employability development. graduates =3 =2 harvey (2005) engagement, reflection and articulation. mentions pedagogy but doesn’t demonstrate it. mentions extra-curricular engagement, work placements and curriculum embedded employability development. graduates =3 =2 penttinen et al. (2013) mentions pedagogical focus on reflection and inquiry emphasis on pedagogy may or may not mean embedded. extracurricular engagement is implied. learners 5 3 dacre pool, gurbutt, & houston (2019) mentions learning activities to build emotional intelligence and resilience. embedded. learners 7 4 holmes (2013) not mentioned. not mentioned. graduates 1 5 cook, e. j. (2022) a narrative review of graduate employability models: their paradigms, and relationships to teaching and curricula. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 13(1), 37–64. 55 citation reference to: ranking on the two spectra: teaching curricula learners or graduates teaching and curricula – distant (1) to near (12) orientation – individualistic (1) to relational (12) cole (2019) focused on learning and provides a list of learning activities. embedded. learners 9 6 bennett (2018) promotes learner-centred teaching. employability website provides resources to support teaching practice, but these were not included in the analysed documents. thus, the characteristics of teaching-learning could not be evaluated here. this is a limitation of this paper. embedded with an emphasis on integration within existing university curricula. learners 11 7 tomlinson (2017) not mentioned. emphasis on extra-curricular engagement and co-curricular opportunities organised by careers practitioners. graduates 4 8 clarke (2018) mentions scaffolding and skills development in curriculum. loose description of extracurricular, co-curricular and embedded. learners 6 9 cloutman & higgs (2019) not mentioned. this model is process-related, not teaching and learning focused. not mentioned. learners 8 10 cook, e. j. (2022) a narrative review of graduate employability models: their paradigms, and relationships to teaching and curricula. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 13(1), 37–64. 56 citation reference to: ranking on the two spectra: teaching curricula learners or graduates teaching and curricula – distant (1) to near (12) orientation – individualistic (1) to relational (12) bridgstock (2020) authentic and connected learning, communities of practice, student co-design, designing learning to meet specific learner needs, interactions and communications, reflection and collaboration, and rubrics to assess learning. website provides a toolkit of resources for teachers (these resources were not analysed; an acknowledged limitation of this paper). mentions extra-curricular engagement, work placements and curriculum embedded employability development. learners 10 11 lacković (2019) inquiry-based learning, reflection and collaboration, problem-solving and creativity, use of technology, teacher-learner and peer to peer interactions and communication, literacy development, relationality, teaching practice. emphasis on embedding in university curricula both in units and across degrees. learners 12 12 cook, e. j. (2022) a narrative review of graduate employability models: their paradigms, and relationships to teaching and curricula. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 13(1), 37–64. 57 figure 7 is a graphical visualisation of the key ideas shown in table 3. each of the 13 analysed documents is represented by a coloured circle to indicate whether an author was focused on learners during their degrees (yellow-orange) or graduates (purple) – as there was a clear distinction to that effect across all the documents. the documents (circles) are positioned along bi-directional spectra of relative, estimated: (1) individualistic to relational orientations (i.e., along horizontal or x-axis); and (2) proximity to teaching and curricula (i.e., along the vertical or y-axis). it is important to note that each document’s position does not imply homogenous affiliation. rather, degrees of affiliation are defined in respect to the extreme and opposite ends of the spectrum, not whether they are exclusively representing one orientation or another (as none did). precision was not possible as this representation is based on judgement – personal judgement, shared to prompt readers to consider and share what they think with others. to elaborate on what is shown, strongly individualistic and skills-focused orientations (i.e., focused on individuals’ success) are positioned closer to the far-left end of the horizontal axis, while strongly relational orientations (i.e., focused on individuals and others, both human and non-human) are positioned closer to the far-right end. similarly, descriptions by authors that indicated stronger connections to teaching and the university curriculum are positioned closer to the top of the vertical axis, while descriptions with little or no reference to teaching and the curriculum are positioned towards the other end of that axis. figure 7 shows there is an inverse relationship between individualistic-relational orientations and proximity to teaching and the curriculum across the analysed documents. that is, more individualistic orientations tended to be further removed from teaching and intra-curricular integration. this may be an important to consider when designing teaching approaches and curricula. cook, e. j. (2022) a narrative review of graduate employability models: their paradigms, and relationships to teaching and curricula. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 13(1), 37–64. 58 figure 7: bi-directional spectra of orientations and proximity to teaching and curricula of the reviewed conceptual graduate employability models cook, e. j. (2022) a narrative review of graduate employability models: their paradigms, and relationships to teaching and curricula. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 13(1), 37–64. 59 limitations of the review the limitations include that it was conducted by one researcher and the tables are my own interpretations. hence, checking these perspectives with academic practitioners and other graduate employability authors will shed new light to this work, and this is what i will do as the next step in my doctoral research. it is important to continue this discussion. as previously divulged, by excluding case study research from the review, i would have missed a number of valuable pedagogical approaches. however, this review was not about pedagogical approaches but the relational and individual orientations of models and their status as integrated or outside the curriculum. in addition, the search string, by the nature of the chosen words, excluded known frameworks related to graduate employability and curriculum, such as kinash et al. (2015) and scott (2016). another limitation is my loose scrutiny of the web resources accompanying bridgstock and bennett’s models. concluding remarks this paper contributed a unique narrative literature review of 13 conceptual employability models published in peer reviewed higher education literature since 2000. to my knowledge it is the first review to explore the paradigms of key conceptual graduate employability models and their relationships to teaching and curricula. through sharing my observations in the review, i hope to generate critique and discussion about the ways that universities currently think and act with respect to graduate employability, including whether approaches are still relevant today and into the imminent future. after all, what is the point of employment in the face of an ecological catastrophe, technological exploitation or devastating war? the current dominant approach to graduate employability is focused on skills and individuals for their own success, with little or no reference of the need for graduates to contribute and consider other living or non-living beings and systems, and most often described, recommended (and likely suited) for delivery via extra and co-curricular engagements, as opposed to integration in the curriculum. it is difficult to assure graduate outcomes when there are many graduates and limited jobs. as the scholarly community has said, the best chance universities have for achieving ‘satisfactory’ graduate outcomes for all learners is to innovate university curricula and teaching practice. this paper has shown that expanding the framework within which universities work, to consider supercomplex issues, concerns, challenge, contexts and relationality may be worth investigation and trial. to that end, lacković’s (2019) novel relational graduate employability paradigm may be worth consideration and expansion. it is designed to promote broader orientations, which lacković postulates may help teachers more easily integrate employability in the curriculum, while preparing graduates for life and work in an increasingly supercomplex world. she suggests that universities could use the relational paradigm to guide policy, procedures, and behaviours and actions, that may contribute and promote more sustainable and co-creative ways of living and working in graduates’ futures. lacković provides unique pedagogical examples (aligned with the paradigm) that may inspire some teachers, perhaps even those who have not yet engaged in their university’s employability strategy. what stands her model apart from the other reviewed models is the fact that the paradigm and related pedagogical discussion is grounded in what is recognised as good practice principals in teaching and learning (e.g., interaction and student engagement, inquiry-based learning, critical and creative thinking, and peer-to-peer and teacher-peer collaborations), which could be further explored by academics and educational designers. since pedagogical theory and knowledge is familiar to academics and forms part of daily teaching practice, lacković’s approach may be more likely understood and applied in the curriculum. cook, e. j. (2022) a narrative review of graduate employability models: their paradigms, and relationships to teaching and curricula. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 13(1), 37–64. 60 it could be argued that universities are responsible for enabling learners, as the future workforce, to ‘understand and grapple with uncertain, changeable, and complex job futures and issues surrounding technological advancement, ecological crises, emotional selves and social inequalities’ (lacković, 2019, p. 193). learners and society increasingly expect universities to demonstrate commitments towards sustainability, including through teaching (jones et al., 2021; students organising for sustainability, 2021). a recent survey by times higher education found that ‘sustainability’ was a top priority for international students choosing a university in another country, mainly western (bothwell, 2021). graduates will need to secure and maintain employment in a pandemic-prone, globally warmed and technologically-driven society. future work will require mindsets and preparation beyond individualistic and neoliberal orientations of employability. this is not to suggest that prevailing approaches are not useful and relevant, but, rather, that they may now need expansion. it may also be the case that a relational and pedagogical graduate employability approach may be more sustainable for the sector in terms of resourcing, not only impact. references artess, j., hooley, t., & mellors-bourne, r. 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(2021). microcredential learners need quality careers and employability support. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(1), 21-23. 21 the journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability issn: 1838-3815 (online) journal homepage: https://ojs.deakin.edu.au/index.php/jtlge/ provocation subject to editor review, provocations are intended to be short and showcase thought, leadership and expert commentary on the future of credentials for work in a disrupted world. microcredential learners need quality careers and employability support michael healy1 corresponding author: michael healy (michael.healy@usq.edu.au) ¹ school of education, university of southern queensland, orcid: 0000-0002-9572-2182 providers, industry, and governments have embraced microcredentialing as a solution to the volatility and velocity of changes in labour markets, workplace competencies, and the needs of the 21st century lifelong learner (oliver, 2019). however, microcredentials do not, in and of themselves, guarantee career or employment success. seeking a microcredential is one adaptive career behaviour that people might enact in pursuit of their career goals (lent & brown, 2013). similarly, holding a microcredential is one form of employability capital that people might highlight when seeking employment (tomlinson & anderson, 2020). as kift (2021) has noted, microcredentials should be designed and delivered in a lifelong learning ecosystem of educational, employment, and social support systems. one crucial element of this support is ensuring that learners have the requisite career management skills and labour market literacy to make the best use of microcredentials to achieve their goals (kift, 2021; oliver, 2019). in this essay, i pick up this point to argue that career development practitioners (cdps) have a crucial role to play in helping learners approach microcredentials as part of a cohesive career strategy, integrate them into their career narratives, and express their value to employers. challenges for microcredential learners people may employ a broad range of adaptive career behaviours as they make career decisions, pursue career goals, or face career challenges (lent & brown, 2013). however, many lack the information or insight needed to make good decisions, while career information and advice is not always reliable. this may be particularly true for microcredentials, which are often marketed to beginners (oliver, 2020). learners are subject to several potential challenges when selecting microcredentials and subsequently using them in employment seeking. firstly, microcredentials may not actually be necessary for the learner’s particular goals. secondly, learners may miscalculate the labour market demand for certain https://ojs.deakin.edu.au/index.php/jtlge/ mailto:michael.healy@usq.edu.au healy, m. (2021). microcredential learners need quality careers and employability support. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(1), 21-23. 22 skills, or select microcredentials that do not meet explicit or implicit requirements for entry into their desired profession. thirdly, reactive or anxious learners may accumulate microcredentials haphazardly, with little coherent purpose or strategic intent. finally, learners may lack the job application skills needed to express the value of their microcredentials to employers or integrate them into a coherent employability narrative (tomlinson & anderson, 2020). career development support for microcredential learners microcredentials have not yet been subject to focused study in the field of career development. nonetheless, the acts of earning credentials or learning new skills are a central concern in career development research and practice. there is ample evidence that quality career development support positively influences learners’ career decision-making, problem-solving, adaptability, and identity formation; their academic commitment and achievement; and their employment outcomes and job satisfaction (healy, et al., 2020). career decision-making is one of the most studied themes in the career development literature and is often the focus of conversations between cdps and their clients (healy et al., 2020). to support informed career decision-making, cdps frequently encourage adaptive career behaviours such as reflection on career interests and values, career exploration, occupational research, and strategic networking. certain microcredentials offer a dual advantage to some of these activities, as they present low-cost and low-commitment opportunities for career exploration, in addition to the skill development and credentialing they are designed for. recent trends in career development theory and practice have focused on the importance of futureoriented mindsets and meaningful work (healy et al., 2020). cdps assist their clients in adopting proactive, optimistic, and adaptable attitudes, often by helping them compose, or recompose, meaningful agentic career narratives. in disrupted labour markets, such as those affected by the covid-19 pandemic, career narratives can be traumatic. a microcredential is unlikely, in and of itself, to transform such a career narrative without an associated process of personal reflection and reinvention. similarly, microcredentials are unlikely to serve as tickets to employment in their own right. recruitment is a complex, subjective process of discerning a broad range of employability signals and capitals (tomlinson & anderson, 2020). for example, a given microcredential may be a signal of technical competence, of a proactive attitude, or a certain set of values. cdps use their knowledge of hiring practices to help learners understand explicit and implicit selection criteria and integrate their microcredentials into a persuasive employability narrative in response. conclusion microcredentials are promised to support lifelong learning and careers and employability success, but will not meet this potential in the absence of intentionally designed ecosystems of educational, vocational, and social support (kift, 2021; oliver, 2020). education providers have a responsibility to ensure that career information and support is actively offered to microcredential learners, just as it is for students in degree programs. governments should ensure that quality career information and advice is available to all who need it, particularly when they enact policies that encourage people toward study and upskilling. both should recognise that cdps have a crucial role to play in the design and delivery of educational ecosystems that enable true lifelong learning for all members of society. references healy, m., hammer, s., & mcilveen, p. (2020). mapping graduate employability and career development in higher education research: a citation network analysis. studies in higher education. doi: 10.1080/03075079.2020.1804851 kift, s. (2021). foreword: future work and learning in a disrupted world: “the best chance for all.” journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(1), i–v. doi: 10.21153/jtlge2021vol12no1art1015 http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/03075079.2020.1804851 https://doi.org/10.21153/jtlge2021vol12no1art1015 healy, m. (2021). microcredential learners need quality careers and employability support. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(1), 21-23. 23 lent, r. w., & brown, s. d. (2013). social cognitive model of career self-management: toward a unifying view of adaptive career behavior across the life span. journal of counseling psychology, 60(4), 557–568. doi: 10.1037/a0033446 oliver, b. (2019). making micro-credentials work for learners, employers and providers. deakin university. https://dteach.deakin.edu.au/2019/08/02/microcredentials/ oliver, b. (2020). coursera professional certificates and google career certificates: a snapshot analysis (p. 27). edubrief. https://www.edubrief.com.au/uploads/4/5/0/5/45053363/coursera_and_google_professional_certificat es_analysis_22_october_2020.pdf tomlinson, m., & anderson, v. (2020). employers and graduates: the mediating role of signals and capitals. journal of higher education policy and management. doi: 10.1080/1360080x.2020.1833126 https://doi.org/10.1037/a0033446 https://dteach.deakin.edu.au/2019/08/02/microcredentials/ https://www.edubrief.com.au/uploads/4/5/0/5/45053363/coursera_and_google_professional_certificates_analysis_22_october_2020.pdf https://www.edubrief.com.au/uploads/4/5/0/5/45053363/coursera_and_google_professional_certificates_analysis_22_october_2020.pdf https://doi.org/10.1080/1360080x.2020.1833126 oxley, k., & van rooyen, t. (2021). making micro-credentials work: a student perspective. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(1), 44–47. 44 the journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability issn: 1838-3815 (online) journal homepage: https://ojs.deakin.edu.au/index.php/jtlge/ provocation subject to editor review, provocations are intended to be short and showcase thought, leadership and expert commentary on the future of credentials for work in a disrupted world. making micro-credentials work: a student perspective kaleb oxley1 and tristan van rooyen2 corresponding author: kaleb oxley: (oxleyk@deakin.edu.au) 1graduate of faculty of law, deakin university, student of school of engineering rmit, victoria, australia. orcid: 0000-0002-1587-0282 2student of faculties of law and science, deakin university, victoria, australia. orcid: 0000-0001-9721-8652 micro-credentials, digital badges and industry-recognised certificates have been attracting considerable attention in recent years and with the disruption of many jobs due to the pandemic, interest in continuing education has grown. micro-credentials represent an alternative approach to career and professional development (ghasia, machumu, & de smet, 2019, p. 219; lamagna, 2017, p. 207). these credentialed … industry aligned short units of learning’ are described by wheelahan & moodie (2021, p. 212) as an extension of ‘21st century skills’ and the discourse of employability in higher education. graduate employability has become heavily integrated into modern higher education policy frameworks, but what does this actually mean from a student perspective? bernstein (2000) has critiqued micro-credentials as being too generic. in real terms, what do students serve to gain from this so called ‘genericism’? how does subjecting individuals to a perpetual ‘trainability’, divorced from [their] core disciplinary or occupational focus (wheelahan & moodie, 2021, p. 212) not detract from the intended mastery of the skills concerned? if the possibility to enhance skills ... [and] add practicality in the academic content, set forth by ghasia et al. (2019, p. 219), are to value-add to what should be a student-oriented space, a more targeted approach is needed. we propose that micro-credentials should be standardised across the higher education sector, incentivised and devised, with student input. this would ensure recognition of the academic context in which they are embedded, and the target audience for whom they are designed. micro-credentials should be relevant to all aspects of employability, including skills relevant to the academic context, and focus on creating a well-rounded graduate. an inconsistent approach to micro-credentials as students enrolled in double undergraduate degrees across two institutions, we have witnessed the divergent and ‘variable’ approach to the micro-credential infrastructure and its implementation, considered by stefaniak & carey (2019). the absence of a consistent and universal approach is attributable to varying institutional goals and program objectives. we argue for a different approach, https://ojs.deakin.edu.au/index.php/jtlge/ mailto:oxleyk@deakin.edu.au oxley, k., & van rooyen, t. (2021). making micro-credentials work: a student perspective. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(1), 44–47. 45 one that establishes a more harmonised framework that can be readily adopted by all universities. at one institution, we experienced a renascent, all-encompassing approach that promotes a wide uptake in credential usage, both intra and extra-curricular. this would appear consistent with ralston’s (2021) consideration of the ‘microcredentialing craze’ and reflect a desire to repurpose higher education as a delivery method for vocational education (pp. 83-84, 88). in this vein, there is some attempt to integrate an ‘award of credits’ towards satisfying a degree, such as 5-10% of a unit score satisfied by completing a micro-credential relevant to the unit learning objectives (ralston, 2021, p. 85). this could be seen as an attempt at the ‘stacking’ methodology applied in other jurisdictions to the intention being, according to williamson and pittinsky (2016), to increase students’ currency in a knowledge economy, with the end goal of yielding better jobs and higher wages. nonetheless, in contrast to the higher education degree proper, micro-credentials appear to place emphasis on applied knowledge or vocational training, for the sake of meeting employer’s workforce needs (ralston, 2021, citing craig, 2015, p. 85). at our other institution, a more bespoke program design appears to award students for excellence in university-wide areas of achievement, that reflect key attributes of professional development relevant to the workforce. this model recognises refined, pre-existing or developed, skillsets and awards on individual merit, in contrast to creating new skills and offering students the opportunity to ‘stack’ knowledge capital and currency. in both cases, the variable approach seems to have missed the mark in terms of recognising what students require to succeed. neither approach addresses how gaps in undergraduate skillsets translate to employment outcomes. we recommend that microcredentialising core graduate capabilities, embedding these into coursework and rewarding or incentivising students with nominal grades (such as 5-10% of the mark for a unit) would be an appropriate solution. the gap in micro-credential offerings the conversation surrounding employability is ever centric around the needs of the employer. as pointed out by ralston (2021), micro-credentials are being driven by the strategic human resource directives of large companies (p. 87). accordingly, as wheelahan and moodie (2021) observe, a pervasive and long-standing policy focus surrounding so-called generic and employability skills in vocational education and … graduate attributes in higher education, could be a mere attempt at ‘dressing’ these up as ‘21st century skills’ (p.216). these policies may give labour market and economy needs preferential treatment, at the expense of education. the overriding goal of educational policy should not focus strictly on an individual’s capacity to be ‘market’ ready (wheelahan & moodie, 2021). there are basic shortcomings present in higher education settings, reflected in academic skillsets, such as research and group work, and incentives for students to overcome these. at what point do student needs and perspectives shift to the foreground of this conversation? deficiencies in basic academic research, formatting and report writing, coupled with inexperienced and undisciplined approaches to group assessment settings are common concerns for undergraduate students. this perspective can be readily gained from students and markers alike. it can be argued that these core aptitudes are of themselves transferrable and indicative of work-ready skills or ‘graduate outcomes’ at a fundamental level. assessment of these soft skills impact on academic achievement and correlate with a graduate’s capacity to function in a workplace setting. teamwork, coupled with written and verbal communication skills are key aptitudes sought after in graduate employment. students require these illustrative skills, at a minimum, to land a graduate job, according to dr jaynes of deakin university (n.d). grades and academic results are themselves a measure of a candidate’s employability. consequently, micro-credential offerings must be considered against how universally accessible, targeted and relevant they are towards actually enhancing skills that add practicality in the academic context that ghasia et al. (2019) describe. if students underperform academically, can it be reasoned that this transference of soft skills will allow them to succeed in the labour market? as ralston (2021) saliently observes, [t]here is a serious mismatch between degrees and what people actually need to launch or advance [a] career (p .88). oxley, k., & van rooyen, t. (2021). making micro-credentials work: a student perspective. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(1), 44–47. 46 the solution: incentivising learning while improving academic outcomes the recent higher education trend in zero credit point academic integrity and career and employability modules appears to be missing the mark in addressing core skills of undergraduate students. zero credit point units are hurdle requirements in foundational skills that do not contribute to a grade point average. to make matters worse, students are neither motivated, nor incentivised to complete modules that offer neither academic reward, nor recognise achievement in the areas impacting their academic bottom line. in the very least, under the ralston (2021) approach to micro-credential offerings, there appears a limited offering of badges that address the core deficits in academic progress and achievement, which would concurrently serve to demonstrate the ‘market’ model of an individual’s graduate employability, so described by wheelahan and moodie (2021). adapting microcredentials to enhance skills practical to the academic context will both incentivise students and improve academic outcomes. this may serve to repurpose the present approach to one considering what students genuinely want and need in practical terms. futhermore, the university, as institutional stakeholder, would clearly benefit directly from a higher calibre of student achievement. substantively, we propose a multi-faceted approach that acknowledges the potential uses for microcredentials to reward and incentivise students. the current approach does not account for understanding what students actually need or are driven by. institutions cannot claim that graduate employability or job readiness is an achieved graduate learning outcome on the basis of students failing assessments because of deficits in core academic skills. conceptually, student input into the design and integration process of micro-credential creation must be embedded, to promote uptake and program longevity and ‘maximize buy in’ (stefaniak & carey 2019). the authors deduce that a program must align purpose and value. accordingly, the process should adequately convey ‘internal and external value’, within academia and its transferability to the job market, against a ‘comprehensible purpose’, such as improved academic progress. at first blush, this appears to validate the student perspective against underlying issues with skill deficiencies in the academic context. improved grades and greater ease navigating through the assessment process would be highly regarded by students. the policy-oriented discourse on micro-credentials in jurisdictions such as the eu and uk, sets out a clear framework, harmonising an integrated and universal approach across the higher education sector (orr, pupinis, & kirdulytė, 2020; qaa, 2021). it focusses on the practical benefits derived by students, as well as industry outcomes. it can, therefore, be reasoned, that taking a practical and academically focused approach to micro-credentials would unilaterally appeal to all three key stakeholders party to the academic transaction: the student or alumni, the institution and the employer. references bernstein, b. (2000). pedagogy, symbolic control and identity (2nd ed.). rowman & littlefield publishers inc. ghasia, m., machumu, h., & desmet, e. (2019). micro-credentials in higher education institutions: an exploratory study of its place in tanzania. international journal of education and development using information and communication technology (ijedict), 15(1), 219–230. jaynes, s. (n.d.). six skills you need to land a graduate job. this: deakin university. https://this.deakin.edu.au/career/six-skills-you-need-to-land-a-graduate-job lamagna, m. (2017). placing digital badges and micro-credentials in context. journal of electronic resources librarianship, 29(4), 206–210. https://doi.org/10.1080/1941126x.2017.1378538 orr, d., pupinis, m., & kirdulytė, g. (2020). towards a european approach to micro-credentials: a study of practices and commonalities in offering micro-credentials in european higher education (report no. nc03-20-553-en-n). neset. https://ec.europa.eu/education/sites/default/files/document-librarydocs/towards-european-approach-micro-credentials-analytical-report.pdf the quality assurance agency for higher education (qaa). (2021, april 16). which way for micro-credentials? https://www.qaa.ac.uk/docs/qaa/news/quality-compass-which-way-for-microcredentials.pdf?sfvrsn=25c6d481_8 oxley, k., & van rooyen, t. (2021). making micro-credentials work: a student perspective. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(1), 44–47. 47 ralston, s.j. (2020). higher education’s microcredentialing craze: a postdigital-deweyan critique. postdigital science and education, 3, 83–101. https://doi.org/10.1007/s42438-020-00121-8 stefaniak, j., & carey, k. (2019). instilling purpose and value in the implementation of digital badges in higher education. international journal of educational technology in higher education, 16(44), 1–21. https://doi.org/10.1186/s41239-019-0175-9 wheelahan, l., & moodie, g. (2021). analysing micro-credentials in higher education: a bernsteinian analysis. journal of curriculum studies, 53(2), 212–228. https://doi.org/10.1080/00220272.2021.1887358 williamson, j., & pittinsky, m. (2016, may 23). making credentials matter. inside higher ed. https://www.insidehighered.com/views/2016/05/23/understanding-differences-what-credentials-arebeing-stacked-and-why-essay jackson, d., sibson, r. & riebe, l. (2013). delivering work-ready business graduates-keeping our promises and evaluating our performance. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 4 (1), 2-22. 2 delivering work-ready business graduates – keeping our promises and evaluating our performance denise jackson 1 , ruth sibson 1 and linda riebe 1 , d.jackson@ecu.edu.au; r.sibson@ecu.edu.au; l.riebe@ecu.edu.au 1 edith cowan university abstract business schools globally are responding to calls for graduate work-readiness primarily through the development of employability skills, encompassing career management skills, and work integrated-learning (wil). there has been considerable attention to clarifying precisely which skills should be developed, and how, but far less on evaluating employability skill provision and its impact on graduate work-readiness. this is increasingly important as industry worldwide continues to lament graduate inadequacies in certain employability skills and the extent to which they are job-ready. this paper outlines a systematic approach for evaluating employability skill outcomes and the effectiveness of learning programs in developing these skills. the approach was developed and is currently being implemented in a learning program dedicated to developing employability skills in business undergraduates in an australian university. it may assist other universities in communicating, assessing, mapping and reporting their employability skills outcomes; an integral component of all business undergraduate programs, and now a requirement of all australian higher education providers (teqsa, 2011). the approach provides a means of evaluating program effectiveness in skill provision, enabling a more informed review of curricula content, assessment and pedagogical techniques to achieve better alignment with industry requirements. keywords: employability, graduate, undergraduate, business, competencies, generic skills. background business schools worldwide are investing significant effort and resources to respond to industry calls for work-ready business graduates. work-readiness is typically addressed in two ways in business undergraduate programs: non-technical skill development, encompassing career management skills, and the incorporation of work-integrated learning (wil) or internship opportunities. the benefits of undertaking a period of learning in a workplace setting as part of one’s degree program are well documented and focus on enhanced technical and non -technical skill outcomes, and graduate ability to transfer acquired skills and knowledge to the workplace (see freudenberg, brimble & cameron, 2011). different manifestations of wil exist globally, each highly regarded by industry. the uk ‘sandwich’ degree program, where students complete 2 years of university study, followed by one year in industry and a final year of university study, has long been considered superior to standard degree programs in regards to developing graduate work-readiness (confederation of british industry [cbi], 2009). similarly, us internship programs are also considered to prepare students better for the workplace, in addition to enhancing their employment prospects (gault, leach & duey, file:///c:/users/258909k/desktop/d.jackson@ecu.edu.au file:///c:/users/258909k/desktop/r.sibson@ecu.edu.au mailto:l.riebe@ecu.edu.au jackson, d., sibson, r. & riebe, l. (2013). delivering work-ready business graduates-keeping our promises and evaluating our performance. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 4 (1), 2-22. 3 2010). a review of recent literature reveals a growing abundance of studies examining the positive impact of student work placements on graduate work-readiness. non-technical skills, often referred to as generic, professional or key skills and herein defined as employability skills, are those which facilitate the creative and productive application of disciplinary skills and knowledge in the workplace. team working, communication, critical thinking and problem-solving are prominent examples of employability skills considered vital in business graduates (jackson & chapman, 2012). employability skills are widely considered as a pivotal and integral element of business undergraduate education (cbi, 2009) and equally as important as disciplinary content (hancock et al., 2009). they are firmly entrenched in relevant professional association accreditation criteria, such as america’s association to advance collegiate schools of business [aacsb]; equis, operated by the european foundation for management development; cpa australia; and the uk’s quality assurance agency for higher education (qaa). they also feature heavily in the recently developed learning and teaching academic standards for australian undergraduate degree programs (australian learning and teaching council [altc], 2010), further underscoring the importance of work-readiness in business graduates. these standards prescribe that all graduating students must have a ‘systematic and coherent body of knowledge, principles and concepts and higher order learning skills for further learning and professional employment’ (australian qualifications framework council [aqfc], 2009, p. 13). acknowledging the need to produce graduates who can add immediate value in job roles, there is a wealth of international research dedicated to clarifying industry-relevant employability skills in undergraduates (business council of australia [bca], 2006; cbi, 2009; council for industry and higher education [cihe], 2008; national leadership council for liberal education & america’s promise [leap], 2008).there has also been considerable research on pedagogical strategies for successfully developing these skills; with universities either opting for bolt-on programs or embedding employability skill outcomes into core curricula. cranmer (2006), for example, provides an overview of these two different approaches in her review of how academics are engaging with the teaching and learning of employability skills. unfortunately, there is not equal rigour in evaluating the success of employability skill development in business undergraduate programs; with the use of simple measures, such as graduate employment statistics, not effectively capturing and accurately reflecting the quality of graduates (barrie, andrews, dean & heimanis, 2009). this does not detract from exemplars of good practice in articulating graduate capabilities, such as the use of student and course portfolios at curtin university in western australia (oliver, 2011), but highlights the need for a university-wide, systematic approach in evaluating employability skill outcomes and the degree to which such programs or approaches are meeting employers’ needs. this is amplified further by evidence of gaps between expectations of graduates and business school provision of certain employability skills, and also by rising employer expectations (hart research associates, 2010). gaps are particularly evident in communication (kotzee & johnston, 2011), problem solving, critical thinking and leadership skills (cihe, 2008); all vital elements of the managerial skill set. as industry laments the lack of work-readiness in business graduates it is important to acknowledge this is not the sole responsibility of the business school. graduate workreadiness, equating here to the degree to which a graduate is employable, has several determinants: their ability to transfer acquired skills (rae, 2007), workplace awareness (bennett, dunne & carre, 1999) and job mobility (wittekind, raeder & grote, 2010). employability skill outcomes form only one aspect of employability and are influenced by jackson, d., sibson, r. & riebe, l. (2013). delivering work-ready business graduates-keeping our promises and evaluating our performance. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 4 (1), 2-22. 4 external factors such as graduates’ exposure to activities and relationships beyond education and work (wheeler, 2008) and skill development during their school years (smith & green, 2005). despite these influences beyond their control, business schools should be actively evaluating their success in achieving employability skill outcomes to identify ways of improving graduate work-readiness. reasons for ambivalence in assessing employability skill outcomes and the quality of provision by business schools may be attributed to the absence of appropriate skill frameworks for measuring these skills. it may also be due to a lack of funding and required resources dedicated to evaluation purposes, further aggravated by increasing administrative workloads in academic staff (tight, 2010). some academics may challenge the need for higher education outcomes to align with, and respond to, industry requirements; arguing this detracts from other important goals such as nurturing societal good and developing intellect in students (starkey & tempest, 2009). the benefits of evaluating employability skill provision apply to all stakeholders in undergraduate education. educators can better gauge their contribution to graduate workreadiness and are alerted to areas of weakness requiring adjustments in pedagogical strategies, program content, learning activities and/or assessment. graduates will be better equipped to explicitly promote their own capabilities in employability skills, which is particularly important given their prominence in recruitment selection criteria. finally, evaluation outcomes will highlight those areas of learning programs which would benefit from industry assistance and intervention, such as embedding professional learning activities into curricula and assessment. this paper aims to outline a systematic approach for evaluating employability skill outcomes and the effectiveness of learning programs in developing these skills. it may assist other schools and faculties in the vital process of evaluating their outcomes and provision, and would apply to skill development programs using either a bolt-on or embedded approach. the context for the adopted methodology is a program, core to the university’s undergraduate business degree, designed to explicitly engage students in developing employability skills using a student-centred, experiential teaching and learning approach in an environment closely emulating the workplace. it comprises four sequential units: two in first year, one in second year, and one in third year. the program aims to be at the forefron t of responding to the voice of employers in developing graduates sufficiently equipped to add immediate value in the workplace. the outlined methodology for evaluating employability skill provision was catalysed by the need to articulate clearly defined program outcomes and evidence of the effectiveness of the program to key internal and external stakeholders. the proposed approach for evaluating skill outcomes and learning program effectiveness is currently being implemented in the said program; an outline and evaluation of each phase of the approach is presented. methodology for evaluating employability skill provision figure 1 (see below) summarises the steps adopted in evaluating the development of employability skills. an explanation of each step is provided with a broad rationale from relevant literature and details on specific actions completed within the program. phase one: project set-up first, a project team was established to determine the aims and parameters of the evaluative research strategy. these aims were effectively communicated and justified to achieve the required buy-in from relevant academic staff. given the high ratio of casual academic staff in australian business schools (sciulli, smith & ross, 2009), a budgetary allowance for their input into skill development issues and assistance in data gathering may be required. the jackson, d., sibson, r. & riebe, l. (2013). delivering work-ready business graduates-keeping our promises and evaluating our performance. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 4 (1), 2-22. 5 aims and parameters for the program’s team were (i) to develop a contemporary and relevant contextualised employability skills framework which delineates the program’s key messages for stakeholders by clearly establishing the aims and scope of the program, and (ii) to evaluate the program’s success in achieving the targeted skills. being able to articulate key messages explicitly for the overall program required a shift from the silo development of skills to an overall program development of skills through a mapping process, necessitating ‘buy in’ from all unit coordinators. figure 1: evaluating employability skill outcomes phase one: project set-up phase two: develop and communicate a contextualised employability skills framework phase four: audit student skills against framework phase three: map curriculum against skills framework phase five: review and re-align curriculum and assessment phase six: evaluate transfer of skills from classroom to workplace external environment jackson, d., sibson, r. & riebe, l. (2013). delivering work-ready business graduates-keeping our promises and evaluating our performance. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 4 (1), 2-22. 6 phase two: develop and communicate a contextualised employability skills framework a strategic and methodological approach to the development, assessment and reporting of employability skills in a university context first requires a coherent employability skills framework (esf). this framework should capture and reflect current employer preferences, be unambiguous in meaning and measurable in both learning and work environments. it should also be contextualised to reflect the history, goals and requirements of individual institutions, faculties and/or learning programs (taylor, 2005; hampson & junor, 2009). the development of a contextualised esf is, arguably, the most vital step in the process of evaluating employability skill outcomes in the university setting. the role of esfs contextualised to individual institutions, faculties or programs is multifaceted. first, they provide an overarching strategic direction on addressing employability skills by structuring government, academic and employer perspectives on what constitutes graduate employability (dacre pool & sewell, 2007). this is invaluable, given the somewhat overwhelming mass of international literature in this area. jackson (2009) discusses the importance of systematically profiling industry requirements of business graduates. an esf is one example of a profile of targeted skills in graduates. second, they communicate to stakeholders precisely what employability skills are being addressed by a particular institution/faculty/program (dacre pool & sewell, 2007; rae, 2007). this may impact upon the marketability of certain degree programs. third, they inform and guide curricula content and may clarify suitable pedagogical practices for developing the defined employability skills. finally, they provide a means of mapping and benchmarking university/faculty/program efforts in achieving graduate employability (yorke & knight, 2004). frameworks provide a tool for monitoring student competency in the defined skills through regular peer, self and lecturer performance reviews. realising the multifaceted role of a contextualised esf does, however, require institutional commitment. a number of replicable steps defined the program’s approach to developing its own skills framework. determine the starting point. in developing the program’s esf, australia’s national esf was determined as the logical starting point. the national esf framework, developed by the australian chamber of commerce and industry [acci] and the bca for the department of education, science and training [dest], 2002, comprises skills and attributes deemed critical for new and existing employees across a broad range of australian work contexts. the skills consist of communication, teamwork, problem solving, self-management, planning and organising, technology, lifelong learning and initiative and enterprise. the attributes comprise loyalty, commitment, honesty and integrity, enthusiasm, reliability, personal presentation, common sense, positive self-esteem, sense of humour, balanced attitude to work and home, ability to deal with pressure, motivation and adaptability. although individual job roles demand different skill levels and priorities, the framework is considered generic across different industries. barrie (2005) challenges the parallel treatment of skills and attributes. he argues that attributes concern personal traits whereas skills can be acquired through practice. they combine, however, to form an overarching capability which determines a graduate’s ability to function in the workplace (jackson & chapman, 2012). the national framework has been central to the vocational education and training (vet) sector with providers adopting a system wide approach to incorporate the eight employability skills across their entire range of national training packages. despite the key role australian higher education providers (hep) also play in the economic, social and cultural development of the nation, their response has been more haphazard. their focus has been jackson, d., sibson, r. & riebe, l. (2013). delivering work-ready business graduates-keeping our promises and evaluating our performance. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 4 (1), 2-22. 7 institution-specific and frequently differs across different faculties with no commonly agreed framework for employability skill development (bihecc, 2007). the national framework is considered a subset of the extensive research on graduate attributes (bihecc, 2007), the latter catalysed by the west review (detya 1998) which synthesised a set of generic attributes all graduates should have. although bihecc’s (2007) elementary review of practices indicated that graduate attribute development across heps addressed the esf, some (barrie, 2005; freeman, hancock, simpson, sykes, petocz, densten & gibson, 2008) believe not all australian universities are progressing beyond a myriad of recommended policy achievement statements and surface mapping strategies, and that a more systematic approach to developing and reporting employability skills is required. such concerns are also heightened by certain aspects of hep funding which depend on the development and reporting of graduate attributes (barrie, 2006). identify and improve on the starting point’s weaknesses. there are a number of identified problems inherent in the australian esf. weaknesses include, first, the separation of attributes from skills; described as ‘political defeat’ (hampson & junor, 2009, p. 8) for those employers who expressed what they needed in graduates to the bca and acci. initially it was acknowledged that the attributes ‘contribute to overall employability’ (acci, 2002 p. 4) and would be included in the framework, yet they were later removed; most likely due to difficulties in developing and measuring them (taylor, 2005; hampson & junor). the incorporation of these attributes into the framework would facilitate more rigorous mapping and benchmarking processes, in addition to acknowledging the importance of developing certain ‘attitudinal dispositions and affective traits’ sought by employers (taylor, p. 205). second, the meanings of individual skills are poorly defined and ambiguous; a problem plaguing many studies on required generic skills in graduates (male & chapman, 2005). the precise meaning of the eight skills is open to interpretation and confirms disparity in academics’ understanding of the exact nature of employability skills (taylor, 2005; bridgestock, 2009). such ambiguity causes inevitable problems in assessment and measurement. for example, how is one to measure: ‘having a personal vision and goals’? further refinement of the attributes and skill elements is required. third, hampson and junor (2009) argue the national framework fails to consider the level of skill required in different workplace contexts. they advocate differentiating between routine and complex tasks and assessing employability skills at basic, creditable and advanced status. fourth, they argue many elements of the esf reflect work processes/activities (such as ‘negotiating responsively’), rather than the actual skills needed to perform these activities (such as ‘being able to defend and assert one’s rights, interests and needs coherently and convincingly’). fifth, they maintain many of the cited skills require workplace experience; less problematic in higher education given the majority of australian undergraduates undertake part-time employment during their degree studies (mcinnis & hartley, 2009). finally, it is important the framework captures and represents the needs and priorities of today’s employers. certainly for the vet sector there were concerns over a lack of consultation with industry representatives on the skills and attributes selected for the esf (down, 2003). in the face of recent economic volatility and changing social and environmental pressures, it is pertinent that skill requirements are regularly reviewed to ensure currency. the changing face of the management profession from trends, such as flattening organisational structures virtual working and diverse labour composition, will impact specifically on the skills critical in business graduates. the esf should remain current and be continually aligned with stakeholder expectations through tracking research studies, industry engagement and networking with other educational practitioners. jackson, d., sibson, r. & riebe, l. (2013). delivering work-ready business graduates-keeping our promises and evaluating our performance. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 4 (1), 2-22. 8 incorporate current literature. current literature should guide the development of a contextualised esf beyond the starting point frame of reference. more recently, for example, jackson and chapman (2012) produced a competency framework (see table 1) that identifies forty-five workplace behaviours from an extensive review of international, employer-based studies on employability skills dating back to 1998 (jackson, 2010). the behaviours are subsequently grouped into twenty competencies (treated in the same way as skills), and are based on empirical and conceptual associations identified in the literature review. table 1: framework of competencies and constituent behaviours, adapted from jackson and chapman (2012) competency behaviour c1: business principles use of business concepts c2: core business skills numeracy technology c3: critical thinking pattern recognition and conceptualisation evaluation c4: problem solving analytical/convergent reasoning diagnosing c5: decision management lateral thinking/creativity information management decision making c6: political skills influencing others conflict resolution c7: working with others task collaboration team working social intelligence cultural and diversity management c8: oral communication verbal communication giving and receiving feedback c9: personal ethics personal ethics c10: confidence self-efficacy c11: self-awareness meta-cognition lifelong learning c12: self-discipline self-regulation stress tolerance work/life balance c13: innovation entrepreneurship change management c14: leadership project management performance management jackson, d., sibson, r. & riebe, l. (2013). delivering work-ready business graduates-keeping our promises and evaluating our performance. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 4 (1), 2-22. 9 meeting management developing others c15: formal communication skills public speaking meeting participation written communication c16: performance efficiency multi-tasking autonomy c17: organisational skills goal and task management time management c18: environmental awareness organisational awareness commercial awareness c19: professional responsibility social responsibility accountability c20: work ethic drive initiative significantly, jackson and chapman’s (2012) framework seeks to overcome a number of the issues in the australian esf. first, the competencies encompass and do not discriminate between skills and attributes. second, and arguably the overarching feature, is that the competencies, and their constituent behaviours, are far more clearly defined, and therefore more assessable, than their national predecessors. taking the example of ‘communication’, more measureable behaviours such as ‘give and receive feedback appropriately and constructively’ and ‘speak publicly and adjust their style according to the nature of the audience’ have replaced the somewhat ambiguous elements from the australian esf of ‘sharing information’ and ‘speaking clearly and directly’. these behaviours represent processes or activities which more clearly define competence for a given employability skill. a shared understanding of the targeted skills, among employers, students and academics, is essential for student learning (see price, o’donovan, rust & carroll, 2008). third, this use of processes and activities define more precisely the behaviours constituting the employability skills, and better indicate the extent to which each must be performed effectively in the workplace. for example, ‘develop a range of solutions using lateral and creative thinking’ defines the required outcome and the attributes and/or capabilities for successful performance. in combination, this increases the likelihood of strong content validity in instruments used to develop and assess the identified behaviours, thus increasing the chances of their successful development. hampson and junor (2009) acknowledge the difficulties in defining required levels of skills in different contexts within the vet sector. there is varying opinion on whether skill requirements for the undergraduate cohort are more homogenous; some maintaining they do not vary greatly by discipline (billings, 2003) others advocating the significant influence of disciplinary context (jones, 2010). fourth, their framework is considered current as it derives from an extensive and timely review of literature on industry-relevant graduate skills, and it incorporates a number of elements under-represented in the australian esf. for example, leadership skills, considered critical for graduate employability (hancock et al., 2009), are incorporated through a collection of skills comprising a ‘leadership’ competency and a heavy focus on the ‘softer’ skills of self-regulation and self-awareness. these are widely perceived as constituting emotional intelligence and fundamental to effective leadership (boyatzis, 2009). also vital to graduate employability is critical thinking (papadopoulos, 2010), addressed jackson, d., sibson, r. & riebe, l. (2013). delivering work-ready business graduates-keeping our promises and evaluating our performance. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 4 (1), 2-22. 10 through behaviours evaluating detail and conceptualising the ‘bigger picture’. this focus on ‘helicopter vision’ continues with greater attention to understanding and evaluating organisational, national and global environments and social responsibility, the latter considered key in the wake of the global financial crisis. notably, the elements of risk management and mastery of a second language have been omitted from jackson and chapman’s (2012) framework, both deemed beyond the scope of employability skills and more relevant to disciplinary content. certain attributes, namely ‘loyalty’, a ‘sense of humour’, ‘personal presentation’ and ‘common sense’, were also not directly included as these were considered either to be unnecessary or addressed elsewhere. develop the finalised framework. the resulting framework comprises ten overarching skills with 40 constituent behaviours and their related descriptors (see table 2). there are a number of differences between jackson & chapman’s (2012) framework and the contextualised one. first, it comprises ten employability skills, as opposed to twenty competencies. the identification and use of ten employability skills was considered more manageable for mapping and benchmarking purposes and more consistent with the individual unit’s learning outcomes which were based initially on the national esf. where appropriate, the new overarching skills were written as activities or processes to encourage cognitive awareness of the active learning process and to reduce ambiguity. constituent behaviours of the original competencies were merged into their new, host skill area with the exception of behaviours from the ‘work ethic’ and ‘decision management’ competencies which were dispersed across a number of the employability skills. second, the behaviours ‘use of business concepts’ and ‘commercial awareness’ were removed due to their disciplinary focus and coverage in other core units within the undergraduate business degree program. the technical behaviours comprising the leadership competency were also removed on the premise that some students might not realistically be able to develop these prior to graduation given they prescribe supervisory workplace experience. third, five behaviour names were changed, each marked by one asterisk (*), to reduce potential misinterpretation, more accurately reflect the level of skill development addressed in the program and/or reflect more contemporary terminology recently adopted in the employability skills arena. fourth, an expanded definition of multitasking was given to avoid potential misinterpretation, and a slight amendment to the definition of ‘self-efficacy’ and four instances of the word ‘understand’ were replaced with more measurable phrases within the behaviour descriptors, all marked with two asterisks (**). finally, the program’s esf incorporates some additional skill elements. first, in light of growing international concerns for our environment, the concept of sustainability was affirmed through minor amendments to the social responsibility and lifelong learning behaviour descriptors. in addition, ‘career management’ was inserted as an additional behaviour under self-awareness. bridgestock (2009) reviews literature on the positive relationship between career management and employability, concluding it plays a pivotal role in enhancing economic growth. in the face of continued global economic volatility and increasingly competitive graduate labour markets (tomlinson, 2008); the need for developing career management skills in graduates is being increasingly recognised (popovic & thomas, 2009). the emphasis of this new behaviour is on developing informed career goals and understanding local labour market conditions and career opportunities which, in combination with appraising one’s own strengths and weaknesses – termed ‘meta-cognition’ in the program’s framework, will enhance employability (eby, butts & lockwood, 2003). jackson, d., sibson, r. & riebe, l. (2013). delivering work-ready business graduates-keeping our promises and evaluating our performance. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 4 (1), 2-22. 11 table 2: contextualised employability skills framework unit 1 unit 2 unit 3 unit 4 t p a t p a t p a t p a w o rk in g e ff e c ti v e ly w it h o th e rs task collaboration complete group tasks through collaborative communication, problem solving, discussion and planning. team working operate within, and contribute to, a respectful, supportive and cooperative group climate. social intelligence acknowledge the complex emotions and viewpoints of others and respond sensitively and appropriately**. cultural and diversity awareness* work productively with people from diverse cultures, races, ages, gender, religions and lifestyles. influencing others defend and assert their rights, interests and needs and convince others of the validity of one’s point of view. conflict resolution address and resolve contentious issues with key stakeholders. c o m m u n ic a ti n g e ff e c ti v e ly verbal communication communicate orally in a clear and sensitive manner which is appropriately varied according to different audiences and seniority levels. giving and receiving feedback give and receive feedback appropriately and constructively. public speaking speak publicly and adjust their style according to the nature of the audience. meeting participation participate constructively in meetings. written communication present knowledge, in a range of written formats, in a professional, structured and clear manner. s e lf a w a re n e s s meta-cognition reflect on and evaluate personal practices, strengths and weaknesses in the workplace. life-long learning actively seek, monitor and manage knowledge and sustainable opportunities for learning in the context of employment and life. career management developing meaningful and realistic career goals and pathways for achieving them in light of labour market conditions. jackson, d., sibson, r. & riebe, l. (2013). delivering work-ready business graduates-keeping our promises and evaluating our performance. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 4 (1), 2-22. 12 t h in k in g c ri ti c a ll y conceptualisation* recognise patterns in detailed documents and scenarios to understand the ‘bigger’ picture. evaluation recognise, evaluate and retain key points in a range of documents and scenarios. a n a ly s in g d a ta a n d u s in g te c h n o lo g y numeracy analyse and use numbers and data accurately and manipulate into relevant information. technology select and use appropriate technology to address diverse tasks and problems. information management retrieve, interpret, evaluate and interactively use information in a range of different formats. p ro b le m s o lv in g reasoning* use rational and logical reasoning to deduce appropriate and wellreasoned conclusions. analysing and diagnosing* analyse facts and circumstances and ask the right questions to diagnose problems. decision making make appropriate and timely decisions, in light of available information, in sensitive and complex situations. d e v e lo p in g in it ia ti v e a n d e n te rp ri s e entrepreneurship/ intrapreneurship* initiate change and add value by embracing new ideas and showing ingenuity and creativity in addressing challenges and problems. lateral thinking / creativity develop a range of solutions using lateral and creative thinking. initiative take action unprompted to achieve agreed goals. change management manage change and demonstrate flexibility in their approach to all aspects of work. s e lf m a n a g e m e n t self-efficacy be self-confident in dealing with the challenges that employment and life present**. stress tolerance persevere and retain effectiveness under pressure or when things go wrong. work / life balance demonstrate the importance of well being and strive to maintain a productive balance of work and life**. jackson, d., sibson, r. & riebe, l. (2013). delivering work-ready business graduates-keeping our promises and evaluating our performance. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 4 (1), 2-22. 13 self-regulation reflect on and regulate their emotions and demonstrate selfcontrol**. s o c ia l re s p o n s ib il it y social responsibility behave in a manner which is sustainable and socially responsible (e.g., consistent with company policy and/or broader community values). accountability accept responsibility for own decisions, actions and work outcomes. personal ethics remain consistently committed to and guided by core values and beliefs such as honesty and integrity. organisational awareness recognise organisational structure, operations, culture and systems and adapt their behaviour and attitudes accordingly**. d e v e lo p in g p ro fe s s io n a li s m efficiency achieve prescribed goals and outcomes in a timely and resourceful manner. multi-tasking perform more than one task at the same time**. autonomy complete tasks in a self-directed manner in the absence of supervision. time management manage their time to achieve agreed goals. drive go beyond the call of duty by pitching in, including undertaking menial tasks, as required by the business. goal and task management set, maintain and consistently act upon achievable goals, prioritised tasks, plans and realistic schedules. jackson, d., sibson, r. & riebe, l. (2013). delivering work-ready business graduates-keeping our promises and evaluating our performance. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 4 (1), 2-22. 14 in addition to those addressed by jackson and chapman’s (2012) framework, and thus incorporated into the program’s esf, further weaknesses with the australian framework were overcome. first, it is based entirely on measurable workplace task processes and activities. this overcomes the conceptual confusion associated with the mixing of task processes and skills, and is appropriate to the program given its ethos of focusing on developing employability skills in an environment which emulates the workplace. second, and to overcome the problem of developing skills which require workplace experience, the program creates precisely the environment in which to successfully learn these defined behaviours and therefore does not preclude those who do not have suitable work experience. third, the development of behaviours considered beyond the scope of the program, such as technical leadership skills, were removed. the esf also provides further assurance of currency, thus capturing and reflecting the needs of contemporary employers, through incorporating additional behaviours identified by academics as pertinent to the program. to ensure compliance with university-wide policy, the esf was also cross referenced in a matrix table (adapted from rumsey, 2005), against the national framework to ensure skills were sufficiently covered. following this mapping exercise, the university’s own targeted graduate attributes were cross referenced to ensure inclusion. communicate the framework. the framework was communicated to stakeholders in a number of different ways. students on the employability skills program were introduced to the framework through its inclusion in unit plans, class posters which were actively referenced during class sessions and postcards for individual students. the framework was also broadcast electronically, via intranet and wikis, across the university as an exemplar of initiatives in graduate employability. it constitutes what price et al. (2008, p.177) describe as an appropriate forum ‘for the development and sharing of standards within and between disciplinary and professional communities’. promotional literature for external stakeholders incorporated the framework to delineate the program’s mission and key outcomes. phase three: map curriculum against framework a curriculum map of employability skill development within the program was completed. this was undertaken for a number of reasons. first, to delineate key messages for both internal and external stakeholders of the benefits of skill development within a program offering; second, to ascertain where the skill is explicitly taught, practiced and/or assessed over the life of the program; third, to identify and update the core skills, and their constituent behaviours, distinctly associated with each unit within the program and, finally, to revise unit learning outcomes, content and descriptions to explicitly promote the core skills developed in each unit. literature acknowledges the considerable uses and benefits of curriculum mapping for industry educators and students themselves (cox & king, 2006), and as a valuable platform to promote a supportive and collaborative culture among colleagues (uchiyama & radin, 2008). a standard mapping process may be extrapolated to different types of employability skill offerings. the project team first established the mapping criteria which is dependent on the size, rigour and, most likely, funding for the exercise. coordinators mapped each skill, and its associated behaviours, against learning activities, opportunities for practice and assessments to ensure units are constructively aligned (see biggs, 2006). this gave a rich picture of how each behaviour is developed within each unit and, therefore, across the learning program. it facilitated linear mapping for each skill, and constituent behaviours, to create a picture of how they are scaffolded as students proceed through the program. a less arduous exercise would have been to assign core skills to units within the learning program and map how these are taught, practised and assessed. while this evaluates the jackson, d., sibson, r. & riebe, l. (2013). delivering work-ready business graduates-keeping our promises and evaluating our performance. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 4 (1), 2-22. 15 overall achievement of learning outcomes across the program, it provides little information on whether skill acquisition is sequentially scaffolded as students’ progress through the program, important for student learning (see meyers & nulty, 2009). also, as the learning environment allows for the integration of many employability skills across learning activities and assessment items, the ability to effectively silo core skills to individual units is questionable. next, a mapping model was determined. there are a range of curricula mapping models developed for course alignment and articulation (see tariq, scott, cochrane, lee & ryles, 2004). models to map employability skills include matrix models (yorke & knight, 2004); computer software models developed by universities to map entire degree programs (oliver, ferns, whelan & lilly, 2010); template designs (fallows & steven, 2000) and concept models (harden, 2001). robley, whittle and murdoch-eaton (2005) combined four maps to show declared, developed, learned and assessed data to demonstrate an ‘alignment loop’. bath, smith, stein and swann (2004) question whether mapping is enough to ensure curricula is aligned with what students actually learn and propose a cycle of planning (mapping the intended curriculum), acting (embedding), reviewing (comparing teacher and student experiences) and reflecting (redesigning the curriculum). for the program, mapping parameters were initially defined as unit learning outcomes (ulos) against employability skills agreed by the project team as core to that particular unit. in accordance with the curtin university computer software model (oliver et al., 2010), it was also agreed that staff would identify the specific university-level graduate attribute and the level of thinking according to bloom’s revised taxonomy (krathwohl, 2002) associated with each ulo. the model, however, was designed to map a smaller number of university specific graduate attributes and there were no budgetary allowances within the program for adapting their computer model to the ten skills within the esf. further, the mapping of content against ulos can be problematic as the alignment of ulos with delivered and assessed content is not always guaranteed (mcneill, gospel & hedberg, 2008). it was agreed, therefore, that ulos should be verified, and possibly amended, as an outcome of mapping rather than act as a mapping parameter. this exercise is a way of ensuring that learning outcomes are aligned with curricula content and assessment. thus, a matrix model was chosen to simplify the mapping process. it provided a visual representation of skills taught (t), practised (p) and assessed (a) across the program and was easy to complete using associated guidelines for staff. see tariq, scott, cochrane & ryles (2004) for further examples of the use of matrix models. the matrix model comprised a spreadsheet posted in an electronic community wiki, mapping each of the 40 behaviours against what was taught, practised and assessed in their particular unit. these were collated into a colour-coded curriculum map which indicated t, p and a for each behaviour across the four units. a linear review of each skill set, and its constituent behaviours, was also undertaken to assess, according to the tpa data, how it is sequentially developed as students progress through the program. phase four: audit student skills against framework upon completing a unit, students within the program undertake a skills audit in an online survey environment. they reflect on their expected level of performance in the workplace for each of the defined behaviours and how, and how well, a particular unit develops them. this provides rich data for evaluating unit/program effectiveness and identifying themes in skill development to complement existing curricula mapping exercises. encouraging students to self-reflect on their progress in developing the defined skills may improve their learning and understanding of the skills (boud & garrick, 1999). students must be supported in this self reflection process to stimulate a critical thinking approach as the act of self -reflection does jackson, d., sibson, r. & riebe, l. (2013). delivering work-ready business graduates-keeping our promises and evaluating our performance. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 4 (1), 2-22. 16 not always result in learning (lizzio & wilson, 2007). students may keep a longitudinal journal, as part of their skills portfolio, recording observations of incidents/events where they have encountered employability skills and provide supporting evidence of use on which they can then critically reflect; a form of critical incident analysis (tripp, 1993). over time, a catalogue of evidence to support student understanding and usage of each skill would be constructed. this ongoing construction of understanding through high quality reflection would aid transfer of skills to new situations as students become more adept at explicitly identifying employability skills. in addition to engendering learning, student self-assessment against devised skill frameworks will benefit them in a number of ways. first, the skills audit clarifies and provides evidence of individual performance in different skill areas, enhanced by available e-portfolio platforms. it will better equip candidates to effectively develop career plans, curriculum vitae and address selection criteria. second, it is essential for students to ‘buy-in’ to the importance of employability skills, for the purposes of their own work-readiness and for universities to meet the demands of today’s employers. careful consideration of the extent of their mastery of different skills, and precisely how this was achieved, will engage students better with the meaning and importance of graduate work-readiness. finally, there is considerable literature on the difficulties of achieving the successful transfer of skills from the university classroom to the workplace (see leberman, mcdonald & doyle, 2006). reflecting on one’s learning – to better understand what has been learned and why improves transfer across different learning and application contexts (bransford & schwartz, 1999). from an institutional perspective, students reflecting on and self-rating their abilities in the defined skills may provide rich data for evaluating unit and/or program effectiveness in skills development. a continual cycle of skill auditing provides longitudinal data which tracks individual and group performance in employability skill development over an extended period of time, enabling the fine-tuning of pedagogical practices and curricula content to improve learning program effectiveness. in addition, the students build a comprehensive skills audit which maps their employability skills against learning and assessment activities as they progress through the program. this form of student self-reporting complements and enriches existing curriculum mapping evidence on program strengths and weaknesses in developing certain skills. graduate self-reporting, however, is a subjective measure of performance (halfhill & nielsen, 2007) and there is a greater chance of intentional and unintentional measurement error although allen and van der velden (2005) discuss solutions for validating and testing self-assessment instruments to reduce this problem. resources such as spark (freeman & mckenzie, 2002) evaluate undergraduate performance through self, peer and facilitator assessments and, for those students completing wil or internship programs, employer assessments. this 360 degree approach may provide a more useful evaluation of student performance and is something the program hopes to introduce in the near future. phase five: review and re-align curriculum and assessment phase five requires a review of the mapping and audit outcomes to identify program areas which are excelling and others requiring improvement; this phase has not yet been undertaken within the program. combining objective and subjective measures, such as mapping and student self-reported data, should provide a rich evaluation of program performance. areas identified as performing poorly will be reviewed in regard to pedagogical strategies, opportunities for practice, assessment and content. conversely, areas performing well will be cited as examples of best practice to inform others. the framework will inform the revision and development of more aligned curriculum content and learning and assessment activities. price et al. (2008) emphasise the importance of jackson, d., sibson, r. & riebe, l. (2013). delivering work-ready business graduates-keeping our promises and evaluating our performance. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 4 (1), 2-22. 17 valid assessment which addresses intended learning outcomes, that being targeted skills defined by the framework. they also note the importance of dialogue between academics and students on assessment standards. this is facilitated by the esf which explicitly provides an instrument for discussion, understanding and feedback – among all stakeholders of a set of expected outcomes in business graduates. the use of explicit assessment standards, such as the behaviour descriptors, may improve consistency and objectivity in marking yet sadler (2009) argues students being bound by ‘tightly specified criteria’ (p. 178) may be detrimental to their learning. as units continuously evolve, it is important to track the impact of changes in content or assessment on a curricula map. those co-ordinating units within the relevant curriculum must report changes, and their impact on the map recorded, or the entire mapping process must be revisited regularly. a process for reporting changes to teaching, student practice and/or assessment should be implemented. phase six: evaluate transfer of skills from classroom to workplace phase six in operationalising an esf requires the measurement of the transfer or conversion of acquired skills from the classroom to the workplace (see figure 1). this represents the move from measuring employability skill provision to measuring the impact on graduate work readiness and their actual performance in the workplace. again, this part of the model has not yet been implemented although the planned approach is to track graduates of the program into the workplace and continue to audit their skill portfolio and compare with others from different universities. transfer is an extremely grey and challenging area of educational theory and practice, the responsibility of which lies with heps, graduate employers and the undergraduates themselves (eraut, 2004). each stakeholder must contribute to creating a healthy environment for transfer by capitalising on the process’ potential facilitators and managing likely inhibitors. gathering data on graduate workplace performance in the defined skills, in addition to their performance as undergraduates in the classroom, will facilitate measuring the degree to which learning is transferred across acquisition and application contexts. this final phase is critically important yet often overlooked (hakel & halpern, 2005). encouraging academics and undergraduates to focus on transfer is considered to have a positive impact on the transfer process. this may be initiated by incorporating an additional behaviour, termed ‘application of knowledge’ and defined as: ‘translate theory into practice by successfully adjusting and applying technical knowledge in a range of scenarios’, into the framework. associated problems and lessons learned it is important to note that this model has not yet been rigorously evaluated but rather represents an evidence-informed approach. evaluation, and further refinement of the model, is therefore warranted. it is hoped, however, that documenting this approach to evaluating employability skill outcomes and provision may assist other universities in their quest to systematically develop, assess and report on employability skills, moving beyond poorly constructed esfs and surface mapping strategies. there have been challenges associated with the process depicted in figure 1 and a number of lessons have been learnt from the program’s implementation of the model to date. first, the model is a continuous one which requires institutional support and considerable commitment from academic staff. second, the skills framework must be reviewed regularly to address issues with construct validity. a common concern is that behaviours are transparent in meaning, can be easily measured, and capture emerging research on jackson, d., sibson, r. & riebe, l. (2013). delivering work-ready business graduates-keeping our promises and evaluating our performance. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 4 (1), 2-22. 18 changes in employer requirements. this is particularly important in this extended period of economic uncertainty and flux. already there is an argument for incorporating an additional behaviour termed research; defined as ‘developing an awareness of the meaning and importance of knowledge and how it is created, reviewed and advanced in an ethical and systematic manner’. this reflects the broad opinion that research-based learning considerably enhances graduate employability (jenkins, 2009). on a more conceptual level, some may argue the process is misguided as an assessment of competence in higher education does not provide an assurance of work readiness (down, 2003). developing the skills defined in the framework in undergraduates does not guarantee their successful application in graduate positions in the workplace. conclusion this defined approach hopes to assist universities in declaring, assessing, mapping and reporting employability skills outcomes; now formally requirement by heps (tertiary education quality and standards agency [teqsa], 2011). a systematic approach to evaluating employability skill outcomes and provision in higher education first requires a valid framework of the skills, knowledge and attributes required in graduates. the australian employability skills framework (dest, 2002) was designed for a broad range of cohorts from schools, the vet sector and higher education. this, and certain design issues, urges the development of more contemporary frameworks that are contextualised to individual university/faculty/program needs. the proposed framework addresses the problems of the national one and provides a sound foundation for evaluating the provision of employability skills in a university setting. notwithstanding the challenges of implementing the framework, there are significant benefits which may be translated across different learning programs and faculties. from a faculty perspective, the framework can delineate and communicate to stakeholders (particularly students, their parents, academics and employers) the program mission, aims and outcomes. this could improve undergraduate program marketability and choice, as well as reduce the silo unit culture. the framework can also be used to map current curricula offerings to evaluate program outcomes and the extent to which it meets industry needs. it may provide assurance of learning for local employers and relevant accrediting bodies. it also has the potential to highlight areas requiring review, which is critical given the impact of prevailing employability skill ‘gaps’ in graduates, and exemplars of good practice for the wider community. it will also assist with devising scaffolding pathways for sequential learning and avoids duplication of skill development across the different units. for graduates, the proposed approach encompasses a skills audit through self -reporting. this documents their capabilities against a comprehensive skills framework considered vital to today’s employers. the process of self-reflection will assist them in addressing selection criteria, as well as highlight the importance of employability skills and any areas requiring improvement; one seen as vital as undergraduates acknowledge the importance of actively addressing employability skill development (nilsson, 2010). transparent evaluations of employability skill provision will also inform employers of aspects of the curricula which may benefit from their input, such as incorporating professional learning activities (see lawson, fallshaw, papadopoulos, taylor & zanko, 2011). auditing and mapping outcomes combine to provide a rich picture of a program’s effectiveness in addressing skills defined in the framework. this will inform a more systematic review and development of the program’s content, learning outcomes, pedagogical techniques, learning activities and assessment. it will also streamline units, and the program as a whole, allowing better alignment with the defined framework and, therefore, industry requirements. jackson, d., sibson, r. & riebe, l. 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(2023). “it’s ok not to know what i want to do”: an exploration into the aspirations of early childhood studies students. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 14(1), 1–14. 1 the journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability issn: 1838-3815 (online) journal homepage: https://ojs.deakin.edu.au/index.php/jtlge/ “it’s ok not to know what i want to do”: an exploration into the aspirations of early childhood studies students tanya richardson1 and eunice lumsden1 corresponding author: tanya richardson (tanya.richardson@northampton.ac.uk) 1 faculty of health, education and society, university of northampton, england abstract the importance of embedding employability skills in english higher education has received increased attention since the introduction of tuition fees and employers claiming that graduates lack the necessary skills for the workforce. this paper considers how these employability skills align with students’ aspirations, when there is uncertainty around their career trajectory, an area that appears unexplored in current literature. using an interpretative approach this small-scale study (n=25) sought views of first year students within an he institution in the east midlands of england. this paper reports on students’ career aspirations and motivations for studying, and working in, the field of early childhood, at the commencement of their studies. through questionnaires and semi-structured interviews, students reflected on their aspirations and motivations to follow this degree trajectory. this paper purports that students embark on this degree with a generic interest in working with children but are uncertain about career directions. they welcome the breadth of opportunities the degree could lead to. it is therefore argued that “it’s ok not to know what i want to do”. it is the role of academic and professional staff to embed a breath of opportunities for exposure to the range of career pathways available. keywords early childhood studies, graduate employability, aspirations, careers, higher education institution introduction early childhood studies (ecs) degrees have been established within the united kingdom (uk) since 1992. their aim was to provide a ‘research base, firstly, for the study of early childhood as an academic discipline and, secondly, for the education of those working with babies, young children and families in the early childhood period’ (quality assurance agency (qaa), 2022, p.3). ecs is focused on the holistic nature of early childhood and the range of careers available within the field. students’ progress on to careers within, for example, education, health, social work and legal fields (qaa, 2022). it is this range of career trajectories and the breadth of placement opportunities afforded by many ecs degree programmes, that is attractive to students who want to work with young children and their families (holman and richardson, 2020). however, students are not always aware of the career routes the degree can lead to and for some, this choice can lead to confusion as they are not always certain of the professional direction that they wish to take (early childhood studies degrees network (ecsdn), richardson, t. and lumsden, e. (2023). “it’s ok not to know what i want to do”: an exploration into the aspirations of early childhood studies students. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 14(1), 1–14. 2 2019). arguably this situation reinforces the importance of embedding, into ecs degrees, a holistic approach to employability support and transferable skills (gunn et al., 2011; qaa, 2017; 2019) that can accommodate the diversity of the student trajectory. throughout this paper the terms employability skills and employability support are used and the definition for employability that has been adopted is: ‘a set of achievements – skills, understandings and personal attributes – that make individuals more likely to gain employment and be successful in their chosen occupations, which benefits themselves, the workforce, the community and the economy’ (yorke and knight, 2006, p. 8). this definition is as relevant today as when they wrote it and it is important to note that embedding these skills within higher education institutions (heis) is core business (irwin et al., 2019). this was reinforced by the literature review on behalf of the higher education academy (hea) in england (artess, et al. 2017), who concluded that the value of embedding employability skills in higher education (he) was widely recognised. more recently, it has been argued that heis also have a responsibility for ensuring graduates are prepared for the employment needs of a fast-changing global society and are equipped with the skills that will enable them to adapt to future roles, hybrid working and technological changes (chartered management institute (cmi), 2021; cheng et al., 2021; römgens et al., 2020). in fact, ‘attitude and aptitudes for work ranks consistently higher than any other factor – far above factors such as degree classification or university attended’ (confederation of british industry, 2019, p. 12). research that has been undertaken suggests that employability skills are not something that can be taught in the classroom and are more likely to be developed within a workplace environment (andrews and higson, 2008; ng and feldman, 2009). irwin et al’s. (2019) research into perceptions of different types of work experience offered on social science degrees highlighted the importance of extracurricular activities as well as work experience for employability. this has been reinforced by scott and willison (2021) who purport that employers require students to have more than a degree. it is also important, as artess et al. (2017) found, that employability skills should be relevant to the discipline being studied. in summary, the nature of employability skills has been contested, the need for graduates to have a range of skills and opportunities to develop has been highlighted in the literature. this paper therefore argues that students who purposely choose an ecs degree, because of the breadth of career opportunities, can provide us with new insights into the role of he in developing employability skills for a diverse market. their ‘chosen occupation’ is not always clear to the student but it is through this insight that they can be reassured that a focus on transferable employability skills is appropriate and that “it’s ok not to know what i want to do.” literature review employability of early childhood studies students in recent years there has been a rise in the number of students accessing heis, resulting in a saturation in some parts of the employment market (chartered institute of personnel and development (cipd), 2017). that said, this over-saturation is not currently a prominent feature of the early years workforce with campbell-barr et al. (2020) reporting that after three and half years, only 56% of early childhood graduates remained employed in the early years sector. difficulties exist in filling positions within the field (bury et al., 2020). with this shortfall in existence, it is therefore argued that it is imperative that richardson, t. and lumsden, e. (2023). “it’s ok not to know what i want to do”: an exploration into the aspirations of early childhood studies students. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 14(1), 1–14. 3 students are provided with support and guidance as to what direction they wish to explore on graduation. it should also be noted that the earning potential for those working in early years within the uk is significantly lower than many other professions, with the average salary for graduates working in daycare settings being a mere £10.21 per hour (vardy, 2021). this is not significantly different to those vocationally qualified educators, who are earning on average £9 per hour (vardy, 2021). the employment market is such in england that the support for graduate employment and enhancing career opportunities is crucial. students recognise that working in early childhood education and care (ecec) is not generally a graduate role and therefore do not always progress into an early years setting; instead opting to work in higher paid roles. no recent national data exists regarding the employability in graduate roles for early childhood studies students specifically, however students within the realms of childhood, youth and families subject areas are reported on. throughout the year 2019/20, a national median graduate employment rate was recorded of 59.8% (prospects, 2020). in addition to this, some students go onto further studies to aid their graduate employability. given the points raised above regarding staff turnover, low salary and low status this fairly low graduate employment rate is unsurprising. wats and wats (2009) state that 15% of employment success is based on hard skills, such as discipline specific knowledge, and 85% on soft skills, such as communication skills, ethical and reflexive attitude and attitude to work, aligning with the definition from yorke and knight’s (2006) of employability as discussed earlier in this paper. this indicates the importance of the he institution looking beyond the requirement of being to solely impart knowledge. it could be argued that those studying ecs are more likely to gain employment after their studies due to the soft skills that are akin to the attributes of the students. it is acknowledged that to work with young children there is a need to be resourceful, nurturing, etc (bury et al., 2020) and it is these soft skills that convert to employability traits. the recent addition of the early childhood studies graduate practitioner competencies to the careers map (northern council for further education (ncfe), 2019) has recognised the need to acknowledge and certify these soft skills and it is argued that this will enhance the employability of the ecs students further. career choices of early childhood studies students it is noted that for students the transition from he into employment has become particularly uncertain (brooks, 2009). the hea have developed an employability framework to assist with this uncertainty (norton, 2016; tibby and norton, 2020). it is noted however that where, previously, there used to be the need for skills that were pertinent to the industry concerned, there now exists the need for graduates to develop transferable skills (scott et al., 2019). this, donald et al. (2019) would argue, moves the ‘responsibility for career management from the organisation to the individual, reflecting increased choice compared to previous generations’ (p. 602). while this shift has occurred, giving responsibility to the individual, conversely, heis have increased the levels of support available for careers guidance (confederation of british industry, 2009; jackson and wilton, 2016). this paper recognises the role of heis in supporting employability and argues that this is easier when students are aware of what career path they would like to follow (peteranetz et al., 2018). it is recognised that generic support can be provided to enhance employability, however students also need to receive guidance on what roles exist and how they can pursue these career routes should they desire. it is suggested that once they have received the necessary guidance, and only then, can they richardson, t. and lumsden, e. (2023). “it’s ok not to know what i want to do”: an exploration into the aspirations of early childhood studies students. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 14(1), 1–14. 4 begin to self-direct their futures. this aligns with the transitional bridging model as developed by lumsden et al., (2010). the studies discussed above refer to employability of a general nature and not specific to those working in the field of early childhood. when considering those who are following early years professions in england the picture does not appear too dissimilar. a small-scale study, undertaken by silberfeld and mitchell (2018), found that, with regards to early childhood studies particularly, students felt ill informed about career choices and considered that this may be due to the low perceived status of the profession. it was found through a comparable study (woods et al., 1999), that this had not really changed in the last 20 years, even with the reported national he drive to enhance employability support. the international picture is similar with suryani and george (2021) reporting that internationally students were uncertain of career direction when studying courses in education, citing the reasons for ambivalence to be lack of career prospects and lack of self-confidence. these findings highlight the importance of clear guidance about employability opportunities at the start of their he journey. they also raise questions around the motivations for their choice of study. motivations for working with young children there appears to be a gap in the literature regarding the motivations around those studying at he level to work in early childhood with, at the time of writing, no literature found within this area. however, some research has been undertaken concerning the motivation of those working in teaching and studying early years at level 3, and historically this has indicated that people chose these career pathways based on either intrinsic motivations, or altruistic motivations, with very few reporting extrinsic reasons for joining a teaching profession (vincent and braun, 2010; manning-morton, 2006). the oecd (2005) report that students embark on a teaching career within the uk because they want to work with children, they want to be intellectually fulfilled to deepen their knowledge to benefit those they work with, and they want to make a difference in society, all altruistic reasons. similar responses were given when researching why individuals chose the social worker career path, with altruistic responses being the most common, and the need to make a difference being most pertinent (solas, 1994). perhaps unsurprisingly, those in the uk do not tend to cite extrinsic rewards as the reason for choosing to work with young children and their families (yong, 1995). these findings around motivation should come with a warning however, christie and kruk (1998) argue. they believe that groups of students should not be viewed as one homogenous group, instead being recognised as the individuals that they are with their individual stories creating their individual career choices. this is considered throughout this paper however the purpose of the research was to understand student perceptions and consider how this could influence practice. it is therefore important to retain both the individual alongside the generalisations. conclusion to literature review graduate employability and developing skills are seen as core work of heis, yet research in this area is sparse in the field of early childhood. the importance of students who do not have a chosen career pathway receiving guidance, support and opportunities in order to develop soft and transferable skills for the workforce has been acknowledged. this is pertinent for ecs students who need guidance early on in their studies about potential career trajectories to maintain momentum and motivation throughout their studies. the theoretical foundation for this study is therefore the vygotskian approach, that which recognises the need for the ‘more knowledgeable other’ (mko) (vygotsky, 1978). this social-constructivist view assumes that knowledge is not simply imparted but coconstructed, and the need for the ‘more knowledgeable other’ (vygotsky, 1978) changes as individuals richardson, t. and lumsden, e. (2023). “it’s ok not to know what i want to do”: an exploration into the aspirations of early childhood studies students. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 14(1), 1–14. 5 develop and co-construct new knowledge and skills as a result of interactions (lave and wenger, 1991). this view influenced this study; using interactions to co-construct knowledge about aspirations and motivations of participants and then employing-knowledge to make recommendations using the same framework. methodology this small-scale study was undertaken within an interpretivist vein, with the prime focus being to interpret the views and opinions of students (gray, 2018). the qualitative approach assisted with this as this sought and analysed these opinions. although there was some statistical data within the overall findings, the main purpose of this was to assist in the interpretation of the views and opinions so it was still deemed appropriate to adopt a qualitative study. hood (2006) states that most research will not fit neatly into one typology however as this study was focussed on perceptions, the qualitative lens was utilised. a case study was carried out with the participating higher education institution being the case in hand. although it is recognised that it is not normally possible to generalise to the wider population when undertaking a case study (yin, 2014), this was viewed as acceptable. the purpose of this study was not to generalise widely, but to use the findings to assist the he institution concerned with improving their provision. a case study was therefore deemed appropriate. it is recognised that this was a small-scale study however the interpretivist approach remains appropriate in this context as, regardless of sample size, the overall aim was to interpret the views and opinions of the participants. methods a questionnaire was administered to all first-year students studying ecs (n=37), in their first semester, adopting a purposive sampling approach (robson, 2011). questionnaires, according to gillham (2007), are a simple and time efficient way of gathering a large amount of data, which was necessary for this study. an online system was utilised to ensure confidentiality and for ease of administration (gray, 2018). the questionnaire was introduced to the students by the programme leader. it could therefore have been construed that there was an issue with power in this arrangement (foucault, 1989), which is discussed below further in the ethics section of this paper. because of the concerns over perceived power however, a questionnaire was selected rather than an interview or focus group at this stage. it was therefore hoped that responses would be more viable and valid to enable greater depth of analysis. the questionnaire posed questions around transitions from previous educational experiences, aspirations and motivations for working in early childhood. the questions explored the participants views around expectations of academic study and sought views on their backgrounds which led them to choose to study ecs and drive their decisions to work within the field of early childhood. this paper reports on the findings around aspirations and motivations and the findings around transitions are to be reported in a subsequent paper. the final question on the questionnaire asked the participants if they would be willing to engage in further research and be involved in a semi-structured interview at a later stage. silverman (2017) asserts that semi-structured interviews are useful for providing more detail than is possible from questionnaires and can provide the flexibility to explore an area in depth. in this research two participants volunteered to be interviewed and this enabled certain aspects to be explored in much more detail than the questionnaire allowed (cohen et al., 2002). this triangulation, it is argued, enhances the data within this study and provides credibility to the findings presented within this paper. richardson, t. and lumsden, e. (2023). “it’s ok not to know what i want to do”: an exploration into the aspirations of early childhood studies students. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 14(1), 1–14. 6 ethics prior to this research taking place, the necessary institution protocols (british educational research association (bera), 2018; european early childhood education research association (eecera), 2015) were undertaken and permission granted. as previously mentioned, questionnaires were administered in a way that maintained confidentiality and, although requested by the programme leader it was important that students did not feel pressurised into the completion of such documents (foucault, 1989). it was made clear that this research was not compulsory and should be completed of their own free will. those who were involved in the interview were invited to a mutually convenient meeting and this was chaired and noted by an independent researcher who was unknown to the student. this aimed to ensure that the responses provided to the questions were not found to be controversial or influenced by the position of the researcher in relation to the course being studied. a voice recorder was used to capture the interviews and they were transcribed by another independent body. the issue of power was considered throughout, and all was done to mitigate this, including ensuing the interviews were not undertaken by one of their tutors. all identifying features were removed from the interview transcripts before being passed back to the programme team for analysis. findings there were a total of 25 respondents to the questionnaire, giving a 68% response rate and two students were interviewed in addition to this. within the questionnaire, participants were asked why they had decided to study ecs, and their responses can be seen in table 1 below: table 1: reasons participants gave for choosing to study early childhood theme 1: inspired by parents in profession n % total n (%) parents work in education 8 32% 14 (56%) parents work in social care 2 8% parents work in early years 2 8% parents work with special educational needs 2 8% theme 2: previous educational experiences positive experiences at school 7 28% 14 (56%) challenging school experiences 6 24% placement experience 1 4% theme 3: adverse childhood experiences challenging family experiences 6 24% 15 (60%) parent’s divorce 3 12% drug/alcohol abuse in family 3 12% experienced domestic violence 1 4% been involved with child protection issues 2 8% theme 4: positively inspired by family circumstances sibling with special educational needs or disabilities 7 28% 9 (36%) was a young carer 2 8% table 1 indicates that there were a range of reasons that students give for choosing to pursue a career in early childhood, most of which derive from familial and childhood experiences of their own. twenty-five respondents, being invited to indicate more than one reason should it be applicable, produced a total of 51 responses, indicating that it is not necessarily one particular aspect that drives them to study within this area. the responses fell into four themes; inspired by parents in the profession (56% of respondents reporting this as a motivation), previous educational experiences (56%), adverse childhood experiences (60%) and being positively inspired by family circumstances richardson, t. and lumsden, e. (2023). “it’s ok not to know what i want to do”: an exploration into the aspirations of early childhood studies students. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 14(1), 1–14. 7 (36%). these findings indicate the complexity of the rationale behind this career trajectory and highlights that many of these students are driven by both positive and negative emotive reasons when considering working with young children and their families. at interview stage when this area was explored further and when considering their motivations for studying ecs, both respondents discussed their attributes and reported: it was more what i did outside of my studies that influenced my choice of degree because everyone in my family and my friends have said to me i’ve got natural gift with children, i just can connect on their level and make them feel comfortable. so that’s why i’ve decided i’m going to go and work with children (participant b). and participant a stated: ‘and i’ve just always found everyone’s always said to me, ‘you’ve got a real natural gift with children, you should progress it further’. when asked what career aspirations were, the responses from the questionnaire were received as shown in figure 1 below. fig.1: career aspirations of first year students studying early childhood figure 1 shows a range of careers that students are aspiring to at the beginning of their studies. the table above indicates that there is a wide range of potential careers, with 13 different options having been listed. there are also four participants who have not indicated any choice, instead electing to say that they are ‘not sure’ what they want to do once graduated. the results above show that some respondents had indicated that they would consider more than one potential career, and on further analysis it was discovered that only five respondents gave one answer to the question regarding what they are aspiring to. the analysis of these responses is shown in figure 2 below: 0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 ey te ac he r sc ho ol te ac he r pla y t he ra pis t se n te ac he r so cia l w or ke r no t s ur e pla y w or ke r po lic e m en ta l h ea lth yo ut h w or k ey m an ag er yo ut h j us tic e re sid en tia l s oc ial w or ke r ot he r n o of s tu de nt s in di ca tin g as pi ra tio n desired career career aspirations richardson, t. and lumsden, e. (2023). “it’s ok not to know what i want to do”: an exploration into the aspirations of early childhood studies students. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 14(1), 1–14. 8 fig.2: the number of potential careers that respondents indicated an aspiration for figure 2 shows how many careers students listed when considering future job roles that may interest them. it can be seen from this graph that 3 respondents listed as many as six possible careers, with a total of 14 respondents (48%) giving three or more possibilities. what this indicates is that on commencement of this undergraduate degree course in early childhood, almost half of students do not know precisely what they are aspiring to. they have an idea that they want to work with young children and their families, however they do not know exactly what form that employment will take. this was evidenced further by some of the comments that were made within the interviews, with participant b stating: i’m hoping the course will lead me to lots of different routes and then will open my mind to different things that you can do because i think there’s so much you can do with children. but i think it’s very like the convention with teaching, social work, i want to find out what more there is. participant a talked of uncertainty about her future aspirations, stating: ‘it keeps changing but the two, but what i’ve come down to in the end is either a child protection officer or going into play therapy.’ the interviews highlighted that the respondents were relying on the course to provide information to enable them to make decisions about career possibilities. when asked how they could be helped with employment choices, participant a stated: i think maybe in the second and third year more information on what that job would entail, maybe work experience within those two settings so that i can decide, obviously for third year, which one i would definitely want to do and chose as a career. placement opportunities were obviously viewed as a useful tool for assisting with careers decisions, with participant b saying: my absolute goal is to work in family support work in prisons, is my absolute dream. that’s what i’d love to do. but teaching’s always been something that’s really intrigued me and i think from working in the school last year and having the opportunity to work so close with the teacher and they’ve got to do home visits, parents evenings. and i really gained an insight i looked at their planning, i was allowed to go and sit with them while they were planning and meetings. and i thought this could be something that i might be interested in. 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 1 2 3 4 5 6 n o of s tu de nt s no of careers cited how many careers cited by each respondent richardson, t. and lumsden, e. (2023). “it’s ok not to know what i want to do”: an exploration into the aspirations of early childhood studies students. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 14(1), 1–14. 9 discussion and recommendations findings from this small-scale study indicated that motivations to work in the early childhood sector were found to be mainly driven by experiences during their childhoods. the complexity of the reasons given, highlighted that ecs was chosen purely through intrinsic and altruistic motivations and some of these were deep rooted in adverse childhood experiences. this finding is supported by the literature (vincent and braun, 2010; oecd, 2005), however it is important to highlight that although none of the previous literature identified why students wanted to make a difference in society, just that these altruistic and personal motivations existed. it is argued therefore that these motivations appear to be deeply rooted from previous childhood experiences and this should be an aspect of the students’ lives that are considered accordingly. the recognition from the students that their past experiences play a large part in the decision-making process when choosing their area of study and career trajectory, is prominent throughout this research. while it has been argued (silverman, 2017) that retrospective questions, especially in interviews, may not yield accurate responses, as memories fade and adjust over time, in relation to this paper students current understanding of the influence of their previous experiences on their choices is important. consequently, retrospective questioning, rather than a limitation is a strength of this research. through triangulation this troubles the reasons behind motivation and illuminates the fact that ecs as a choice of study, is an extremely personal matter. furthermore, having the opportunity to explore a range of career options is a strength and motivates students rather than reduces it (peteranetz et al., 2018). these experiences obviously shape the career decisions of these individuals and could be seen as the main motivational factor when working with young children and their families. the implications of this are wide and beyond the realms of this paper, however, programme teams need to be mindful of the previous experiences of students and how the course content and activities undertaken may be difficult for some of them. consequently, activities that encourage students to share their motivations need to be undertaken sensitively and learning co-constructed with the students. furthermore, all students need to be informed that the contents of their studies may raise personal issues and be made aware of the wider support services available to them. this is important because some students believe that universities should help them to cope with transitions and the anxiety that university prompts (cage et al., 2021). however, lecturers and personal tutors are not always equipped to counsel students in this way. arguably, for programmes like ecs that attract students who have had adverse experiences in their childhood, lecturers should have training and support to address any issues raised. it was noted that the reasons the interview participants gave for choosing a career in early childhood were quite different from those cited within the questionnaire. within the interview it appeared that motivations came from others; it was what had been said to them over the years as to what they were good at, where their skills were, and was more attribute driven. it was noted that the reasons given in the questionnaire however were extremely personal and sensitive; students perhaps using the comfort that the confidentiality of such a method provided (gray, 2018). there is therefore a recognition that this level of information may not have been divulged within an interview environment (silverman, 2017). although this could be seen as a limitation to this study, it is argued that this could also be a strength. through triangulation this troubles the reasons behind motivation and illuminates the issue that this is an extremely personal matter. although peteranetz et al. (2018) argue that without refined career direction students will lack motivation, it is argued that this may be an exception for those choosing to study ecs and work with young children. the altruistic nature of richardson, t. and lumsden, e. (2023). “it’s ok not to know what i want to do”: an exploration into the aspirations of early childhood studies students. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 14(1), 1–14. 10 motivation can be extremely personal and the nature of this could therefore be seen as quite different from other career paths. one of the limitations of this paper is the small number of interviews undertaken. however, they did provide additional insights into the role of others in influencing a study and career trajectory in ecec. both shared how others have highlighted their attributes with children. perhaps unsurprisingly, not one participant mooted the reasons for choosing ecs as their area of study as being driven by career enhancement or opportunity to enhance earnings. this aligns with the findings of yong (1995) who found that in the uk this tended to be the case, and with vardy (2021) reporting such low average earnings this is as expected. although no respondents reported extrinsic motivations for working within the early years and even though this aligns with previous research findings (oecd, 2005; vincent and braun, 2010), this is something that should be challenged. these students can go into careers that impact on the most critical time in a child’s life (leadsom et al., 2013) and yet they do not see that the status or the economic rewards are areas to motivate them. this is something that surely needs addressing by the wider agenda. in this small-scale study it was found that the career aspirations of these ecs students varied immensely. thirteen different careers were listed as potential career trajectories within the questionnaire responses and participants stated up to six different career paths as potential jobs for the future. at interview stage this uncertainty was still prominent with participant b stating ‘my absolute goal is to work in family support work in prisons, is my absolute dream. that’s what i’d love to do. but teaching’s always been something that’s really intrigued me...’. these two very different roles indicate that there is real uncertainty with the direction of career path for this student and this was highlighted in the questionnaire responses also. the questionnaires produced results that indicated that 48% (n=14) of respondents gave three or more different responses when asked what their aspirations were and, although two thirds of respondents stated they wanted to become early years teachers, this was not their sole career choice and was always coupled with alternative career plans. this indicates the need for academic courses to provide much more than a base of knowledge and it is argued that, as a result of this study, that he institutions have a responsibility to provide specific career guidance rather than generic advice on transferable skills. if, as silberfeld and mitchell (2018) assert, students feel ill-informed of career choices, then this becomes the he institutions responsibility to rectify this. at the same time however there needs to be recognition that students need to take responsibility for their own actions and outcomes (donald et al., 2019), and that the vygotskian mko (vygotsky, 1978) should provide support with a view to fostering independent decision making and proactive members of the early years community. this leads us to consider the importance of placement within these courses. the placement element was seen by the participants to be a crucial aspect that students were relying on to assist them with their career choices, and it is asserted that this is an essential element of employability support. this finding aligns with andrews and higson (2008) and ng and feldman (2009) who stated that employability skills are best developed within the workplace environments rather than the classroom. if, as this study indicates, students are so unsure of their future career paths then it is suggested that work-based practice is even more crucial than originally perceived, and although harvey (2005) reports that those who had work-based elements in studies are 14% more likely to gain graduate employment, it could be asserted that this is likely to be much higher in instances such as this. it should be hoped that the work-based experience will assist with career choices and hence increase motivation. richardson, t. and lumsden, e. (2023). “it’s ok not to know what i want to do”: an exploration into the aspirations of early childhood studies students. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 14(1), 1–14. 11 it is also argued that by engaging in work-based experience, this will assist with the development of the much-needed soft skills (holman and richardson, 2020). although cumming (2010) reported that students were not in possession of these soft skills, it is asserted that this is something that the graduate practitioner competencies (ecsdn, 2019) are striving to address, and future research findings will hopefully align with more soft skills being prominent in ecs graduates as a result. it is also hoped that this addresses the staff turnover issues (campbell-barr et al., 2020; bonetti, 2018) and raises the profile and the earning potential (o’sullivan, 2020) of ecs graduates. the soft skills identified by bury et al. (2020) are those highlighted by participants as being their motivation to study in this area and therefore any way that these skills be nurtured and certified should, it is argued, raise the professionalism and employability of the early childhood workforce. potential employability of those studying for an ecs degree, it could be argued, should be a benefit of the course due to the wide range of careers that students can progress into (qaa, 2022). this small-scale study has found that students are not certain of their direction of travel and therefore need a course that has the flexibility to adapt alongside their needs. what remains crucial throughout this work the need for each and every student to receive the support and guidance that is tailored to their individual needs. as a result of the findings from this small-scale study, it is recommended that further research be undertaken with regards to students’ previous life experiences, their skills and attributes and how these can shape employability support moving forward. it is recognised that the soft skills that an individual possesses are far more important than the knowledge base (wats and wats, 2009; confederation of british industry, 2019) and these soft skills are likely to be formed through life experience. future research should therefore explore this in further depth and consider how to develop this in a positive manner. conclusion the definition of employability adopted for this study was that of yorke and knight (2006), which promotes the importance of understanding, skills and attributes in supporting employability. this paper argues that this study highlights the importance of heis assisting students in understanding the occupations they could pursue, and the knowledge and skills required. through deciding what job it is that they desire, their motivation for their studies can increase. although it is recognised that heis need to assist students with employability, at the same time it is recognised that students need to take some responsibility for their own futures (donald et al., 2019) but, it is asserted, until the soft skills and confidence levels are raised then this will not happen. it is therefore argued that heis should concentrate on the soft skill enhancement, the raising of confidence and self-esteem (artess et al., 2017; holman and richardson, 2020). christie and kruk’s warning (1998) remains crucial when dealing with situations such as this; this group of students should not be viewed as a homogenous group and should be treated as individuals. bespoke support needs to be provided to each student to maximise their potential and to enhance their employability. it should also be recognised by students that ‘it’s ok not to know what i want to do’. as argued earlier on in this paper it is the responsibility of the mko (vygotsky, 1978) to expose each and every student to a breadth of events, to co-construct this learning and to ensure that they have the skills required to achieve the breadth of career opportunities that exist within the field of early childhood. richardson, t. and lumsden, e. 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(2006) embedding employability into the curriculum: learning & employability series 1. york: the higher education academy. https://s3.eu-west-2.amazonaws.com/assets.creode.advancehedocumentmanager/documents/hea/private/id460_embedding_employability_into_the_curriculum_338_1 568036708.pdf ________________________________________________ tran, t.t. (2012). vietnamese higher education and the issue of enhancing graduate employability. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 3(1), 2 – 16 2 vietnamese higher education and the issue of enhancing graduate employability june (thi tuyet) tran, la trobe university/ vietnam national university, hanoi j.tran@latrobe.edu.au/ tuyettt@vnu.edu.vn abstract the rapid change in the graduate labour market in the globalizing era calls for responsiveness from the higher education systems all over the world. enhancing graduate employability has become a topic of both concern and debate in higher education worldwide. however, the issue is somehow different in western developed countries and in eastern developing countries in terms of the way higher education teaching staff perceive the issues, the way universities approach the issues and also the way university practices have been designed to enhance graduate employability. this article aims to illustrate the differences by addressing the issue of enhancing graduate employability in vietnam compared with that in the literature from developed countries such as the united states of america (usa), the united kingdom (uk), australia and new zealand. it is suggested that while not all academics in western higher education systems support the idea of accepting enhancing graduate employability as one of the university missions, their teaching practices, in general, support the development of graduate generic attributes, which are claimed to be essential and necessary for graduates to enter the labour market, to succeed at work and in life. by contrast, in the vietnamese higher education system, where the main mission for universities is still limited to producing an educated labour force for industry, however, the traditional teaching and learning method and the lack of connections between university, research institutions and the internal industry all hinder the effort of the whole system in preparing students with the necessary skills and knowledge required by the contemporary labour market. keywords: higher education, graduate employability, vietnam, western countries. introduction over the last two decades organisations have been increasingly influenced by the effects of globalisation. under the globalised economic competitive pressures, organisations in both developed and developing worlds have undergone massive restructuring through downsizing and delayering leading to job insecurity and emerging new career patterns (clarke, 2007). in the uk, usa, australia, as well as in other developed countries in europe, employability remains high on the agenda for higher education institutions (heis), and students in these countries become more selective in their choice of courses and institutions (rae, 2007). in developing countries such as in vietnam, the issue has recently emerged as heis respond to the requirements from the internal economy, and as the number of unemployed or underemployed graduates has become alarming (pham, 2008; tran, 2010b; tran & swierczek, 2009). in western countries 1 , employability remains a complex and contentious issue without “a clear or obvious solution” (rae, 2007, p. 605) in heis. enhancing graduate employability seems to remain a challenge to higher education (he) culture and curriculum, and has not yet gained the support of most he academics (harvey, 2000; yorke, 2006). many graduate employability enhancing agendas 1 in this article the concept of „western countries‟ is relational. it refers to north america and europe, generally considered the centre of social theory that informs higher education (connell, 2007). mailto:j.tran@latrobe.edu.au/ mailto:tuyettt@vnu.edu.vn ________________________________________________ tran, t.t. (2012). vietnamese higher education and the issue of enhancing graduate employability. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 3(1), 2 – 16 3 have been introduced in he with initiatives such as sandwich programs, work placements, co– operative programs, practicum placements, internships, career advice, mentoring and extra-curricular experiences. however, as suggested by rae (2007), it is quite likely that in the minds of students these activities are “unconnected” (p. 608). in addition, as the production of academic knowledge “tends to privilege theory and conceptual knowledge over practical application” (pp. 608-609), the introverted nature of academic organisations does not seem to support the change. many academics still see the adoption of an employability agenda as irrelevant to the university mission (bates, 1999; billett, 2009; harvey, 2000; morley, 2001; rae, 2004). nonetheless, under the requirement and pressure of governments, industries and the competition that universities face in recruiting students, there has been more and more evidence of the cooperation between heis and enterprises with the aim to shorten the „learning curves‟ of graduates when they start employment after graduation (mason, william, & cranmer, 2009). most importantly, the nature of teaching and learning practices in developed countries is generally supportive of the purpose of developing students to be effective learners and subsequently, effective workers, with interactive and personal attributes such as communication, teamwork and interpersonal skills high on the agenda (harvey, 2000, 2005). in vietnam, the situation is somewhat different. though vietnam has implemented the economy liberalisation policy (known as doi moi policy) for more than 20 years and its economy has changed to a market economy with a socialist orientation, the development of both its economy and higher education system (hes) is at a much lower stage (george, 2010). though „work-readiness‟ is of much concern to most related stakeholders including employers, heis, students and their families, not much has been done for the connection between heis and enterprises in the country. universities, with the prime mission of „training‟ rather than „education‟, seem to accept career orientation as one of its missions (pham, 2008; tran, 2006). however, the traditional teaching and learning methods in heis, the inadequate infrastructure, the lack of funding and the lack of connection among university, research institutions and the internal industry all hinder the effort in preparing students with necessary skills and knowledge required by the contemporary labour market (dapice, d., perkins, d., nguyen x. t., vu t.t. a., huynh t. d., pincus, j., & saich, t., 2008). one of the desirable student outcomes of all heis in vietnam is to meet the demand of the profession on work-readiness (harman & nguyen, 2010), but not much evidence has been found in the actual strategies employed by different institutions to enhance graduate employability (tran, 2010b). enhancing graduate employability in the western literature from the end of the twentieth century, graduate career and employment patterns have changed significantly. in an increasingly global competitive market, with the development of information technology and the mobilisation of workers across boundaries, organisations and enterprises have undergone massive restructuring of downsizing, de-layering and out-sourcing (cascio, 1993; the association of graduate recruiters, 2009). there is limited job security for workers. job-for-life contracts in the traditional manner have been replaced by short term contracts (capelli, 1999). perspectives on careers have also changed accordingly. when many traditional jobs which were characterised by long-term, stability and security offers and mutual trust have disappeared, the new career patterns are more likely to be characterised by “flexible employment contracts, multi employers, lateral job moves and multi career changes” (clarke, 2008, p. 8). as a result, linear careers seem to be replaced by more flexible, adaptive career patterns such as protean careers (hall, 1996; mirvis & hall, 1996), boundary-less careers (arthur, 1996), portfolio careers (cohen & mallon, 1999; handy, 1994), intelligent careers (defillippi & arthur, 1994) and post-corporate careers (peiperl & baruch, 1997). the changes reflect the new characteristics of the labour market and also the desire of many graduates, who now may prefer independence to employment security (clarke & patrickson, 2008). career management is no longer managed by organisations, instead it becomes “a process through which an individual makes a contract with him/herself to make sense of experiences, manage career choices and seek personal fulfilment” (hind, 2005, p. 269). in other words, each individual has to be in charge of their own career management and job security which is anchored in their own “portable skills and employability” (mallon, 1998, p. 363). file:///c:/users/thi.tran/appdata/local/microsoft/windows/temporary%20internet%20files/content.ie5/qxgzveli/literature_review%5b1%5d.doc%23_enref_8 file:///c:/users/thi.tran/appdata/local/microsoft/windows/temporary%20internet%20files/content.ie5/qxgzveli/literature_review%5b1%5d.doc%23_enref_31 file:///c:/users/thi.tran/appdata/local/microsoft/windows/temporary%20internet%20files/content.ie5/qxgzveli/literature_review%5b1%5d.doc%23_enref_48 ________________________________________________ tran, t.t. (2012). vietnamese higher education and the issue of enhancing graduate employability. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 3(1), 2 – 16 4 definitions of employability vary, but in general, it refers to an individual‟s relative ability and potential to obtain, to retain and to move between suitable jobs within the current labour market context . for example hilar and pollar (1998) define employability as “the capacity to gain initial employment, maintain employment and obtain employment if required” (p. 2). sanders and de grip (2004) refer to it as “the capability and the willingness to be and to maintain attractiveness in the labour market, by anticipating changes in tasks and work environment and reacting to these changes in a proactive way” (p. 76). in a more recent definition of employability, knight and yorke (2004) add a new element of „satisfaction‟ that “employability is having a set of skills, knowledge, understanding and personal attributes that make a person more likely to choose and secure occupations in which they can be satisfied and successful” (p. 280). employability in higher education contexts often refers to the ability of graduates to find and retain a graduate-level job and also the ability to move between jobs if required. the question is what a graduate-level job is like? smith, knight and naylor (2000) suggest that graduate jobs include both „traditional graduate occupations (such as doctors, teachers and lawyers) and graduate jobs that require a high level of education, that require and also are often filled by graduates, and that offer entry routes to higher level positions. there is also a „track‟ of non-graduate jobs, which are claimed not to require and not to make use of graduate-level skills and knowledge (elias & purcell, 2004; mcknight, 1999; pool & sewell, 2007). some examples of non-graduate occupations are clerical, personal service, sales, skilled trade and labouring (elias & purcell, 2004). in general, most definitions of employability suggest that “individual characteristics and behaviours determine employability” (clarke, 2007, p. 262). however, there is also a suggestion that graduate employability is highly dependent on the context of the current labour market (clarke, 2007) as well as on personal circumstances and capacity for job flexibility and mobility (mcquaid, 2006). thus, there is a link between employability and employment: where employability is understood as suitability for graduate employment, it may increase graduates‟ chance to get graduate-level jobs, but does not assure them (clarke, 2007; knight & yorke, 2004; yorke, 2006). different frameworks or components of graduate employability have been developed for the interpretation of employability of university graduates (see, for example bennett, dunne, & carre´, 1999; hillage & pollard, 1998; yorke & knight, 2004). overall there are four stakeholders involved in the framework for graduate employability including universities, governments, employers and the graduate themselves, and the interest in graduate employability has “arguably produced benefits for all stakeholders” (crossman & clarke, 2009, p. 602). for employers, employability often refers to „work-readiness‟, meaning that the transition from university to work, or the learning curve from he to employment will be shortened as a result of graduate employability enhancing agenda in he (mason, et al., 2009). from employer as well as government perspectives, employability is mainly concerned with the capability of graduates to contribute to the economic competitiveness in a global context soon after their commencing employment (cranmer, 2006). a graduate employability focus also benefits students, who increasingly recognise that having a university degree is simply not sufficient, and they require other attributes to be employable (rae, 2007). thus, finding jobs and becoming employable is one of the important considerations in their choice of course and institution. universities response by including employability in their agenda, which includes modification to existing course curricula, provision of new courses and teaching methods and opportunities for work experience – all intended to make more explicit the acquisition and the development of employability within the higher education context. this increases the responsiveness of higher education to add more value for their credentials (tomlinson, 2008) and increases the competitiveness of the institution in the increasingly challenging higher education market. nonetheless, enhancing graduate employability is a complex process and it involves three levels of communication: between institutions and businesses, between institutions and students, and between businesses and students (bhanugopan & fish, 2009). in an ideal model, an employer gets involved in course design and delivery by providing comments on the relevance of the course content, providing work placement and material for students and giving guest lectures. in such cooperation, employers‟ information about job applicants is likely to be improved (mason, et al., ________________________________________________ tran, t.t. (2012). vietnamese higher education and the issue of enhancing graduate employability. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 3(1), 2 – 16 5 2009), universities also have an opportunity to reflect on their courses and curricula, and students become familiar with the requirements of the employment market. in practice, this kind of model is not so popular, and there has been much evidence of the mismatch or the gaps between these three levels of communication (bhanugopan & fish, 2009). many academic staff are suspicious about the idea that university could or should contribute to graduate employability as the prevailing culture of academic organisations is “often to focus onwards, on the organisation of academic structures and on the subject discipline of research and course curricula” (rae, 2007, p. 608). the production of academic knowledge, in western developed countries in general, tends to privilege theory and conceptual knowledge, rather than practical application, and thus, the adoption of an agenda of employability, which is considered to meet the practical needs of industry, may also mean „irrelevant‟ (rae, 2004). employers, on the other hand, often value practical skills, enterprise skills and business awareness, which are often the outcome of enterprise involving and learning (mason, et al., 2009). students often do not see the importance and the connection between university provided programs and services such as project-based learning, work-related learning, career advice and extra-curriculum activities and the propensity of getting graduate job after graduation (rae, 2007). thus they do not make full use of the support of the university for the transition to work. nonetheless, graduate employability is not only a product of the learning at university, but it is the outcome of: the cumulative learning over a series of course modules, together with parallel personal development through a range of formative experiences and wider contextual learning through, for example, work experience and extra-curricular activities; it is a product of the whole university experience combined with interactions with the wider “world of work”. (rae, 2007, p. 608). obviously the primary responsibility for employability rests with individual students and graduates (mcquaid & lindsay, 2005; van buren iii, 2003). in western higher education, students are supposed to take high responsibility for their study, they are often the ones who decide what course/subject they want to learn, what extra-activities they want to join in. they are also considered as the centre in their learning, thus, in many cases, teachers are mainly facilitators (o'dwyer, 2006; phan, 2008). then, when they finish university and start searching for jobs in the labour market, the onus is also on them as potential employees to “acquire knowledge, skills and abilities, and other characteristics valued by current and prospective employers” (fugate, kinicki, & ashforth, 2004, p. 15). in order to be employable, students and graduates are the ones who need to be active in their learning. they also have to actively widen their knowledge, improve their skills and understanding, and shorten the learning curve when they start employment. nonetheless, universities and employers also play an important role in shaping and developing employability for graduates. there is a gap between what universities offer and what is required by the labour market (holland, 2006). students are the ones who need to handle the difficulties brought with the gap to be successful at employment. however, if both universities and employers are willing to work together to bridge the gap, the „job-readiness‟ and employability of graduates will be strengthened by the support and the cooperation between the two (chapple & tolley, 2000; fallows & steven, 2000; harvey, 2005). for example junghagen (2005) suggests: it is an important role of a business school. . .to not only follow trends and developments in industry but also to function as an actor taking part in driving and stimulating this development. at the same time, continuous input from industry is essential to define future practice. (p. 73) employability has become a publicly reportable statistic, and many universities see employability as an institutional achievement, having developed employability strategies and associated provisions (rae, 2007). degree programs in many universities in the west now tend to focus on the acquisition of two types of skills, subject specific knowledge and skills and transferable knowledge, skills and file:///c:/users/thi.tran/appdata/local/microsoft/windows/temporary%20internet%20files/content.ie5/qxgzveli/literature_review%5b1%5d.doc%23_enref_11 file:///c:/users/thi.tran/appdata/local/microsoft/windows/temporary%20internet%20files/content.ie5/qxgzveli/literature_review%5b1%5d.doc%23_enref_21 file:///c:/users/thi.tran/appdata/local/microsoft/windows/temporary%20internet%20files/content.ie5/qxgzveli/literature_review%5b1%5d.doc%23_enref_21 file:///c:/users/thi.tran/appdata/local/microsoft/windows/temporary%20internet%20files/content.ie5/qxgzveli/literature_review%5b1%5d.doc%23_enref_32 ________________________________________________ tran, t.t. (2012). vietnamese higher education and the issue of enhancing graduate employability. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 3(1), 2 – 16 6 attitudes (cox & king, 2006). universities have started to acknowledge the need for graduates to “develop a range of personal and intellectual skills beyond specific expertise in an academic discipline” (shah, pell, & brooks, 2004, p. 9). however, debate continues about the extent to which this is achieved at a practical level (crossman & clarke, 2009). there is resistance and suspicion from academic staff, though not often articulated in print, that the employability agenda will downgrade education to training, erode academic freedom, infringe academic autonomy, undermine critic and result in „training‟ rather than „education‟ in he (bates, 1999; billett, 2009; harvey, 2000; morley, 2001). such questions as “do universities exist simply to meet the needs of modern capitalism and are students being constructed solely as future worker, rather than fully rounded citizens?” (morley, 2001, p. 132) or “should he be about training graduates for jobs rather than improving their minds” (harvey, 2000, p. 3) seem to be common among he academic staff. the academic‟s fear, as suggested by knight and yorke (2004, p. 34) is probably legitimate where employability is understood as the intrusion of skills agenda into the curriculum, and as it may bring more work for academic staff. they may also not be enthusiastic with the interference of employers, the outside stakeholders (knight & yorke, 2004; yorke, 2006). however, closer analysis of what employers are looking for when employing graduates reveals “congruity between the abilities developed in he and those desired by employers” (harvey, 2005, p. 23). harvey also explains that although emphasis both within and between organisations varies, at root, employers want interactive and personal attributes. communication, teamwork and interpersonal skills are the core interactive attributes. personal attributes consist of attitudes and ability including intellect, knowledge, willingness and ability to learn and continue learning. all of these attributes are desirable in he. the teaching practices at he level in western countries also aim to develop these attributes for students. students are educated to be autonomous learners, to build up strong communicative and interpersonal skills, to handle teamwork assignments effectively, to know how-to-learn and to become intellectual and knowledgeable in their study field. with the current teaching practices in western universities, graduates could develop attributes which are desirable by employers in the labour market. the questions rest on to what extent universities should help students acquire enterprise skills by providing work-related practices during university time, which is traditionally a responsibility of the industry. or in other words, to what extent universities should help graduates shorten the transition from university to work and satisfy employers, who, in a highly competitive market, no longer want to offer training for their new employees. higher education in vietnam: training for specific professions rather than education it seems clear that in western countries, higher education should be characterised by the focus on education, whereas training for specific skills is the main mission of the professional schools or tafe colleges. in contrast, education in vietnam, as suggested by ta and winter (2010, p. 155), refers to primary and secondary education, while training refers to higher education. the name of the central ministry, the ministry of education and training (moet) also reflects this order (ta & winter, 2010). the main mission of university is still limited to produce an educated labour force for the industry (tran , 2006). education law also reinforces the mission of the hes: “university education shall help students acquire in-depth professional knowledge and fluently practical skills in one profession with the ability to work independently and creatively as well as to solve problems in the field of study” (the education law, 2005, p. 16). it emphasises the responsibility of he to provide professional knowledge and skills, to satisfy the demands of the labour market, and the need to modernise and industrialise the country (pham, 2008, p. 149). recently the vietnamese government has implemented different strategies to encourage academic staff in the hes to engage in research; however, the research capacity of universities has remained very low; the majority of academic staff still consider the traditional mandate of university as the production of human resources rather than engagement in research (tran, 2006, p. 5). research is a typical mission of research institutions which are separated from universities (harman & nguyen, 2010; hayden & lam, 2010). up until recently, the main contribution of the hes in vietnam has been providing labour force, first for domestic enterprises and then for foreign direct investment (fdi) enterprises. ________________________________________________ tran, t.t. (2012). vietnamese higher education and the issue of enhancing graduate employability. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 3(1), 2 – 16 7 the structure of he has been also “fundamentally designed to meet the needs of the labour market” (george, 2010, p. 34). since the time vietnam gained independence, the system was built following the old soviet system, where all heis were small, mono-disciplinary, or in other words, very specialised to train the labour force to meet the projected labour requirements of each sector (george, 2010). originally, many universities were formed by and under their line ministries. for example the university of health was placed under the ministry of health, the university of agriculture was under the ministry of agriculture and development. up until recently, 13 major universities have remained under their line ministries as well as moet. in vietnam, education in general and higher education in particular has been considered as an investment, rather than a tool for liberation and empowerment as such in the west (nguyen, terlouw, & pilot, 2005). from the government perspective, investment in education and training “must be regarded as one of the main targets for development investment” (moet, 1995, p. 14). pham minh hac the former vice-minister for education, also states this aim very clearly: investment in education is investment in development, being the fundamental investment in the socio-economic strategy. subsequently, especially as from 1991 and since the fourth plenum of the party central committee (1993) the view has become clearer and education is regarded as part of the socio-economic infrastructure. (pham, 1998, p. 29) from the perspective of the student‟s family, the investment for students to study in higher education is considered an investment for their future with a good and high income career (tran, 2010c). thus, a career in higher education is considered very important, and intellectuals are usually thought to possess an elevated career (pham & fry, 2004). evidence also shows that vietnam hes also places high value on career orientation and development. one of the criteria for the system to evaluate the quality of students in different institutions is to ascertain a student‟s ability to find jobs after graduation (pham & fry, 2004, p. 211). the comparison between the view of the western academics and the vietnamese academics on the issue of enhancing the employment capability of students and graduates reveals some interesting contradictions. the employability agenda is considered by many academic staff in the west as irrelevant, as the main mission of he is to promote research, to improve students‟ mind s, and he is about education, not about training for jobs (bates, 1999; billett, 2009; harvey, 2000; morley, 2001). conversely, in vietnam, there seems to be too much focus on the training for jobs, and neglecting other missions. hence, it is easy to find such argument as: universities are responsible for more than simply training highly qualified specialists for socio-economic development. they also have an important role to play as vanguard in intellectual exploration, the generation of knowledge and the inculcation of democratic values (pham, 2010, p. 56). obviously, the training knowledge and skills for specific jobs has remained one of the most important missions of hes in vietnam. the mismatch although the mission of training university students for the labour market and for socio-economic development of the country is considered an important mission of the hes in vietnam, it does not seem to be implemented successfully. the gap between higher education and the industry has become wider and wider since the implementation of the economic liberalization policy. though the graduates required by the industry outnumber the supply from hes, many graduates have experienced difficulties in finding jobs, many end up unemployed or underemployed, when employers still complain about the lack of graduates with appropriate knowledge and skills (pham, 2008; tran, 2010b). the mismatch reflects the stagnation of the hes compared to the development of the internal economy. it also reflects the weak linkage between the two. ________________________________________________ tran, t.t. (2012). vietnamese higher education and the issue of enhancing graduate employability. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 3(1), 2 – 16 8 with the economic liberalisation in 1986, the vietnamese government aimed to change vietnam from a central planned economy to a market-oriented one. the economy turned to be a transitional economy with many new sectors, such as private sector, cooperate sector, joint-venture and fdi enterprises instead of only state and co-operate sectors in the central planned economy (nguyen , 2006; pham & fry, 2004). in terms of he, the government abolished job allocation for graduates, who now have both the right and the responsibility to find jobs for themselves. school fees have been introduced in the system. in addition to only state heis in the past, many new private and foreign heis have gradually established. the system has expanded significantly, the number of students enrolling in the system has increased more than 16 times in 2010 compared to 1987 (from about 130 thousand to more than 2.1 million students) (general statistics office of vietnam, 2012). hes in vietnam has changed from elite to mass he (tran, 2010a). hes has been struggling under pressure to develop the system to meet the new need s of the economy. universities face too many challenges in the transitional period. first, they lack teaching staff, the number of students has increased 16 times, whereas the number of teaching staff has increased only slightly more than three times in the same period (general statistics office of vietnam, 2012). second, they lack funding and resources as state universities rely mainly on state budgets and school fees for private universities are also under state government control (evans & rorris, 2010). however, the biggest challenge of the system is to renovate an education system which inherits outdated infrastructure and outdated teaching methods. the traditional teaching in universities in vietnam was to provide workers for a command economy, where workers were required to follow orders, to listen and obey, rather than being creative and taking initiative. thus, the teaching at he was, and currently strongly reflects both confucian culture and the old soviet system top-down approach, where the teacher is considered the primary source of knowledge. the main duty of students has been receiving knowledge from the teacher and then re learning it for the exam. hence, in the international literature, vietnamese students are often considered as passive learners (flowerdew & miller, 1995; nguyen, 2002; stephen, doughty, gray, hopcroft, & silvera, 2006; thompson, 2009; tran, 2012). however, after the economic liberalisation, with the massive development of both private and fdi sectors which offer much higher wages for their staff, the traditional products of the vietnam hes, the passive learners and workers, do not appear to be suitable to work in these sectors. especially when vietnam has integrated more and more into the global market with its becoming a member of association of southeast asian nations (asean) in 1995 and the world trade organisation (wto) in 2007, the internal economy also needs to change to respond to the international competitive market. instead of requiring loyalty, hard-work and obedience as in the central planned economy, employers now require graduates to understand a foreign language, especially english, to have good communication skills, teamwork and personal skills and obtain such characteristics as initiative and being proactive (tran, 2006; tran & swierczek, 2009). the vietnamese education system in general and the hes in particular are facing the most significant challenge: changing the teaching philosophy and practices to enhance graduate employability skills the contemporary industry requires. the effort for the change recognising the weakness of the hes and the mismatch between the hes and the industry, the vietnamese government has made a great effort to renovate the system. in 2005, an ambitious comprehensive reform of higher education aimed to have a highly competitive, interna tional standard higher education system by 2020. this reform, named “fundamental and comprehensive reform of higher education in vietnam 2006-2020” (also known as higher education reform agenda, or hera), was proclaimed by the vietnamese government (harman & nguyen, 2010). some of the major objectives stated in the hera were to develop a curriculum that has a strong applied/professional orientation with the shift from the instructional to the learning paradigm, with special pedagogical consideration in order to meet the demand for more relevant graduate skills for the economy (harman & nguyen, 2010; pham thanh nghi, 2010). with the hera, it is recognised that: ________________________________________________ tran, t.t. (2012). vietnamese higher education and the issue of enhancing graduate employability. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 3(1), 2 – 16 9 there has been a particular demand for „industry ready‟ graduates with a broader range of high-level and adaptable skills. skills of particular relevance needed are critical thinking, initiative and enterprise, information literacy, planning and management skills, capacity for lifelong learning, and flexibility in preparing for jobs yet to be envisaged and for adapting to multi-disciplinary contexts. developing foreign language and business skills are also seen to be critical in countries like vietnam in transition to a new order (harman & nguyen, 2010, pp. 72-73). an agenda which maintains a strong focus on job orientation is also an objective of hera. hera aims to develop a system of 80% of students enrolling in professional oriented programs, and only 20% of students enrolling in research oriented programs by 2020. the vietnamese government has also recognised that the workplace that graduates enter now is vastly different from that of a decade ago. there has been a growing need for graduates with relevant skills to be „industry-ready‟ (harman & nguyen, 2010, p. 72), or in other words, to be employable with a broader range of high-level and adaptable skills. the traditional instructional paradigm with the passive transmission of information in the lecture format is no longer appropriate especially for the aim of educating initiative and proactive future workers. in order to assist graduates to be capable in the workplace after graduation, universities now are „encouraged increasingly by external constituencies to strengthen both undergraduate and postgraduate education, with greater emphasis on the quality of learning experience‟ (p 68). lecturers in heis are being urged to move from passive to interactive teaching modes. they are also encouraged to change from the traditional teacher-centred teaching method to employ studentcentred teaching and learning and problem based learning with new principles promoted by moet: „teaching how to learn‟ and „learning how to learn‟ (nguyen, 2005, p. 18). academic staff have recently been required to know how to support and advise students, how to facilitate learning through applying a range of innovative learning processes and be capable of linking learning with life experiences and service in the community (harman & nguyen, 2010). the hurdles to the change with hera, the vietnamese government has made a strong effort to reform the hes with one of the ambitious objectives of bringing hes and the industry together. however, what is not clear from hera are the actual steps to implement this goal. in practice, hera faces enormous challenges. the major hurdles discussed here are the lack of resources to implement the goal, the centralised governance in the system, the rigid curriculum, teaching staff limitations and the weak linkage between heis and the industry. all reform needs time and investment. as it is not stated in the hera, universities are suspicious over the funding resources to implement the hera goals at institutional level, whereas universities are still struggling to seek funding to maintain its current practices (hayden & lam, 2012). university infrastructure and facilities are both old and outdated and are still waiting for funding to upgrade and to change. the modernisation of facilities in the hes may take long as the investment in he is very low. the deputy prime minister and former minister of education nguyen thien nhan reported at the regional he conference in kuala lumpur in december 2007 that the expenditure on he in vietnam was increased but still low, was only us $400 per student per year (nguyen, 2007, p. 16). he also indicated that though the public expenditure on education had increased from 4.2% of gross domestic product (gdp) in 2000 to 7.5% in 2006, only 15% of which was for he, the majority education expenditure (71%) was for kindergarten and general education (p. 16). it is observed by many academics that the rate of expenditure on hes in vietnam is too low, not sufficient and has lagged behind the rates for most hess in the region (hayden & lam , 2010). it seems clear that vietnam does not have sufficient financial resources to implement hera (smith & nguyen, 2010). universities not only do not have sufficient funding to implement hera‟s goal, they also do not have much accountability to respond to the need of the labour market, as pham thanh nghi suggests “the efficacy of higher education has been hampered by the resilience of an outmoded and extremely ________________________________________________ tran, t.t. (2012). vietnamese higher education and the issue of enhancing graduate employability. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 3(1), 2 – 16 10 conservative management mechanism, known as „centralisation‟” (2010, p. 55). up until recently, most important decisions in each institution, both public and private, are still made by the central ministry, moet (hayden & lam, 2010; pham, 2010). more profoundly, the rigid and outdated curriculum all institutions have to adapt to is under the control of moet. the ministry wants the communist ideology to remain in the „socialist‟ education system, where there is a strong emphasis on „marxist-leninist‟ and ho chi minh thoughts in the he curriculum (harman, hayden & pham, 2010). when vietnam opens its door to a market driven economy, but at the same time still keeps the desire to promote marxist – leninism, there is a need to address the contradiction between the socialist and capitalist market principles as two contrasting philosophies driving the education system: vietnam is probably the only country in the world that both embraces market economics and adheres to marxism – leninism. how can an education system, guided by two contradictory philosophies develop in a consistent manner? (tran, 1999, p. 21). the marxism-leninism also appears to contrast with the subject of the hera to training university graduates for the needs of a market driven economy. the need for change is long overdue (pham, 2010). however, despite the claim of how irrelevant the marxist – leninist study is, “the line drawn in the sand” has been to reject questions about its importance (george, 2010, p. 45). the heavy curriculum is also claimed to overload teaching staff in the hes, who are often described as overworked and underpaid, often lacking pedagogical understanding and having low qualifications (dapice et al., 2008; hoang, 2009; tran & swierczek, 2009; vu, 2009; vu, dang, & tran, 2007; vu, 2008). when the student-teacher ratio is too high (30:1), when the teachers are overworked, it is hard to require a teaching renovation from them. in addition, most of the teachers in the system were trained in the traditional hes in vietnam in the past, where they have experienced only traditional teaching and learning methods (tran & white, 2012). they themselves may not know what student centred learning really is. it is not a surprise when the student centred learning has been, in theory, deeply embedded pedagogical principle in academia, the teaching and learning in the system is still considered, until recently, outdated with passive learning style of the students (nguyen, 2002; stephen, et al., 2006; thompson, 2009). graduates who finish four to six years at university are still criticised by many employers as lacking such essential skills for work as communication, planning, teamwork and interpersonal skills (tran, 2006; tran & swierczek, 2009). many of them have to take extra courses in soft skills or english with the hope for satisfying employers‟ needs. he training is probably still far from the hera objective of enhancing graduate „work readiness‟. nonetheless, graduate „work-readiness‟ is not only the responsibility of the hes, it also depends on the level of development of the economy and the cooperation between the hes and enterprises. the vietnamese market economy is still very young (since the economic liberalisation in 1986) (fatseas, 2010), with more than 95% of enterprises being small and medium enterprises (smes) (general statistics office, 2008). again, vietnam is still on the path of a market economy, but with a socialist orientation (george, 2010). the government has not let go of their total control over the internal economy. many obstacles and disincentives prevent or discourage firms, especially smes from developing innovation capability. firms do not have sufficient resources for long term investment (tran, 2006). there is also little evidence of effective linkages between firms (including foreign companies) and vietnamese universities to train human resources or to conduct research together (fatseas, 2010). problems include the lack of capability for both firms and universities to negotiate with each other, for learning, researching and sharing information and absorbing new knowledge (fatseas, 2010). the lack of dynamism in the labour market is another hurdle (pham , 2010). then, there is also not enough „pull‟ for university academic staff to devote themselves to innovation and to serve industry needs (tran, 2006). the loose relationship between hes and the industry pushes students and graduates to grope about to find their way entering the labour market. ________________________________________________ tran, t.t. (2012). vietnamese higher education and the issue of enhancing graduate employability. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 3(1), 2 – 16 11 conclusion enhancing graduate employability has obviously become a topic of both concern and debate in higher education worldwide. however, in western countries such as the usa, uk, australia and new zealand, where employability remains a complex and contentious issue with many academics having negative viewpoint on the adoption of employability agenda into he curriculum, the general teaching practices and the facility and infrastructure of developed countries do support students in developing interactive and personal attributes necessary for them at work and in life. however, in vietnam, providing a highly skilled labour force for industry is one of the important missions of heis, the traditional teaching method and the poor and outdated facilities and infrastructure of a developing country prevent heis in vietnam from catching up with the demand of the contemporary labour market. it does not seem to be an easy task for the hes in vietnam to train students to satisfy the labour market‟s requirements, to enhance graduate employability and to provide a qualified, highly skilled labour force for the modernization and industrialization of the country. if the related problems such as finance, governance, teaching staff training and limitations and the loose relationship between teaching, research and practice are not soon recognised and settled, it will be hard for the hes to keep up with the changes in the labour market. the ambitious hera has been considered more as a wish list, rather than a practical plan with clear strategies to implement and practical solution s to reach different objectives (smith & nguyen, 2010). enhancing graduate employability is not only considered by academic staff and related stakeholders as an important mission of the hes, it has also become a desire of the whole hes and the government in the transitional period. it, however, does not seem to be an easy task for vietnam with such low investment and ambiguous policies. ________________________________________________ tran, t.t. 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(2022). competent and employed: stem alumni perspectives on undergraduate research and nace career-readiness competencies. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 13(1), 79–93. 79 the journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability issn: 1838-3815 (online) journal homepage: https://ojs.deakin.edu.au/index.php/jtlge/ competent and employed: stem alumni perspectives on undergraduate research and nace career-readiness competencies mikayla j. newell1 and paul n. ulrich 2 corresponding author: paul n. ulrich (pulrich@gsu.edu) 1 department of learning sciences, georgia state university 2 department of biology, georgia state university abstract there have been large increases in the number of stem graduates in the united states, but majority of the career opportunities are limited to computer specialists and engineering. thus, two challenges await stem students upon graduation: strong competition and employer concerns that applicants lack general competencies and contextual work experience. universities have responded to employer concerns with initiatives to enhance career readiness by embedding sets of competencies throughout curricula. however, these competencies have not been situated in stem contexts and are derived largely from surveys of representatives from large companies who are unfamiliar with the job requirements specific to stem positions. the current study uses a mixed methods approach to investigate the national association of colleges and employers career-readiness competencies in stem. we found that stem alumni ranked critical thinking as the most important competency for their current employment. additional findings demonstrate that undergraduate research experiences (ures) provide a fertile ground for the integration of career related competencies into undergraduate curricula as alumni discussed the development of various academic, personal, professional, and competency gains after participating in ures. lastly, implications regarding how institutions can simultaneously situate skill development in stem and provide meaningful, work-like experience through ures that align with the expectations of stem employers are discussed. keywords stem, career readiness, nace competencies, alumni, undergraduate research experiences, employment introduction projected stem workforce growth has stimulated extensive investment in stem programs by governmental agencies and higher education. forecasts of stem workforce growth in the united states (u.s.) have ranged around 20% per decade (carnevale et al., 2013; noonan, 2017). one particularly influential report projected that 2.7 million stem graduates would be necessary to meet needs in the u.s. (president’s council of advisors on science and technology (pcast), 2012). increased growth (+54%) in the number of bachelor’s degrees earned in natural sciences, mathematics, computer sciences, and engineering from 2010 to 2018 coincides with the urgent call for stem qualified workers (u.s. department of education, national center for education statistics, 2019). students appear to be responding to employment expectations by increasingly choosing stem majors, and this trend is particularly pronounced in the numbers of biology degrees conferred (liu et al., 2019). troubling and often overlooked, however, is that demand for stem workers varies widely across newell m.j. and ulrich, p.n. (2022). competent and employed: stem alumni perspectives on undergraduate research and nace career-readiness competencies. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 13(1), 79–93. 80 disciplines (xue & larson, 2015). for instance, the pcast report noted nearly 75% of job growth in the u.s. is constrained to computer specialists and engineers. similar heterogeneity in opportunity has also been noted in australia (see lin-stephens et al., 2018; labour market information portal, 2021). thus, stem graduates face a two-fold problem: limited job openings and competition against a growing pool of graduates. stem employers globally report that they are unable to fill positions due to ‘skills gaps’ (kramer et al., 2015; prinsley & baranyai, 2015), which further complicates students’ employment prospects. descriptions of the gaps in stem skills are frequently undefined in the literature and elusive due to variation in employer expectations (alic, 2018). employer reports clearly communicate that applicants have deficits in broader, employability skills such as time management, teamwork, and communication (prinsley & baranyai, 2015; confederation of british industry, 2011). debate continues around the question of whether employer complaints about skill gaps accurately represent workforce realities (capelli, 2015; bessen, 2014), although employers and academics agree that generic skills such as teamwork are ‘must haves’ for every graduate (capelli, 2015). consequently, the higher education sector has focused on equipping students for careers by emphasizing general competencies (nodine, 2016). however, we point out two challenges institutions must address to make their graduates compete effectively for limited employment opportunities in stem industries. firstly, generic skills alone are insufficient to acquire stem employment. the value of general competencies to an employer varies depending on the situational context (finegold & notobartolo 2010, p. 20). while stem skills are interdisciplinary and overlap with generic cognitive and social skills (siekman & korbel 2016), generic skills should be framed within stem and augmented with occupation-specific skills. secondly, stem employers expect that strong applications are accompanied with at least twelve weeks of work experience (prinsley & baranyai, 2015). we propose that institutions can simultaneously situate skill development in stem and provide meaningful, work-like experience through undergraduate research experiences (ures). though ures are not generally recognized as work-integrated learning (wil), ures have been suggested as a form of wil (golding et al., 2019). ures are high-impact practices (kuh et al., 2017) with well-established impact on student self-perceptions and career decisions (lopatto, 2004; russell et al., 2007; seymour, 2004). in ures, close interaction with stem professionals and mentoring help participants frame generic skills within the stem domain. these experiences range from one to many semesters working in research contexts and can serve as a proxy for the work experience desired by stem employers. the current study assesses the value of a set of generic competencies within stem from the perspective of graduates who had participated in ures. many higher education institutions in the u.s have strategically adopted the career readiness competencies defined by the national association of colleges and employers (nace). however, several limitations and concerns should be noted about these competencies. the generic competencies presented by nace were derived from casner-lotto and barrington (2006) and a 2014 nace survey of employer representatives. the survey design, coding process, and analyses used by nace are not available. nace indicates that the respondent pool comprised 606 employers (49% for-profit, private organizations; 21% for profit, public companies; 15% governmental agencies; and 15% non-profits). nearly 25% of respondents represented companies with 101-1000 employees, and 42% of companies represented employ 1001–10,000+ people. casnerlotto and barrington (2006), the primary resource for defining the nace competencies, report that the large majority of their respondents (81%) held director, vice president, or higher positions. therefore, it is possible that employer representatives may be unfamiliar with work-level requirements for specific positions. an extensive study of stem employers in australia was similarly weighted toward responses from executives but is notable because smaller businesses (<200 employees) are better represented (deloitte access economics, 2014). jang (2016, p. 285) noted that ‘frameworks of 21st century skills are still seldom empirically examined from a stem job incumbent’s perspective,’ and we note that this remains the case. assessing competencies via investigation of stem employees is an important step in refining competency training models (akdere et al, 2019). to newell m.j. and ulrich, p.n. (2022). competent and employed: stem alumni perspectives on undergraduate research and nace career-readiness competencies. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 13(1), 79–93. 81 address this gap, we asked stem graduates who had participated in ures to rank the importance of the nace competencies based on their current employment. additionally, qualitative analysis demonstrates how ures provide opportunities to situate competencies in stem and prepare students for careers. current study this exploratory study was performed at an institution in the u.s. that adopted a career preparation initiative for undergraduates. a central element of the initiative includes embedding nace career competencies throughout curricula to increase student awareness of competencies, understanding connections between competencies and classwork, and demonstration of proficiency. this study employed a mixed method approach, designed to explore the following questions about relationships among learning experiences of stem alumni, career-readiness competencies, and employment: rq 1: how do stem professionals rank nace competencies compared to non-stem professionals? rq 2: what competencies do stem alumni feel they learned via ures? rq 3: what are perceived impacts of ure on alumni’s professional and personal career readiness? quantitative surveys were created to evaluate alumni rankings of nace competencies and identify competencies embedded within ures. an open-ended prompt was used to explore participants' perceived impact of ures on their career readiness. responses focused on clarifying mechanisms for benefits associated with ures. methods participants a survey was emailed to stem graduates of a large urban university in the south-eastern u.s. eligible participants were identified through institutional data. all participants graduated and had previously enrolled in a ure. forty-two percent identified as female, and 39% identified as male. participant age ranged from 20 to 49 (m = 27.52, sd = 5.03). fifty-six percent of participants (n = 121) were identified as stem employed and 41% (n = 89) as non-stem employed. classification into stem and non-stem employment utilized responses about job responsibilities and lists of stem-jobs developed by the u.s. bureau of labor (standard occupation policy committee, 2019). responses with insufficient information on roles and responsibilities when complemented with alternative data sources were not included (n = 6, 3%). it is important to note that stem occupational codes in the u.s. classify healthcare technicians as stem occupations but healthcare providers (e.g., physicians and nurses) as non-stem. survey the survey comprised 23 items including questions about employment, research experience, and demographic information. participants who indicated that they were employed were asked additional questions including their place of work, how long they have worked there, and the nature of their roles and responsibilities in the workplace. in regard to research experience, participants were asked to describe the impact undergraduate research had on their ‘personal and professional, career readiness’ and to select the career-readiness competencies that they felt their ure taught them. in addition, participants were asked to rank the importance of nace career-readiness competencies (appendix a) indicating the most important to the least important competency. those employed in non-stem jobs, were asked to rank competencies they felt were necessary for their current occupation. newell m.j. and ulrich, p.n. (2022). competent and employed: stem alumni perspectives on undergraduate research and nace career-readiness competencies. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 13(1), 79–93. 82 procedures a total of 1,923 stem alumni were emailed and invited to participate. approximately two weeks later, a reminder was emailed to alumni who had not returned the survey. completed responses were received from 354 participants. an introduction to the survey and an informed consent form were the first documents participants viewed. participants who indicated consent were able to access the survey, while those who did not consent were unable to complete the survey. participants were not compensated for their participation in the study. research protocols were approved by the institutional review board (irb #h19671). results study 1: stem competencies (quantitative) participants were asked to rank a total of eight, career-readiness competencies where 1 was considered most important and 8 considered least important to their current employment. a mannwhitney u-test was performed to assess differential means on competency rankings between those employed in stem compared to those employed in non-stem jobs. as expected, critical thinking ranked as significantly more important for participants employed in stem (m = 1.79, sd=1.34) compared to non-stem (m = 2.45, sd=1.73), u = 4209.5, p < 0.05. non-stem participants (m = 2.83, sd = 1.71) ranked oral/written communication as significantly more important than stem participants (m = 3.52, sd = 1.75), u = 4057.0, p < 0.05 (rq1, figure 1). no other significant differences were identified. figure 1. stem alumni rankings of career readiness competencies newell m.j. and ulrich, p.n. (2022). competent and employed: stem alumni perspectives on undergraduate research and nace career-readiness competencies. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 13(1), 79–93. 83 to assess the degree to which general, nace competencies were already embedded in ures, alumni were asked to select competencies taught in their ures (rq2, figure 2). the top four competencies identified by participants correspond with four competencies that emerged in qualitative analysis. critical thinking was most frequently selected (>70%) followed by oral/written communication, work ethic/professionalism, and teamwork/collaboration. these formed a group distinctly more frequent than the other career-readiness competencies. figure 2. frequency of career-readiness competencies taught in ures results study 2: impact of undergraduate research experience on personal and professional career readiness (qualitative) data collection in addition to the survey, participants were prompted to reflect on their ure and describe how ures impacted their personal and professional career readiness. responses were coded using inductive thematic coding. research subjectivity and data analyses qualitative researchers are aware and concerned with how personal expectations and assumptions can influence the research process (levitt et al., 2018). consequently, qualitative traditions have been employed to ensure transparency in reporting. to avoid potential biases the research team communicated their perspectives and expectations throughout the coding process. inductive, thematic coding was used to analyze and interpret participants' responses to the open-ended prompt. the team separately evaluated 283 qualitative responses while documenting initial themes. once the initial themes were discussed they were reconciled (100%) and represented 15 second-level codes. these second-level codes were then categorized into seven central themes: academic gains, competencies, early career success, personal development, mentorship, insights from exposure, and positive responses (table 1). data were analysed in nvivo 12. newell m.j. and ulrich, p.n. (2022). competent and employed: stem alumni perspectives on undergraduate research and nace career-readiness competencies. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 13(1), 79–93. 84 table 1. coding themes first level codes second level codes themes science/content knowledge knowledge gains academic gains technical skills analyze science research research skills statistical skills science practice academic gains working in lab teams teamwork/collaboration competency problem solving critical thinking competency *time management competency oral/written communication communication competency *work ethic competency requirement for higher ed cv/resume building preparation for workforce career early career success networking *confidence personal development *leadership personal development independent projects independence personal development career guidance mentorship mentorship career trajectory/clarity ideas of higher education options of stem careers exposure to ures insights from exposure interest, passion, excitement affective response positive affective response note. second-level codes denoted with asterisks do not have corresponding first-level codes. we identified seven central themes from the open-ended responses: (1) academic gains, (2) competencies, (3) early career success, (4) personal development, (5) mentorship, (6) insights from exposure, and (7) positive responses. the first theme (academic gains) explores learning outcomes that students gained through ures. students gained content knowledge during didactic lectures and had the opportunity to apply those concepts in a research lab. the second theme identifies competencies that students gained, while the third theme (career) explores how ures impacted students' career trajectory. similarly, the fourth theme (personal development) reviews personal gains students felt they developed. alumni expressed an increase in confidence as ures provided opportunities to conduct research without a blueprint. as a result, they learned to persevere through failed experiments. the fifth theme (mentorship) reviews the impact mentors had on students' career plans and development as scientists. the sixth theme (insights from exposure) encompasses insights associated with being exposed to ures and the final theme (positive affective responses) outlines students’ positive responses about their research experience. newell m.j. and ulrich, p.n. (2022). competent and employed: stem alumni perspectives on undergraduate research and nace career-readiness competencies. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 13(1), 79–93. 85 theme 1: academic gains students discussed the various academic gains they experienced within their ures. respondents referenced research as an opportunity to apply what they previously learned in didactic courses to a ‘real-world environment’, stating that ‘undergraduate research allowed [them] to put [their] coursebased knowledge into action, through hands on learning’ (respondent #68). application seemed particularly important as respondents compared ures to lecture and general lab components of curricula. participants felt ures provided opportunities to develop and exercise skills and procedures that ‘would not have known by just taking the required lab courses’ (respondent #275). within this theme knowledge gains and science practice were classified as subthemes. knowledge gains focus on content, while science practice refers to knowledge about lab techniques and other research related activities (e.g., analysing journal articles, experimental design). knowledge gains participants asserted they were able to ‘expand[..] [their] knowledge in microbiology’ (respondent #26) and more specifically were able ‘to grasp the impact of various conditions of proteins’ (respondent #128). in contrast to traditional lab courses, ures permit a deeper understanding by introducing an investigative environment where students can directly apply what they have learned in prior courses. for example, one graduate stated that, ‘undergraduate research allowed me to compile the knowledge and experience i gained through my previous classes and extracurricular activities in a situation that emulated a real-world environment as a career in a laboratory or as a researcher’ (respondent #83). in addition, one participant related how content knowledge can impact future career-related activities by stating that, ‘knowing why procedures are performed will help a medical student while they are interpreting lab results in clinic and answering multiple choice questions on board examinations’ (respondent #49). the deeper content knowledge participants referred to is allied with but distinct from science practices acquired via ures. science practice an overwhelming proportion of responses referred to science practice including technical skills, critical interpretation of literature, extension of scientific findings to other contexts, design and operational aspects of experimental processes, record keeping, and data analysis. familiarity with instrumentation and techniques was illustrated by responses such as ‘undergraduate research gave me a solid, technical foundation with lab techniques’ (respondent #36) and ‘i was ready to enter the workforce as having already interacted with equipment used in the typical laboratory’ (respondent #37). in some cases, respondents explicitly linked development of science practice to career gains or perspectives of career relevance: ‘undergraduate research gave me topics i could discuss with employers to discuss my competence. for example, my work building geiger counters easily led to discussing my ability to work in a job testing hardware for spaceflight’ (respondent #71). in addition, ures taught students how to carefully document experiments as they were required to ‘maintain lab records, which are necessary for research, or any regulatory agency’ and ‘helped to provide me with a professional and stringent standard for reporting’ (respondent #209). these are interesting comments because credibility of the scientific community science relies on accurate reports of findings, a necessity to minimize impact of retractions of published research (cho et al., 2020). respondents also referred to learning to use the scientific method from experimental conceptualization to implementation and analysis. for instance, participants reported they were ‘able to learn the importance of using different aspects of the scientific method and consistently work on improving the methodology necessary to conduct experiments’ (respondent #43). newell m.j. and ulrich, p.n. (2022). competent and employed: stem alumni perspectives on undergraduate research and nace career-readiness competencies. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 13(1), 79–93. 86 theme 2: competencies teamwork and collaboration students in ures work collaboratively in shared spaces. while participants developed ‘interpersonal skills by collaborating with like-minded individuals’ (respondent #20), they also mentioned working with ‘students from other backgrounds’ and learning ‘how important it is to work as a team and get things done independent of each other's individual or group conflicts’ (respondent #7). one participant commented on being prepared to work with ‘both peers and superiors.’ participants stated that ‘working as a team was the most valuable thing that [they] took away from it’ (respondent #42). sharing resources and spaces, solving problems, and interpreting results requires effective communication. communication undergraduate research experiences provide avenues to present results within teams or at conferences. these opportunities allowed a participant to ‘jump out of [their] comfort zone to improve on certain skills needed for a workplace environment such as oral and written communication’ (respondent #7). alumni mentioned becoming ‘comfortable communicating ideas and plans to colleagues in both a relaxed and more structured setting’ (respondent #10) and ‘gained more confidence in talking in front of an audience’ because the ‘course had a lot of speaking opportunities’ (respondent #24). presentations allowed participants ‘to practice communication in this setting and receive constructive criticism from others without feeling judged/overwhelmed’ (respondent #90), which may increase comfort and confidence. interactions that undergraduates had with graduate students provided support as a participant noted graduate students gave them ‘an avenue to ask questions [they] would otherwise be too nervous to ask faculty’ (respondent #90). furthermore, alumni claim ures gave them ‘the tools to learn how to deliver the results to the target audience’ (respondent #168). similarly, one participant specified that research taught them ‘how to present work and speak with other scientists in related/unrelated fields’ (respondent #36). interestingly, participants recalled realizing that simply talking through what they know ‘is more rewarding than staying silent for fear that [they] might not say the right thing.’ critical thinking alumni expressed ures increased their critical thinking and problem solving, two integral elements of the research process. research allowed participants ‘to ask a new question and deal with the myriad of problems that arise when attempting to answer the question’ (respondent #54). learning to think critically in response to obstacles may be particularly important in sustaining students through periods of discouragement. similarly, participants gained ‘knowledge about how to confirm/reject hypothesis’ (respondent #50) because they were required to ‘think critically on the spot to answer tough questions’ (respondent #2). participants felt that they personally developed ‘with regards to being able to adapt easily and think on [their] feet for problem solving’ (respondent #62). the independent nature of conducting research taught participants ‘how to assess a situation [themselves] before finding help and make sure that [they] think critically through all possible options’ (respondent #230). leadership because ures typically occur in research groups comprised of individuals at different developmental stages, these experiences can present opportunities to develop leadership skills. one participant specifically mentioned being in a group during a transition period without phd students or postdoctoral lab members. as the senior lab member, the respondent was ‘tasked with ordering supplies, cleaning, running [their] own experiments, and teaching four new undergraduate students’ (respondent #121).’ participants spoke of learning ‘to delegate’ (respondent #34) and ‘how to lead and organise a group of people in developing further research ideas’ (respondent #10). importantly, newell m.j. and ulrich, p.n. (2022). competent and employed: stem alumni perspectives on undergraduate research and nace career-readiness competencies. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 13(1), 79–93. 87 students playing these roles learned ‘how to better motivate others to work toward a common goal with a positive attitude’ (respondent #243). thus, undergraduates who stay in a single laboratory for multiple semesters gain seniority and can serve as a repository of knowledge for newer members of the research group. time-management participating in ures requires students to manage multiple responsibilities and can result in effective time-management skills. some alumni acknowledged pre-existing weakness in this area by stating research helped them ‘sharpen duller attributes such as time-management’ (respondent #261). in addition, participants talked about juggling responsibilities by managing ‘a research project while being a full-time student and maintaining [their] gpa’ (respondent #11). along with school responsibilities, students also face personal, non-academic responsibilities. one participant spoke about being resilient in their ure and not dropping it even though they ‘had other matters in life [such as] ‘work, marriage, total of 18 credit course hours, and being a senior in college’ (respondent #217). as a result, participants felt they became ‘more organized and able to better plan out daily activities due to having to balance work, schoolwork and studies with making time to do bench work and meet deadlines on a regular basis’ (respondent #239). work ethic and professionalism enhanced work ethic and professional behavior were discussed as well. alumni noted working ‘for long hours,’ (respondent #132) which ‘strengthened [their] work ethic’ (respondent #43) and contributed to increased stamina. participants noted research taught them ’how to work hard in order to achieve a goal’ (respondent #55). specifically, alumni claimed maturation in ‘self-advocacy and professionalism’ [which] ‘have been invaluable’ to their careers (respondent #90). interacting with stem professionals and working closely with other students helped them to ‘learn the work ethic and dedication required to successfully contribute to the stem fields’ (respondent #90). regular exposure to norms of behavior modelled by professionals may be important in transferring this to undergraduate participants. theme 3: early career success respondents correlated their participation to preparation for and acceptance to graduate school. one stated, ‘research directly impacted my acceptance rate into the program that i applied to’ (respondent # 102). they were able to ‘get acclimated faster to the environment’ (respondent # 58) once accepted into their program because ures eased the ‘transition in a masters program into a career as an engineer’ (respondent #9). furthermore, participants emphasized the importance of ures stating, ‘i don’t think i would have been accepted into graduate school without having done a significant amount of undergraduate research’ (respondent #4), and others saw it as a ‘soft requirement’ (respondent #63). ures not only prepared students for graduate careers but also prepared them for the workforce right out of college. participants felt ures provided an opportunity to develop skills that made them ‘qualified to start in the field immediately out of college and was able to land a position working with the cdc’ (respondent #253), and another was able to ‘earn a lead research specialist position’ (respondent #171). research experiences create environments where students work closely with faculty, giving participants the ‘opportunity to network with those in the industry and land possible job offers after graduation through references from those who have seen you fully immersed in that type of environment’ (respondent #7). ures contributed to career readiness by ‘equipping [them] with the necessary skills to maintain competitiveness in the stem job market’ (respondent #151). students were able to ‘build’ and ‘bolster’ their resumes which made them ‘very attractive to companies’ (respondent #180). finally, respondents felt ures equipped them to discuss competencies during newell m.j. and ulrich, p.n. (2022). competent and employed: stem alumni perspectives on undergraduate research and nace career-readiness competencies. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 13(1), 79–93. 88 interviews. for example, one participant reflected that ‘undergraduate research gave me topics i could discuss with employers to show my competence’ (respondent #71). theme 4: personal development alumni responses indicate that ures created opportunities for students to personally develop independence, confidence, and perseverance. within ures students participated in research activities and gained confidence in their ability to execute research related actions. alumni discussed how they were not provided with a blueprint and were challenged to think critically as they encountered problems. thus, alumni were able to develop a sense of independence and confidence. in addition, exposure to the nature of the research process taught students’ perseverance and diligence when conducting research. independence while students worked collaboratively, they were also given opportunities to work independently. participants referenced ‘being thrown into a truly independent setting,’ which contributed to them becoming ‘more independent with [their] workload’ (respondent #177; respondent #191). a participant reported increased confidence since they were ‘able to keep [their] projects moving forward’ and ended up ‘accomplishing more than expected’ (respondent #24). in ures, students were not provided with a ‘blueprint,’ which provided ‘a lot of liberty’ in how they ‘wanted to conduct [their] research experiment’ (respondent #108). confidence ures foster independence by allowing students to take on more responsibilities. one participant noted that ‘research really boosted [their] confidence in roles requiring more responsibility’ (respondent #95). an increase in confidence allowed a participant ‘to embark and to take on different explorations, whether personal or professional’ (respondent #140). specifically, research allowed a respondent to ‘achieve the level of confidence and motivation necessary to apply and get accepted into the masters biology program’ (respondent #202). interestingly, one particular respondent discussed how research increased their ‘confidence/self-esteem as a woman in science’ (respondent #141). perseverance alumni specifically mentioned being situated in a unique environment where they ‘were allowed to fail and learn’ from mistakes (respondent #99). failures typical of research taught one participant ‘how to display grit and to continue to go forward regardless of what the current outcome of the project is’ (respondent #230). alumni reported becoming comfortable with ‘being wrong and learning how to fix whatever issue was at hand’ (respondent #282) as research cultivated ‘resilience to keep pushing’ (respondent #158). research fostered patience and understanding that ‘doing things in haste will only make it worse’ (respondent #13). thus, failure was embraced ‘as an opportunity to grow’ (respondent #65). it is possible that early exposure to research in college may influence student persistence as they have the opportunity to develop a better understanding of how science works. theme 5: mentorship respondents repeatedly emphasized the high-quality mentorship they received in ures. throughout responses, participants expressed gratitude for their mentors and attributed becoming a ‘better scientist and student’(respondent #25) to mentors who pushed and moulded them. mentors opened doors to career goals by providing support. one participant mentioned how their mentor was a ‘proponent of applying to and attending graduate school’ (respondent #185). also, specific qualities of mentors were described. one participant stated that their mentor was ‘great to talk to and was non-judgmental and understood what students from other backgrounds go through’ (respondent newell m.j. and ulrich, p.n. (2022). competent and employed: stem alumni perspectives on undergraduate research and nace career-readiness competencies. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 13(1), 79–93. 89 #18) and contrasted this to poor mentorship experience later in graduate school. another mentor was described as honest and ‘always very open regarding responsibilities and the leadership choices’ (respondent #253) that the mentor made. this was important as it provided training the student can ‘rely on when working through difficult procurement solutions with customers’ (respondent #253). theme 6: insights from exposure a prevalent theme that emerged was personal insight from being exposed to research. research provided ‘insight of what it is like to work in a laboratory setting’ (respondent #22) and opened their eyes to reality of the research process. one respondent expressed that research ‘experiences as an undergraduate disabused me of the idyllic fantasy of lab work’ (respondent #64), and others noted that they learned that research is ‘not always glamorous or particularly exciting’ (respondent #67). exposure also provided clarity for students' career goals. these experiences ‘helped form future goals’ (respondent #271) and provided freedom to ‘explore scientific interests’ (respondent #139). some indicated that ‘research taught [them] that research was not the field for [them]’ (respondent #3) and ‘[their] greatest realization in all of this was that research was not in [their] future’ (respondent #261) while others expressed that research ‘sparked an interest in laboratory sciences’ (respondent #192) and they ‘felt more inclined to pursue research’ (respondent #56). ures helped participants ‘narrow down career choices’ (respondent #196) or transition from a conventional, pre-medical track ‘to continuing with research for a ph.d’ (respondent #106). one participant noted that research encouraged curiosity and helped ‘make the decision to pursue graduate degrees in chemistry’ (respondent #57). these experiences gave students insight to graduate programs and academic careers. for instance, one respondent reported that research, ‘definitely helped prepare me for graduate school both in terms of what to expect and what was expected of me’ (respondent #69) and ‘gave me a close look into what life would be like as a graduate student as well as an academic ph.d. and professor’ (respondent #72). theme 7: positive affective responses most alumni exhibited positive affect when reflecting about their experiences. ures helped participants to discover ‘passion for working in a lab’ (respondent #14) and ‘doing science’ (respondent #32). interestingly, participants felt they were ‘able to discover a new world’ (respondent #92) through participating and expressed enjoyment in engaging in science practice and designing their own experiments. respondents appreciated the challenging environment because they were ‘able to learn more than [they] ever could in a classroom setting’ (respondent #99). research provided ‘eye opening and meaningful experiences’ (respondent #76) for students to grow in their ‘profession and discover true passions within neuroscience’ (respondent #65) one claimed that, ‘i would not be where i am today without my undergraduate research experience’ (respondent #139). discussion higher education institutions increasingly emphasize employment outcomes as a measure of success. to academically support these outcomes, institutions are broadly infusing curricula with generic competencies, skills, or abilities considered important for 21st century workplaces. however, we argue that it is unlikely that the importance of any given competency is equivalent across all careers (finegold & notobartolo, 2010), and a one-size-fits-all model overshadows the importance of situating competencies in specific domains (bakhshi et al, 2017). mismatched priorities between stem training programs and employer expectations may negatively affect graduate employability. the nace career readiness competencies is one of the most widely adopted sets of generic competencies, but no study has directly investigated the relative value of nace competencies to stem careers. our knowledge of competencies employers desire in stem domains is drawn primarily from studies of upper management and human resource managers from large corporations (mcgunagle & zizka, 2018; newell m.j. and ulrich, p.n. (2022). competent and employed: stem alumni perspectives on undergraduate research and nace career-readiness competencies. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 13(1), 79–93. 90 deloitte access economics, 2014), and questions of ‘skills gaps’ are compromised by concerns of reliability and validity (capelli, 2014). far less is understood from the perspectives of those familiar with specific work level requirements. the current study contributes to the literature by assessing the importance of generic competencies from the perceptions of those directly employed in stem careers. furthermore, we demonstrate the utility of ures as a mechanism that allows for the development of competencies valued by stem employers. in this study, we sought to (1) explore nace competencies stem alumni felt were critical for a career in stem, (2) identify nace competencies taught in ures, and (3) understand the impact of ures on students’ personal and professional career readiness. alumni ranked critical thinking as significantly more important for stem employment than non-stem employees. in contrast, non-stem employees ranked oral and written communication significantly more important. while critical thinking and communication were highly ranked for both stem and non-stem employees, the differences indicate that curricular emphases should be adjusted among programs such that graduates are more competitive in their specific domains. we are not suggesting exclusion of certain competencies from stem curricula. rather, we emphasize the implementation of generic competencies in stem in ways that acknowledge their relative importance. for instance, stem courses could be intentionally designed in ways where all competencies reinforce growth in critical thinking. this would ensure that students are well-rounded in various competencies and graduate with a strong skillset in the area that employers value most. employers have historically noted difficulty in recruitment due to deficiencies in general employability skills such as teamwork (confederation of british industry, 2011). thus, we felt it was important to identify competencies that stem alumni learned in ures and demonstrate how ures can advance students’ competency development within stem. alumni selected critical thinking, oral/written communication, work ethic/professionalism, and teamwork/collaboration as the most frequently taught competencies that they learned while participating in ures. these results were also reflected in alumni responses for how ures impacted their personal and professional career readiness. we found that ures equip graduates with these competencies and express how these directly relate to their activities in stem careers. undergraduate research experiences thus touch on primary complaint of employers about regarding ‘skills gaps.’ existing literature reports the benefits associated with participation in ures (lopatto, 2004; russell et al., 2007; seymour, 2004), and our work extends the literature by framing these benefits within the broader context of career competencies. qualitative analysis revealed seven, central themes associated with ures. participants reported specific academic gains in content knowledge and science practice (theme 1). alumni noted ures enabled them to form deep understanding of concepts, the research process, and science techniques. similarly, ures allowed students to develop and refine competencies (theme 2) important to their own personal and professional development. these findings suggest that ures are aligned with skills and abilities necessary for occupational demands arising in the coming decade (bakhshi et al., 2017). additionally, ures provided an environment where students were able to exercise freedom when conducting experiments and enabled them to develop a sense of independence, confidence, and perseverance (theme 4). undergraduate research experiences can help close the large gap in ‘soft skill’ requirements for jobs and the preparedness of recent graduates (hart research associates, 2018). while ures created environments that facilitated academic, personal, and professional growth, our findings suggest that mentorship affected student’s development across the central themes. for example, close relationships with faculty influenced early career success (theme 3) because faculty actively encouraged students to become better scientists and modelled how to be a scientist. the ability of faculty to model how to be a scientist and the research process provided students with insights (theme 6) to the requirements of a research career. these relationships provided support for career decisions through workforce-related advice and letters of recommendation. a recent meta-analysis of youth, workplace, and academic contexts revealed positive effects of mentorship on perceived socialization and career outcomes of mentees newell m.j. and ulrich, p.n. (2022). competent and employed: stem alumni perspectives on undergraduate research and nace career-readiness competencies. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 13(1), 79–93. 91 (eby et al., 2017). these same patterns emerged from responses by ure participants in the current study. socialization is particularly important for groups that have been historically under-represented in stem (estrada et al., 2018), and mentoring support by faculty has significant impacts on intention to pursue stem careers (hernandez et al., 2020). the current study begins to bridge the gap between students’ competency development and employer expectations in a field with restricted job opportunities. we feel that evaluating the relative importance of competencies by referring to those familiar with work level requirements and situating these competencies specifically within stem should reflect positively in graduate employability. based on the benefits of ures highlighted in previous literature and the findings in this study, we recommend expansion of ures because ures offer a competitive advantage to graduates in two respects: (1) ures equip graduates with the competencies that employers seek and (2) ures serve as a proxy for the work experience that employers expect of applicants (prinsley & baranyai, 2015). limitations one limitation of this study includes the manner in which participants ranked nace competencies. ordinal ranking may limit participant ability to communicate perceptions of equivalent value as one respondent noted that it was difficult to rank the competencies as ‘they are all important.’ furthermore, our study cohort comprised only alumni who had participated in ures. while these findings may be applicable across stem students and employment additional studies are necessary to determine if ure participants employed in stem have different perceptions of competencies valued by employers than students who did not participate in ures. conclusions in an era of job uncertainty characterized by a global pandemic and strong competition for careers in some stem disciplines, higher education rightly focuses on graduate employability, and ures have considerable potential promise for meeting this goal. however, rapid adoption of career-readiness competencies by institutions is troublesome as foundational questions remain unanswered: how can career competencies be defined inclusively and reliably? are career outcomes for graduates contingent on general competencies or domain-specific competencies? do studies of stem workers and their direct supervisors reveal more about requisite competencies than studies weighted toward upper management and executives? how do stem workers’ views of competencies change as they gain seniority in their fields? further research is necessary to address these questions. although our study helps identify nace competencies relevant to stem employment, it is only the first step. closing skills gaps that employers persistently observe in stem graduates is a formidable challenge given the variety of stem career paths and gaps between academics and employers. strategic implementation of career readiness competencies should account for different priorities of stakeholders including employers, administrators, faculty, and students. if institutions intend to generate work-ready graduates, future studies of stem competencies must focus recruitment strategies to individuals directly familiar with work-level requirements. results from this study indicate that stem employees prioritize general competencies for their careers differently than their non-stem counterparts. we encourage ongoing reassessment of competencies (akdere et al, 2019) because priorities will change over time (rayner & papakonstantinou, 2015). for instance, the covid19 pandemic has normalized remote work in stem, and communication is increasingly important. furthermore, we found that ures endowed stem students with opportunities to learn the careercompetencies that alumni reported as important for stem jobs. thus, undergraduate research programs should be accordingly prioritized and expanded by institutions as a means of equipping students for successful careers. increasing access to these transformative experiences is a winning strategy for students and institutions as they redefine themselves in a post-pandemic world. newell m.j. and ulrich, p.n. 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(2015). stem crisis or stem surplus? yes and yes. monthly labor review, 2015. https://doi.org/10.21916/mlr.2015.14 editorial in february 2014 universities australia announced an initiative to improve the employability of graduates. at the heart of this initiative was an agreement with business groups to collaborate on vocational training to assist students in participating in work integrated learning (wil). it was expected that wil would include, for example, work placements which earned credit points in university course work, mentoring, volunteer work experience programs, and internships. signatories to the agreement included universities australia, the australian chamber of commerce and industry, and the business council of australia, among others. this was clearly a much needed initiative to develop a shared understanding of the importance of wil and to mitigate some of the issues such as availability of opportunities. twelve months on and the significance of such a collaboration and a commitment to the implementation of strategies to support wil was echoed by the recent analysis, by britain’s quality assurance agency for higher education, of the findings of a review of 200 universities and colleges. reported in the university world news (january 16, 2015) the findings indicate that engagement with employers enables graduates to develop and demonstrate work, and work-place appropriate, skills, knowledge, understandings and expertise. such engagement might include participation by employers in the approval, review and monitoring of courses, in the delivery of the curriculum and by providing opportunities for staff to sustain industry knowledge and experience. while the report is based on uk higher education institutions, its findings have relevance globally and for all institutions concerned about the employability of their graduates. the global employability university ranking published by the international new york times late last year provides an interesting perception of the employability of australian graduates. the ranking, developed following interviews with 4,500 recruiters (100 from australia participated) in 20 different countries provides an overview of today’s best universities in terms of the employability of graduates. this ranking, unlike more prominent rankings, focuses not on academic achievement in terms of research and teaching, but on the working skills of graduates, from a broad range of countries. those interviewed were recruitment managers with at least four years of professional experience and with experience with graduates from countries other than their own. australia had just four universities ranked in the top 150, the first coming in at number 23. however when the recruiters were asked, based on their own experience, which of the foreign countries produce the most employable graduates, australia was ranked 8th. clearly initiatives which can build on and enhance this reputation will enable australian graduates to be competitive globally. with more and more attention on the value of a university education as preparation for life and work, we look forward to exploring relevant strategies, issues and debate through this year’s papers and on behalf of our editorial committee encourage your participation, through this journal, in the scholarship of learning and teaching for effective graduate employability. beverley oliver (editor) beatrice tucker (deputy editor) oliver, b. & tucker, b. (2015). editorial. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 6(1) 1 rowland, s., & blundell, d. (2021). discipline predicts work integrated learning (wil) practice in science courses. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(2), 222–259. 222 the journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability issn: 1838-3815 (online) journal homepage: https://ojs.deakin.edu.au/index.php/jtlge/ discipline predicts work integrated learning (wil) practice in science courses susan rowland1 and daniel blundell2 corresponding author: susan rowland (s.rowland1@uq.edu.au) 1 professor, faculty of science and school of chemistry and molecular biosciences, the university of queensland, st lucia, qld, australia. 2senior data analyst, faculty of science, the university of queensland, st lucia, qld, australia abstract australian mathematics and science students have low participation in wil, posing implications for student employability. to better understand this problem, an examination of the industry-placement and coursework-incorporated wil offered across the faculty of science at a large research-intensive university was undertaken. the aim of the study was to provide an evidenced discussion of the types and amounts of wil that different disciplines offer their students. a matrix was used to measure the inclusion of wil activities in 265 courses (units of study) across all undergraduate programs in a faculty of science. the results, which show comparisons between disciplines, year levels, and class sizes, indicate that a high proportion of courses incorporate wil, but that some disciplines are significantly more likely to incorporate wil than others. this study provides important insights into how science students in different disciplines and in different levels of their degree are prepared for the workplace. in considering how to address graduate employability through integrating wil in university stem coursework, this study provides evidence-based justification to initiate reflection about pedagogy. keywords: science curriculum, employability, workintegrated learning, workplace learning introduction like universities in many countries, australian universities are under pressure to demonstrate their value to students and society. a series of government policy reforms around university funding and students’ financial contributions have commodified enrolments and student satisfaction (loomes, owens, & mccarthy, 2019; tehan, 2019; wellings et al., 2019). these ‘vectors of change’ (krause, 2020) have increased the pressure on universities to improve their students’ satisfaction with their educational investment. an important contributor to student satisfaction is the employment rate of graduates (the social research centre, 2018), an area of particular concern for universities that offer science programs. in australia, science graduates take a disproportionately long time to find full-time work (graduate careers australia, 2015; norton & cakitaki, 2016). despite this, over 30% of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (stem) employers have difficulty recruiting appropriately-qualified https://ojs.deakin.edu.au/index.php/jtlge/ mailto:s.rowland1@uq.edu.au rowland, s., & blundell, d. (2021). discipline predicts work integrated learning (wil) practice in science courses. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(2), 222–259. 223 stem graduates (deloitte access economics, 2014). a key contributor to this problem is the lack of transferable skills, workplace awareness, and workplace experience on the part of science graduates (aig, 2016). universities respond to this need in science (and other disciplines) by including work integrated learning (wil) in the curriculum (universities australia, 2017). patrick et al. (2008) describe wil as approaches and strategies that integrate theory with the practice of work within a purposefully designed curriculum (p. 9). there is debate, however, as to what ‘counts’ as wil. it is commonly accepted that wil includes field-work, job shadowing, and internships (orrell, 2011), either in the workplace or on campus in a way that emulates key aspects of the workplace (beard & wilson, 2006, p. 205). these important activities (which are termed ‘traditional’ wil in this study) are frequently work proximal and can also provide highly-authentic experiences of the workplace (kaider, hains-wesson, & young, 2017; oliver, 2015). they are not, however, always accessible to students. there are strong arguments for using a broader conception of wil for science students – one that sits outside the placement/internship model. non-placement wil allows more students to participate, reduces the impost on industry, and can adapt to the constraints imposed by covid19. universities are working in this space and are increasingly enacting wil through new models that include curricular and co-curricular micro-placements, online industry interactions, hackathons and competitions, and consulting opportunities (kay et al., 2019). as the nature of work itself changes to become more flexible, more online, and more ‘gig’constructed, we are also now changing our understanding of the workplace. modern workers often operate in an online, but hyper-connected space in which they support rapid-fire, interdisciplinary, team-built projects. indeed, the idea of a fixed ‘workplace’ is disappearing for many workers. wil practice needs to change, and is changing, to reflect these realities (dean & campbell, 2020; winchester-seeto & piggott, 2020). students’ interaction with industry should also not be limited by discipline. most science graduates find long-term work in non-science fields (office of the chief scientist, 2020). thus, familiarity with non-science workplaces, work practices, and work cultures is both desirable and appropriate for science graduates as they develop their employability (small, shacklock, & marchant, 2018 and references therein; rowland, gannaway, pedwell, et al., 2020). the most recent meta-analysis of australian university wil in science (edwards, perkins, pearce, & hong, 2015) showed that placements are not the only way that science students experience wil. universities deliver science wil through integrating theory with the practice of work, engaging with industry and community partners, using planned authentic activities, and making purposeful links between work, the curriculum and assessment. this activity happens both on and off campus using simulations, projects, placements, and other forms of interaction with employers. edwards et al. used their study to develop a rubric that characterizes these overt wil activities and to highlight other types of wil that may not fit within the ‘traditional’ wil envelope. their rubric examines all possible types of wil, from those ‘traditional’ practices that are highly authentic and work proximal, to those that rely solely on information provision (kaider et al., 2017; oliver, 2015). some of these low-authenticity, work-distant wil practices could also be classed as employability or career-learning pedagogies. for the purposes of this study, and according to the work of edwards et al., kaider et al., and oliver, all these activities are classed as wil. a modified version of this tool, the western wil rubric, has recently been used to examine the distribution and types of wil offered in science across an entire university (jones, millar, & chuck, 2019). importantly, this rubric identifies ‘hidden’ course-based wil – wil activities that are either not assessed and/or not explicitly identified to the university or to students (jones et al., 2019, p. 352). rowland, s., & blundell, d. (2021). discipline predicts work integrated learning (wil) practice in science courses. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(2), 222–259. 224 although these activities are ‘hidden’ elements of the curriculum, they are still important. the inclusion of these activities in the curriculum helps students link their education to their futures. by including them, educators signal that the material being taught is relevant to the real world and has employability value to students. anecdotal evidence suggests there are differences in the ways science disciplines prepare their students for the workplace, but we have little empirical evidence about the distribution of wil, particularly at the science discipline level. jones et al. (2019) showed some evidence of year-level and discipline-dependent differences in the wil offered at one university. radloff and coates (2010) showed that the natural and physical sciences appear to be the least likely discipline group to offer placement and project wil to students. edwards et al. (2015) showed that only one in seven students enrolled in natural and physical sciences programs does an industry-based project, while the number that completes an industry placement or internship is ‘almost negligible’ (p. 52). most recently, universities australia (2017) collected data from all australian universities to quantitate wil activity that demonstrates ‘a clear link to a workplace or employer’. the data showed that, when wil is offered in the form of placements, projects, fieldwork, and simulations, over 55% of students in agriculture, environmental and related studies experience wil. in contrast, only 27% of students studying natural and physical sciences get wil exposure. most of the work cited above used only two broad categories of science discipline – ‘agriculture, environmental and related studies’ and ‘natural and physical sciences’. while the data paint a big picture, they do not allow us to look closely at differences in science wil offerings at the level of specific discipline, class size, or undergraduate year. a more detailed understanding of wil-related practice and its influencing factors has ramifications that will help us consider how science students in different disciplines and at different levels of their degree are prepared for the workplace. this study will help provide this understanding and an evidence base for wil-related discussions. there are two aims central to this study. the first is to develop a picture of the incidence and types of wil offered in all of the faculty of science courses at a large research-intensive university (throughout this paper the term ‘course’ is used to refer to a single unit of study or subject). in particular, this study uses discipline lens to examine whether there is a difference in the amount, type, and intent of wil offered to the students. this leads to the second aim, which is to inform the conversation about wil in science more broadly by developing and understanding of what types of wil are offered in science curricula. this knowledge will broaden the perspectives of what a community of science academics considers to be wil. it will also help to conceptualise how wil can be delivered in all science courses, rather than in the select few that offer placements and projects. the following questions are addressed in this paper: 1. to what extent are wil activities occurring in faculty of science courses in the university of queensland (uq)? 2. what does this wil look like, in terms of intent and pedagogy? 3. how do the activities and objectives of work integrated learning differ within faculty of science courses by class size, year level, and discipline? methodology context the study was conducted at uq, a large, public, australian, research-intensive university. the faculty of science includes six multidisciplinary schools (departments): agriculture and food science (safs); biological science (sbs); chemistry and molecular biosciences (scmb), earth and environmental rowland, s., & blundell, d. (2021). discipline predicts work integrated learning (wil) practice in science courses. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(2), 222–259. 225 science (sees); mathematics and physics (smp); and veterinary science (svs). the school of biomedical science (sbms in the faculty of medicine) also offers courses for faculty of science students. in this study, the term ‘faculty of science’ refers to the faculty, its six schools, and sbms. the faculty of science directly enrolls over 5,600 undergraduate students in 16 degree programs at two campuses. the city-based campus houses sbs, scmb, sees, smp, and sbms programs. the rural campus houses the safs and svs programs. this study addresses wil in all undergraduate programs at both campuses. ethics the uq human research ethics committee granted approval for this study (# 2017000561). participants and sample the sample size and participants were limited to course offerings within the uq faculty of science. the selected courses satisfy all of the following criteria: 1. courses for undergraduate students offered at uq through a faculty of science school from july 2016 through july 2017. 2. courses offered for students who are progressing in a faculty of science-controlled program (as opposed to ‘service’ courses for students completing a non-science program). 3. where a course was offered in duplicate or triplicate (i.e., in multiple semesters each year), the semester offering with the largest enrolment was chosen. a ‘course’ is a single unit of study (also known as a unit, a subject, or a paper at other universities). multiple courses in combination comprise a degree or diploma program. of the 656 courses available in the study period, 393 satisfied the selection criteria. the academic staff member coordinating each course was asked to complete the survey. survey instrument the western wil rubric (jones et al., 2019) was used to collect data. the survey was tested with three academic staff from the uq institute for teaching and learning innovation (itali) and two academic staff from the faculty of science, after which minor modifications were made to the survey to clarify terms for use in the local context. the survey is based on the premise that there can be up to six objectives for delivering wil in a course (table 1), and that these can be achieved by utilizing up to five categories of activity (table 2). each objective and activity category can be enacted through one or more specific pedagogies (see appendix 4, table s1), of which there are 55 (note each pedagogy has an assigned code). each pedagogy in table s1 was addressed with one question in the survey (see appendix 1). respondents were asked whether or not the pedagogy happens in their course and a ‘yes/no’ response was solicited. all pedagogies were considered to be of equal value in the final survey score calculation. each course gained a score from 0 to 55, reflecting the number of ‘yes’ answers. higher scores indicate more wil pedagogies occur in the course. rowland, s., & blundell, d. (2021). discipline predicts work integrated learning (wil) practice in science courses. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(2), 222–259. 226 table 1: the possible objectives of delivering wil in courses (edwards et al., 2015) objective 1 to develop curriculum linked stem workplace/occupation specific skills and knowledge, and be able to adapt and apply them objective 2 to build an understanding of the nature of industry and the roles of different occupations as they relate to industry objective 3 to facilitate self-understanding objective 4 to train professionals to enter a specific stem industry in accordance with the standards of a defined industry objective 5 to develop employability and contextualised language, literacy and numeracy skills objective 6 to develop career management skills table 2: the activity groups of educators who deliver wil (edwards et al., 2015) code activity t ‘show & tell’ in-classroom s ‘sell’ in-classroom e ‘engage’ in-classroom p ‘practice’ in-classroom oc ‘out-of-classroom’ the instrument has limitations. many questions are double-barreled (e.g., one asks if a particular activity involves ‘reflection and debriefing’); these questions may elicit negative responses if only one of the pedagogies is used. this may lead to under-reporting of wil activity. the survey does not ask how frequently each pedagogy occurs in the course. the instrument does not make any attempt to quantitate the impact of the pedagogies on students, and this aspect of teaching and learning is outside the scope of this study. data collection for courses in semester 2, 2016, summer semester (2016-2017), and semester 1 (2017) data collection was initiated by emailing instructors who coordinated in-sample courses and inviting them to complete the online survey. in the six months after the start of data collection (after the beginning of each semester) three reminder emails were sent to course coordinators. nonparticipating coordinators were telephoned, with an offer to help them complete the survey. a completed or partially completed set of answers for a course was counted as a valid response. of a total 393 courses, 265 responded (67% response rate, which is relatively high for an online survey (nulty, 2008)). for the analysis, courses were classified by discipline into seven clusters: 1. agricultural and food sciences (afs); 2. biological and marine sciences (bim); 3. biomedical science (biom); 4. chemistry and molecular biosciences (cmbs); 5. earth and environmental sciences (ees); rowland, s., & blundell, d. (2021). discipline predicts work integrated learning (wil) practice in science courses. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(2), 222–259. 227 6. mathematics and physical sciences (mps); and 7. veterinary science (vets). details of course assignment to clusters are given in appendix 2. data analysis data analysis was performed using three approaches: 1) exploratory data analysis; 2) linear regression; and 3) pairwise regression. details of investigations around incomplete and missing data, response bias, and approaches to regression are given in appendix 2. results the discussion of the results is framed around the research questions which are: rq1: to what extent are wil activities occurring in faculty of science courses at uq? rq2: what does this wil look like, in terms of intent and pedagogy? rq3: how do the activities and objectives of work integrated learning differ within faculty of science courses by class size, year level, and discipline? to address the research questions, descriptive statistics were calculated for the course wil scores. these were used to explore: (i) wil scores (total and individual activities) by category (discipline, year level and class size); and (ii) wil adoption rates overall and by activities. a high proportion of courses incorporate some type of wil overall, the adoption rate for wil was very high (table 3). of the 265 courses responding, 244 (92%) adopted one or more of the 55 wil pedagogies. only 21 courses (8%) had a zero wil score. there was an adoption rate of at least 83% for each activity, except for the out-of-classroom activity category, which was a clear outlier (74 courses, 28% adoption). table 3: the percentage of courses adopting wil by activity group activity group adoption rate (%) show & tell 87 sell 83 engage 88 practice 85 out-of-classroom 28 wil score total 92 in terms of activities, the following scores were attained in order: show & tell (m = 4.58 pedagogies per course, sd = 3.05 pedagogies per course), practice (m = 3.93, sd = 2.93), engage (m = 3.76, sd = 2.58), sell (m = 2.54, sd = 1.91) and out-of-classroom (m = 0.90, sd = 2.41). on average, courses attained a wil score of 15.7 (sd = 10.6, n = 265). thus, on average, each course adopted 15 to 16 of the 55 wil pedagogies. the five most-commonly-used pedagogies were: o1t2 – explicit examples in lectures & course notes of skills relating to work (195 instances); rowland, s., & blundell, d. (2021). discipline predicts work integrated learning (wil) practice in science courses. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(2), 222–259. 228 o1s1 – explicit focus on why concepts, skills & information are important to work & how they may be applied during work (189 instances); o1e2 – inquiry-based learning with explicit activities linking skills & knowledge to work (173 instances); o4t2 – lecturer shares their own industry experience (157 instances); and o5t1 – recognition & use of professional behaviours & artefacts (150 instances). these results show that, overall, most courses in the sample (92%) adopted some form of wil, and that some pedagogies were much more commonly used than others. it was most common in courses to explain how and why the skills learned in the course related to work. inquiry-based learning with links to work was also very common. out-of-classroom wil, where the students have direct access to a non-campus learning experience, was the least frequent type of wil activity. these results address rq1 and rq2. the extent and type of wil differs by discipline after establishing that some types of wil are more common than others, the types and extent of wil offered by each discipline were examined (see appendix 4, table s2). vets has the highest total wil score (figure 1a) and this discipline stands out nominally from the other disciplines for all activities. the next highest disciplines nominally were ees and afs. the lowest scoring discipline overall, and in each activity, was mps (figure 1a–e). the vets total wil score was significantly higher than all disciplines except ees. the ees total wil score was similar to the afs score, and was significantly higher than scores for bim, cmbs, and mps (see figure 1a). this trend was seen for all wil activity types, other than out-of-classroom. vets is the only discipline with a relatively high score for out-of-classroom activity, but due to small course counts the 95% confidence interval is wide and it shows overlap with the lower scores in the other disciplines (figure 1f). findings of importance are:  vets had the highest show & tell, sell, practice, and engage wil scores. in each case the vets score was significantly higher than the scores for bim, biom, cmbs, and mps.  ees had significantly higher scores than the biom, cmbs, and mps for the show & tell, sell, practice, and engage categories (figure 1b–e).  afs scores for sell were significantly higher than biom, cmbs, and mps (figure 1c). afs also gained significantly higher show & tell scores than bim, cmbs, and mps (figure 1b). these results show that there are differences between the wil offerings for students. they address rq2 and rq3. rowland, s., & blundell, d. (2021). discipline predicts work integrated learning (wil) practice in science courses. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(2), 222–259. 229 0 10 20 30 veterinary science mat hematics and physical sciences earth and environmental sciences chemistry and molecular biosciences biomedical science biological and marine sciences agricultural and food sciences wil score wil total(a) 0 2 4 6 8 10 veterinary science mat hematics and physical sciences earth and environmental sciences chemistry and molecular biosciences biomedical science biological and marine sciences agricultural and food sciences score show & tell(b) 0 1 2 3 4 5 veterinary science mat hematics and physical sciences earth and environmental sciences chemistry and molecular biosciences biomedical science biological and marine sciences agricultural and food sciences score sell(c) 0 2 4 6 8 veterinary science mat hematics and physical sciences earth and environmental sciences chemistry and molecular biosciences biomedical science biological and marine sciences agricultural and food sciences score practice(e) 0 2 4 6 8 veterinary science mat hematics and physical sciences earth and environmental sciences chemistry and molecular biosciences biomedical science biological and marine sciences agricultural and food sciences score engage(d) 0 1 2 3 4 veterinary science mat hematics and physical sciences earth and environmental sciences chemistry and molecular biosciences biomedical science biological and marine sciences agricultural and food sciences score out-of-classroom(f) figure 1: the mean and error margin of wil scores (a-f): wil total and activities by discipline. there is a pattern in the objective use that reflects a content-focused curriculum the analysis examined which objectives (table 1) were most and least frequently used (figure 2). courses most frequently included practices that fit objective 1 (1,182 uses), while objectives 2, 4, and 5 were moderately used (740, 888, and 766 uses respectively). the least frequently used practices fell into objective 3 (423 uses) and objective 6 (153 uses). objective 6 activities were notably absent in most courses. these results address rq2. rowland, s., & blundell, d. (2021). discipline predicts work integrated learning (wil) practice in science courses. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(2), 222–259. 230 figure 2: the distribution of aggregated wil activity by discipline. objectives and activities are as shown in tables 1 and 2. the pedagogy group code refers to the table s1 codes for each pedagogy. the activity codes are: show & tell (t), sell (s), engage (e), practice (p), and out-of-classroom (oc). the scores shown are aggregates. for example, the score of 119 for the first row in the agriculture and food science column is an aggregate for all of the objective 1 show & tell pedagogy uses in all of the agriculture and food science courses. rowland, s., & blundell, d. (2021). discipline predicts work integrated learning (wil) practice in science courses. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(2), 222–259. 231 discipline is a predictor of wil activities a multiple linear regression was used to examine how wil scores vary by class size, year level, and discipline. this analysis determines the relative contributions of the different parameters simultaneously (theobald & freeman, 2014). the research question defines three predictor variables: discipline, year level (both categorical variables) and class size (a continuous variable). the independence of the independent variables was tested using (i) a chi-square test between the categorical variables (discipline and year level) and (ii) an analysis of variance test between each of the categorical variables and the continuous class size variable. there is evidence of strong correlations between all the variables (see appendix 4, table s3), with extremely significant correlations (adjusted p value < 10-4) between discipline and class size and year level. therefore, class size and year were discounted as independent variables, leaving discipline the predictor variable for the analysis. a multiple linear regression was used to test whether course discipline has a significant effect on the wil score. the results (table s4) show multiple variables that have significant contributions (asterisked). the null hypothesis is that discipline does not contribute to any of the wil activity scores. in table s4 (see appendix 4), however, 14 of the regression coefficients have values significantly different from zero, so the null hypothesis is rejected. the predictor variables with significant (positive) contributions according to the model are:  courses within afs, bim, ees, and vets have higher contributions to engage;  courses within afs, ees, and vets have higher contributions to show & tell, sell, and practice; and  courses within vets have higher contributions to out-of-classroom. these results are consistent with the comparisons of average wil scores (figure 1) and show, again, that there are differences between the amount and type of wil offering for students in different disciplines. the results address rq2 and rq3. pairwise regression reveals which disciplines are most similar in their approaches to wil figure 2 shows the percentage distribution of wil activities within each discipline including the wil scores for each activity group. to examine which disciplines were most similar in their pedagogies, pairwise regression was conducted. figure 3 shows the pairwise regression as a scatter plot matrix (‘pairs plot’) of each discipline area correlated with every other discipline area. overall, there are strong (r2 > 0.5) and significant (p < 0.05) correlations between each pair of disciplines. some correlations are weaker than others, but overall, there is general consistency between disciplines in the distribution of wil activity scores. the vets and mps course groups were the least similar (r2 = 0.55) while the most similar pair are afs and ess (r2 = 0.91). the similarities seen in the pairwise regression results are consistent with the wil score results (figure 1). these results address rq3. rowland, s., & blundell, d. (2021). discipline predicts work integrated learning (wil) practice in science courses. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(2), 222–259. 232 figure 3: a scatterplot matrix of discipline areas by pedagogy score. the diagonal panels in the plot show the discipline area label and a box plot of the distribution of the pedagogy scores for the discipline area. the upper right panel shows the pearson’s r squared statistic for each pair of correlations between disciplines, and the lower left shows the scatter plot for each correlation, along with the linear regression line of best fit. discussion the first aim of this study was to develop a picture of the wil offerings in a faculty of science at a large research-focused public university. it is now evident which disciplines offer wil more frequently, and which offer significantly fewer wil experiences. discipline has a strong impact on teaching (becher & trowler, 2001; mårtensson, roxå, & stensaker, 2012), and academics’ teaching practices are most strongly influenced by their close academic peers (handelsman et al., 2004; da silva et al., 2009). given the breadth of disciplinary teaching in the faculty and the strongly school-based culture that exists, it was expected that disciplinary differences in wil practice would be found. the data reveal significant disciplinary differences in the rowland, s., & blundell, d. (2021). discipline predicts work integrated learning (wil) practice in science courses. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(2), 222–259. 233 amount of wil offered and the regression analysis shows discipline is a clear predictor of wil practice. although published reports (radloff &coates, 2010; edwards et al., 2015; universities australia, 2017) indicate that students in some disciplines are offered more placement and project wil, this is the first time that offerings of all types of wil have been examined and linked to scientific discipline. this study shows that some disciplines offer more wil, overall, than others. the vets, afs, and ees disciplines have very high average wil scores, and afs and ees have the most similar pedagogical approach to wil. other disciplines (cmbs, bim, biom, and mbs) have lower scores in overall wil, and in multiple activity groups for wil pedagogies. maths and physics (mps) courses have the lowest overall average wil score, the lowest average score for each wil activity group, and the highest proportion of courses with a zero wil score. why do some disciplines offer more wil than others? this question has been addressed with respect to placement-based wil. in science, many industry connections that generate wil placements are also vehicles for research collaborations, and academic staff often see industry connections as a key ‘incentive’ for being involved in wil activities (edwards et al., 2015, p. 70). regional universities also find it relatively easy to place science students with industry because of their applied approach to science curriculum; this contrasts with metropolitan universities which tend to privilege theory and research in the curriculum (edwards et al., 2015, p. 70). these ideas fit with the disciplinary differences seen in industry-engaged wil offerings. vets, afs, and ees offered more placement wil than the other disciplines. these three disciplines tend to have a more applied approach to their curriculum, and more of the vets and afs courses are offered at our faculty’s regional campus, where research collaborations with local industry groups are common. in contrast, the other disciplines (mps, cmbs, biom, and bim) are offered at the uq city campus. maths, physics, biochemistry and chemistry fall into the ‘hard pure’ (becher, 1994) science disciplines, and the academics in these fields are more likely to be theoretical or basic researchers. hence, their work is likely less amenable to payoff from collaboration with non-university partners who could also interact with students. another reason for low wil inclusion in courses may be staff perceptions of the purpose of their teaching and their disciplinary endeavours. edwards et al. (2015) noted that many science academics felt ‘general ambivalence’ towards wil development. they suggested some academic staff lack […] any real world experience in their field, which meant expansion into the real world was likely considered too risky (p. 79). there is another possibility, however. one could argue that many academics see their disciplinary material as valuable in an abstract sense and as a vehicle for thinking and research (as opposed to primarily a vehicle for gaining work). some students may do this too; they may not be asking for explanations of how their learning fits with the world of work. this lack of interest in the practical aspects of gaining employment (both from staff and students) may help explain why there is less wil overall in some disciplines. in australia, the graduate outcomes survey (social research centre, 2018) asks students to report their full-time employment status four months after completing their degree. australian veterinary science graduates report full-time employment rates of 81.4%/84.7% (for 2017/2018 respectively), agriculture and environmental studies graduates report 66.3%/68.3%, and science and mathematics graduates report 59%/64.6%. it is interesting to compare these broad-brush results with the wil results obtained for the disciplines in this study. vets, afs, and ees all offer high amounts wil, while the other sciences, and mps offer less wil in their courses. this does not prove causality or a direct relationship between the inclusion of wil and graduate employment. it may be, however, that the culture of wil provision (and of normalizing the idea of working in a professional role after graduation) encourages students in veterinary, agriculture, and environmental science programs to seek employment straight out of their undergraduate degree. in rowland, s., & blundell, d. (2021). discipline predicts work integrated learning (wil) practice in science courses. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(2), 222–259. 234 contrast, it is also possible that science and mathematics students (who get less wil) are less able to see a future in the workforce and, as a result, they pursue further study or engage in part-time employment that is not directly related to their degree. this idea is consistent with sin, reid, and jones’s (2012) assertion that students who develop a rich understanding of their professional role as an undergraduate will transition more easily to the workforce. although the volume of wil differs from one discipline to another, the intent and type of wil offered in courses studied is similar. the pairwise regression (figure 3) shows strong and significant correlations between pedagogy use for each discipline, and there is no obvious discipline-related skew visible when the objective and activity scores are aligned (figure 2). all the disciplines most frequently used pedagogies from objective 1 (to develop [students’] curriculum linked stem workplace and occupation specific skills and knowledge, and be able to adapt and apply them). in all disciplines, pedagogies from objectives 3 and 6 (to facilitate [students’] self-understanding) and (to develop [students’] career management skills) were used with low frequency. objectives 3 and 6 both relate to reflective activities that are not science signature pedagogies (shulman, 2005). it is possible they are infrequently used because they fit uneasily with the objective, quantitative assessment approach (yeo & boman, 2019) used in ‘hard pure’ (becher, 1994) science courses. it is also possible that the staff in the faculty do not focus on developing students’ career management skills because they, themselves, are successful academics who have little experience managing a non-university career. the most-commonly-used wil pedagogies across all the courses (o1t2; o1s1; o1e2; o4t2; o5t1) focus on explicating the link between the course experience and work; teacher modeling and explanation of work practices; or helping students use and recognise professional behaviours and artefacts. thus, across the courses examined in this study, there is purposeful linkage of curriculum to work and also to professional, discipline-authentic practice that reflects what scientists ‘do’ (rowland, pedwell. lawrie et al., 2016). interestingly, this linkage is most often enacted through show & tell pedagogies, which involve telling students about how the curriculum […] relates to the workplace (edwards et al., 2015, p. 53). although show & tell pedagogies are easy to implement, ‘telling’ does not engage students in work-related reflection or help them generate new ways of knowing, within and through practice (orrell, 2011, p. 8). despite this limitation, the results do indicate that faculty members are interested in relating courses to students’ employment pathways, and that they do this frequently. since this study was done in a faculty that was not supporting wil through a central mechanism, the results are heartening. the second aim was to inform the conversation about wil in science more broadly. in particular, the focus was on understanding the intent and type of wil incorporated in curricula. as noted earlier, literature reports (radloff & coates, 2010; edwards et al., 2015; universities australia, 2017) suggest that students in some science disciplines get poor exposure to placement and internship wil. it is tempting to extrapolate from these data to envisage science wil as a pedagogical wasteland, and this study questioned whether this is truly the case. the data, however, paint a picture of wil practice that is multifaceted, and richly considerate of helping students understand how their university education will link to employment. consistent with published reports, the results show a low proportion of out-of-classroom wil (28% of courses). when all potential pedagogies are considered, however, almost all the responding courses in the study (92%) contained some form of wil; on average, each course uses 15 to 16 wil pedagogies. this was a surprising high number of pedagogies used per course and also a high number of courses that incorporated wil. the teaching approaches in these courses provide a way to offer wil to students in large classes, in disciplines where it may be difficult to source industry placements, and in cohorts where the future careers of the students are unclear (rowland et al., 2020). rowland, s., & blundell, d. (2021). discipline predicts work integrated learning (wil) practice in science courses. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(2), 222–259. 235 there are limitations to this study. for several reasons, wil in courses may be underor misreported. some instructors did not open the survey link. when telephoned to check on their response intentions, some reported their course had ‘no wil’, based on their understanding of wil. these courses were counted as non-responses, but they may have contained some wil. in addition, only course coordinators were invited to participate, but most courses are team-taught. course coordinators can be incompletely aware of the activities, objectives, and pedagogies (table s1) used in their courses. as noted earlier, the double-barrelled questions in the survey may also cause underreporting of wil. coordinators of 393 courses were asked for information; 265 responded, 21 reported no wil, but 128 courses were silent. thus, it can be said that 62% of the courses examined had some form of wil, while 38% of courses have no, or unknown amounts of, wil. implications for practice and future research modern universities have increasingly valued research over teaching (anderson et al., 2011; blakey, khachikian, & lemus, 2017) and wil, described as the poor cousin of teaching (edwards et al., 2015, p. 89) has occupied the bottom rung of the value ladder. this lack of recognition has stunted wil as a signature pedagogy in science, but the disturbing employment statistics for some science graduates suggests a need to re-think the approach to helping students build their sense of themselves as professionals after graduation. krause (2020) notes the economic and policy imperative to prepare employable graduates has had a noteworthy impact on shaping undergraduate curricula internationally (p. 7). in science education, it is now time for this concern to translate into course-based exposure to employers, the science workplace, and professional practice development. this study shows that the courses in the faculty of science incorporate a diverse set of approaches to wil, but it has also identified disciplines in which to prioritize future wil development. in the faculty of science, veterinary science offers high amounts of wil in all its forms. the disciplines of agriculture and food science and earth and environmental science use similar pedagogical approaches to deliver their rich wil offerings. there is space, however, to increase all forms of wil provision for students in the disciplines of mathematics and physics, chemistry and molecular biosciences, biology and marine science, and biomedical sciences. there is also space to harness the frequently-used pedagogies in the faculty, and develop them into educational activities and assessments that are more likely to foster active student learning about work. these frequently-used pedagogies are mostly in-class activities, but how effective is in-classroom wil in helping students learn about the world of work? a full answer to this question is beyond the scope of this paper (and indeed, the answer is unclear and is likely to be different based on discipline, context, and the way in-classroom wil is enacted). there are several frameworks for assessing the quality of wil and wil assessment (e.g., smith, 2012; oliver, 2015; kaider et al., 2017; campbell et al., 2019). applying these to the in-classroom wil pedagogies may help educators make decisions about which in-classroom wil pedagogies to prioritise for their context. one way to build value in all types of wil is to increase the amount of reflection that students do. objective 3 (to facilitate self-understanding) was minimally used in the courses studied, but there is no reason why it cannot be included in all science curricula. students have different innate capacities to reflect on their employability development (scott & willison, 2021), although it is known that reflection creates and develops practitioners capable of demonstrating their progression towards learning outcomes and required standards (helyer, 2015, p. 15). it is not difficult to change a curriculum to (i) introduce a learning outcome around workpreparedness and (ii) require students reflect on how the curriculum has helped them meet this rowland, s., & blundell, d. (2021). discipline predicts work integrated learning (wil) practice in science courses. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(2), 222–259. 236 learning outcome. this practice yields two positives. it elevates ‘hidden’ wil to visible wil. it also encourages students to recognise the wil and the learning they build as a result. over the past three years this has been done in the science courses at uq, and important student learning has been observed as a result. this project will be reported separately. this study provides the first pan-faculty evidence of systematic differences in wil provision and workplace preparation for students in different disciplines of science. in all, the results suggest that undergraduate university students from different disciplines are likely to have different levels of exposure to workplace practices, relevant professionals, and discussions of how their curriculum is relevant to their future workplace. no claims are made around whether this wil exposure changes students’ employability, but the results serve as a catalyst for reflexive examination of science curricula and transformational change in classroom pedagogical practice around preparing students for work. acknowledgments we thank the academic staff in the uq faculty of science for their generosity as they answered the survey. thanks are also due to rhianna pedwell and stephanie beames, who both assisted in data collection. this work was funded by a uq teaching and learning fellowship, and the support of the university is appreciated. references aig (2016). workforce development needs survey report. australian industry group. https://www.aigroup.com.au anderson, w.a., banerjee, u., drennan, c.l., elgin, s.c.r., epstein, i.r., handelsman, j., hatfull, g.f., losick, r., o’dowd, d.k., olivera, b.m., strobel, s.a., walker, g.c., & warner, i.m. 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(2019). performance-based funding for the commonwealth grant scheme. report for the minister for education – june 2019. commonwealth of australia. https://bit.ly/321rgzl winchester-seeto, t., & piggott, l. (2020) ‘workplace’ or workforce: what are we preparing students for? journal of university teaching and learning practice, 17(4) 2020. online at https://ro.uow.edu.au/jutlp/vol17/iss4/11 yeo, m., & boman, j. (2019). disciplinary approaches to assessment. journal of further and higher education, 43(4), 482–493. doi:10.1080/0309877x.2017.1367371 https://bit.ly/321rgzl https://doi/ rowland, s., & blundell, d. (2021). discipline predicts work integrated learning (wil) practice in science courses. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(2), 222–259. 239 appendix 1 questions from the survey with objectives and practices coded each answer has a ‘yes’/’no’ response. there are 55 questions. a course if given a score from 0 to 55 by totalling the ‘yes’ answers. objective 1 questions in your course you might: (i) aim to develop students' curriculum-linked stem workplace or occupation-specific skills and knowledge and (ii) provide students with opportunities to adapt and apply these skills and understandings. examples of ways you might do this are shown below. please select all the activities that are part of your course (yes/no radio buttons provided). q 1. the curriculum includes workplace specific examples and guest lecturers who articulate the link between curriculum and industry (t) q 2. students are given explicit examples in lectures and course notes of how the skills they are developing relate to the workplace (t) q 3. students go on observational field trips to workplaces (t) q 4. there is an explicit focus on why concepts, skills and information in the course are important to the workplace and how they may be applied in the workplace (s) q 5. students go on field trips that are structured around directed activities these focus on how skills and knowledge apply to the workplace/occupation (e) q 6. students engage in inquiry based learning with explicit activities that link skills and knowledge to the workplace/occupation (e) q 7. students complete self-directed work-related case studies and scenarios with problems to solve using skills and knowledge obtained in the course (p) q 8. students complete simulations, where they practice work-relevant skills (p) q 9. workplaces or industry partners provide real world issues as the stimuli for student projects which are managed, completed and assessed internally (p) q 10. students work as active members of university-based teams to solve workplace problems including reflection and debriefing (placement outside the university) (o) q 11. students complete industry or work placement-based projects where topic-specific skills and professional knowledge are applied and linked to the curriculum (placement outside of the university) (o) objective 2 questions in your course, you might aim to build your students' understanding of: (i) the nature of industry, and (ii) the roles of different occupations as they relate to industry. examples of ways you might do this are shown below. please select all the activities that are part of your course (yes/no radio buttons provided). rowland, s., & blundell, d. (2021). discipline predicts work integrated learning (wil) practice in science courses. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(2), 222–259. 240 q 12. industry guests, professional associations, and academics talk about industry, their occupation and responsibilities within that industry (t) q 13. there is discussion of professional expectations, ethics and protocols within the industry (t) q 14. specific graduate destinations are promoted to students (s) q 15. students participate in field trips with explicit reflection on employer expectations about professional practice (e) q 16. students reflect on what it means to work as a graduate/professional in a particular industry including academia (e) q 17. students complete self-directed case studies/scenarios using skills sets and knowledge across platforms involving different occupations in the workplace (p) q 18. students complete simulations of complex problems requiring multiple and nested skills for solutions (p) q 19. selected students attend short term placements at the university, sector community or government level (placement outside the university) (o) objective 3 questions in your course, you might aim to facilitate your students' self-understanding. examples of ways you might do this are shown below. please select all the activities that are part of your course (yes/no radio buttons provided). q 20. students observe reflective practice in action by professionals (t) q 21. the curriculum includes explanations of why reflective practice is critical for developing personal and professional understanding and is the basis of reflective learning by professionals (s) q 22. the curriculum includes explicit exercises to teach and promote deep reflection (e) q 23. there are opportunities for self-reflective practices and debrief on process (p) q 24. there are opportunities for self-reflective practices and debrief on process by external professionals (placement outside the university) (o) objective 4 questions in your course, you might aim to train your students as professionals to enter a specific stem industry, with this training taking place in accordance with standards of a defined industry. examples of ways you might do this are shown below. please select all the activities that are part of your course (yes/no radio buttons provided). q 25. the course design and lectures reflect industry input (t) q 26. lecturers share their own (extensive) industry experience (t) q 27. the course builds a sense of belonging to a profession and the identity of the profession (e.g., discipline branding, course uniforms, badging, graphic design) (s) q 28. the curriculum includes recognition of industry professional bodies (s) q 29. the curriculum includes an explicit focus on the whys and hows of professional practice (e) q 30. there is a work orientated applied focus throughout the course with scaffolded opportunities to apply theory in real world situations and consider issues and potential consequences of decisions (e) rowland, s., & blundell, d. (2021). discipline predicts work integrated learning (wil) practice in science courses. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(2), 222–259. 241 q 31. students complete simulations related to a specific stem industry (p) q 32. students have access to university owned/based clinics (p) q 33. students interact with skilled mentors (placement outside of the university) (o) q 34. students undergo supervision in a workplace (this could include university as the workplace) (o) q 35. students receive ongoing feedback from employers (placement outside of the university) (o) q 36. students take part in self-reflection and skilled debriefing (placement outside of the university) (o) q 37. there is extensive placement throughout the course with scaffolded opportunities to try new things, and understand consequences of decisions (placement outside of the university) (o) q 38. students participate in year-long projects with a high degree of student autonomy and responsibility (placement outside of the university) (o) objective 5 questions in your course, you might aim to develop your students': (i) employability and contextualised language, and (ii) literacy and numeracy skills. examples of ways you might do this are shown below. please select all the activities that are part of your course (yes/no radio buttons provided). q 39. the curriculum includes activities involving recognition of professional behaviours, communication, documentation, whs, ethics and regulations, management skills, professional workplace hierarchy, group work dynamics (t) q 40. the curriculum includes explanations of why and how professional language/literacy/behaviour leads to employability (s) q 41. the curriculum includes case studies with explicit focus on non-technical skills (e) q 42. students receive explicit training in techniques and strategies, related to employability, with contextualised language, literacy, and numeracy (e) q 43. students participate in simulated activities, related to employability, with contextualised language, literacy, and numeracy (p) q 44. students participate in interdependent group work with explicit roles (p) q 45. students participate in role playing exercises (p) q 46. students participate in industry based placements with minimal preparation, support or feedback (placement outside of the university) (o) q 47. students participate in industry based placements with explicit focus on technical and employability skills, with supports such as mentoring and client feedback (placement outside of the university) (o) objective 6 questions in your course, you might aim to develop your students' career management skills. examples of ways you might do this are shown below. please select all the activities that are part of your course (yes/no radio buttons provided). rowland, s., & blundell, d. (2021). discipline predicts work integrated learning (wil) practice in science courses. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(2), 222–259. 242 q 48. students receive career advice and skills training (e.g., resume writing) (t) q 49. students are shown examples of job ads in relevant fields (t) q 50. students hear from alumni speakers who focus on how their degree has proven useful or who illustrate an unusual career pathway (s) q 51. students attend industry network events (e) q 52. students take part in mock interviews involving industry members (p) q 53. students fill out formal applications required for industry projects/placements (o) q 54.students participate in competitive processes for winning industry placements (o) q55. students initiate work placements and projects (o) rowland, s., & blundell, d. (2021). discipline predicts work integrated learning (wil) practice in science courses. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(2), 222–259. 243 appendix 2 criteria for course selection we selected courses satisfying all of the following criteria: 1. courses for undergraduate students offered at uq through a faculty of science school, in the year from july 2016 through july 2017. 2. courses offered for students who are progressing in a faculty of science-controlled program (as opposed to ‘service’ courses for students completing a non-science program in another faculty). 3. where a course was offered in duplicate or triplicate (i.e., in multiple semesters each year), we chose the semester offering with the largest enrolment. process of assigning courses to clusters each course was assigned to a relevant cluster over three iterations. courses were assigned to a cluster according to the school owner (first), the material presented in the course (second), and the programs in which the course appeared (third). most courses are included in a cluster that describes the teaching focus in the course’s administering school. occasionally, courses are listed in ‘foreign’ clusters (e.g., a safs chemistry course is assigned to cmbs). incomplete or missing data if one of the 55 wil questions was not answered for a course record, this was regarded as a missing answer. in total, 3.4% of answers were missing across a total of 14,575 questions over 265 courses. since the rate of missing answers is very low (<5%) imputation was not considered. response bias response bias was investigated within categories relating to key questions of interest to ensure there was not any disproportionate non-response. figure s1 shows response by category within each area (discipline, year level and class size), along with a 95% confidence intervals. a two-sided t-test was performed comparing categories of response for each area to detect categories with significantly different response rates (i.e., if the p value was 0.05 or less). no categories for any area were shown to be significantly different from any other category. linear regression all r code for the research showing the model, tests for independence and model assumptions, and exploratory data analysis is in appendix 3. for the linear regression, possible outcome variables are the five wil activity scores. our model for the linear regression has five relations that predict the wil scores for the activities. each relation has the form: (1) where is an error term and the coefficients are found by multiple linear regression. the variable ranges from 1 to 5 for the five wil activities predicted. the independent category variables afs, bim, biom, cmbs, ees, and vets have the value of 1 for courses in these disciplines and zero otherwise. mps was chosen as the reference category, as it was consistently the lowest scoring. thus, any significant coefficients reflect increased wil scores. table 5 (see results) shows coefficients (and their standard errors (se)) for equation (1) calculated by linear regression. the intercept is the predicted value (estimate) of the baseline case (i.e., the mean for mps). the model for out-of-classroom was modelled by a poisson linear regression as the rowland, s., & blundell, d. (2021). discipline predicts work integrated learning (wil) practice in science courses. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(2), 222–259. 244 response variable indicated a poisson distribution and the residuals deviated greatly from normal. a two-tailed t test was used to determine whether each coefficient is significantly different from zero. a variable was considered to contribute significantly if the benjamini and hochberg (1995) adjusted p value (p-bh) is less than 0.05. pairwise regression the data set for correlation analysis consisted of: i) an aggregation of wil scores by question (pedagogy) as the observations; and ii) each discipline as a feature (see an example of the data layout in table s2). to retain nuance in the analysis, data at the individual pedagogy question level were used. pairwise regression was conducted to examine the strength of correlation between all pairs of discipline areas. here, the significance of the linear relationship between pairs was calculated to check how well aligned each discipline pair was in terms of the aggregate wil score for each pedagogy (question). rowland, s., & blundell, d. (2021). discipline predicts work integrated learning (wil) practice in science courses. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(2), 222–259. 245 appendix 3 r code for analysis of data work integrated learning: input variables test for independence # this code is designed to test if the input variables are independent. # that is, to test the assumption that the input variables are uncorrelated and independent. # # the variables to be tested are: # # * discipline by year level (categorial x categorical); # * discipline by enrolments (categorical x continuous); # * year level by enrolments (categorical x continuous). # packages required library(data.table) # summary tables library(moments) # provides more summary statistical options library(ggplot2) # plot charts # import data discipline_year <read.csv("./data/input data/discipline_year.csv") names(discipline_year) discipline_enrolments <read.csv("./data/input data/discipline_enrolments.csv") names(discipline_enrolments) year_enrolments <read.csv("./data/input data/year_enrolments.csv") names(year_enrolments) chi squared tests # test the hypothesis whether the course disciple is independent of the year level in terms of wil score at 0.05 significance level. chi_sq_discipline_year <chisq.test(discipline_year[,c(2:4)]) chi_sq_discipline_year # the p-value is well below the 0.05 significance level we reject the null hypothesis # that the course discipline is independent of the year level. anova tests # assumptions of anova test: # # * the observations are obtained independently and randomly from the population defined by the factor levels; # * the data of each factor level are normally distributed; and # * these normal populations have a common variance. (levene's test can be used to check this.) # compute summary statistics by groups count, mean, sd for discipline: dt <data.table(discipline_enrolments) dt[,list(count = length(course.code), mean=mean(enrolments), sd=sd(enrolments), skew = skewness(enrolments)),by=discipline] # it appears that there could be strong positive skew in all categories with the exception of vets. # box plots # ++++++++++++++++++++ # plot enrolments by discipline boxplot(enrolments~discipline, data = discipline_enrolments, ylab = "enrolments", xlab = "discipline") png("./results/plots/box_enrolments x discipline.png", width = 792, height = 792); boxplot(enrolments~discipline, data = discipline_enrolments, ylab = "enrolments", xlab = "discipline"); dev.off() # it could be that a lot of the skew arises from a small number of outliters # given the positve skew, it may be effective to log the results to achieve normality. # normality plots (qq-plots) rowland, s., & blundell, d. (2021). discipline predicts work integrated learning (wil) practice in science courses. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(2), 222–259. 246 disp <c("afs", "bim", "biom", "cmbs", "ees", "mps", "vets") # iterate over all disciplines (logged) for (j in disp){ # export results fname <paste("results/plots/norm plots ", j, ".png", sep="") png(fname, width = 792, height = 792); y = paste("discipline_enrolments_", j, sep="") y <subset(discipline_enrolments, discipline == j) qqnorm(log(y[,3]), xlab = "normalised enrolments", main = "") qqline(log(y[,3]), lty = 2) title(paste("q-q plot for ", j, " x enrolments", sep ="")) dev.off() } # iterate over all disciplines (not-logged) for (j in disp){ # export results fname <paste("results/plots/norm plots (no log) ", j, ".png", sep="") png(fname, width = 792, height = 792); y = paste("discipline_enrolments_", j, sep="") y <subset(discipline_enrolments, discipline == j) qqnorm(y[,3], xlab = "normalised enrolments", main = "") qqline(y[,3], lty = 2) title(paste("q-q plot for ", j, " x enrolments", sep ="")) dev.off() # close the file on each loop so the next file can open } # it looks as though all discipline categories are positively skewed except for vets. # # the log transformation appears to create a normal qq-plot in all disciplines other than vets where it is not effected. # # hence, the enrolments for disciplines will require a log transformation to normality so as to meet the requirements of anova # create a new variable under a log transformation discipline_enrolments$log_enrolments <log(discipline_enrolments[,3]+1) # compute summary statistics by groups count, mean, sd for year level: dt <data.table(year_enrolments) dt[,list(count = length(course.code), mean=mean(enrolments), sd=sd(enrolments), skew = skewness(enrolments)),by=year.level] # box plots # ++++++++++++++++++++ # plot enrolments by year boxplot(enrolments~year.level, data = year_enrolments, ylab = "enrolments", xlab = "year level") png("./results/plots/box_enrolments x year.png", width = 792, height = 792); boxplot(enrolments~year.level, data = year_enrolments, ylab = "enrolments", xlab = "year level"); dev.off() # similar to discipline, it could be that a lot of the skew arises from a small number of outliters # given the positve skew, it may be effective to log the results to achieve normality. yr <c("year 1", "year 2", "year 3") # iterate over all disciplines (logged) for (j in yr){ # export results fname <paste("results/plots/norm plots ", j, ".png", sep="") rowland, s., & blundell, d. (2021). discipline predicts work integrated learning (wil) practice in science courses. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(2), 222–259. 247 png(fname, width = 792, height = 792); y = paste("year_enrolments_", j, sep="") y <subset(year_enrolments, year.level == j) qqnorm(log(y[,3]), xlab = "normalised enrolments", main = "") qqline(log(y[,3]), lty = 2) title(paste("q-q plot for ", j, " x enrolments", sep ="")) dev.off() } # iterate over all disciplines (logged) for (j in yr){ # export results fname <paste("results/plots/norm plots (no log)", j, ".png", sep="") png(fname, width = 792, height = 792); y = paste("year_enrolments_", j, sep="") y <subset(year_enrolments, year.level == j) qqnorm(y[,3], xlab = "normalised enrolments", main = "") qqline(y[,3], lty = 2) title(paste("q-q plot for ", j, " x enrolments", sep ="")) dev.off() } # the qq-plots show a need to log transform prior to anova. # create a new variable under a log transformation year_enrolments$log_enrolments <log(year_enrolments[,3]+1) #### compute one-way anova test # we want to know if there is any significant difference between disciplines in the average enrolments in the. # compute the analysis of variance discipline_res_aov <aov(log_enrolments ~ discipline, data = discipline_enrolments) # summary of the analysis summary(discipline_res_aov) # in this case the anova has a p < 0.05 showing that the mean enrolments between disciplines are different # or that is to say the variance between disciplines is larger than the variance within disciplines. year_res_aov <aov(log_enrolments ~ year.level, data = year_enrolments) # summary of the analysis summary(year_res_aov) # in this case the anova has a p < 0.05 showing that the mean enrolments between year levels are different # or that is to say the variance between year levels is larger than the variance within year levels. pairs_panels # put p-values in the panels panel.pval <function(x, y, digits=2, prefix="", cex.cor, ...) { usr <par("usr"); on.exit(par(usr)) par(usr = c(0, 1, 0, 1)) test <cor.test(x,y) pval <test$p.value txt <format(c(pval, 0.123456789), digits=digits)[1] txt <paste(prefix, txt, sep="") if(missing(cex.cor)) cex.cor <0.8/strwidth(txt) text(0.5, 0.5, txt) } # put linear regression lines with confidence interval in panels panel.lin<function(x, y) { points(x,y, pch=21, bg=par("bg"), col = "black",cex=1) #points(x,y, pch=19, col=c("red", "green3", "blue")[groups]) lm.out <lm(y ~ x) newx = seq(min(x),max(x),by = 0.05) rowland, s., & blundell, d. (2021). discipline predicts work integrated learning (wil) practice in science courses. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(2), 222–259. 248 conf_interval <predict(lm.out, newdata=data.frame(x=newx), interval="confidence", level = 0.95) abline(lm.out, col="lightblue") lines(newx, conf_interval[,2], col="red", lty=2) lines(newx, conf_interval[,3], col="red", lty=2) } ## put histograms on the diagonal panel.hist <function(x, ...) { usr <par("usr"); on.exit(par(usr)) par(usr = c(usr[1:2], 0, 1.5) ) h <hist(x, plot = false) breaks <h$breaks; nb <length(breaks) y <h$counts; y <y/max(y) rect(breaks[-nb], 0, breaks[-1], y, col="cyan", ...) } ## put box plots on the diagonal panel.bxp <function(x, ...) { usr <par("usr"); on.exit(par(usr)) par(usr = c(-1.5, 2, usr[3:4])) boxplot(x, add=true) } ## put the r squared value on the upper panels, ## with size proportional to the correlations. panel.corsq <function(x, y, digits=2, prefix="", cex.cor, ...) { usr <par("usr"); on.exit(par(usr)) par(usr = c(0, 1, 0, 1)) rsq <abs(cor(x, y))^2 txt <format(c(rsq, 0.123456789), digits=digits)[1] txt <paste(prefix, txt, sep="") if(missing(cex.cor)) cex.cor <0.8/strwidth(txt) text(0.5, 0.5, txt, cex = cex.cor * rsq) #print(rsq) } scatter plot matrices and cluster analysis ### this code produces scatter plot matricies and cluster analysis for wil data # import required packages library(ggplot2) # data visualization library(lattice) source('./code/pairs_panels.r') # import script for pairs # this dataset has individual aggregated question scores as observations and disciplines as features wil <read.csv("./data/input data/wil_scatter.csv") names(wil) summary(wil) # shows each discipline correllated with each other discipline pairs(wil[,2:8],lower.panel=panel.lin, upper.panel=panel.corsq, diag.panel=panel.bxp, cex.labels=1.5, gap = 0.5, label.pos = 0.8) # exports the pairs plot to a .png png("./results/plots/wil_pair_corsq.png", width = 792, height = 792); pairs(wil[,2:8],lower.panel=panel.lin, upper.panel=panel.corsq, diag.panel=panel.bxp, cex.labels=1.5, gap = 0.5, label.pos = 0.8); dev.off() ## each discipline shows a strong (r^2>=0.5) and significant (p<=0.05) correllation with every other discipline. rowland, s., & blundell, d. (2021). discipline predicts work integrated learning (wil) practice in science courses. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(2), 222–259. 249 ## this indicates that across all disciplines the spread of wil activities is consitent. ## however, some correlations are weaker than others. as one example, mps shows the weakest correllations ## with vets and ess with an r^2 of 0.61 and 0.55 respectively. ## this leads to the question, in terms of activity spread, which disciplines are more similar to each other, ## and which disciplines are more dissimilar. ## to answer this question, clustering disciplines on the basis of activity spread could be insightful. ## two versions of clustering algorithm were applied: 1) hierarchical clustering and 2) k-means clustering. # the hierarchical clustering algorithm finds clusters as follows: # 1) compute the distance matrix of the data set using some distance measure (let each data point be a cluster); # 2) merge the two closets clusters; 3) update the distance matrix; # 4) repeat steps 2 and 3 until only a single cluster remains. # here, the distance matrix is calculated using dist(x, method), where x is the data frame and the default value for method is “euclidean” # (other methods for example include, “manhattan” and “maximum”). # the hierarchical clustering algorithm is performed with the hclust(dist(x, method), method) where the default method is "complete" (max). # however, other methods include "average", "ward.d", "ward.d2", "single" (min), "mcquitty", "median" and "centroid". # the general k-means algorithm finds clusters as follows: # given a choice of k, the number of clusters: select k points as initial centroids randomly; # repeat: form k clusters by assigning each point to its closest centroid; # re-compute the centroids (mean point) of each cluster, until convergence criterion is satisfied. # k-means clustering was performed using the kmeans(x, k) function, where x is a data frame and k is the number of chosen clusters. # the function outputs were assigned to an object called “cluster”. # this object contains: “cluster”, a vector of integers (1 to k) indicating the cluster to which each point is allocated; # “centers”, a vector containing the cluster centroids; withinss: a vector of within-cluster sse, with one entry for each cluster; # “tot.withinss”, the sum of withinss; and “size”, number of points in each cluster. # the following scaling function expresses all values in the column as a proportion. # the data frame is then transposed to relate by discipline. df <t(apply(wil[,2:8], margin = 2, fun = function(x) x/sum(x))) disciplines <rownames(df) # a range of different methods for hclust() were ran and compared to kmeans. # the best agreement between kmeans and hclust was for k=4 for the "ward.d" and ward.d2 method in hclust(). # ward.d2 however is the correct method of implementing the "ward" algorithm [1]. meth <c("complete", "average", "ward.d2", "single", "mcquitty", "median", "centroid") # iterate over all methods for (j in meth){ fname <paste("./results/plots/hclust", j, ".png", sep="") png(fname, width = 600, height = 796); hc <hclust(dist(df), method = j) par(mfrow=c(2,2)) for (i in 2:5) { plot(hc, hang = -1, labels = disciplines, main=paste("k=", i, sep ="")) rect.hclust(hc, k=i) } # close the file on each loop so the next file can open dev.off() } ## cluster the data into clusters k = 2, 3, 4 and 5. ## using k-means clustering. rowland, s., & blundell, d. (2021). discipline predicts work integrated learning (wil) practice in science courses. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(2), 222–259. 250 plot sse vs k # set up a null data frame to store each k and the within # cluster sum of squared error (sse) within_sse <data.frame(matrix(na, nrow = 4, ncol = 2)) colnames(within_sse) <c("k", "sse") clust_out <data.frame(matrix(na, nrow = 7, ncol = 4)) rownames(clust_out) <c("afs", "bim", "biom", "cmbs", "ees", "mps", "vets") colnames(clust_out) <c("k=2", "k=3", "k=4", "k=5") for (k in 2:5) { cluster <kmeans(df,k) # store each k in the data frame within_sse[k-1, 1] <k # retrieve and store sse for different values of k in the data frame within_sse[k-1, 2] <cluster$tot.withinss # store clusters for each discipline in k clust_out[k-1] <cluster$cluster } write.csv(clust_out, "./results/tables/kmeans clusters.csv") png("./results/plots/sse_k.jpg", width = 600, height = 600); ggplot(within_sse, aes(x=k, y=sse)) + geom_line() + ggtitle("total sse wrt number of clusters") + theme(plot.title = element_text(hjust = 0.5)); dev.off() # references: # [1] fionn murtagh and pierre legendre, (2014), ward’s hierarchical agglomerative clustering method: which algorithms implement ward’s criterion?, journal of classification 31:274-295 “engage model" # output: html_notebook # -- # check model data summary summary(wil_model_engage) # checking for normality in the engage wil score. library(car) hist(wil_model_engage$score, main = "histogram of engage wil score", xlab = "wil score") qqplot(wil_model_engage$score, main = "q-q plot of engage wil score", ylab = "wil score data quantities", xlab = "wil score theoretical quantities") # the histogram above indicates a small positive skew and but the q-q plot indicates a reasonably normal distribution. a linear model is therefore applicable. # the procedure is to leave one dummy variable for discipline out as reference. # although this procedure was run for all combination, smp had the lowest average # for all disciplines so this will be left out in the final results. wil_engage <lm(score ~ factor(afs) + factor(bim) + factor(biom) + factor(cmbs) + factor(ees) + factor(vets), data = wil_model_engage) summary(wil_engage) wil_engage_sum <summary(wil_engage) wil_engage_est<-summary(wil_engage)$coefficients[,c(1,4)] wil_engage_se<-summary(wil_engage)$coefficients[,2] wil_engage_ci<-confint(wil_engage) wil_engage_sumtab <data.frame(wil_engage_est, wil_engage_ci, wil_engage_se) colnames(wil_engage_sumtab) <c("estimate", "p-value", "lcl", "ucl", "se") wil_engage_sumtab <wil_engage_sumtab[c("estimate", "lcl", "ucl", "p-value", "se")] wil_engage_sumtab write.csv(wil_engage_sumtab, "./data/output data/wil_engage_sumtab_mps.csv") par(mfrow=c(2,2)) plot(wil_engage) dev.off() rowland, s., & blundell, d. (2021). discipline predicts work integrated learning (wil) practice in science courses. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(2), 222–259. 251 # a q-q plot of the residuals shows evidence of normally distributed residuals. "outside of classroom model" # output: html_notebook # -- # check model data summary summary(wil_model_osc) # checking for normality in the outside of classroom wil score. library(car) hist(wil_model_osc$score, main = "histogram of outside of classroom wil score", xlab = "wil score") qqplot(wil_model_osc$score, main = "q-q plot of outside of classroom wil score", ylab = "wil score data quantities", xlab = "wil score theoretical quantities") # the histogram above indicates a positive skew and the q-q plot indicates a non-normal distribution. # a linear model is therefore not applicable here. # wil scores are discrete values and could be viewed as counts. hence, a poisson model is applied. # the procedure is to leave one dummy variable for discipline out as reference. # although this procedure was run for all combination, smp had the lowest average # for all disciplines so this will be left out in the final results. wil_osc <glm(score ~ factor(afs) + factor(bim) + factor(biom) + factor(cmbs) + factor(ees) + factor(vets), family = quasipoisson(), data = wil_model_osc) summary(wil_osc) # a poisson model relies on the assumption that the mean and variance are equal. hence, the model does not allow for overdispersion. # an indicator of overdispersion is the relationship between the residual deviance and the degrees of freedom. # the residual deviance and the degrees of freedom should be similar or at least the residual deviance should not be much larger than the degrees of freedom. # in the model above, the residual deviance is three times larger than the degrees of freedom. # hence, a quasipoisson is used instead which allows an estimation of the model parameters without fully knowing the error distribution of the response variable [1]. # wil_osc_sum <summary(wil_osc) # to transform the estimates and confidence intervals into non-log values, they needed transforming. # the model coefficients represent the log of the mean value for the variable (v) minus the log of the mean value for the reference variable (r) (the intercept in this case). # hence, to transform the log values into the non-log values say: # x = ln(v) ln(r) # exp(x) = exp(ln(v/r)) # exp(x) = v/r # v = exp(x)*r # therefore the difference between v and r is: # exp(x)*r r wil_osc_est<-c(exp(summary(wil_osc)$coefficients[1,1]), exp(summary(wil_osc)$coefficients[2:7,1])*exp(summary(wil_osc)$coefficients[1,1]) exp(summary(wil_osc)$coefficients[1,1])) wil_osc_p<-summary(wil_osc)$coefficients[,4] wil_osc_lcl <c(exp(confint(wil_osc)[1,1]), exp(confint(wil_osc)[2:7,1])*exp(confint(wil_osc)[1,1]) exp(confint(wil_osc)[1,1])) wil_osc_ucl <c(exp(confint(wil_osc)[1,2]), exp(confint(wil_osc)[2:7,2])*exp(confint(wil_osc)[1,2]) exp(confint(wil_osc)[1,2])) wil_osc_se<-exp(summary(wil_osc)$coefficients[,2]) wil_osc_sumtab <data.frame(wil_osc_est, wil_osc_lcl, wil_osc_ucl, wil_osc_p, wil_osc_se) colnames(wil_osc_sumtab) <c("estimate", "lcl", "ucl", "p-value", "se") wil_osc_sumtab write.csv(wil_osc_sumtab, "./data/output data/wil_osc_sumtab_mps.csv") # model fit: pseudo r squared wil_osc_prs <1 wil_osc$deviance/wil_osc$null.deviance wil_osc_prs rowland, s., & blundell, d. (2021). discipline predicts work integrated learning (wil) practice in science courses. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(2), 222–259. 252 par(mfrow=c(2,2)) plot(wil_osc) dev.off() # references: # [1] mccullagh, p. and nedler, j. a. (1989), generalised linear models, london, chapman and hall/crc. "practice" # output: html_notebook # -- # check model data summary summary(wil_model_practice) # checking for normality in the practice wil score. library(car) hist(wil_model_practice$score, main = "histogram of practice wil score", xlab = "wil score") qqplot(wil_model_practice$score, main = "q-q plot of practice wil score", ylab = "wil score data quantities", xlab = "wil score theoretical quantities") # the histogram above indicates a small positive skew and but the q-q plot indicates a reasonably normal distribution. a linear model is therefore applicable. # the procedure is to leave one dummy variable for discipline out as reference. # although this procedure was run for all combination, smp had the lowest average # for all disciplines so this will be left out in the final results. wil_practice <lm(score ~ factor(afs) + factor(bim) + factor(biom) + factor(cmbs) + factor(ees) + factor(vets), data = wil_model_practice) summary(wil_practice) wil_practice_sum <summary(wil_practice) wil_practice_est<-summary(wil_practice)$coefficients[,c(1,4)] wil_practice_se<-summary(wil_practice)$coefficients[,2] wil_practice_ci<-confint(wil_practice) wil_practice_sumtab <data.frame(wil_practice_est, wil_practice_ci, wil_practice_se) colnames(wil_practice_sumtab) <c("estimate", "p-value", "lcl", "ucl", "se") wil_practice_sumtab <wil_practice_sumtab[c("estimate", "lcl", "ucl", "p-value", "se")] wil_practice_sumtab write.csv(wil_practice_sumtab, "./data/output data/wil_practice_sumtab_mps.csv") par(mfrow=c(2,2)) plot(wil_practice) dev.off() #a q-q plot of the residuals shows evidence of normally distributed residuals. "sell" # output: html_notebook # -- # check model data summary summary(wil_model_sell) # checking for normality in the sell wil score. library(car) hist(wil_model_sell$score, main = "histogram of sell score", xlab = "wil score") qqplot(wil_model_sell$score, main = "q-q plot of sell wil score", ylab = "wil score data quantities", xlab = "wil score theoretical quantities") # the histogram above indicates a small positive skew and but the q-q plot indicates a reasonably normal distribution. a linear model is therefore applicable. # the procedure is to leave one dummy variable for discipline out as reference. # although this procedure was run for all combination, smp had the lowest average # for all disciplines so this will be left out in the final results. wil_sell <lm(score ~ factor(afs) + factor(bim) + factor(biom) + factor(cmbs) + factor(ees) + factor(vets), data = wil_model_sell) summary(wil_sell) wil_sell_sum <summary(wil_sell) wil_sell_est<-summary(wil_sell)$coefficients[,c(1,4)] rowland, s., & blundell, d. (2021). discipline predicts work integrated learning (wil) practice in science courses. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(2), 222–259. 253 wil_sell_ci<-confint(wil_sell) wil_sell_se<-summary(wil_sell)$coefficients[,2] wil_sell_sumtab <data.frame(wil_sell_est, wil_sell_ci, wil_sell_se) colnames(wil_sell_sumtab) <c("estimate", "p-value", "lcl", "ucl", "se") wil_sell_sumtab <wil_sell_sumtab[c("estimate", "lcl", "ucl", "p-value", "se")] wil_sell_sumtab write.csv(wil_sell_sumtab, "./data/output data/wil_sell_sumtab_mps.csv") par(mfrow=c(2,2)) plot(wil_sell) dev.off() # a q-q plot of the residuals shows evidence of normally distributed residuals. "show & tell" # output: html_notebook # -- # check model data summary summary(wil_model_st) # checking for normality in the show and tell wil score. library(car) hist(wil_model_st$score, main = "histogram of show and tell score", xlab = "wil score") qqplot(wil_model_st$score, main = "q-q plot of show and tell wil score", ylab = "wil score data quantities", xlab = "wil score theoretical quantities") # the distribution apart from a strong peak in the first bin appears more uniform. the q-q plot shows some deviation at either end of the plot so there is a small amount of deviation from normal. # the procedure is to leave one dummy variable for discipline out as reference. # although this procedure was run for all combination, smp had the lowest average # for all disciplines so this will be left out in the final results. wil_st <lm(score ~ factor(afs) + factor(bim) + factor(biom) + factor(cmbs) + factor(ees) + factor(vets), data = wil_model_st) summary(wil_st) wil_st_sum <summary(wil_st) wil_st_est<-summary(wil_st)$coefficients[,c(1,4)] wil_st_ci<-confint(wil_st) wil_st_se<-summary(wil_st)$coefficients[,2] wil_st_sumtab <data.frame(wil_st_est, wil_st_ci, wil_st_se) colnames(wil_st_sumtab) <c("estimate", "p-value", "lcl", "ucl", "se") wil_st_sumtab <wil_st_sumtab[c("estimate", "lcl", "ucl", "p-value", "se")] wil_st_sumtab write.csv(wil_st_sumtab, "./data/output data/wil_st_sumtab_mps.csv") par(mfrow=c(2,2)) plot(wil_st) dev.off() # a q-q plot of the residuals shows evidence of normally distributed residuals. "work integrated learning: regression model" # output: html_notebook # -- # this code prepares all datasets for modelling each activity. # import data wil_model <read.csv("./data/input data/wil_model.csv") # check data imported without anomalies names(wil_model) summary(wil_model) # create subsets for each activity. wil_model_engage <subset(wil_model, activity == "engage") wil_model_osc <subset(wil_model, activity == "outside of classroom") wil_model_practice <subset(wil_model, activity == "practice") wil_model_sell <subset(wil_model, activity == "sell") rowland, s., & blundell, d. (2021). discipline predicts work integrated learning (wil) practice in science courses. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(2), 222–259. 254 wil_model_st <subset(wil_model, activity == "show & tell") ### linear regression has five key assumptions: # * linear relationship: linear regression needs the relationship between the independent and dependent variables to be linear. # in this case, the dependent is continuous and the independent is categorical (i.e. 0 or 1). the main issue is to itentify # that the errors are normally distributed in the linear relationship between the two. hence test with a univariate logistic regression and inspect the residuals for normality. # * multivariate normality: the linear regression analysis requires all variables to be multivariate normal. # this assumption can best be checked with a histogram or a q-q-plot. normality can be checked with a goodness of fit test, e.g., the kolmogorov-smirnov test. when the data is not normally distributed a non-linear transformation (e.g., log-transformation) might fix this issue. # * no or little multicollinearity: multicollinearity occurs when the independent variables are too highly correlated with each other. # multicollinearity may be tested with three central criteria: # 1) correlation matrix when computing the matrix of pearson's bivariate correlation among all independent variables the correlation coefficients need to be smaller than 1. # 2) tolerance the tolerance measures the influence of one independent variable on all other independent variables; the tolerance is calculated with an initial linear regression analysis. tolerance is defined as t = 1 r? for these first step regression analysis. with t < 0.1 there might be multicollinearity in the data and with t < 0.01 there certainly is. # 3) variance inflation factor (vif) the variance inflation factor of the linear regression is defined as vif = 1/t. with vif > 10 there is an indication that multicollinearity may be present; with vif > 100 there is certainly multicollinearity among the variables. # if multicollinearity is found in the data, centering the data (that is deducting the mean of the variable from each score) might help to solve the problem. however, the simplest way to address the problem is to remove independent variables with high vif values. # fourth, linear regression analysis requires that there is little or no autocorrelation in the data. autocorrelation occurs when the residuals are not independent from each other. for instance, this typically occurs in stock prices, where the price is not independent from the previous price. # * no auto-correlation: autocorrelation occurs when the residuals are not independent from each other. you can test the linear regression model for autocorrelation with the durbin-watson test. durbin-watson's d tests the null hypothesis that the residuals are not linearly auto-correlated. # * homoscedasticity: the last assumption of the linear regression analysis is homoscedasticity. the scatter plot is good way to check whether the data are homoscedastic (meaning the residuals are equal across the regression line). # see separate modules for models on each wil activity. # after all models are run and outputs are complied, run the code below. # the model results are based on the mps discipline as the base reference. # a number of coefficients in the model are significant and so to control for the # false discovery rate over multiple tests by the benjamini and hochberg test is applied: # all p value data has been compiled in a single file: wil_model_pvalues <read.csv("./data/input data/lm_results.csv") # check data names(wil_model_pvalues) summary(wil_model_pvalues) # create a subset with mps as the reference value wil_model_pvalues_mps <subset(wil_model_pvalues, discipline.reference == "mps" & discipline.comparison != "mps (intercept)") p.value.bh <round(p.adjust(wil_model_pvalues_mps$p.value, "bh"), 4) wil_model_coeffs_pvals_mps <data.frame(wil_model_pvalues_mps, p.value.bh) wil_model_coeffs_pvals_mps <wil_model_coeffs_pvals_mps[order(p.value.bh),] wil_model_coeffs_pvals_mps view(wil_model_coeffs_pvals_mps) write.csv(wil_model_coeffs_pvals_mps, "./data/output data/bh_mps_results.csv") rowland, s., & blundell, d. (2021). discipline predicts work integrated learning (wil) practice in science courses. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(2), 222–259. 255 # the null hypothesis is that none of the predictor variables (in this case the course discipline), contribute to any of the wil activities. # in fact 14 out of the 30 coefficients have values significantly different from zero difference between the coefficient and the reference value. # the following contributions are: # # * courses within earth and environmental sciences (ees), vetss (vets), # agriculture and food sciences (afs) and biological and marine sciences (bim) # disciplines have higher contributions to engage (i.e. field trips structured around directed activities that focus on how skills and knowledge apply to the workplace/occupation). # # * courses within earth and environmental sciences (ees), vetss (vets) and agriculture and food sciences (afs) disciplines # have higher contributions to: # + practice (i.e. self-directed case studies and scenarios with problems to solve using skills and knowledge obtained in course); # + sell (i.e. explicit focus on why concepts, skills and information are important to the workplace and how they may be applied in the workplace); and # + show and tell (i.e. workplace specific examples and guest lecturers who articulate the link between curriculum and industry). # # * courses within the vetss (vets) discipline have higher contributions to outside of classroom # (i.e. students as active members of university based teams to solve workplace problems including reflection and debriefing). rowland, s., & blundell, d. (2021). discipline predicts work integrated learning (wil) practice in science courses. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(2), 222–259. 256 appendix 4 table s1: the wil objectives, activities, and pedagogies matrix used to develop the survey (modified from edwards et al., 2015) objectives of wil specific activities to achieve the objectives show & tell (t) sell (s) engage (e) practice (p) academic, industry and community settings (oc) in-classroom pedagogies1 out-of-classroom pedagogies g e n e ri c s ci e n ce w il 1. to develop curriculum linked stem workplace & occupation specific skills & knowledge, & be able to adapt & apply them o1t1: work-specific examples & guest lecturers who articulate the link between curriculum & industry o1t2: explicit examples in lectures & course notes of skills relating to work o1t3: observational field trips to workplaces (o1t3) o1s1: explicit focus on why concepts, skills & information are important to work & how they may be applied during work o1e1: field trips structured around activities that focus on how skills & knowledge apply to work o1e2: inquiry-based learning with explicit activities linking skills & knowledge to work o1p1: self-directed workrelated case studies & scenarios with problems to solve using knowledge & skills from the course o1p2: simulations, where students practice work-relevant skills o1p3: workplace provides real world issues for use in student projects, which are conducted & assessed internally o1oc1: students as members of universitybased teams that solve workplace problems; including reflection & debriefing o1oc2: industry or work placement-based projects where topic-specific skills & professional knowledge are applied & linked to the curriculum 2. to build an understanding of the nature of industry & the roles of different occupations as they relate to industry o2t1: industry guests, professional associations, & academics talk about industry, their occupation & responsibilities within that industry o2t2: discussion of professional expectations, ethics & protocols within the industry o2s1: promotion of specific graduate destinations o2e1: field trips with explicit reflection on employer expectations about professional practice o2e2: reflection on what it means to work as a graduate & professional in a particular industry o2p1: self-directed case studies & scenarios using skills sets & knowledge across platforms involving different occupations in the workplace o2p2: simulations of complex problems requiring multiple & nested skills for solutions o2oc1: selected students for short term placement at the university, sector community or government level 3. to facilitate selfunderstanding o3t1: observation of reflective practice in action by professionals o3s1: explain why reflection is critical for developing personal & professional understanding o3e1: explicit exercises to teach & promote deep reflection o3p1: opportunities for selfreflective practices & debrief on process o3oc1: opportunities for self-reflective practices & debrief on process by external professionals rowland, s., & blundell, d. (2021). discipline predicts work integrated learning (wil) practice in science courses. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(2), 222–259. 257 in d u st ry s p e ci fi c w il 4. to train professionals to enter a specific stem industry in accordance with the standards of a defined industry o4t1: course design & lectures reflect industry input o4t2: lectures share their own industry experience o4s1: build a sense of belonging to a profession & professional identity o4s2: recognition of industry professional bodies o4e1: explicit focus on the why & how of professional practice o4e2: work-orientated, applied focus throughout course; scaffolded opportunities to apply theory, consider issues, & discuss consequences of decisions o4p1: simulations related to a stem-specific industry o4p2: university owned or based clinics o4oc1: skilled mentors o4oc2: supervision in workplace (including university workplaces) o4oc3: ongoing feedback from employers o4oc4: self-reflection & skilled debriefing o4oc5: extensive placement throughout course with scaffolded opportunities to try new things & understand consequences of decisions o4oc6: year-long projects with significant student autonomy & responsibility e m p lo y a b il it y & c a re e rs 5. to develop employability & contextualized language, literacy & numeracy skills o5t1: recognition & use of professional behaviors & artefacts o5s1: explain why & how professional language, literacy, & behavior leads to employability o5e1: case studies with explicit focus on nontechnical skills o5e2: explicit training in techniques & strategies o5p1: simulated activities relevant to employability o5p2: interdependent group work with explicit roles o5p3: role playing o5oc1: industry placements with minimal preparation, support or feedback o5oc2: mentored, feedback-rich industry placements with explicit focus on technical & employability skills 6. to develop career management skills o6t1: career advice & skills training o6t2: examples of job ads in relevant fields o6s1: alumni speakers who (i) focus on how their course was useful or (ii) illustrate an unusual career path o6e1: industry network events o6p1: mock interviews involving industry members o6oc1: formal applications required for industry projects & placements o6oc2: competitive processes for winning industry placements o6oc3: student-initiated work placements & projects 1. each pedagogy has a code that identifies its objective and activity group, as well as its number in the pedagogy list (e.g., code o1t1 denotes the pedagogy as the first “show & tell” activity in the objective 1 group; code o5p3 denotes the pedagogy as the third “practice” activity in the objective 5 group. rowland, s., & blundell, d. (2021). discipline predicts work integrated learning (wil) practice in science courses. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(2), 222–259. 258 table s2: total and activity wil scores for different subsamples category n wil total show & tell sell engage practice outside of classroom m (sd) m (sd) m (sd) m (sd) m (sd) m (sd) all categories 265 15.71 (10.58) 4.58 (3.05) 2.54 (1.91) 3.76 (2.58) 3.93 (2.93) 0.90 (2.41) year level first 44 14.89 (11.01) 4.55 (3.08) 2.84 (2.05) 3.59 (2.38) 3.14 (2.75) 0.77 (2.31) second 71 12.56 (8.94) 3.82 (2.95) 2.08 (1.79) 3.17 (2.50) 3.11 (2.78) 0.39 (1.13) third 150 17.44 (10.85) 4.95 (3.03) 2.67 (1.91) 4.09 (2.63) 4.55 (2.93) 1.17 (2.82) class size less than 50 124 17.61 (11.16) 5.09 (3.16) 2.70 (1.92) 4.18 (2.78) 4.35 (3.01) 1.29 (2.99) 50-99 57 16.14 (9.04) 4.63 (2.83) 2.74 (1.93) 4.00 (2.43) 4.40 (2.92) 0.38 (0.75) 100-200 47 15.36 (10.55) 4.55 (2.83) 2.57 (1.99) 3.47 (2.28) 3.87 (2.72) 0.89 (2.43) over 200 37 9.11 (8.20) 2.84 (2.67) 1.68 (1.56) 2.35 (1.92) 1.86 (2.03) 0.38 (1.50) discipline agricultural and food sciences 60 17.93 (10.38) 5.67 (2.65) 2.97 (1.85) 4.07 (2.68) 4.18 (3.28) 1.07 (2.51) biological and marine sciences 30 13.37 (7.68) 3.67 (2.47) 2.27 (1.46) 3.57 (2.19) 3.30 (2.25) 0.57 (1.14) biomedical science 14 12.14 (7.09) 3.86 (2.85) 1.79 (1.37) 3.14 (1.99) 2.86 (2.07) 0.50 (1.09) chemistry and molecular biosciences 37 12.51 (9.39) 3.46 (2.99) 1.84 (1.89) 3.08 (2.33) 3.49 (2.65) 0.65 (1.74) earth and environmental sciences 58 19.14 (10.34) 5.53 (2.93) 3.05 (1.94) 4.72 (2.54) 4.86 (2.94) 0.97 (2.86) mathematics and physical sciences 43 9.19 (9.60) 2.49 (2.72) 1.65 (1.76) 2.21 (2.30) 2.37 (2.40) 0.47 (2.18) veterinary science 23 23.83 (10.94) 6.70 (2.48) 3.78 (1.91) 5.13 (2.36) 6.04 (2.64) 2.17 (3.59) note: for each category, the mean scores are given first with the standard deviations in parentheses. rowland, s., & blundell, d. (2021). discipline predicts work integrated learning (wil) practice in science courses. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(2), 222–259. 259 table s3: significance levels for correlations between predictor variables variable year level discipline class size year level discipline < 2.2e-16 class size < 2.0e-16 < 6.24e-06 notes: tested for correlations between the categorical variables (discipline and year level) using a chi‐square test and between each of the categorical variables and the continuous class size variable with an analysis of variance test. we used chisq.test and aov functions in the r programming language, respectively, for these tests. the table shows the adjusted p values for the respective test. table s4: multiple linear regression on wil scores category show & tell sell engage practice out-ofclassroom coefficient ± se (p-bh) intercept 2.49 ± 0.42 1.65 ± 0.28 2.21 ± 0.37 2.37 ± 0.42 0.47 ± 1.76 agricultural and food sciences 3.18 ± 0.55 (0.000)** 1.32 ± 0.36 (0.001)** 1.86 ± 0.49 (0.001)** 1.81 ± 0.55 (0.003)** 0.58 ± 1.92 (0.278) biological and marine sciences 1.18 ± 0.65 (0.138) 0.62 ± 0.43 (0.229) 1.36 ± 0.58 (0.045)** 0.93 ± 0.66 (0.229) 0.1 ± 2.31 (0.841) biomedical science 1.37 ± 0.85 (0.185) 0.13 ± 0.56 (0.841) 0.93 ± 0.75 (0.278) 0.49 ± 0.85 (0.683) 0.03 ± 3.04 (0.948) chemistry and molecular biosciences 0.97 ± 0.62 (0.185) 0.19 ± 0.41 (0.739) 0.87 ± 0.54 (0.185) 1.11 ± 0.62 (0.138) 0.18 ± 2.15 (0.739) earth and environmental sciences 3.05 ± 0.55 (0.000)** 1.4 ± 0.36 (0.001)** 2.51 ± 0.49 (0.000)** 2.49 ± 0.56 (0.000)** 0.5 ± 1.93 (0.336) veterinary science 4.21 ± 0.71 (0.000)** 2.13 ± 0.47 (0.000)** 2.92 ± 0.63 (0.000)** 3.67 ± 0.71 (0.000)** 1.71 ± 1.95 (0.047)** caballero, c., & walker, a. (2010). work readiness in graduate recruitment and selection: a review of current assessment methods. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 1(1), 13 – 25. 13 work readiness in graduate recruitment and selection: a review of current assessment methods catherine lissette caballero, deakin university, and arlene walker, deakin university cathy.caballero@deakin.edu.au; arlene.walker@deakin.edu.au abstract graduate recruitment and selection differs from other contexts in that graduate applicants generally lack job-related experience. recent research has highlighted that employers are placing increasing value on graduates being work ready. work readiness is believed to be indicative of graduate potential in terms of long term job performance and career advancement. a review of the literature has found that current graduate recruitment and selection practices lack the rigour and construct validity to effectively assess work readiness. in addition, the variety of interchangeable terms and definitions articulated by employers and academics on what constitutes work readiness suggests the need to further refine this construct. this paper argues that work readiness is an important selection criterion, and should be examined systematically in the graduate assessment process, as a construct in itself. the ineffectiveness of current assessment methods in being able to measure work readiness supports the need to develop a specific measure of work readiness that will allow more effective decision practices and potentially predict long term job capacity and performance. keywords: work readiness, graduate employability, graduate recruitment, graduate selection, graduate assessment, transferable skills, graduate competencies. introduction in recent years a number of economic, technological and demographic trends have significantly impacted the workplace and highlighted the importance of effective recruitment and selection practices. researchers have predicted that the convergence of globalisation and an ageing population will result in vast labour shortages, as organisations compete on a world stage for high-aptitude, adaptable and multi-skilled employees (meyer, allen & topolnytsky, 1998; trank, rynes & bretz jr., 2002). with the expected shortage of qualified and experienced senior employees in the years to come, young university graduates are a precious future commodity. whilst the term “graduates” is generally used to refer to former students who have received an undergraduate or postgraduate university degree, this paper refers only to new graduates who have completed an undergraduate degree and are entering professional employment for the first time. a number of factors differentiate graduate recruitment and selection from other contexts, the most important being that graduates generally lack job related experience. recent studies have identified work readiness as an area of increasing relevance to graduate recruitment, and a construct which is becoming increasingly valued by employers today. given the rapidly changing nature of the workplace, the extent to which graduates are “work ready” is seen as indicative of their potential in terms of job performance and career advancement. caballero, c., & walker, a. (2010). work readiness in graduate recruitment and selection: a review of current assessment methods. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 1(1), 13 – 25. 14 the growing demand organisations are placing on graduates possessing the attributes that render them work ready, has significant implications for graduate recruitment and selection practices. in addition, while the impact of the recent global financial crisis on graduate recruitment and selection is not yet clear, it is possible that securing employment has become more difficult for graduates. as such, it may be even more important that graduates posses the necessary work readiness skills and attributes sought by employers. there is relatively little systematic research regarding assessment methods used in graduate recruitment, and therefore it is unclear how effective current assessment methods are in assessing work readiness. this paper examines current graduate recruitment and selection practices and highlights the importance of work readiness for graduate contexts. furthermore, the extent to which current assessment methods used in graduate recruitment and selection effectively measure work readiness is explored. assessment in graduate recruitment and selection for some time, university graduates have been a key source of new recruits for organisations. particularly in large organisations, hiring graduates has become an annual cycle and a core component of hr strategy (slaughter, stanton, mohr & schoel, 2005). from an organisational perspective there are many advantages to hiring graduate employees. it is generally recognised that the best way to build organisational effectiveness is to hire employees with high levels of ability and past achievement. based on these measures, graduates represent a valuable and plentiful resource of quantifiable ability and achievement (o'leary, lindholm, whitford & freeman, 2002). hiring graduates also enables organisations to meet the need for trained and educated individuals in areas that require professional and highly skilled employees. graduates are often valued for their new ideas and fresh thinking. they are also a potential source of future leadership. while graduates may lack direct job related experience, many students undertake part time or casual employment throughout their university studies. as such, it would be expected that these employment experiences, even if not directly related to their profession, are likely to contribute to graduates‟ understanding of how organisations function. furthermore organisations have the opportunity to train graduates according to their methods (acnielsen research services, 2000). in comparison to experienced applicants, today‟s graduates generally have greater technological abilities, enthusiasm for learning and a comprehensive educational experience (bottjen, 2001; hoopis, 1994). in addition, the increase in the number of entry-level positions over the years means that hiring graduates, as opposed to experienced employees, is a cost effective method of filling these positions (bottjen, 2001). entry-level positions for graduates include professional, managerial and technical jobs and estimates indicate that as many as 40% of new recruits in organisations are graduates (rynes, orlitzky & bretz jr, 1997). as such, selection decisions regarding which graduates to employ are crucial because of the potential costs that can result from making the wrong selection decisions (nicholson & arnold, 1991). difficulties associated with graduate recruitment and selection a number of key factors render the graduate assessment process particularly difficult and set it apart from selection assessments conducted in other contexts. at the recruitment end of the process, the sheer volume of applications highlights the need to develop systematic methods of heavily screening and processing applications (carless, 2007). carless noted that in 2003, the australian association of graduate employers (aage) cited an average of 2023 applications per graduate position with an average of 39 short listed applicants for every job. caballero, c., & walker, a. (2010). work readiness in graduate recruitment and selection: a review of current assessment methods. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 1(1), 13 – 25. 15 graduates are often selected for their perceived general potential, rather than for a specific role within the company. this unique assessment approach challenges traditional assessment methodology and also complicates the job analysis process which is based on the analysis of a specific job (keenan, 1995). traditionally, job analysis is the cornerstone on which assessment is built and dictates selection criteria. instead of specific job performance criteria it is common for assessments used in entry-level selection to focus on broad abilities such as general cognitive ability (murphy, 2004). however, this practice raises concerns regarding the validity of assessment methods chosen, particularly where techniques are not adapted for use in a graduate context. the most obvious and significant factor differentiating graduate selection from other forms of employment selection, is that most graduates have little, if any, direct job-related experience (keenan, 1995). this is a major distinction which deserves careful consideration given that many selection methods, such as interviews, traditionally assess knowledge, skills and attributes (ksas) and competencies in relation to previous work experience (keenan, 1995). furthermore, assessment in recruitment contexts tends to include oral assessment, such as interviews. this may present a challenge for graduates, particularly given that there is considerably more focus on written forms of assessment in higher education settings. as such, graduates may not be as prepared to articulate their knowledge, skills and experience to potential employers. despite growing interest in the area of graduate recruitment and selection, relatively little is known about the methods used by organisations to assess and select graduates for entry level positions. the fact that graduates lack relevant work experience and that selection criteria are typically not based on a given job analysis raises questions in relation to: the selection criteria being used; how assessment methods are modified to account for graduates‟ lack of work experience; and whether current methods effectively predict graduate performance. a review of current graduate recruitment, selection and assessment practices follows with a particular focus on the emerging area of graduate work readiness. graduate selection criteria knowledge, skills and attributes (ksas) a qualitative study by acnielsen research services (2000) with employers and industry representatives identified the following sought after skills in new graduate recruits: academic achievement, literacy; numeracy; logical and orderly thinking; computer skills; time management skills; written business communication; oral communication; creativity and flair; interpersonal skills; teamwork skills; problem solving skills; and comprehension of business processes. some employers also rated research/analysis skills and leadership skills as being important. with regard to the future of business and the rapid changes impacting the world of work, employers indicated a preference for graduates who were adaptable and flexible in order to cope with future changes. graduates with an awareness of the need for continuous learning were also valued by some professions. it seems that a range of personal attributes are valued by australian employers that vary according to the organisation, industry and profession. in general, australian employers consider enthusiasm, motivation, ambition, maturity, and personal presentation to be valuable attributes in graduate applicants. work readiness traditionally, academic achievement and/or technical competence has been a key selection criterion in graduate recruitment and selection (roth & bobko, 2000). while this is usually caballero, c., & walker, a. (2010). work readiness in graduate recruitment and selection: a review of current assessment methods. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 1(1), 13 – 25. 16 dependent on specific subjects for particular disciplines and professions, high academic or technical achievement is generally used as an indicator of intellectual capability, capacity to learn, and motivation to pursue and achieve goals (acnielsen research services, 2000). however, academic or technical ability does not necessarily predict long term future capability. nowadays, more importance is being placed on graduates possessing a range of generic skills and attributes required across all jobs. in particular, organisations are increasingly interested in the extent to which graduate applicants possess the skills and attributes that make them “prepared” or “ready” for success in today‟s rapidly changing work environment. hence, a relatively new concept has emerged in the literature as a selection criterion for predicting graduate potential, the notion of work readiness (acnielsen research services, 2000; casner-lotto, barrington & wright, 2006; gardner & liu, 1997; hart, 2008). employer perspectives on graduate work readiness gardner and liu (1997) surveyed over 150 employers who were asked to observe their new graduate employees in order to compare and rate their work preparation with the job‟s performance requirements. the participant sample included technical graduates (e.g. engineering, computer science, accounting), as well as non-technical graduates (e.g. general business, social sciences, communications). the objectives of the study were to evaluate graduate performance with regards to the specific skills/competencies required for the job and to evaluate the educational and social preparation of the graduates for work. fifty two skills and competencies, grouped into nine categories were rated including: (1) speaking and listening, (2) reading, (3) writing, (4) mathematics, (5) thinking and reasoning, (6) organisational skills, (7) analysing analytical data, (8) job skills, and (9) personal skills. the study found that some employers perceived their graduate employees as inadequately prepared for entry level work. although employers were generally happy with graduate performance, there were a few significant differences between job requirements and graduate preparedness. overall, technical graduates were rated as being more unprepared in terms of speaking and listening, writing, organisational and personal skills than nontechnical graduates. for both technical and non technical graduates a lack of work readiness was observed in relational and personal competencies, skills not directly taught in the classroom (gardner & liu, 1997). nowadays, however it is common for undergraduate courses to offer practical units that allow students to experientially develop relational and personal competencies outside of the classroom. hence these findings may not be valid for today‟s graduates. alternatively, research by hart (2008) with 301 organisations found that while employers were generally satisfied with graduates‟ entry-level skills, they were less confident about graduates‟ achievement of the skills and knowledge necessary for advancement and promotion in the organisation. of 12 key skill areas, employers identified global knowledge, self-direction, writing, critical thinking and adaptability as areas where graduates were least prepared in terms of work and hence in need of improvement. acnielsen research services (2000) examined employer satisfaction with the skills of new graduates entering the workforce. a participant sample of 1105 australian employers rated graduates from a range of disciplines from both the tafe and university sectors on 25 skills and attributes. creativity and flair was rated by employers as the most valued attribute of new graduates and also the attribute that new graduates were most deficient in. the other most valued skills or attributes were enthusiasm, capacity for independent and critical thinking, flexibility and adaptability and personal presentation. graduates were also generally rated as lacking problem solving skills, oral business communication skills, and interpersonal skills. furthermore, when rating the suitability of applicants for each position in the organisation, employers indicated that 76.5% of applicants were found to be unsuitable. caballero, c., & walker, a. (2010). work readiness in graduate recruitment and selection: a review of current assessment methods. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 1(1), 13 – 25. 17 similarly, casner-lotto, et al., (2006) surveyed 400 us organisations regarding graduates‟ preparedness, and articulated 11 applied skill sets that new graduate entrants need to succeed in the workplace. employers rated professionalism/work ethic, oral and written communications, teamwork/collaboration and critical thinking/problem solving as the most important skills for new graduates on entering the work place. with regards to overall preparation or work readiness of graduates, 24% of employers rated university graduates as “excellent”, 65% rated them as “adequate”, and 9% rated graduates as “deficient”. in addition, graduates were rated as being least prepared in terms of written communication skills and leadership skills. current conceptualisations of graduate work readiness the current graduate recruitment literature does not provide a clear conceptualisation of what defines work readiness in graduate employees (casner-lotto, et al., 2006). furthermore, findings from the studies by acnielsen research services (2000), casnerlotto, et al., (2006), gardner & liu (1997) and hart (2008) vary in terms of the skills and attributes articulated by employers as being indicative of work readiness. it appears that employers may not value the same skills and attributes equally and that, in some cases, employers use different terms to refer to the same or similar attributes. the evident lack of clarity and consensus on what defines work readiness may be due to the fact that, as a construct, it is still in the early stages of development. the emergence of interest in work readiness can be linked to the increasing demand from employers for graduates to possess a diverse range of generic graduate attributes or generic skills (hager & holland, 2006). this trend has resulted from economic and technological developments which have significantly changed the nature of the workplace. the term generic skills is used interchangeably with related terms including “core skills”, “basic skills”, “transferable skills” and “employability skills”. it refers to a range of qualities and capacities that are viewed as important in the preparation for work in almost any job. examples of generic skills include communication, problem solving and working with others. alternatively, hager and holland argue that generic graduate attributes go beyond technical skills to also include attitudes, values and dispositions. the various combinations of attributes and skills that a graduate applies in different contexts can be referred to as capabilities (hager, 2006). consistent with the interchangeable terms used to describe generic skills and attributes, different labels are also used in the literature to describe the notion of work readiness including “work preparedness”, “graduate employability”, “transferable skills” and “generic attributes”. a review of the literature indicates that these concepts are closely tied along with overlaps in the skills and attributes that denote graduate work readiness (atlay & harris, 2000; casner-lotto, et al., 2006; gabb, 1997; gardner & liu, 1997; hambur, rowe & luc, 2002; hart, 2008; stewart & knowles, 2000). table 1 provides a summary of the studies which examine work readiness and its various cognates, as well as a breakdown of the skills and attributes identified as being important for graduate success. caballero, c., & walker, a. (2010). work readiness in graduate recruitment and selection: a review of current assessment methods. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 1(1), 13 – 25. 18 table 1. summary of the literature examining work readiness and related concepts reference construct terminology breakdown of skills/attributes (gardner & liu, 1997) workforce readiness skills and competencies: speaking and listening, reading, writing, mathematics, thinking and reasoning, organisational, analysing data, job skills, personal skills (casner-lotto, barrington & wright 2006) workforce readiness applied skills critical thinking/problem solving, oral communications, written communication, teamwork/collaboration, diversity, information technology application, leadership, creativity/innovation, lifelong learning/self-direction, professionalism/work ethic, ethics/social responsibility (hart, 2008) work preparedness teamwork, ethical judgement, intercultural skills, social responsibility, quantitative reasoning, oral communication, self-knowledge,, adaptability, critical thinking, writing, self-direction, global knowledge (hambur, rowe & luc, 2002; stewart & knowles, 1999) graduate transferable skills & qualities (“graduateness”) personal attributes motivation, organisational ability, teamwork, interpersonal/social skills, leadership communication written, verbal and non verbal skills problem-solving initiative, creativity, decision making (gabb, 1997) graduate transferable skills & qualities motivation, enthusiasm, interpersonal skills, teamworking, flexibility, adaptability, oral communication, initiative, proactivity, problem-solving (stewart & knowles, 2000) graduate transferable skills & qualities motivation, initiative, creativity, organisational ability, communication skills –verbal, communication skills – written, teamworking, interpersonal/social, problem solving, leadership, numeracy, information technology (atlay & harris, 2000) graduate employability information retrieval and handling, communication and presentation, planning and problem solving, social development and interaction (knight & yorke, 2003) aspects of employability personal qualities malleable self-theory, self-awareness, self-confidence, independence, emotional intelligence, adaptability, stress tolerance, initiative, willingness to learn, reflectiveness. core skills reading effectiveness, numeracy, information retrieval, language skills, self-management, critical analysis, creativity, listening, written communication, oral presentations, explaining, global awareness caballero, c., & walker, a. (2010). work readiness in graduate recruitment and selection: a review of current assessment methods. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 1(1), 13 – 25. 19 communication, motivation, initiative, creativity and interpersonal skills are the attributes that appear most frequently across the studies shown in table 1. the findings of these studies in particular highlight the fact that work readiness is a construct which is becoming increasingly valued by employers today. given the rapidly changing nature of the workplace, the extent to which graduate employees are work ready is seen as indicative of graduate potential in terms of long term job performance and career advancement. the growing demand organisations are placing on graduates possessing the generic attributes that render them work ready, has significant implications for graduate recruitment, particularly with regards to selection. as such, a review of the assessment methods currently being used by organisations in graduate recruitment and selection and the efficacy of these methods for work readiness is necessary. review of research in graduate assessment methods in comparison to studies investigating the methods used in the recruitment and selection of managers, there are fewer studies which have examined assessment methods used in graduate selection. nevertheless, recent research surveying graduate recruitment and selection practices across organisations in british (e.g. keenan, 1995), european (e.g. hodgkinson & payne, 1998) and australian (e.g. carless, 2007) contexts provide us with some insight into current practices. pre-screening methods an important first step in the selection phase appears to be the pre-screening and culling of applicants to a manageable number (carless, 2007). if conducted poorly, pre-screening can negatively impact on the selection process and render it ineffective (keenan, 1995). according to keenan, application forms provide a cost effective and time efficient method of screening applicants in this initial phase. some organisations may also use pre-screening interviews. application forms traditionally include the applicant‟s academic results, to which some employers assign a great deal of weight in terms of screening out unsuitable applicants (acnielsen research services, 2000). a uk study by keenan (1995) examining the graduate recruitment and selection methods of 536 organisations reported that 94% of respondents used application forms and 54% screening interviews as a basis for pre-screening the applicants. hodgkinson and payne (1998) conducted a cross cultural comparison of the assessment methods used to select university graduates in three european countries. senior managers and human resource professionals from 176 british, 57 dutch, and 37 french organisations were surveyed about their most common selection methods. in the pre-screening phase, 83% of british, 66% of dutch and 55% of french organisations reported using application forms. a decade later carless (2007), in a survey of 50 australian organisations, found that most organisations used application forms as the first step in the selection process of graduate employees. methods used in final selection following the pre-screening of graduate applicants, a final selection phase is undertaken where it appears that organisations draw on a range of assessment methods. for example, keenan (1995) found that all uk organisations surveyed used interviews in their final selection of graduates and 44% also used assessment centres. hodgkinson and payne‟s (1998) cross cultural study found that organisations from britain, france and the netherlands used a variety of traditional methods such as, interviews, ability tests and personality tests. however, it was also found that some organisations used extremely poor methods such as references and graphology as part of the selection process. the later study by carless (2007) in an australian context yielded similar results to those reported by keenan (1995) and hodgkinson and payne (1998). one-on-one or panel interviews, cognitive ability tests, caballero, c., & walker, a. (2010). work readiness in graduate recruitment and selection: a review of current assessment methods. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 1(1), 13 – 25. 20 personality tests and assessment centres were reported as the most common methods used in graduate recruitment and selection by australian organisations. a limitation common to the studies by carless (2007), hodgkinson and payne (1998) and keenan (1995) is that data were not collected regarding the selection criteria used by the organisations in conducting their graduate assessments or how the selection criteria was determined. this is further compounded by the problematic nature of the notion of “skills”, which are commonly used as selection criteria in graduate selection. historically the term “skills” referred to the capabilities required to undertake a particular task (taylor, 2005). nowadays however this term is often collapsed and used interchangeably with the term „competency‟ and „attribute‟. furthermore use of the term “skills” has expanded to include a range of “soft”, “generic”, “transferable”, “social”, and “interpersonal” skills. as a result, conceptually the notion of skills has become poorly defined with organisations offering different interpretations (payne, 2000). as such, the nature of the specific graduate skills and attributes being assessed in these studies is unclear, as is the effectiveness of the methods used in assessing these skills and attributes. to date, much of the research examining graduate assessment methods has been conducted by surveying organisations. although this research has contributed to knowledge of the selection practices being used by organisations, they do not examine the validity of assessment methods used in a graduate context in terms of predicting graduate potential and performance. furthermore, there is little insight about the extent to which organisations utilise work readiness, or attributes that are indicative of work readiness, as predictors of performance in current selection practices. effectiveness of current methods in assessing graduate work readiness. the findings by carless (2007) in particular, provide some useful insight into the practices of australian organisations. the most common methods used by the 50 australian organisations surveyed, in order of popularity were, application forms, interviews, cognitive ability tests, personality tests and assessment centres. these selection methods are each designed to predict different dimensions of performance criteria, however, not all methods are employed in the same selection process. according to carless, while more than half of the australian organisations utilised a selection battery comprising three methods: application forms, interviews and one other selection method of choice, 42% indicated they only used application forms and interviews to select graduate applicants. although these methods have been shown to demonstrate validity across occupational groups and in various contexts, it is less clear how effective they are in assessing potential in graduate applicants. in particular the fact that some organisations only rely on the use of application forms and interviews raises concerns about the ability of current assessment methods in being able to examine graduate work readiness as a construct in itself. application forms and academic achievement despite the widespread use of university grades in selection practices, in comparison to other job predictors, there is little known about the reliability, validity and implications of this method (roth & bobko, 2000). the academic achievement literature generally suggests a positive relationship between university grades and general mental ability (jensen, 1980). roth, bevier, switzer, and schipmann (1996) in their meta-analysis examined the relationship between academic grades and job performance. correlation coefficients were found to be only modest, suggesting academic grades were weak predictors of job performance. furthermore correlation coefficients for academic grades were found to be lower than other predictors such as interviews and cognitive ability tests. caballero, c., & walker, a. (2010). work readiness in graduate recruitment and selection: a review of current assessment methods. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 1(1), 13 – 25. 21 of particular interest is the usefulness of academic grades in measuring the work readiness of graduate applicants. while there is limited research on this topic, hart (2008) reported that less than 30% of employers found academic achievement to be effective in predicting a graduate applicant‟s work readiness and potential to succeed. as such, it appears that standard application forms and academic achievement scores may be limited in their ability to assess the multidimensional construct of work readiness. interviews several studies have supported the use of interviews as a valid selection tool, provided they are highly structured (gatewood, feild, & barrick, 2008; salgado, 1999; weisner & cronshaw, 1988; wright, lichenfels, & pursell, 1989). furthermore, the use of structured interviews in selection has increased potential for assisting organisations in improving employee performance and productivity (terpstra & rozell, 1993). however, two vital conditions of the structured interview are that they are based on systematic job analysis and utilise job-related questions (keenan, 1995). in the case of graduate recruitment and selection, meeting these conditions is difficult, particularly where graduates are not applying for specific roles and organisations are not utilising job analyses. in addition, graduates generally do not have sufficient job experience to be able to answer job-related questions. with respect to work readiness, the suitability of interviews may be doubtful. interviews are essentially designed to provide insight into an individual‟s future performance based on past experience. however, for a cohort with limited job-related experience, the validity of this selection method is questionable. it is also unclear from the research whether employers are modifying the traditional interview to make them more appropriate for graduate applicants. one way employers may modify the interview is to utilise future oriented questions, however, according to salgado (1999) past-oriented questions generally demonstrate higher validity than future-orientated questions. cognitive ability tests a review of the validity of cognitive ability tests by ghiselli (1973) found that they were valuable predictors of performance across many types of jobs and occupations. twenty five years later, a meta-analysis examining cognitive ability tests by schmidt and hunter (1998) found similar results. nevertheless, in relation to assessing work readiness, cognitive ability tests suffer from the same limitations as academic achievement results, since they are designed to measure cognitive ability, rather than work readiness. hart‟s (2008) survey of 301 employers examining employer perceptions of work readiness found that few employers rated multiple-choice tests of cognitive ability effective in predicting graduate performance on the job. instead, most employers favoured assessments that demonstrated graduate ability to apply learning to complex, real world challenges including tests assessing problem-solving, writing and analytical skills. hence, as predictors of work readiness in the assessment process, neither academic results nor multiple choice tests of cognitive ability were rated by employers as valuable. construct validity construct validity concerns the relationship of a measure to the underlying attributes it is attempting to assess (mcintire & miller, 2007). of the current graduate selection methods, only cognitive ability tests and personality tests are associated with specific constructs, yet neither of these is synonymous with work readiness. hence, current measures of personality and cognitive ability would not be expected to be effective predictors of the dimensions that define work readiness in graduates. caballero, c., & walker, a. (2010). work readiness in graduate recruitment and selection: a review of current assessment methods. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 1(1), 13 – 25. 22 the need for systematic assessment of work readiness the increased interest in examining graduate work readiness suggests that this is a construct of value in entry-level jobs and indicative of graduate job performance, success, and potential for promotion and advancement. it is also evident from the research examining work readiness (acnielsen research services, 2000; casner-lotto, et al., 2006; gardner & liu, 1997; hart, 2008), that some graduates entering the workforce lack the preparedness and work readiness expected of them by employers. in other words, on the job performance of some graduates has been found to fall below the requirements of their entry-level roles and as such, have failed to meet employer expectations. the primary aim of assessment in graduate recruitment and selection is to predict and forecast a candidate‟s capability potential and future performance on the job. nevertheless, even after selecting the “best” graduates, employers perceive a lack of work readiness that can hinder graduate success. this implies that current graduate selection practices do not effectively assess this construct. the discrepancy between employer expectations and graduate performance also suggests a growing need to systematically assess work readiness in graduate recruitment and selection. graduates are unique to other employment groups in that they lack job-related experience, therefore work readiness may be an important consideration in predicting the future potential of graduates. current assessment methods, although valid in predicting performance criteria, lack the rigour and construct validity that would be required to effectively assess work readiness in graduates. furthermore, the variety of definitions articulated by employers and academics on what constitutes work readiness is indicative of a need to further refine this construct. the value of assessments in evaluating work readiness will hinge crucially on how well the attributes that constitute work readiness are conceptualised (hager, 2006). to date there is little, if any evidence in the research of a specific measure of work readiness for graduates. the only scale identified in the literature developed for a graduate population and relevant in an australian context is the graduate skills assessment (gsa). the gsa, developed by the australian council for educational research (acer) (hambur et al., 2002), is designed to assess widely applicable generic skills acquired through the university experience and which may be relevant to university achievement and future graduate work. the generic skills assessed by the gsa include; written communication, critical thinking, problem solving, and interpersonal understandings. however, the gsa does not assess the personal attributes and personality traits that may be associated with implementing these generic skills. instead, the gsa was developed to provide an indicator to universities of generic skills in their students at entry /exit level. at exit-level gsa results may be also used as an additional criterion for entry into post graduate courses. it is evident that current graduate recruitment and selection methods fall short with respect to the assessment of work readiness. given the growing emphasis on this construct from employers, the development of a scale to measure work readiness seems inevitable. such a measure would allow more effective selection decisions. it is also expected that such a measure would be able to more effectively predict long term work capacity and performance. caballero, c., & walker, a. 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(2013). how are csu advertising students being prepared to be industry-ready graduates? journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 4(1), 73–84. 73 how are csu advertising students being prepared to be industryready graduates? anne llewellynn1, deborah clarke1 allewellynn@csu.edu.au; dclarke@csu.edu.au 1charles sturt university abstract the need for university graduates to be industry-ready on completion of a tertiary degree is a topic which is being examined with increasing interest (frawley & litchfield, 2009). there is concern that australia is facing a shortage of professional, qualified talent in the advertising industry (corlette, 2010; ma, 2012; hayes quarterly report, 2013), thus placing an increasing demand on universities to produce industry-ready graduates who can fulfil advertising jobs and make an immediate and meaningful contribution to their employers. in an effort to successfully prepare graduates to make a meaningful initial workplace contribution, charles sturt university (csu) is adopting strategies that aim to close the gap between the lecture hall and the workplace. one such strategy enables advertising students at charles sturt university to spend their final year in the on-campus student advertising agency, kajulu communications. to transition easily into full time employment, students must apply best industry knowledge, practice and skills to a range of authentic situations to develop the abilities employers require of them in order to enter the workforce industryready. whilst much has been written about graduate employability and the skills and attributes students need (andrews & higson, 2010; boden & nedeva, 2010; bridgstock, 2009; lowden, hall, elliott & lewin 2011; mason, williams & cranmer, 2009; thomson, 2013), this paper examines the students’ perceptions of being industry-ready and identifies the key attributes relevant for course design. key words: industry-ready, advertising, authentic, key attributes, graduate employability introduction employers in the advertising industry are concerned that australia is facing a talent shortage and are looking overseas to fill roles (corlette, 2010; ma, 2012; hayes quarterly report, 2013). in a 2011 survey conducted by the communications council, 80 per cent of the advertising agencies who responded indicated that they faced chronic talent shortages with 92 per cent reporting that at any one time there were up to 10 percent of their positions vacant due to the difficulty of finding experienced staff (hendy, 2011). ma (2012) suggests that this talent shortage has arisen as a result of universities not adequately preparing graduates to be industry-ready and questions whether practical experience is sufficiently addressed in university degrees. in examining australian training and education schemes, david blight (2013) highlights that tafe and university graduates are not trained to be jobready and may require six or even up to twelve months before they can contribute meaningfully to their employers. however, the advertising industry is seeking to employ university graduates with the specific skills to be work-ready, thus reducing the burden on employers to invest professional development time with entry-level graduates. mailto:allewellynn@csu.edu.au mailto:dclarke@csu.edu.au llewellynn, a. & clarke, d. (2013). how are csu advertising students being prepared to be industry-ready graduates? journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 4(1), 73–84. 74 according to dave sayer of ogilvy, (as cited in ma, 2012, p. 14) most graduates appear to have little knowledge of the various functions within an agency and are unsure about their career path in advertising. john butterworth, chief executive, australian interactive media industry association, (as cited in blight, 2013, p. 26) expressed concern that some university courses are slow to incorporate new industry learning outcomes into their curricula and many skills are not examined at all. as a national university for the professions, charles sturt university prides itself on providing practical, hands-on courses that ensure graduates are prepared for a range of employment opportunities (charles sturt university, 2012). according to csu’s strategic plan 2011-2015, industry relevant courses and workplace learning support csu's learning and teaching objectives (charles sturt university, 2011). csu course profiles aim to provide high quality graduates to meet professional workforce needs (charles sturt university, 2012), and one strategy employed to achieve this outcome is embedding capstone subjects into the curriculum thus providing students with the opportunity to develop, rehearse and refine a range of personal and general capabilities that are required by their industry employers. the authentic learning embedded in the advertising capstone subject assists students to develop the real-work knowledge and skills to enter the workforce industry-ready. this research is based on the authentic learning environment of the csu on-campus student advertising agency, kajulu communications. the foci for investigation are the constructively aligned, authentic assessment tasks (biggs & tang, 2007) in the three final subjects in the advertising course: i) advertising client management; ii) advertising strategy and campaign planning; and iii) the capstone subject professional advertising practice. more specifically, the aim of the study is to investigate the efficacy of the bachelor of communication (advertising) and bachelor of communication (advertising)/bachelor of business (marketing) final year sequence of subjects, and in particular the capstone subject, as being representative of a culmination of students’ knowledge and skills of the course. this paper reports on the experiences of the students as one group of stakeholders in this research and seeks to address the question of how relevant and useful the students perceive the capstone subject to be in preparing them as industry-ready graduates. holdsworth, watty & davies (2009) identify the need to understand how capstone experiences help students in this transition. an analysis of student perceptions of their experiences in this research will make a significant contribution to developing such an understanding. the final year advertising subjects are designed to give the students hands-on experience before they enter the industry. kajulu communications, which functions as a professional advertising agency, is used as one of the key strategies to incorporate professional practice into the curriculum. students work in authentic industry roles in advertising agency teams as they would in the industry. in the subject ‘advertising client management’, students learn the structure of advertising agencies, the roles and responsibilities of management and staff, and the systems and procedures required to operate an agency. in the second subject, ‘advertising strategy and campaign planning’, the teams work on a brief provided by a paying client. for the final year advertising students, the capstone subject is the opportunity to again work on a real client project. student teams are mentored by the subject coordinator as chief executive officer (ceo) of kajulu communications. the aim of the students participating in kajulu communications is to develop integrated marketing communications campaign recommendations for fee-paying clients. the process mirrors industry practice. the important attributes developed through the kajulu experience include a thorough understanding of the structure, the roles and responsibilities and the day to day operations of llewellynn, a. & clarke, d. (2013). how are csu advertising students being prepared to be industry-ready graduates? journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 4(1), 73–84. 75 an agency, the ability to use industry project management tools, and a complete understanding of the process of integrated marketing communications campaign development. all of these aspects are encompassed in the capstone subject and developed in the two subjects preceding the capstone subject. the capstone subject represents the culmination of academic experiences which integrate coursework, knowledge, skills and authentic learning to enable students to demonstrate their understanding of industry requirements and their abilities as industry-ready practitioners at the completion of their course. the objective of the capstone experience is to link learning outcomes to employability (feldgen & clua, 2010; holdsworth, watty & davies, 2009; learning & teaching forum, macquarie university, 2008; moore, 2005; willey, jarman & gardner, 2008). this research supports and adds to the contemporary conversations regarding desirable attributes for industry-ready graduates. literature review there is a wealth of literature that examines the notion of graduates, across a range of university degrees, being work-ready (andrews & higson, 2008; bridgstock, 2009; cranmer, 2006; litchfield, frawley, & nettleton, 2010; lowden, hall, elliott & lewis, 2011; mason, williams & cranmer, 2009; pool & sewell, 2007; rae, 2007). however, the inclusion within the recognised graduate skills of attributes of personal development required to meet workplace demands, is a more recent phenomenon. contemporary research examines the need to include critical thinking, ethical practice, sustainability and teamwork as assessable standards (rigby, wood, clark-murphy, daly, dixon, kavanagh, leveson, petocz, thomas & vu, 2010). moreland (2006, in rae, 2007) defined employability, often referred to as work-readiness (mason, williams & cranmer, 2009), as ‘a set of skills, knowledge and personal attributes that make an individual more likely to secure and be successful in their chosen occupation to the benefit of themselves, the workforce, the community and the economy’. employers expect graduates to possess generic skills in addition to the discipline specific skills developed in their university degrees. these generic skills include working in a team, selfmanagement and planning skills, management of others, oral and written communication skills, numeracy skills and working under pressure (the pedagogy for employability group, 2004, p. 5 in pool & sewell, 2007). andrews and higson (2008) add to this and have identified that for business graduates to be work-ready they were expected to not only have high levels of industry specific skills, but also more generic ‘soft skills’ including interpersonal and communication competencies, being able to work with a minimum of supervision, and presentation skills. similarly, lowden et al. (2011) identify additional work-ready graduate skills (other than the discipline competencies achieved from their university course) to encompass team-working, communication, leadership, critical thinking and problem solving. pool and sewell (2007) suggest a further skill set to include self-efficacy, self-confidence and self-esteem. in addition, bridgstock (2009) also notes that not only do graduates require generic skills for employability; they also need the skills to manage and build their own career path once they enter the workforce. the literature in this field suggests that employers are making ultimate recruitment decisions based on generic rather than industry specific professional skills. graduates can be taught professional, job specific skills, but employers find it too difficult and are reluctant to try to teach the generic skills (frawley & litchfield, 2009). thus, employers are seeking graduates who can make ‘productive contributions to their organisational objectives’ soon after entering the workforce (mason, williams & cranmer, 2009). andrews and higson (2008) similarly noted that employers identified business acumen and interpersonal competencies along with soft business-related skills as being important attributes in graduates’ employability. llewellynn, a. & clarke, d. (2013). how are csu advertising students being prepared to be industry-ready graduates? journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 4(1), 73–84. 76 employers consider that to be work-ready, graduates need the combination of these skills together with the discipline specific knowledge gained from their university course. indeed, changes in both the labour market and university education have placed greater emphasis on the need to produce employable graduates (bridgstock, 2009). most australian universities have identified their own graduate attributes aimed at improving employability. graduate attributes include students’ core capabilities and the learning outcomes achieved as a result of completing their university degrees. the national graduate attributes project (national gap) identified a framework of eight interacting elements which can be considered in fostering curriculum renewal to achieve graduate outcomes (barrie, hughes & smith, 2009). one of these elements, the student-centred outcome, highlighted the need for students to perceive having been actively engaged in achieving worthwhile attributes. since employers are seeking graduates who have acquired work competencies and professional skills rather than those who have not yet learnt these (barrie, 2011), the development of soft skills, such as working in culturally diverse teams, needs to be scaffolded into university courses thus enabling students to demonstrate the skills and attributes prior to graduation. barrie (2011) cites service learning, experiential interaction and work integrated learning as beneficial in achieving some of these skills. in examining work-related graduate attributes oliver, tucker, jones and ferns (2007) highlight that most universities list graduate attributes which are clearly work-related and are often described as employability skills. they found that graduates were seeking more practical experiences, more real life examples and more work experience to be included in their courses. employers also mentioned the need for more work-related experience. responding to the question of how graduates can become work-ready draws on a multitude of practice-based educational opportunities, including work place experience. indeed the significance of work place experience in contributing to graduates being work-ready is an important consideration for course developers, given the uncertainty about whether the necessary skills and attributes can be developed in a classroom (andrews & higson, 2008; cranmer, 2006; litchfield et al., 2010; lowden et al., 2011; mason et al., 2009). mason et al. (2009) question whether universities have much to gain from seeking to develop workready graduates before they commence employment and propose that work skills might be best learnt ‘on the job’. others suggest that it is possible to integrate some aspects of work places into university courses. for example, holmes (2001) argues that there is the opportunity to design authentic assessment tasks which can be considered as examples of the reality of practice by graduates, while treleaven and voola (2008) point to the value of constructive alignment in integrating graduate attributes into teaching, learning and assessment programs within a university course. others contend that the opportunity for improvement in the development of graduate attributes lies in curriculum development, contextualising activities for specific professions and integrated learning (thomas, petocz, rigby, clark-murphy, daly, dixon, kavanagh, lees, levison & wood, 2009; litchfield et al., 2010). along similar lines, lowden et al. (2011) suggest that design of university courses could better reflect the needs of employers without compromising the courses’ purpose and integrity and highlight the benefit of the involvement of employers in course design, this latter point also reflected by mason et al. (2009). the australian government report core skills for work developmental framework (2013) describes many soft skills which contribute to being work-ready. each skill area focuses on the application of non-technical skills which are core requirements for successful contribution in the workplace. whilst there are multiple definitions for employability or being work-ready, this paper focuses more on the development of soft skills (andrews & higson, 2008; lowden et al., 2011; pool & sewell, 2007) rather than the discipline specific skills acquired during a graduate’s university course. llewellynn, a. & clarke, d. (2013). how are csu advertising students being prepared to be industry-ready graduates? journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 4(1), 73–84. 77 method this is a qualitative case study aimed at investigating students’ perceptions of their readiness to participate fully in a professional role in the advertising industry. research participants were recruited using purposive sampling (burns, 2000) from students enrolled in their final year of the bachelor of communication (advertising) and bachelor of communication (advertising) / bachelor of business (marketing) subjects in 2011 in the capstone subject adv315 (professional advertising practice). a requirement of this subject is for students to complete a four week industry internship, providing opportunities for ‘hands-on’ industry experience, before they graduate. this group of students was selected for this reason; some had already completed their internships and others were planning to undertake their placement in the immediate future. students were invited to participate in semi-structured focus group interviews that drew on their experiences in their final year subjects and the capstone subject to prepare them for their roles in the industry. the researchers initially contacted the adv315 cohort of students in tutorials/workshops in week 1 (session 2, 2011) to explain the nature of the research and call for willing participants. an outline of the nature and role of the research was presented and the information sheet and consent forms were distributed. the chief investigator confirmed students’ participation by email once they have advised the researchers of their willingness to participate. students were interviewed in four focus groups comprising four students in each group. the interviews were digitally recorded and transcribed, using a professional transcription service. interview transcripts were assigned pseudonyms to ensure anonymity and confidentiality of the participants. data was analysed using inter-and intra-textual thematic analysis (maykurt & morehouse, 1994). the research was approved by the human research ethics committee of charles sturt university (protocol number 2011/052). results student focus groups – thematic analysis lowden et al., (2011) identified that employers require graduates to have broader skills and attributes than simply the technical and discipline competencies from their university course in order to be considered work-ready. these broader skills include team work, communication and leadership skills, problem solving and critical thinking abilities. in examining some of these attributes, it was important to understand the participants’ interpretation of the meaning of the phrase ‘industry/work-ready’. as evidenced by the analysis of the data, there were four distinct themes that emerged: 1. adding value immediately; 2. understanding of process/environment; 3. skills in team work; and 4. confidence. 1. adding value immediately participants considered being able to add value was very much a part of being industry/ work-ready. adding value to the participants meant they saw themselves as capable and able to contribute in the industry rather than having to be trained by their employers before they could do so. they don’t have to train us; we can just jump straight in; when i did my internship i found that i was capable of doing that. llewellynn, a. & clarke, d. (2013). how are csu advertising students being prepared to be industry-ready graduates? journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 4(1), 73–84. 78 being ready to participate was identified as an important employability skill in the ukces report ‘the employability challenge’ (2009a) cited by lowden et al. (2011). i actually understood why that needed to be done; it’s your ability to … start adding real value to wherever you’re working. in addition, participants saw the importance of timing as contributing to the notion of industry or work readiness. they voiced their understanding that they needed to be able to hit the ground running. they felt confident they could immediately contribute in the workplace and saw this as important in being work-ready. they [employers/intern hosts] didn’t really have to teach us as much as they thought, so we got to … actually work on proper accounts and briefs … which i think they were really happy about. they didn’t have to waste time. this ability to contribute from day one was seen by these students as being important to their employers and thus significant in their being work-ready. i did feel like that they [agency intern hosts] were impressed with us. i feel like i went in and they were quietly surprised at how much we knew. they felt really confident giving us their work and there was no sort of cross-checking everything that we’d done. we can transition straight into the workforce; they don’t have to spend so much time training us. 2. understanding of the work environment and the processes associated with that environment the second theme identified by the participants was their understanding of the work environment and the processes associated with that environment. they believed they could transfer their skills to an array of contexts straight out of their advertising course. participants felt they had gained sufficient understanding of the structure of agencies and how they operate to immediately fit into the agency environment. knowing that each different type of agency has a different structure and different roles within it. participants expressed that they had achieved an understanding of the terms and processes through the course and through the practical, hands-on experience they had gained working in the csu on-campus agency. [being industry-ready means] understanding the environment you are going into, like an agency environment; in-depth industry knowledge already, prior to going into the industry, from the course. graduates must have the ability to proactively manage their careers within the work environment and generic employability skills alone will not achieve this outcome. in order to obtain and maintain work, graduates must have a deeper understanding of the specific industry requirements and familiarity with the industry (bridgstock, 2009). we’ve had the practical experience that we would have in the real world…prepared for all the challenges that could come our way. being industry-ready is just to understand what you’re doing. the students felt they had gained a good understanding of the theory, but also understood agency hands-on processes, roles and areas of responsibility. they felt they had developed llewellynn, a. & clarke, d. (2013). how are csu advertising students being prepared to be industry-ready graduates? journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 4(1), 73–84. 79 the skills necessary to work in an agency through the course and their authentic experience in kajulu. participants perceived that they knew what was expected of them. you expect to know the basics and be able to adapt easily. lowden et al. (2011) identified that knowledge of the business was a particularly relevant graduate attribute valued by employers. 3. participate effectively in team work the third theme arising from the data was the importance of understanding and being able to participate effectively in team work to be work-ready for the advertising industry. working as part of a team in advertising is crucial to success in this industry, as it is in most industries. what i did take from this course was the whole team work aspect and even in the job [internship], i kind of noticed there were people who did more work than other people... it was very similar to uni work. it was similar to team work in general really... and it doesn’t finish at uni. it kind of flows through to work. soft skills and competencies, in addition to hard business-related knowledge and skills, are integral to graduate employability. communication and interaction within teams is an essential element, and the ability to use these softer business-related skills is an important consideration (andrews & higson, 2008). dealing with different people within the team and learning how to manage each of someone’s skills and also their weaknesses, so you get the best team you can. it gives you a better appreciation for working in a team. the ability to work well in a team is considered by most organisations to be essential. to be industry-ready, graduates need to understand not only how to work well in a team, but also how to communicate with others and to work collaboratively to solve problems. there is also the need to have the flexibility to work in different teams over various lengths of time (litchfield et al., 2010). students felt the exposure they had to team work and working in different teams during not only their final year, but also throughout their course, has helped to make them industry-ready. the participants acknowledged the role of the course in developing these skills, and particularly through the authentic experience of working in industry teams on client projects in kajulu. 4. confidence self-confidence, along with self-efficacy and self-esteem, play an important part in graduate employability (pool & sewell, 2007). students felt the knowledge and experience gained in the course had given them the self-confidence they needed to perform to industry standard when they enter the work force. having the confidence of talking about what you know. it's scary going off to do your internship, but when you get there and you realize how much you actually know. i [felt] really comfortable and really confident in what i was doing. the depth of knowledge and the experience students had already gained, supported their self-confidence. students also expressed confidence in the particular skills they had developed in the authentic assessment tasks in subjects leading into the capstone subject. in particular, the subject advertising client management gave them a clear and comprehensive understanding of the roles and responsibilities of agency staff and of the llewellynn, a. & clarke, d. (2013). how are csu advertising students being prepared to be industry-ready graduates? journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 4(1), 73–84. 80 structure of the various types of advertising agencies. knowing the structure and knowing what to expect when they entered the workforce gave them confidence and made them feel they could fit in and contribute from day one. rothwell and arnold (2007) cited by lowden et al. (2011) suggest employability should be measured on interrelated components including students’ confidence in their skills and abilities, perhaps linked with the reputation the university has in the particular course. i think going to any job there’s going to be a period where you’re settling. and it helps you get through that stage much faster than some other [university] people would. gives you a lot of confidence having done it and it sort of shows throughout. [during my internship] when i’ve told them that i’ve come here [csu], they were just all really impressed by the depth of how we’re taught about the industry. a further area highlighted by the participants was the need for well-developed presentation skills. identified as being an important ‘soft skill’ graduate attribute by andrews and higson (2008), presentation skills are deemed to enhance graduate employability and industry readiness in the increasingly competitive business environment. yeah, [i now have] good presentation skills. i was good at presenting at school but it’s just so different. it’s just being casual and being able to just have a conversation with people; it’s just something really good to have. the best skills [i learnt] i think were the presentation skills because i had to make a presentation at my internship. presentations are a huge thing … i’ve always been pretty good at presentations but i think over the course of this subject i do presentations really well. and because we’re presenting to industry professionals, it makes us want to live up to a standard. in examining not only what the participants felt they had learned to contribute to their being industry/work ready, but also how they had learned this, one particular theme arose, that of the authentic subjects, authentic assessment and the constructive alignment of the assessment tasks. i think the structure of especially the capstone subject; you appreciate the process of what you have to do and you do work to these standards and these commitments and the pressures are real. the constructive alignment of assessment tasks, assessment criteria and learning activities is essential to achieving the learning outcomes of these subjects (biggs & tang, 2007). when these constructive alignment factors are considered in terms of graduate attributes they are instrumental in developing employability skills needed in marketing education (treleaven & voola, 2008). the final year subjects are taught in the authentic learning environment of the on-campus student advertising agency, kajulu communications. the participants also expressed the positive benefit of working on a brief from a real client of the agency. participants expressed that they felt the work experience gained particularly in the capstone subject in kajulu contributed to their being industry-ready. cranmer (2006) identified that work experience needs to be in an authentic location, closely related to that of industry, if it is to be of real benefit and productive. structured work experience can have a positive effect on graduates’ outcomes. you feel like you’re already part of the industry in a way. already working. you feel like you’re in it, especially when we did those couple of assignments llewellynn, a. & clarke, d. (2013). how are csu advertising students being prepared to be industry-ready graduates? journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 4(1), 73–84. 81 last semester:it felt like we’re actually in an advertising agency and everything, and i’d never been… inside one. where work experience is integrated into a degree, particularly if it is within assessment tasks that replicate as closely as possible the practices of the work place, there is the opportunity for students to develop their skills in a ‘rehearsal’ context (holmes, 2001). like the whole thing with this year is that it's not so much like classes, it's actually kind of like having a job. …because it’s realistic; it is hands-on. it’s much more realistic, and there’s a timeframe to it. the students demonstrated an understanding of the rationale for the authentic work-setting, an appreciation for being exposed to what actually happens in a real agency and the sense of real purpose in the tasks they undertook, as validated by their internships. you do meet up with your team every week and you understand why you do it. the internship, because it’s compulsory, we all had to do it, just gave us the knowledge of what actual, real industry is compared to the course and there are so many overlaps, they’re pretty much identical to what our expectations were. i think also with this [capstone subject], and with the last two subjects we’ve done, you really learn the details about the industry, for example the client relationship, how in the industry they deal with clients professionally. you learn that, where in an essay you can’t exactly learn that. it’s been more hands-on, and talking about what it’s really like which has been good. it [capstone subject authentic assessment task] does feel like it’s getting us to draw upon everything we’ve learnt and that way we’ll remember it. and then when we go straight into the advertising industry we’ve just done a huge assignment that summarises our entire degree. so it’ll be a lot fresher in our minds. conclusion the changing relationship between universities, students and employers is highlighted by boden and nedeva (2010), and points to employers now seeking to employ work-ready graduates rather than to train new workers. consequently, there is a greater demand for universities to delivery industry-ready graduates to the market. as discussed in this paper, the researchers have designed curriculum that adopts an authentic work-place simulation context; kajulu communications, and the assessment requirements of the associated capstone subjects as means to successfully prepare bachelor of communication (advertising) students at charles sturt university to take an immediate, meaningful place in the advertising industry. the results of the research have provided evidence of the efficacy of the curriculum design strategies as students have voiced their perceptions of how these experiences have, in their opinion, more than adequately prepared them to ‘hit the ground running’ and to ‘know what you have signed up for’. as evidenced by the participant interview data, providing students with the opportunity to experience real industry work, in an integrated and controlled learning environment, in addition to their four week industry internship, it is clear that they gain the skills and llewellynn, a. & clarke, d. (2013). how are csu advertising students being prepared to be industry-ready graduates? journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 4(1), 73–84. 82 attributes they perceive are needed to demonstrate to employers that they are industryready practitioners. participant interview data revealed that there was the shared perception that students had acquired the necessary graduate attributes and were ready to value-add to their employer organisations immediately upon commencing work. furthermore, the data analysis highlighted that participants already understand the nature of the industry environment into which they were going, in addition to understanding the processes involved in the industry and what was expected of them. participants’ comments illustrated their perceptions of having developed the team work skills necessary to immediately join a team and contribute in an advertising agency and having developed the essential confidence needed to enter the workforce industry-ready. the educational benefit of the course, and in particular the capstone subject, is to empower csu advertising students to be industry-ready. economically industry partners benefit from employing students with the specific skills to be work-ready reducing the requirement of employers to invest professional development time with entry-level graduates. whilst many employability skills may need to be learned on the job (mason et al., 2009) the hands-on student experience gained in the authentic learning environment of kajulu communications has afforded these students the opportunity to develop valuable soft skills, in addition to their discipline specific skills, before starting their employment. indeed, the development of soft skills enabled the students to demonstrate their discipline specific knowledge and skills immediately and with confidence in the workplace. llewellynn, a. & clarke, d. 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(2013). how are csu advertising students being prepared to be industry-ready graduates? journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 4(1), 73–84. 85 improved learning? proceedings of the 19th annual australasian association for engineer education conference, central queensland university, yeppoon. how are csu advertising students being prepared to be industry-ready graduates? abstract introduction literature review method results student focus groups – thematic analysis conclusion references course review graduate employability indicators report oliver, b., whelan, b., hunt, l., & hammer, s. (2011). accounting graduates and the capabilities that count: perceptions of graduates, employers and accounting academics in four australian universities. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 2(1), 2 27. 2 accounting graduates and the capabilities that count: perceptions of graduates, employers and accounting academics in four australian universities beverley oliver 1 , barbara whelan 1 , lynne hunt 2 , sara hammer 2 b.oliver@curtin.edu.au, b.whelan@curtin.edu.au, lynne.hunt@usq.edu.au, sara.hammer@usq.edu.au 1 curtin university, 2 university of southern queensland abstract the higher education sector in australia is moving rapidly towards greater accountability in regard to graduate employability outcomes. currently, data on new graduates‘ selfreported generic skills and employment status provide the evidence base for universities to make judgements about the effectiveness of curricula in preparing students for employment. this paper discusses alternative sources of evidence, namely the graduate employability indicators (gei) a suite of three online surveys designed to supplement current indicators. they are designed to gather and report graduate, employer and course (teaching) team perceptions of the achievement and importance of graduate capabilities within specific degree programs. in 2009 and 2010, the surveys were administered to stakeholder groups associated with accounting degrees in four australian universities. in total, 316 graduates, 99 employers and 51 members of the course teaching teams responded to the surveys. this report presents the aggregated results from the trial. these suggest that the fourteen capabilities at the heart of the gei are considered important, and that both quantitative and qualitative items facilitate the reporting of essential information. both accounting employers and teaching staff consider that important capabilities need to be better demonstrated by new graduates. the graduates themselves identified ways in which their courses can be improved to enhance their early professional success. an importance-performance analysis suggests prioritising particular capabilities for immediate attention in particular, work related knowledge and skills, writing clearly and effectively, thinking critically and analytically, solving complex, real-world problems and developing general industry awareness. this paper suggests that an enhanced industry focus might be effected through authentic assessment tasks, and clear identification of the capabilities developed through the curriculum. keywords: graduate employability, capabilities, graduate, employer and faculty perspectives acknowledgements the authors wish to acknowledge ms jane sneesby for assistance with spss text analysis for surveys, and accounting colleagues dr beverley jackling, associate professor glennda scully, associate professor stacey porter and dr geoff slaughter for assistance in communicating with accounting graduates, employers, professional bodies and course teams. mailto:b.oliver@curtin.edu.au mailto:b.whelan@curtin.edu.au mailto:lynne.hunt@usq.edu.au mailto:sara.hammer@usq.edu.au oliver, b., whelan, b., hunt, l., & hammer, s. (2011). accounting graduates and the capabilities that count: perceptions of graduates, employers and accounting academics in four australian universities. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 2 (1), 2 – 27. 3 introduction recent australian publications suggest that accounting, as a university discipline, is ‗at the crossroads‘, and under pressure from conflicting administrative and educational requirements (evans, 2010). the administrative pressure is due, in part, to the increased numbers of international students in australian universities. as well as providing a source of significant revenue, such student populations also present challenges because, as graduates, they practice accounting beyond australian shores (lightbody, 2010). however, globalisation does mean that domestic australian students have similar needs and require a curriculum that responds to professional accreditation processes within australia and internationally. tension arises from conflicting priorities in courses such as accounting, because universities must pursue revenue sources and quality for accreditation purposes (parker, 2010) in a highly competitive environment. in australia, for example, competition for accounting students has escalated with the advent of private providers. two years after their introduction in australia in 2006, private providers had captured a tenth of higher education students, and most were international business students (ryan, 2010). in 2007, international students comprised 27% of the total student population and just over half were enrolled in business courses (parker, 2010). this growth in competition has contributed to increased emphasis on internationally recognised standards and many universities are now seeking accreditation provided by the association for advancement of collegiate schools of business (aacsb) (lightbody, 2010). more broadly, the advent of the tertiary education quality and standards agency (teqsa) means that australian higher education providers must demonstrate that their courses meet threshold academic standards (freeman, 2010) also expressed as threshold learning outcomes (nicoll, 2010). accounting was one of the first disciplines to be chosen for the development of these threshold outcomes as part of the australian learning and teaching council (altc) learning and teaching academic standards (ltas) project because it has well-defined employment outcomes, professional accrediting bodies engage with the academic community, and large enrolments in public and private business higher education institutions (freeman, 2010). these threshold learning outcomes must be measurable and promote efficient, transparent and sustainable institutional or disciplinary assessment processes without leading to standardisation of curricula or standardised tests (freeman, 2010). this quest for accreditation and measuring standards is a challenge given the general lack of evidence: higher education providers typically draw only on indirect evidence of quality (such as student progression rates) and these are largely unconvincing as they contain no direct evidence of demonstrable competence that minimum standards have been met (freeman, 2010). in spite of the challenges, this move to a more transparent and evidence-based outcomes approach will continue. for example, the australian government has recently announced that standardised testing to assure generic capabilities will be introduced in 2013 (department of education employment and workplace relations, 2010). further, the trend has parallels with trends in the united states (miller & leskes, 2005), the united kingdom with its subject benchmarks (quality assurance agency, n.d.) and the tuning process in europe (gonzalez & wagenaar, 2008). in addition to the tensions caused by high international student enrolments and the need to address standards and quality scrutiny, there is concern that accounting graduates lack the skills required for professional practice. concern about their communication and generic skills were raised in 1990 in the mathews report which emphasised the need to integrate communication and computing skills into accounting programs (hancock, p., howieson, b., kavanagh, m., kent, j., tempone, i., and segal, n., 2010). more recently, oliver, b., whelan, b., hunt, l., & hammer, s. (2011). accounting graduates and the capabilities that count: perceptions of graduates, employers and accounting academics in four australian universities. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 2 (1), 2 – 27. 4 the altc accounting for the future project interrogated the changing accounting graduate skill requirements and investigated non-technical skills (referred to henceforth as generic capabilities) such as communication, interpersonal and critical thinking skills required over the next 10 years (hancock et al., 2010). through interviews with 47 employers from a range of organisations, the project team sifted the broad skill categories most frequently referred to by interviewees. they were: communication and presentation; teamwork and good interpersonal skills; self-management; initiative and enterprise; problem solving; technological competence; and planning and organising skills (hancock et al., 2010). these generic capabilities —particularly communication, teamwork, problem solving, selfmanagement and interpersonal skills—emerged as the discriminators for professional success: hancock found that when employers had to choose between applicants of similar academic ability, they chose the applicant who displayed strength in these generic capabilities (hancock et al., 2010). results from the study indicated that concerns about australian graduates‘ generic capabilities were focused on the higher order skills, such as ―analytical and critical analysis, and the ability to engage clients, negotiate and act strategically‖ (hancock et al., 2010, p. 54). faced with these findings, higher education providers need to assure that their graduates have acquired generic capabilities. unfortunately, measurement of such capabilities through standardised tests such as the graduate skills assessment test (australian council for educational research, 2005) or the collegiate learning assessment is highly contested (association of american colleges and universities, 2005, 2007). one solution is to extend data to incorporate perceptions of success. currently, australian universities capture graduates‘ perceptions by drawing on the course experience questionnaire (ceq) as part of the australian graduate survey. the ceq generic skills scale items gather responses from graduates about four months after they have completed their degree programs. the items for their consideration are: 1. the course helped me develop my ability to work as a team member 2. the course sharpened my analytic skills 3. the course developed my problem solving skills 4. the course improved my skills in written communication 5. as a result of my course, i feel confident about tackling unfamiliar problems 6. my course helped me to develop the ability to plan my own work the ceq is validated and widely researched and used across australia, and derivations have been used elsewhere (ainley & johnson, 2000; mcinnis, griffin, james, & coates, 2001; ramsden, 1999; richardson, 2005). however, the generic capabilities incorporated into these items do not have a specific employability focus, although many overlap with commonly accepted employment-related skills. recent research has suggested that although graduates might rate their generic capabilities, the focus on their future profession is commonly lacking. the recent findings of the australian survey of student engagement, for example, reveal that many undergraduates feel ill equipped to enter the workforce and more than a third leave university without an up-to-date résumé (milburn, 2010). course experience questionnaire respondents are graduates who are often either very new to employment in their profession, or they have not yet secured such employment. in addition, self-reported perceptions such as those generated from the ceq items are not calibrated against others‘ perceptions, such as employers and faculty. perceptions of employers and academic teaching staff on what graduates need to succeed, and whether graduates generally demonstrate the ‗capabilities that count‘ is not systematically collected in australia, nor is there any routine collection of teaching staff perceptions about their confidence in teaching and assessing these generic capabilities. the ceq, therefore, has little relevance to employability or curriculum issues, nor does the oliver, b., whelan, b., hunt, l., & hammer, s. (2011). accounting graduates and the capabilities that count: perceptions of graduates, employers and accounting academics in four australian universities. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 2 (1), 2 – 27. 5 other oft-used indicator, the graduate destination survey: figures reporting employment are subject to labour market forces, and do not capture information about whether the expectations of new graduates (their own career prospects, or the views of their employers) are being met. introducing the graduate employability indicators the altc competitive grant, building course team capacity to enhance graduate employability, has sought to address the data gaps inherent in current measures associated with employability skills through the development of the graduate employability indicators (gei), a suite of three online surveys which focus on fourteen capabilities and gather the perceptions of: graduates of up to five years: o the extent to which the course contributed to their achievement of the capabilities; o the importance of the capabilities to early professional success. employers: o the extent to which graduates generally demonstrate the capabilities; o the importance of the capabilities to graduates‘ early professional success. faculty who teach the course (the course team): o the extent to which graduates generally demonstrate the capabilities; o the importance of the capabilities to graduates‘ early professional success; o their confidence in teaching and assessing the capabilities. each stakeholder group is also asked to report their perception of graduates‘ overall workreadiness. the gei provide evidence to answer the following questions in relation to generic capability achievement within a specific degree program: 1. how important are the fourteen capabilities for early professional success to graduates of this course? 2. to what extent do graduates generally demonstrate the capabilities (according to employers and course team), or do courses contribute to their development (according to graduates)? 3. to what extent are graduates perceived as work-ready? 4. how confident are course teams in teaching and assessing the capabilities? the importance of this broader approach to measurement is that data can be used to improve curricula focused on the capabilities that count most to: ensure that key capabilities are contextualised, embedded and assessed developmentally throughout the course, and recognisably so by graduates; have employers and course teams perceive that the capabilities that count are demonstrated by graduates; and ensure that course teams are confident in teaching and assessing the capabilities that count for employment success. which capabilities? a widely-accepted definition of graduate employability is the achievement of ‗the skills, understandings and personal attributes that make an individual more likely to secure employment and be successful in their chosen occupations to the benefit of themselves, the workforce, the community and the economy‘ (yorke, 2006). one of the challenges in designing the gei was to decide which capabilities to include, knowing that no instrument oliver, b., whelan, b., hunt, l., & hammer, s. (2011). accounting graduates and the capabilities that count: perceptions of graduates, employers and accounting academics in four australian universities. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 2 (1), 2 – 27. 6 could include everything which might be perceived as important, that there are multiple and competing lists of capabilities, and that graduate attributes and their attainment do not always correlate with employability. the term ‗capabilities‘ is not widely used in australia, however, as defined by stephenson (1998) it connotes lifelong learning, integration, and the confidence to realise future potential in a developmental and self-managed way. this definition gels with the widely-agreed aims of university education, as well as yorke‘s definition of graduate employability (yorke, 2006). ―capable people,‖ according to stephenson, ―have confidence in their ability to take effective and appropriate action, explain what they are seeking to achieve, live and work effectively with others, and continue to learn from their experiences, both as individuals and in association with others, in a diverse and changing society‖ (stephenson, 1998, p.2). research in australia shows that there is no single list that incorporates the capabilities, or what most universities call graduate attributes (barrie, hughes, & smith, 2009). they are often a mix of generic skills, employability skills and aspects of civic engagement. international lists of competencies are similarly mixed. for example, the essential learning outcomes are the source of many institutions‘ goals in the united states (association of american colleges and universities, 2004); european research through the tuning process gathered stakeholder perceptions of a set of competences , auzmendi, beza-nilla, & laka, 2008). studies in employability in the united kingdom draw on a range of capabilities, such as those in the knight and yorke usem model (knight & yorke, 2004). a scan of such lists suggests that, in spite of various terms used, most lists include capabilities that cluster around communication, thinking skills, teamwork, self-management and civic engagement. for the gei, a ‗one size fits most‘ list was needed so that higher education institutions could draw on named capabilities to focus on particular attributes as well as professional accreditation competencies. the decision was made to draw such a list from previously validated surveys: the fourteen capabilities in the gei were drawn from one item in the graduate pathways survey (coates & edwards, 2009) which, in turn was based on item 12 in the australian university survey of student engagement (ausse) (coates, 2009) and item 11 in the national survey of student engagement (nsse) widely used in the united states (kuh, 2001). all three surveys included an item asking respondents ‗to what extent has your experience at this institution contributed to your knowledge, skills and personal development in the following areas?‘ because of its employability focus, the gei also gathers perceptions of graduates‘ overall work-readiness. the response categories in the gei mirror those in the surveys on which they are based (very little; some; quite a bit; very much). the gei asks graduates of up to five years to what extent their course experience contributed to their knowledge, skills and personal development: to enable triangulation with other stakeholders, the gei asks the same of employers and course teams ‗to what extent do new graduates generally demonstrate each of the following?‘ in addition, and drawing on the recommendation of scott et al. (scott, 2005), the gei also asks each stakeholder group their perceptions about importance ‗how important do you think each of the following is to the employment success of new graduates of this degree?‘ in other words, the gei ask ‗what are the capabilities that count (importance), and to what extent are they generally demonstrated by graduates (according to employers and teaching staff), or developed in courses (according to graduates)? in addition, and to inform the professional development needs of university teaching staff, the gei also asks course teams to indicate their confidence in teaching and assessing the capabilities (see table 1). all stakeholder groups are also asked a limited number of qualitative items most of which focus on strengths (that is, capabilities that are clearly demonstrated), challenges (that is, capabilities that need improvement) and overall comment, as shown in detail in table 2. oliver, b., whelan, b., hunt, l., & hammer, s. (2011). accounting graduates and the capabilities that count: perceptions of graduates, employers and accounting academics in four australian universities. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 2 (1), 2 – 27. 7 table 1: summary of stakeholder groups and quantitative items of the graduate employability indicators and the surveys from which the items are derived instrument nsse 2007 ausse 2008 gps 2008 graduate employability indicators graduate employability indicators graduate employability indicators stakeholders students students graduates (five years only) graduates (up to five years) employers course team quantitative items 1. to what extent has your experience at this institution contributed to your knowledge, skills, and personal development in the following areas? 1. to what extent has your experience at this institution contributed to your knowledge, skills and personal development in the following areas? 1. to what extent did your experience during your bachelor degree(s) contribute to your knowledge, skills and personal development in the following areas? 1. to what extent did your experience during this degree contribute to your development in the following areas? 1. to what extent do new graduates generally demonstrate each of the following? 1. to what extent do new graduates generally demonstrate each of the following? 2. how important do you think each of the following is to the employment success of new graduates of this degree? 2. how important do you think each of the following is to the employment success of new graduates of this degree? 2. how important do you think each of the following is to the employment success of new graduates of this degree? 3. how confident are you in teaching each of the following? 4. how confident are you in assessing each of the following? ‘capabilities’ acquiring a broad general education acquiring work-related knowledge/skills writing clearly and effectively speaking clearly and effectively thinking critically and analytically analysing quantitative problems using ict working effectively with others voting in local, state, or national elections learning effectively on your own understanding yourself understanding people of other racial and ethnic backgrounds solving complex real-world problems developing personal code of values/ethics contributing to welfare of your community developing deepened sense of spirituality understanding different social contexts oliver, b., whelan, b., hunt, l., & hammer, s. (2011). accounting graduates and the capabilities that count: perceptions of graduates, employers and accounting academics in four australian universities. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 2 (1), 2 – 27. 8 table 2: summary of stakeholder groups and qualitative items of the graduate employability indicators and the surveys from which the items are derived instrument nsse 2007 ausse 2008 gps 2008 graduate employability indicators graduate employability indicators graduate employability indicators stakeholders students students graduates (five years only) graduates (up to five years) employers course team qualitative items nil nil nil what were the best aspects of this degree in developing your skills for employment? what skills, attributes and personal qualities do you consider to be the most useful for new graduates in this field? what do you see as the main incentives for teaching staff to assist students to develop workrelated skills, attributes and personal qualities?’ how could the degree be changed to improve your skills for employment? which (if any) skills, attributes and personal qualities of new graduate attributes would you prioritise for improvement? what do you see as the main disincentives for teaching staff to assist students to develop workrelated skills, attributes and personal qualities? what do you see as your role in assisting students to develop these attributes, skills and personal qualities? what sort of staff development opportunities would increase your confidence to teach and assess work-related skills, attributes and personal qualities? oliver, b., whelan, b., hunt, l., & hammer, s. (2011). accounting graduates and the capabilities that count: perceptions of graduates, employers and accounting academics in four australian universities. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 2(1), 2 27. 9 for the purpose of brevity in graphing results, the 14 capabilities in the gei are frequently referred to with abbreviated titles, as shown in table 3. full text of the capabilities is used in the interpretation of results. also shown in table 3 is a summary of the quantitative items asked of each stakeholder group in the gei. table 3: the abbreviated titles of the fourteen capabilities in the graduate employability indicators and a summary of the quantitative items asked of the stakeholder groups capabilities graduates employers course team abbreviated title full text in survey e x te n t co u rs e co n tr ib u te d im p o rt a n c e t o su cc e ss e x te n t d e m o n st ra te d im p o rt a n c e t o su cc e ss e x te n t d e m o n st ra te d im p o rt a n c e t o su cc e ss c o n fid e n ce te a ch in g c o n fid e n ce a ss e ss in g 1. knowledge work related knowledge and skills 2. writing writing clearly and effectively 3. speaking speaking clearly and effectively 4. thinking thinking critically and analytically 5. quantitative analysing quantitative problems 6. using ict using computing and information technology 7. teamwork working effectively with others 8. independent learning learning effectively on your own 9. intercultural understanding understanding people of other racial and ethnic backgrounds 10. problemsolving solving complex, realworld problems 11. values & ethics developing a personal code of values and ethics 12. community engagement contributing to the welfare of your community 13. industry awareness developing general industry awareness 14. social contexts understanding different social contexts method the building course team capacity to enhance graduate employability project administered the gei graduates, employers, and course teams—in the four partner universities between 2009 and 2010. details of the administration of the survey have been reported elsewhere (whelan, b., oliver, b., hunt, l., hammer, s., jones, s., and pearce, a., 2010). the gei was administered online through a curtin university website and direct links to the surveys were provided to the stakeholder groups. accounting graduates from curtin were contacted in october 2009, and the remaining stakeholder groups were contacted in 2010. data were collated in june 2010, part way through the data collection, and used to draw up preliminary reports for members of the course teams. these reports were useful for getting more buy-in oliver, b., whelan, b., hunt, l., & hammer, s. (2011). accounting graduates and the capabilities that count: perceptions of graduates, employers and accounting academics in four australian universities. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 2 (1), 2 – 27. 10 from busy course leaders, as the preliminary results demonstrated their applicability and relevance. the surveys were closed in october 2010 and a final report was provided to each university showing the results only for their own courses, as well as an overview of the total pool (that is an aggregation of all responses collected in connection with the four accounting courses). responses accounting graduates were quite responsive to the surveys. they were contacted directly by their respective university alumni office and reminders were sent out prior to closure of the survey period to encourage responses. in total, 316 of the 1332 graduates contacted from the four universities responded to the surveys. this represents a response rate of 23.7% (although it is not possible to calculate a definitive response rate because the number of ‗live‘ email addresses in the various alumni databases is unknown; anecdotal evidence suggests many are no longer in use). thirty seven percent of all respondents were from curtin university, 34% from university of southern queensland, 11% from rmit university and 18% from victoria university. the graduate respondent group was predominantly female (62%), 35 years or younger (85%) in their first three years since graduation (72%), attending classes on campus rather than by distance education (74%), and in australia (72%) rather than offshore. just over half identified as international students (53%). at the time of the survey, 260 (82%) indicated they were employed (72% fulltime; 10% part-time). of those who said they were employed, 83% indicated their current employment was specifically linked to their degree; about half (53%) indicated they were working in australia or new zealand and about a quarter (27%) were working in asia. of those who said they were not employed, 17 graduates indicated that they had worked in an area related to their accounting degree, and 36 graduates said they had not. employers were more challenging to engage than students, as institutions rarely have a coordinated approach to contacting employers and employer contacts had to be collated from several different sources (whelan et al., 2010). employer lists were collated by project partners from contacts held by individual academics, careers centre contacts, external relations, external body websites, career websites, seek advertisements, google searches and internal employers, for example, the university‘s own corporate financial department. for the purposes of this project, the term employer was interpreted more broadly as anyone who had or would employ a ‗new‘ accounting graduate from any institution, rather than just those who had employed graduates from the partner universities. responses from invitees were at first slow, but two particular initiatives prompted rapid increases: one university‘s dean of business emailed members of the national institute of accountants (nia), and on a separate occasion, the project team at another partner university attended a local branch meeting of the certified practicing accountants (cpa) australia and invited attendees to complete the survey on paper. in total, 99 employers of the 152 invited to complete the survey responded, a response rate of 65%. the respondents were predominantly male (67%) and held a variety of positions: 52% indicated they were executive or middle managers and a further 21% indicated they were owners of a small to medium enterprise. about half their organizations were small to medium enterprises (54%) and the remainder were divided between public sector and large private sector enterprise, with the vast majority in australia and new zealand (91%). the sectors in which they worked were varied, with the largest groups working in finance and insurance (29%), property and business services (15%), personal and other services (12%). oliver, b., whelan, b., hunt, l., & hammer, s. (2011). accounting graduates and the capabilities that count: perceptions of graduates, employers and accounting academics in four australian universities. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 2 (1), 2 – 27. 11 the most challenging group to engage were course teams. desktop analysis of the four universities‘ websites suggested that, in total, these four departments employed 263 teaching staff for their undergraduate accounting program, including part-time and casual staff. prior to the administration of the surveys, each partner project team met with course leaders to engage them in the project. leaders then invited teaching staff to participate, but responses were slow. at one institution staff members were invited to fill in paper copies during a staff meeting. in total, 51 members of course teams responded to the survey. this was a response rate of 19% of the total staff as reported on their websites. the course team respondents were predominantly male (59%), employed as full-time continuing staff (78%) and had more than 7 years‘ university teaching experience (71%). two thirds indicated that during their career, they had been in full-time or part-time employment, research or consultancy in industries related to accounting for more than 5 years. others reported less than 5 years industry experience. unsurprisingly, given the proportion of long-term staff who responded, two thirds indicated that their most recent industry experience was between 6 and 10 years ago. however, a quarter had worked, researched or consulted in industry in the past year. quantitative results the responses for the four partners were downloaded and aggregated into one excel worksheet. table 4 shows the percentage agreement for each response category for each quantitative item. table 5 shows the same data summarised as ‗more‘ or ‗less‘ importance or extent (that is, responses for ‗quite a bit‘ and ‗very much‘ are combined and reported as ‗more‘; responses for ‗very little‘ and ‗some‘ are combined and reported as ‗less‘). particular opportunities for improvement lie in identifying where the capabilities that count most are reported as demonstrated least: that is, capabilities shaded both green and orange suggest potential threats to graduate employability: that is, a capability ‗that really counts‘ is also a capability demonstrated very little or to some extent. moreover, if this perception is common to two or three stakeholder groups, then the urgency to focus on improving that graduate capability is heightened (in the tables which follow, gold indicates where at least two stakeholder groups report similar perceptions of high importance and low demonstration). the results are also colour coded in table 5 for easy visual analysis: strengths: % agreement that a capability is more important or demonstrated (‗quite a bit or very much‘, green shading) challenges: % agreement that a capability is less important or demonstrated (‗quite a bit or very much‘, orange shading) overview of quantitative responses results in table 5 suggest that most of the fourteen capabilities are considered ‗more important‘ to early professional success by most stakeholder groups, the exception being contributing to the welfare of your community. the capabilities rated more important by most groups are work-related knowledge and skills (employers rate this less important than the others), writing and speaking clearly and effectively, working effectively with others, learning effectively on your own, using computing and information technology and developing a personal code of values and ethics. of those capabilities rated more important, only using computing and information technology is perceived by employers and course teams as demonstrated to a higher extent. oliver, b., whelan, b., hunt, l., & hammer, s. (2011). accounting graduates and the capabilities that count: perceptions of graduates, employers and accounting academics in four australian universities. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 2 (1), 2 – 27. 12 a scan of the table suggests that employers and, to a lesser degree, course teams perceive that the following capabilities are demonstrated less by graduates: solving complex, real-world problems, contributing to the welfare of your community, developing general industry awareness and understanding different social contexts. there was slightly lower emphasis on the lack of demonstration of work related knowledge and skills, writing clearly and effectively, thinking critically and analytically and analysing quantitative problems. opportunities for greatest improvement (gold shading) might arise from focusing on capabilities perceived as more important, and less demonstrated by at least two stakeholder groups: work related knowledge and skills writing clearly and effectively thinking critically and analytically solving complex, real-world problems developing general industry awareness understanding different social contexts course teams report more confidence in teaching and assessing all of the above capabilities, with the exception of understanding different social contexts. oliver, b., whelan, b., hunt, l., & hammer, s. (2011). accounting graduates and the capabilities that count: perceptions of graduates, employers and accounting academics in four australian universities. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 2(1), 2 27. 13 table 4: accounting graduate, employer and course team perceptions (percentage agreement for all response categories) of (1) the extent the fourteen capabilities are developed or demonstrated; (2) their importance to early professional success; and (3) course team confidence in teaching and assessing them; as well as perceptions of overall work-readiness. graduate perceptions (n = 316) employer perceptions (n = 99) course team perceptions (n = 51) extent degree contributed importance to success extent demonstrated importance to success extent demonstrated importance to success confidence teaching confidence assessing less more less more less more less more less more less more less more less more capability v e ry li tt le s o m e q u ite a b it v e ry m u ch v e ry li tt le s o m e q u ite v e ry v e ry li tt le s o m e q u ite a b it v e ry m u ch v e ry li tt le s o m e q u ite v e ry v e ry li tt le s o m e q u ite a b it v e ry m u ch v e ry li tt le s o m e q u ite v e ry v e ry li tt le s o m e q u ite v e ry v e ry li tt le s o m e q u ite v e ry 1. knowledge 7 32 36 21 2 9 34 47 23 47 27 2 1 25 44 26 16 53 18 8 0 10 45 43 0 12 41 45 0 14 43 43 2. writing 4 26 41 24 2 13 39 40 17 56 21 6 0 9 41 46 12 53 29 0 0 2 29 67 4 14 37 43 4 10 37 47 3. speaking 13 27 34 22 1 11 31 48 10 47 36 6 0 2 40 54 8 37 45 2 0 0 22 75 2 14 39 43 2 12 41 43 4. thinking 3 22 45 26 1 6 31 54 18 48 26 7 0 8 41 46 24 41 24 6 0 2 37 57 0 6 45 47 0 10 43 45 5. quantitative 3 19 52 21 2 11 37 42 11 54 31 4 0 12 61 24 12 27 43 12 0 6 55 37 2 4 35 57 0 10 27 61 6. using ict 5 22 41 27 1 10 31 51 0 9 58 32 0 8 55 33 0 14 55 25 0 6 49 43 0 18 41 39 0 16 43 39 7. teamwork 9 26 38 22 1 9 37 44 5 44 43 6 0 5 36 55 4 47 33 10 0 4 18 76 0 14 41 43 6 22 39 31 8. independent learning 2 16 40 37 1 14 36 35 17 40 34 8 2 12 42 39 10 35 37 12 0 10 41 47 0 14 43 41 6 20 37 33 9. intercultural understanding 17 27 33 19 6 26 34 26 12 45 34 8 6 27 38 25 10 37 33 14 0 20 43 35 0 22 35 39 8 22 41 27 10. problemsolving 13 34 34 13 2 9 38 43 32 56 9 3 3 24 42 27 29 39 24 2 2 12 43 41 2 12 45 39 0 18 43 37 11. values & ethics 9 33 35 19 3 16 40 34 6 51 34 8 1 8 40 47 12 37 31 12 0 14 35 49 0 16 29 53 8 20 24 47 12. community engagement 25 34 24 12 9 32 34 18 25 57 13 4 10 36 39 10 24 55 10 4 12 25 35 24 8 31 35 24 10 35 27 25 13. industry awareness 9 30 39 15 3 17 41 29 26 54 18 2 3 27 47 19 25 47 16 6 0 22 49 27 4 10 53 29 4 16 51 27 14. social contexts 16 35 33 10 5 30 36 20 19 58 20 2 7 29 46 14 10 57 24 2 2 33 37 25 2 24 47 25 8 27 39 24 15. overall workreadiness 8 31 42 15 15 59 20 5 14 41 37 2 oliver, b., whelan, b., hunt, l., & hammer, s. (2011). accounting graduates and the capabilities that count: perceptions of graduates, employers and accounting academics in four australian universities. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 2 (1), 2 – 27. 14 table 5: accounting graduate, employer and course team perceptions (percentage agreement: ‘more’ or ‘less’) of (1) the extent the fourteen capabilities are developed or demonstrated; (2) their importance to early professional success; and (3) course team confidence in teaching and assessing them. colour coding highlights strengths, challenges, and opportunities for improvement. graduate perceptions (n = 316) employer perceptions (n = 99) course team perceptions (n = 51) extent degree contributed importance to success extent demonstrated importance to success extent demonstrated importance to success confidence teaching confidence assessing capability less more less more less more less more less more less more less more less more 1. work related knowledge and skills 39 57 11 81 70 29 26 70 69 26 10 88 12 86 14 86 2. writing clearly and effectively 30 65 15 79 73 27 9 87 65 29 2 96 18 80 14 84 3. speaking clearly and effectively 40 56 12 79 57 42 2 94 45 47 0 97 16 82 14 84 4. thinking critically and analytically 25 71 7 85 66 33 8 87 65 30 2 94 6 92 10 88 5. analysing quantitative problems 22 73 13 79 65 35 12 85 39 55 6 92 6 92 10 88 6. using computing and information technology 27 68 11 82 9 90 8 88 14 80 6 92 18 80 16 82 7. working effectively with others 35 60 10 81 49 49 5 91 51 43 4 94 14 84 28 70 8. learning effectively on your own 18 77 15 71 57 42 14 81 45 49 10 88 14 84 26 70 9. understanding people of other racial and ethnic backgrounds 44 52 32 60 57 42 33 63 47 47 20 78 22 74 30 68 10. solving complex, real-world problems 47 47 11 81 88 12 27 69 68 26 14 84 14 84 18 80 11. developing a personal code of values and ethics 42 54 19 74 57 42 9 87 49 43 14 84 16 82 28 71 12. contributing to the welfare of your community 59 36 41 52 82 17 46 49 79 14 37 59 39 59 45 52 13. developing general industry awareness 39 54 20 70 80 20 30 66 72 22 22 76 14 82 20 78 14. understanding different social contexts 51 43 35 56 77 22 36 60 67 26 35 62 26 72 35 63 strengths: % agreement that capability is more (‘quite a bit or very much’) important or demonstrated at least 75% between 60 and 74% challenges: % agreement that capability is less (‘quite a bit or very much’) important or demonstrated. at least 75 between 60 and 74% oliver, b., whelan, b., hunt, l., & hammer, s. (2011). accounting graduates and the capabilities that count: perceptions of graduates, employers and accounting academics in four australian universities. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 2(1), 2 27. 15 perceptions of the capabilities by each stakeholder group figure 1 shows a comparison of graduate perceptions of extent and importance: that is, the extent to which the degree experience contributed to capability development (percentage agreement ‗quite a bit‘ or ‗very much‘) versus the importance of each (percentage agreement ‗quite a bit‘ or ‗very important‘). ideally, the two data lines would be in close proximity, indicating that what is perceived as important is developed to a similar extent. this is the case for learning effectively on your own, and to a lesser extent analysing quantitative problems and understanding people of other racial and ethnic backgrounds. the greatest discrepancies, where extent is at least twenty percentage points less than importance, are solving complex, real-world problems, work-related knowledge and skills, speaking clearly and effectively, working effectively with others and developing a personal code of values and ethics. figure 1: comparison of graduate perceptions of the capabilities developed more (percentage agreement with ‘quite a bit’ or ‘very much’) versus capabilities that are more important (percentage agreement ‘quite’ or ‘very important’) the same parameters are used in the following figures showing employers and course team perceptions. figure 2, employer perceptions, shows more dramatic discrepancies in all capabilities with the exception of ict, where importance and extent demonstrated are similar. otherwise, demonstration is less than importance by at least 50 percentage points in relation to writing and speaking clearly and effectively, thinking critically and analytically, analysing quantitative problems and solving complex, real-world problems. oliver, b., whelan, b., hunt, l., & hammer, s. (2011). accounting graduates and the capabilities that count: perceptions of graduates, employers and accounting academics in four australian universities. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 2 (1), 2 – 27. 16 figure 2: comparison of employer perceptions of the capabilities demonstrated more (percentage agreement with ‘quite a bit’ or ‘very much’) versus capabilities that are more important (percentage agreement ‘quite’ or ‘very important’) figure 3 shows course team perceptions. once again, discrepancies greater than 50 percentage points, indicating that demonstration is less than importance, are in figure 3: comparison of course team perceptions of the capabilities demonstrated more (percentage agreement with ‘quite a bit’ or ‘very much’) versus capabilities that are more important (percentage agreement ‘quite’ or ‘very important’) oliver, b., whelan, b., hunt, l., & hammer, s. (2011). accounting graduates and the capabilities that count: perceptions of graduates, employers and accounting academics in four australian universities. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 2 (1), 2 – 27. 17 relation to work related knowledge and skills, writing clearly and effectively, speaking clearly and effectively, thinking critically and analytically, analysing quantitative problems, working effectively with others and developing general industry awareness. triangulation of stakeholder perceptions figure 4 presents a triangulation of the stakeholder groups‘ perceptions of the capabilities that are more important for professional success. the figure shows that the three stakeholder groups have similar emphasis in most capabilities. discrepancies of about twenty percentage points may be seen in relation to workrelated knowledge and skills (less important to employers), writing and speaking clearly and effectively (less important to graduates), and understanding people of other racial and ethnic backgrounds (more important to course teams). figure 4: a comparison of graduate, employer and course team perceptions of capabilities perceived as more important to early professional success (percentage agreement ‘quite’ or 'very important') similarly, figure 5 shows a comparison of perceptions of the capabilities demonstrated more by graduates (according to employers and course teams) or developed more in courses (according to graduates). the figure shows close similarity between employer and course team perceptions: apart from using computing and information technology, few capabilities are demonstrated to a high degree (according to employers and course teams). the capability most developed in degree programs, according to graduates, is learning effectively on your own. oliver, b., whelan, b., hunt, l., & hammer, s. (2011). accounting graduates and the capabilities that count: perceptions of graduates, employers and accounting academics in four australian universities. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 2 (1), 2 – 27. 18 figure 5: comparison of graduate, employer and course team perceptions of capabilities perceived as demonstrated or developed more (‘quite a bit’ or ‘very much’) qualitative responses graduates were invited to provide free text responses to two items: ‗what were the best aspects of this degree in developing your skills for employment?‘ and ‗how could the degree be changed to improve your skills for employment?‘ for convenience, these are referred to as best aspects and needs improvement. in total, 209 respondents provided a response to one or both questions (198 respondents on the best aspects and 196 on needs improvement). these comments were plotted as visualisations using spss text analysis for surveys, as shown in figures 6 and 7 below. in these visualisations, a line shows that there is a connection between two themes, with darker, thicker lines representing stronger relationships, and larger nodes indicating more responses. figure 6: an spss visualisation of graduate comments in response to ‘what were the best aspects of this degree in developing your skills for employment?’ oliver, b., whelan, b., hunt, l., & hammer, s. (2011). accounting graduates and the capabilities that count: perceptions of graduates, employers and accounting academics in four australian universities. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 2 (1), 2 – 27. 19 figure 6 suggests that graduates were more positive about discipline knowledge and skills in communication, problem-solving, analytical thinking, technology, research and teamwork. graduates also made reference to the practical real-world experiences and cultural dimensions. figure 7 suggests that when asked ‗how could the degree be changed to improve your skills for employment?‘ graduates focused on work and ‗real world‘ experiences and assignments. specific skills mentioned more frequently were teamwork, problem-solving, thinking, research and communication skills. figure 7: an spss visualisation of graduate comments in response to ‘how could the degree be changed to improve your skills for employment? similarly, employers were invited to provide free text responses on the skills, attributes and personal qualities most useful for new graduates and which (if any) could be prioritised for improvement? in all, 85 employers provided comments on the most useful capabilities, and 68 provided comments on the capabilities in need of improvement. figures 8 and 9 show the emphases in the responses. figure 8: an spss visualisation of employer comments in response to ‘what skills, attributes and personal qualities do you consider to be the most useful for new graduates in this field?’ figure 8 suggests that employers perceived the most useful skills, attributes and personal qualities as communication and interpersonal skills, enthusiasm and positive attitude. they also made particular reference to good personal presentation, confidence, work ethic, adaptability, ethical behaviour and accountability. figure 9 suggests that, in terms of areas for improvement, employers clearly emphasise communication skills, as well as interpersonal skills, personal grooming, integrity and oliver, b., whelan, b., hunt, l., & hammer, s. (2011). accounting graduates and the capabilities that count: perceptions of graduates, employers and accounting academics in four australian universities. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 2 (1), 2 – 27. 20 honesty, respect, motivation, adaptability and confidence. they also mentioned the need for humility, respect, and the ability to take direction. figure 9: an spss visualisation of employer comments in response to ‘which (if any) skills, attributes and personal qualities of new graduate attributes would you prioritise for improvement?’ course teams from the four partner universities were invited to provide free text comments in response to four questions, and themes in their responses are summarised here. when asked ‗what do you see as the main incentives for teaching staff to assist students to develop work-related skills, attributes and personal qualities?‘ members of the course teaching teams identified benefits to their institution, course, industry and the students/graduates as the main incentives. many made reference to personal satisfaction and the benefits that can be derived from better links with industry. some stated that ‗there are no incentives‘, which might relate to the perceived beneficiaries of graduate employability skill development being institutions, industry and graduates, rather than their teachers. similar findings can be drawn from the responses to the second open-ended question which asked: ‗what do you see as the main disincentives for teaching staff to assist students to develop work-related skills, attributes and personal qualities?‘ the main disincentives included workload and resourcing issues, such as a lack of time, support or space in the curriculum to teach graduate employability skills, attributes and personal qualities. some respondents made reference to their own lack of skills and training in teaching such capabilities, as well as issues with assessing such capabilities. large classes with students lacking interest were also seen as disincentives, as was the lack of recognition or reward for teaching staff who do undertake employability skill development. this suggests that for members of the course teaching team to embrace employability skill development, they must be given the time, resources and rewards (such as recognition). when asked what they saw as their role in assisting students to develop these attributes, skills and personal qualities, respondents saw themselves as facilitators, mentors, or role models in developing students‘ employability skills, with the role of encouraging and motivating students and building their confidence. some teaching staff made reference to particular capabilities that they helped to develop, such as problem solving, team work, ethics and technology skills. they also saw it as their role to share their own professional experience. in relation to the staff development opportunities that would increase their confidence to teach and assess work-related skills, attributes and personal qualities, respondents frequently nominated oliver, b., whelan, b., hunt, l., & hammer, s. (2011). accounting graduates and the capabilities that count: perceptions of graduates, employers and accounting academics in four australian universities. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 2 (1), 2 – 27. 21 experiences related directly to industry, such as greater links to industry through staff industry placements, consultancies or research connections, and developing industry focussed teaching. collaboration with other academics and embarking on further education were also mentioned as opportunities that would increase course team confidence. holding workshops or seminars on particular teaching and assessment issues, such as international and intercultural skills, technology skills or assessment methods were also mentioned. prioritising areas for improvement using an importance-performance analysis the perception that the capabilities that count most are effected only a small extent in today‘s accounting graduates may appear overwhelming. teaching staff who have the power to enhance the curriculum and the student experience, but who are constrained by large teaching and administration loads and scarce resources, may feel at a loss as to where to begin. a useful tool developed by martilla and james is an importance-performance analysis, a method used to determine the effectiveness and consumer acceptance of marketing programs (martilla & james, 1977). essentially, items are plotted on an x and y axis (in a scattergram) with performance on the x axis, and importance plotted on the y axis. the martilla and james model was adapted for use in an educational context as part of the research on competences in the tuning process (villa et al., 2008). the four quadrants generated in the tuning grid indicate where to apply more concentration, maintain or decrease effort. the tuning example has been adapted for use here: figure 10 shows a grid with four quadrants. the gei results are plotted as follows: each capability is plotted on the grid (x, y) as follows: x = percentage agreement (‗quite a bit‘ or ‗very much‘) extent demonstrated or developed; y = percentage agreement (‗quite a bit‘ or ‗very much‘) importance. each stakeholder group is colour coded. the model is further adapted by the inclusion of a green zone in the top left quadrant: any capabilities plotted in the green zone are those identified as most important yet demonstrated or developed least. identifying these capabilities—and taking into consideration which stakeholders rated them—is a useful tool to highlight urgent need for improvement. the importance-performance analysis for accounting in figure 10 suggests that priority attention could be given to capabilities 1, 2, 4, 10 and 13: that is, work related knowledge and skills, writing clearly and effectively, thinking critically and analytically, solving complex, real-world problems and developing general industry awareness. oliver, b., whelan, b., hunt, l., & hammer, s. (2011). accounting graduates and the capabilities that count: perceptions of graduates, employers and accounting academics in four australian universities. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 2 (1), 2 – 27. 22 figure 10: importance-performance analysis showing capabilities for urgent attention based on each stakeholder group’s perceptions of importance and extent (percentage agreement ‘quite a bit’ or very much’) discussion in spite of the challenges associated with attracting respondents, 316 graduates, 99 employers and 51 members of undergraduate accounting course teams from four australian universities provided gei responses. whether each stakeholder group is representative of the wider population is unknown because comprehensive data for the four partners are unavailable. further research using larger samples or sampling (purposeful or random) will be necessary to determine the extent to which the views expressed by each stakeholder group in this study are representative and to determine the sensitivity of the gei. in particular, the gei should be extended to more university and private providers and a larger sample of male graduates, graduates of more than 3 years and female employer groups. findings of this study showed that the respondents appeared to have similar perceptions about the fourteen capabilities in the gei: most were considered ‗more important‘ to early professional success by most stakeholder groups. the capabilities rated more important by most groups were work-related knowledge and skills, writing and speaking clearly and effectively, working effectively with others, learning effectively on your own, using computing and information technology and developing a personal code of values and ethics. in their free text responses, when asked about the best aspects of their course in developing skills for employment, graduates frequently mentioned similar capabilities: discipline knowledge, communication, oliver, b., whelan, b., hunt, l., & hammer, s. (2011). accounting graduates and the capabilities that count: perceptions of graduates, employers and accounting academics in four australian universities. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 2 (1), 2 – 27. 23 problem-solving, analytical thinking, technology, research and teamwork. they also made reference to the practical real-world experiences and cultural dimensions. employers perceived the most useful skills, attributes and personal qualities as communication and interpersonal skills, enthusiasm and positive attitude. this is not dissimilar to the findings of hancock et al who found that when employers had to choose between applicants of similar academic ability, they chose the applicant who displayed strength in these generic capabilities (hancock et al., 2010). a main benefit from the gei is that it asks ‗what are the capabilities that count (importance), and to what extent are they generally demonstrated by graduates (according to employers and teaching staff), or developed in courses (according to graduates)‘? again, similar results from the hancock et al. study indicated that concerns about australian graduates‘ generic capabilities were focused on analytical and critical analysis, and the ability to engage clients, negotiate and act strategically (hancock et al., 2010). examining perceptions of importance, demonstration and delivery of skills revealed that the greatest discrepancies for graduates were in relation to solving complex, real-world problems, work-related knowledge and skills, speaking clearly and effectively, working effectively with others and developing a personal code of values and ethics. these capabilities were not seen by graduates to be developed to a level that accorded with their views about the importance of these skills. the mismatch of employer and course team perceptions were more dramatic (and similar to each other): apart from ict expertise, most other capabilities were seen as important but not demonstrated to an appropriate level, particularly writing and speaking clearly and effectively, thinking critically and analytically, analysing quantitative problems and solving complex, real-world problems. the importance-performance analysis provides direction for curriculum development in accounting indicating that, in the face of scarce resources and staff pressures (workload, time and space in the curriculum), priority attention should be given to capabilities such as work related knowledge and skills, writing clearly and effectively, thinking critically and analytically, solving complex, real-world problems and developing general industry awareness. evidence from course team qualitative comments indicates that they are often intrinsically motivated and many would welcome opportunities to have more industry experience—two thirds of respondents had not had recent experience. staff would also welcome workshops designed specifically to assist them to embed such experience into the curriculum. course team members showed high confidence in teaching and assessing most of the fourteen capabilities—sadly, their efforts are not perceived as particularly effective by employers or by themselves. the reason may be linked to other recent australian studies showing that graduate attributes have not been universally endorsed or embedded in australian curricula (barrie et al., 2009; precision consulting, 2007; radloff, a., de la harpe, b., scoufis, m., dalton, h., thomas, j., lawson, a., et al, 2009), partly because, teaching staff say, that excessive content leaves little time for skill development, and partly because staff lack the expertise to embed such skills in the curriculum (evans, 2010). in relation to the staff development opportunities course team members frequently suggested staff industry placements, consultancies or research connections, and developing industry focussed teaching. they also welcome targeted seminars and workshops. oliver, b., whelan, b., hunt, l., & hammer, s. (2011). accounting graduates and the capabilities that count: perceptions of graduates, employers and accounting academics in four australian universities. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 2 (1), 2 – 27. 24 graduates perceptions of the capabilities developed in their courses may be influenced by the visibility of skills in the curriculum. it might therefore be a useful curriculum strategy to ensure that students (and graduates) are reminded, during and beyond the degree program, of the specific capabilities under development (including in work integrated learning experiences such as placements authentic assessments)—through study guides, assessment rubrics and criteria, eportfolios, and other teaching and learning strategies. the findings of this study suggest that much work is needed to improve awareness of graduate employability skills among all stakeholder groups: 57% of graduates indicated that they felt their degree had contributed to their work-readiness ‗quite a bit‘ or ‗very much‘. only 25% of employers shared this view, as did 39% of course team members. graduates would welcome more industry experience during their courses, but work placements for large cohorts are unrealistic—in many contexts, students would outnumber placement opportunities. the literature suggests that, attractive as they may appear, work placements are not the key to enhanced employability—reflection on what has been learned during the placement is what makes the difference (harvey, 2005). in the case of accounting, work integrated learning experiences for most students are more likely to be simulated than live: if staff can have increased access to industry experience, and build their experiences into authentic assessment tasks, this may go some way towards increased graduate awareness that their degree program contributed to their development of the capabilities that count. authentic tasks have been characterised as ill-defined tasks of real world relevance, open to multiple interpretations, investigated over a sustained period of time, examinable from a variety of theoretical and practical perspectives, drawing on a variety of resources, and providing the opportunity to collaborate and reflect (herrington, oliver, & reeves, 2003). if assessment drives learning, and assessment tasks were remodelled around such authentic tasks, then there is greater likelihood that accounting graduates will achieve, and be seen to achieve ―the skills, understandings and personal attributes that make [them] more likely to secure employment and be successful in their chosen occupations to the benefit of themselves, the workforce, the community and the economy‖ (yorke, 2006 p.8). oliver, b., whelan, b., hunt, l., & hammer, s. 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(2012). stakeholder attitudes towards employability in a sino-british university. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 3(1), 26 – 40. 26 stakeholder attitudes towards employability in a sino-british university sarah speight 1 , natasa lackovic 1 , lucy cooker 1 sarah.speight@nottingham.ac.uk 1 school of education, the university of nottingham, united kingdom abstract in 2004 the university of nottingham opened its branch campus, the university of nottingham ningbo china (unnc). degree-awarding powers for unnc remain with the uk, but there is recognition that nottingham must understand the specific context of its chinese branch; provision therefore operates according to the principal of equivalence rather than of replication. this paper explores stakeholder attitudes towards the university‟s nottingham advantage award. this is an extra-curricular programme designed to support students in the development of their „employability‟. launched in the uk in 2008, it was piloted at unnc in 2010-11 and has now completed its first full year of operation. twenty-three interviews were conducted with staff and students at unnc. these were analysed alongside interviews carried out in the uk and with reference to the research literature. this provided an understanding of the role of the award overall and in the unnc context. the study shows that while stakeholders hold broadly similar views in the uk and china, there are subtle differences of emphasis concerning the understanding of, and responsibility for, learning for employability. in addition, a group of china-specific themes emerged from the unnc interviews that indicated recognition of the need to differentiate priorities and provision for each site. the paper concludes that the challenge for the award at unnc is to serve both global and local agendas and that it should strive to reduce the „information asymmetry‟ existing between stakeholders to promote effective graduate employability. keywords: employability, sino-british, stakeholder attitudes, human capital, curriculum introduction employability is a well-established field of academic research with countless studies demonstrating the shifting discourse from human capital to human development, from skills to attributes or capabilities, and from individual career development to global citizenship and contribution to a just society. the role of universities in education for employability is a current, if contested topic, with academics taking opposing positions either in „defence‟ of the independence of disciplinary knowledge and understanding, or in support of the interconnectedness of subject and employability learning (barrie, 2009; yorke, 2010). in western higher education, there has been a move away from “attribute development in specialist modules or extracurricular activity to a more holistic approach that embeds employability as part of academic learning” (harvey, 2005, p.16). behind the academic debate lie real issues of politics, policy, philosophical and economic context and social equity that impact upon the strategic direction of education for employability. there is no single solution to the challenge of equipping today‟s graduates for productive and worthwhile futures. strategies for employability are required on local, national and global levels. in 2011 an estimated 10 million higher education graduates were seeking employment in china (shi & sewell, 2012). china‟s move from elite to mass higher mailto:sarah.speight@nottingham.ac.uk speight, s., lackovic, n., and cooker, l. (2012). stakeholder attitudes towards employability in a sino-british university. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 3(1), 26 – 40. 27 education with the introduction of student-fees and the removal of the job assignment system means that graduate unemployment is now a real prospect. economic growth has not produced sufficient graduate-entry positions and it has been suggested that there may be up to 30% graduate unemployment (li & morgan, 2008; ennew & fujia, 2009; bai, 2010; shi & sewell, 2012). the social consequences of this are serious, including the negative impact of parents being unable to benefit from investment in their children‟s education, and of children being unable to pay back parental debt (bai, 2010). china‟s expansion of higher education fits into a specific cultural and historic context that has been acknowledged and explored by authors including bai (1998; 2006; 2010). human capital theory has provided the dominant rationale for investment in education since the late 1970s and the end of the cultural revolution (bai, 2010). this links education directly to economic growth, seeing education as increasing the productivity and capability of the individual who can thereby make a more effective contribution to the productivity of the nation. in human capital theory, education is an investment in the future as expressed in bai‟s (2010) china-specific formula of schooling  examination higher degree = good job + good income + higher social status. in 1993 china introduced student fees to higher education and gave students the opportunity to choose their career paths by removing the system of job assignment (bai, 2010). for bai, this has led to increased instrumentalism in students as their focus shifts towards their individual prospects and away from the needs of the state. one of the dangers of human capital theory is that it can render education an instrumental force by its economic focus and discourse of production. however, softer articulations exist which incorporate the role of education in social and political developments, for example in forging democratic societies or developing creative solutions (olaniyan & okemakinde, 2008). alternative frameworks posit human capital alongside social and identity capital in proposing a model for effective learning (schuller & watson, 2009). to realise the full benefits of an expanded higher education sector, china needs to find a softer articulation that suits its context. social prestige and good jobs can also equate with contribution to a broader good and to the welfare of society (wu & morgan, 2011). one solution is to find the common ground between traditional values and modern requirements (bai, 1998, 2010). by reviving the older traditions of neo-confucianism or “education for fostering one‟s humanity” (bai, 2010, p.104), humane talent can be developed in equal measure to human capital. as jiao shuqing, deputy director of the department of student affairs, state education commission, said in a speech in 1993: higher education needs to educate students “on how to combine their own interest with the state interests” (bai, 1998, p.531). yet, caution is advised if accepting that chinese graduates are more selfish than they were in the past as a result of economic and political reform. the rise of money power (bai, 1998) may have led to a concentration on graduate outcomes for the individual but a significant aspect of this will be the recognition of the sacrifice that parents have made to send their children to university. higher earnings also give the opportunity to pay back and are about a whole set of family-focused values that may be less obvious in the west (although perhaps this will be a new phenomenon in the uk from 2015 when the first graduates emerge with debts resulting from the introduction of variable fees in 2012). internationally, employability initiatives within higher education focus upon equipping the individual for a productive future, both socially and economically. however, these initiatives can overlook a range of factors beyond the control of the student and also sometimes of the university. institutional reputation is a major screening mechanism that will impact upon job prospects. furthermore, the signal effects of degree subject, classification, english language competency, significant extra-curricular experience in leadership, will all play their part alongside issues of gender, family history and residential origin (li, ding & morgan, 2008; 2009). speight, s., lackovic, n., and cooker, l. (2012). stakeholder attitudes towards employability in a sino-british university. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 3(1), 26 – 40. 28 the graduate comes with their individual social or cultural capital but, in addition, faces the challenge of ensuring that the choices they make on entry to and during their higher education equip them for that worthwhile future on whatever level they choose to conceive of it (financial, social, well-being). there is evidence that educational growth will not necessarily resolve china‟s skills shortage. a study of employer perceptions drawn from private and multinational companies based in shanghai, beijing, xi‟an, ningbo, zhuhai and chongqing suggested that there was still a mismatch between what employers look for in their graduate recruits, and what graduates think employers want (davies, xinyan & wei, 2012). the researchers found companies struggling to recruit suitable graduates and unhappy at the high costs of training new staff (partly due to the expectation that such investment would lead to talent poaching). employers wanted graduates with good qualifications (including interpersonal skills), but also with a particular personality and attitude: “an employer would wish his staff to be honest, loyal, diligent and generally fit well into the organisational culture. if there is no good fit into the culture, the employee will not be motivated and will either cause problems and will probably resign after a period of time........staff need to be passionate in their work, be serious and dedicated and pay attention to details” (davies et al., 2012, p.7). of particular note are the requirements for organisational fit and passion. shi and sewell‟s (2010) study of the entrepreneurial spirit explored the different perspectives of stakeholders at the university of central lancashire (uclan) in the uk and the shanghai institute of foreign trade (sift) in china. while the attitudes of students at uclan and sift were broadly similar, there were differences in the characteristics of each student group. at sift, there was both a higher proportion of proactive students who were highly motivated and knew what they wanted, but also a higher proportion of „drifters‟ who had no great expectations of either their education or their career. uclan‟s students were less entrepreneurial but more likely to be methodically preparing themselves for employment by the acquisition of skills and information. these differences were related to cultural expectations, with uk students being defined as customers of higher education and chinese students as products of the system. the suggested outcome of these approaches was that uclan students were supported to develop themselves as individuals via flexible and tailored programmes, while sift focused upon understanding the needs of employers and seeking to match students to these. cultural difference may explain the different attitudes of students and the different responses of institutions to education for employability (shi & sewell, 2010). the chinese labour market is made complex because of the co-existence of a command and control economy alongside a market economy (velde, 2009). this means that graduates have to carefully adapt themselves and their applications to the context of the employer they are approaching. to give an extreme example, compliance may be a requirement of one employer, an ability to be creative and to think outside of the box a requirement of another. interviews with employers (2008 and 2009), revealed issues related to the command and control economy (davies, xinyan & wei, 2012). certain occupations were considered to be low-status. recruitment to graduate positions within such industries was problematic due to face (for example, the tourism industry and lower managerial positions in general). positions might be rejected if starting salaries and working conditions were considered to be noncommensurate with student perceptions of graduate worth. in addition, the problems of relocation within china, and possible impact upon access to benefits for non-registered residents, acted as recruitment impediments. these and other studies suggest that overall there is an information asymmetry between employers and graduates and that part of the role of higher education should be to reduce this (li, morgan & ding, 2008). speight, s., lackovic, n., and cooker, l. (2012). stakeholder attitudes towards employability in a sino-british university. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 3(1), 26 – 40. 29 the university of nottingham ningbo china the university of nottingham ningbo china (unnc) opened in 2004 as a partnership between the university of nottingham uk (unuk) and the zhejiang wanli education group. unnc currently offers a wide range of degrees grouped within the faculties of arts and humanities, science and engineering and social sciences. in 2011-12 there were 5,000 registered undergraduate and postgraduate students. in opening its international campuses in china and also in malaysia, nottingham has sought to deliver top quality education in both a global context and a local (china, malaysia, uk) context, seeking “to educate generations of students as truly international citizens, rooted in their own cultures but aware of, and sympathetic towards, other cultures” (ennew & fujia, 2009, p.30). the challenge has been to broaden outlooks and deepen capabilities while also respecting the traditions of the host country and ensuring that nottingham degrees in china are fit for local purpose (equivalence rather than replication). the target students for unnc are chinese. in its 2012 return to the observatory for borderless higher education (obhe), nottingham reported that 94% of unnc students were from china, with 1% from the uk and 5% from the rest of the world; this can be contrasted with the university‟s operation in malaysia, where 60% of the students are from the host nation, 1% from the uk and 39% from the rest of the world (obhe, 2012). as is common with transnational education initiatives in china, most of the courses offered by unnc are professional or vocational with business and engineering the largest disciplines (huang, 2007). the teaching and learning strategy for unnc includes providing all students with the opportunity to gain credits and formal recognition for extra-curricular activities and experience which enhance employability and to review the curriculum to promote employability, to reflect both the local and international character of the university (unnc report to senate june 2011). unnc is committed to supporting its graduates to gain worthwhile employment. career development office surveys, conducted six months after graduation, reveal most unnc degrees to be returning a 100% employment record where employment includes further study. for example, nearly 60% of 2008/2009 graduates with the ba international communications went on to postgraduate study, often in europe or america. however, there is a need for more longitudinal data to fully assess the rate of return of investment in higher education, and the differential benefits of under and post-graduate qualifications (li, zhao & morgan, 2011). a mycos survey conducted by a chinese education data consultation and assessment company revealed that, within the national context, full-time employment for 2009 graduates six months after graduation had fallen to 49.5% (bai, 2010). the employability literature shows an increasing move away from instrumental definitions of gaining employment and securing graduate-level employment to more nuanced frameworks for personal development of capabilities or attributes as opposed to skills. this fits well with the mission of a global institution such as nottingham to develop its‟ students not just as individual leaders but as functional and fulfilled community members able to make valid contributions and ethical choices. the university‟s mission statement within the 2010-2015 strategic plan includes benefiting the communities around our campuses, and improving life for individuals and societies worldwide. yet there is a tension between this and the need of the institution to position itself within the various metrics of quality, research, sustainability and employability. the league tables are tools, but the means to securing a strong position in them, according to the literature, must be less instrumental for genuine impact. china‟s current focus upon a human capital discourse in relation to investment in higher education means that unnc feels these tensions strongly. speight, s., lackovic, n., and cooker, l. (2012). stakeholder attitudes towards employability in a sino-british university. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 3(1), 26 – 40. 30 the nottingham advantage award in 2008, nottingham launched an optional extra-curricular programme, the nottingham advantage award (hereafter the award). the aim of the award was to provide undergraduate students with the opportunity to gain accreditation for learning outside of the formal curriculum that could enhance employability and career development (baker & henson, 2010). subsequently the award has been opened up to postgraduate students. it has grown steadily (over 100 modules are now available) and is seen as a cornerstone not only of the university‟s employability strategy but also of internationalisation, volunteering and community engagement. as of february 2012 there were 2000 students enrolled on the award at the uk campus and over 300 students enrolled in china and malaysia (both operating their first full-year of the programme following pilots in 2010-11). the award aims to provide a principled and process-driven pathway through the curriculum in the broad areas of:  preparation for professional life and lifelong learning [with an emphasis upon reflective practice]  service for the public good  personal development – the attitudes and skills to manage own growth (report on the nottingham advantage award for management board, february 2010). since inception, the award has outgrown its original skills-focused learning outcomes and now offers a broad portfolio for capability development (community engagement, entrepreneurship, internationalisation, sustainability, global citizenship). it has shifted its position from a human capital perspective, in which advantage is the dominant discourse (the award as an aid to securing better-paid employment), to a human development discourse in which its curriculum imagines “ethically inclusive and humanly rich goals for development” (walker, 2012, p.388). the award team talk of achievement but also of opportunity and contribution, finding inspiration from two notable authors: “our campuses are producing citizens and this means we should ask what good citizens of the present day should be and should know” (nussbaum, 1997, p.8); “development can be seen....as a process of expanding the real freedoms that people enjoy. focussing on human freedoms contrasts with narrower views of development, such as identifying development with the growth of gross national product, or with the rise in personal incomes” (sen, 1999, p.3). at unnc, the award is open to students in their second, third and fourth years of study. first year students, who enter unnc having completed the gaokao, the national college entrance exam, are busy with the student personal development programme which includes modules on chinese culture, careers, english for academic and professional purposes, and awards credit for club and society activities. for unnc staff the award can deepen international understanding and can make a specific contribution to learning needs identified as being specific to the chinese context. for example, the award supports the further development of language competency and can counteract the tendency for english language skills to decline from year two onwards once intensive language support is removed. the award can develop professionalism, autonomous and reflective learning, equipping students to meet the different requirements of different types of company operating in different parts of the economy (velde, 2009). the award can add depth and speight, s., lackovic, n., and cooker, l. (2012). stakeholder attitudes towards employability in a sino-british university. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 3(1), 26 – 40. 31 breadth to the unnc experience, supporting students to look beyond the minimum requirements for employment to the longer-term development of their capabilities. research aims this research aimed to explore how different stakeholders of the university of nottingham understood employability, its relationship to the curriculum and where responsibility for employability sat. it was hoped that increased knowledge of these issues would enable the strategic development of the nottingham advantage award to be responsive to stakeholder needs, concerns and priorities as well as to the ambitions of the university. the objectives of the project were to describe and examine:  stakeholder views on an „employability‟ curriculum (what kind of learning was valued).  the perceived place of employability within the mainstream curriculum.  student and staff perspectives on the nottingham advantage award.  the role of personal and academic tutors in student self and professional development.  perceptions on current and future needs as well as challenges associated with student career support and employability. research methodology in 2011-12, qualitative research was undertaken to explore the understanding of employability in four teaching and learning units across the university‟s uk campus: history, manufacturing, materials and mechanical engineering, mathematical sciences and sociology and social policy (the full results of this will be published separately). the overall research methodology was triangulation: relating relevant issues and opinions as found in (1) the academic literature, (2) policy documents and (3) the research field work (cohen, manion & morrison, 2000). the research was approved by the school of education at the university of nottingham as complying with the ethical requirements of the british educational research association. the four schools were chosen by the steering group of the nottingham advantage award to provide a range of views from different faculties, and as schools that (at that stage) did not have close links already to the nottingham advantage award. there was little empirical evidence of attitudes towards employability in these schools. senior managers were approached to obtain agreement to their school‟s participation. the research was initially designed in two phases. following a review of the existing literature, a series of phase 1 interview schedules were produced that varied slightly for different stakeholder groups: administrative staff, academic tutors, students and employers. these were refined following discussions between two researchers and with input from careers service staff. the questions covered the definition of employability, its relationship to the academic curriculum, the role of academics in student self and professional development, the responsibilities of careers services, the expectations of employers, and the strengths and weaknesses of the nottingham advantage award (see appendix for the unnc variants of the interview schedules). the questions guided a semi-structured interview that provided scope for additional questions and comments. phase 1 involved 29 interviews with stakeholders associated with history and engineering. interviews were audio recorded, transcribed and then coded for dominant themes and issues. speight, s., lackovic, n., and cooker, l. (2012). stakeholder attitudes towards employability in a sino-british university. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 3(1), 26 – 40. 32 in phase 2, q-methodology was used (brown, 1996). this involved the creation of statement banks about each of the issues that emerged from the phase 1 coding. the phase 2 participants (22 stakeholders from mathematical sciences and sociology and social policy) were asked to rank order these statements using a likert-type scale from „most agree‟ to „most disagree‟ on an eight-column grid (cohen, manion & morrison, 2000). this enabled the creation of a quantified attitude map of the domain of interest in relation to the nottingham uk participants (to be published separately). in january 2012 the opportunity arose to extend the research to unnc (phase 3). this was not part of the original project but was considered as an opportunity to enhance the value of the research and to increase the relevance of its findings. using the phase 1 design only, a further 19 interviews with three stakeholder groups (administrative staff, academic tutors and students) were conducted. the interview questions were amended slightly to reflect the different organisation of unnc (see appendix). to these were added the results of four informal interviews covering similar questions that were conducted with senior managers the previous year during the pilot phase of the nottingham advantage award on the ningbo campus. q-methodology was deliberately not used at unnc as the 2012 researcher was inexperienced and it was considered important to gather direct views rather than views reflected through those of uk colleagues. the unnc interviews were transcribed, analysed and coded and were then compared against the overall results of phases 1 and 2 in the uk, and against the literature on employability, higher education and the labour market in china. in addition to the themes that had emerged from the uk interviews, an additional group of china-specific themes were identified. this allowed us to see the similarities and differences in responses given by the stakeholders on the two campuses. it is important to note that the researchers did not seek to investigate the ethnicity of those interviewed either at unuk or at unnc but were interested in the views of people working at a sino-british university either as staff or as students. as previously indicated, the unnc student population is overwhelmingly chinese. however, chinese students should not be seen as a homogenous group: “the chinese learner may have certain identifiable characteristics, some of which might be related to culture, but they may also learn and behave differently in different situations, according to personal needs and situational demands” (gu & schweisfurth, 2006, p.75). unnc staff are more diverse; the provost‟s report to senate in june 2011 records that academic staff originate from 38 countries with only 18% from china (excluding hong kong, macau and taiwan). the impact of this was not explored. unnc has a different organisational structure to unuk. where possible, interviews were conducted with staff and students working in the same disciplinary areas (a future study may look into disciplinary difference in relation to employability). however, as in the uk, the researchers were dependent upon a snowballing strategy to secure participation, relying on recommendations and intervention from the careers service staff and a few participants (interviews at unnc were conducted during an examination period). the data from phases 1 and 2 in the uk were combined for the analysis with more detailed analysis of the qualitative and quantitative data from the phase 3 interviews at unnc. quantitative data is only included for the uk results where it does not cloud the results of the q-methodology, which measured varying strengths of opinion speight, s., lackovic, n., and cooker, l. (2012). stakeholder attitudes towards employability in a sino-british university. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 3(1), 26 – 40. 33 results figure 1 shows the number of participants (university and represented stakeholder group) interviewed in each phase of the study. participant: university school (uk) or faculty (unnc) stakeholders (total 74) a t s e phase 1 participants unuk (total 29) history – 16 2 6 6 2 mechanical, materials and manufacturing engineering -13 2 5 4 2 phase 2 participants unuk (total 22) mathematical sciences 14 2 5 5 2 sociology and social policy 8 2 2 3 1 phase 3 participants unnc (total 23: 4 in 2011, 19 in 2012) faculty of science and engineering 1 4 1 0 faculty of arts and humanities 6 1 0 faculty of social sciences 1 3 0 central administration 6 0 a = administrative staff, t = academic tutors, s = students; e = employers figure 1: project phases and number of participants phases 1 and 2: combined summary of unuk results in the uk, students most agreed with the award being introduced to them at the beginning of their course; they believed employers valued most a set of generic skills and that individual academic schools needed tailor-made approaches to employability. students strongly agreed with the idea that employability means to develop potential in various areas so that individuals acquire a special quality of mind and personality. the majority of students (n=18; 83%) seemed to be open to new and fluid ideas on employability, although they defined this instrumentally, focusing on the curriculum vitae. all of the seven employers interviewed in nottingham highly agreed that what students did within their curriculum was linked to employability and that the development of students as reflective and critical thinkers was important. they noted the importance of teaching and learning methods in developing employability. academic tutors overall tended towards neutrality on the links between curriculum and employability and the role of teaching and learning although only one tutor stated that “curriculum delivery is not connected to student employability”. employers also highlighted the importance of student societies. together with tutors and administrative staff, employers believed that it was important that students started thinking about employability early on. both tutors and employers highly disagreed with the suggestion that graduate employability was mainly the responsibility of university careers services. however, employers thought that it was part of a tutor‟s role to inform students of employability and careers opportunities and training, whereas tutors opted for either disagree or mid-ground positions on such a responsibility with only five tutors seeing this as a clear part of their role (n=18; 28%). speight, s., lackovic, n., and cooker, l. (2012). stakeholder attitudes towards employability in a sino-british university. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 3(1), 26 – 40. 34 phase 3: results of unnc interviews with illustrative quotations all five students interviewed at unnc offered an instrumental definition of employability, describing it as to gain a job and to have a strong curriculum vitae (“it is related to his knowledge, skills and ability which could help him fulfil in the work and present him well to the employers”). two students (40%) saw a distinction between employability and recruitability, one recognising that obtaining a job was not the same as working effectively while the other saw a status difference: “i can be recruited as a maybe a worker who washes dishes. but employable, maybe i will be employed as a manager”. all administrators and most academics (n=11:67%) used instrumental definitions of employability, although the abilities needed to obtain jobs were seen to include personal qualities. several staff (3 administrators, 5 tutors; 44% of 18 staff interviewed) were concerned with institutional performance in employment metrics, something that did not feature in the nottingham interviews: according to the statistics, on this campus it‟s 100% for the past three years, but i personally think it‟s not accurate. it‟s not an accurate one because on our campus, we have 50% of students who go overseas to further study. so only 50% go to the job market. so those other 50%, they still have to live on their parents to support them. (administrator) it‟s a key measure that is imposed on us by the chinese ministry of education as to how many students either go on to further study or employment and it is tied in with measures around teaching quality. so employability is a very, very important metric for us in our setting. (academic) the majority of unnc academics (n=11; 72%) saw connections between the academic curriculum and learning for employability: if we don‟t teach students the sort of skills which will get them jobs they will not do the courses. the idea that if you do art degree you will learn less is not sustainable; there are not enough students who just do the subject because they love it. we need to teach them academic skills which have applicability in other areas of life – very general skills. we don‟t know where they‟re going to go or what they‟re going to do – also china is changing, you can‟t predict what they will need across the next 40 years of their career. (academic) one academic talked about inter-disciplinary learning as a way of broadening the employability of graduates. several (n=18; 61%) stressed the differences between western and asian cultural norms and learning styles, all judging that western learning was of benefit to the development of employability: a lot of our students move into jobs where they either work with foreigners, or for foreigners, or in foreign countries, and i think our students do have an enormous advantage in that they now have interacted with foreigners, understand how foreigners think. they better understand what they shouldn‟t do and what they should do. (academic) this was reinforced by an administrator who spoke of different western and chinese ways to achieve success and the need for students to recognise which method to use in which context. however, as in the uk, there was disagreement about the responsibility for teaching or supporting employability. while most recognised there was an academic role, there were speight, s., lackovic, n., and cooker, l. (2012). stakeholder attitudes towards employability in a sino-british university. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 3(1), 26 – 40. 35 concerns about the crowded curriculum, but also about the ability of academics in less vocational areas to be sufficiently up to date (as one academic stated, “so i think we should stick to what we do best”). for two academics it was the structure of the programmes that affected their view of their role. they were teaching on foundation or mobility programmes in which students moved between campuses or schools. they felt that learning for employability fell into the remit of those teaching the students at later stages. no employers were interviewed at ningbo. however, several staff (n=18; 39%) offered their perceptions of employer needs, believing that chinese employers wanted ready-made employees: they want them to be able to fit into a company, be able to work more or less straightaway with not that much guidance. they should actually know the framework already.....they‟re a little bit concerned about taking on interns because they‟re worried that they‟re going to have to devote staff time to training them and then they‟ll lose them straightaway. actually i think staff retention is an issue that many of the local companies are concerned about. (academic) most interviewees at unnc (n=23; 82%) saw the nottingham advantage award as a valueadded optional programme that allowed students to distinguish themselves from others. however, four interviewees (22%; two tutors, one administrator and one student) supported the integration of the award into the mainstream curriculum (largely on grounds of access): so if it could be fitted within the curriculum smoothly, i think that would be the best place for it. if not and you have to do it as something separate and make it additional to the course, i don‟t think there‟s anything wrong with it but i just hate the idea of… i mean even if you have a slacker student, you still want them to be employed. i mean it might be that they‟re just not on the course that they actually want to be on, especially in china where it‟s the parents who have chosen their courses for them. (academic) if it is included in our degree course, other students can also join in. (student) four staff members (20%) felt that the speed at which the job market changed in china meant that retaining the award outside of the curriculum allowed for greater flexibility and continual updating. it was important that the award reflected current chinese needs with content developed appropriately. aspects of a specifically chinese context were raised frequently. between one third and a half of interviewees mentioned the role of the family either in affecting learner expectations and/or in planning for and gaining employment: we also hear quite a lot about the ideas that their parents have about what they should be doing in the future and that is a really huge issue in that the students themselves very often don‟t have a very clear idea of what they want to do but their parents and their grandparents very often do have a very clear idea of what they want them to do. so very often they‟re kind of pushed in that area. (academic) normally lots of chinese students when they are in year one, they are very confused. maybe i think some students, they have dreams of what they should become and what they should do in the future. i think they are not their dreams. it‟s their parent‟s dreams. (administrator) speight, s., lackovic, n., and cooker, l. (2012). stakeholder attitudes towards employability in a sino-british university. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 3(1), 26 – 40. 36 i mean okay, we have 100% employment rate for our students, but i think that‟s actually partly to do with family contacts as opposed to any help they‟re getting from the careers service here. (academic) all four of the senior managers interviewed in 2011 emphasised that the nottingham advantage award would be important in developing learner autonomy: i think here with chinese students we do still have a problem with some basic core skills that we really try to get over and i think we‟re still struggling to break those twelve years of chinese education. when my students bring things to me for instance and they say, „but my teacher said there‟s one correct answer to every question‟. it‟s a habit that we try and break to say, „no. actually there are many correct answers. just some are more correct than others.‟ so those sort of basic thinking skills is something that we stress and i don‟t know that we have as much success with that as i would like. (academic) discussion the unnc interviews were conducted after the unuk data collection had been completed and the results analysed. this enabled the identification of commonalities and divergences between the two sets of stakeholder responses by campus as well as by stakeholder group. overall, the students expressed similar views irrespective of their home campus. instrumental definitions of employability were typical as was a belief that learning or preparation for employability should start at the beginning of their university careers. every student struggled to see a difference between recruitability and employability with only one unnc student offering a reasoned distinction. there was more divergence between the views of unuk and unnc staff, with those at ningbo being more comfortable with learning for employability within the academic curriculum than their colleagues in the uk. while uk tutors stated that graduate employability is not mainly the responsibility of careers services, they also did not see it as a dominant responsibility for either themselves or the academic curriculum. this apparent contradiction illustrates the tensions discussed in the research literature (barrie, 2009; yorke, 2010). the unnc staff made frequent comments related specifically to china, suggesting a greater staff awareness of the economic and social challenges facing the country and an ability to see how their own work related to these (bai, 2006, 2010). the seven employers interviewed in the uk showed themselves to be in tune with the research literature in that they saw the academic curriculum as crucial in the development of student employability. they wanted to collaborate more closely with university staff. they talked of the value of extra-curricular activities and work experience but they also saw themselves as playing a major role in the development of graduates once in employment. unnc staff were much more likely to agree that the academic curriculum should deliver employability than their uk colleagues, but, when giving their views on the needs of chinese employers, they gave a greater emphasis to work-readiness at graduation. this fits with the cultural differences found by shi and sewell (2011) who defined uk students as „customers‟ of higher education and chinese students as „products‟. for example, while work experience is considered a crucial tool in the uk and west (e.g. as in the uk government‟s higher ambitions paper of 2009), it is not a usual expectation in china where most students proceed from school to university at age 17 and thence into work or postgraduate study. chinese students are more likely to live with their parents than uk students during their studies (velde, 2009). in this context, work-readiness becomes an expectation of a university education rather than of the add-ons to this education. meeting this expectation is a challenge with chinese employers reporting on staff shortages and the high-cost of in speight, s., lackovic, n., and cooker, l. (2012). stakeholder attitudes towards employability in a sino-british university. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 3(1), 26 – 40. 37 employment training due to a “mismatch between the graduate outputs from the university sector in china and the type of employee needed” (davies, xinyan & wei 2012, p.2). an unwillingness to fund workplace training may also be about access to „elite‟ graduates. different types of chinese employers (foreign or state-owned, public or private) use higher education differently (venter, 2003). richer companies recruit from top universities and invest in training. less secure companies cannot access elite graduates so easily but neither can they afford to invest in entry-level training. the resource divide between employers may perpetuate the inequalities of opportunity built into a hierarchical system of higher education (velde, 2009). in the uk, 40% of the interviewees (n=51) spoke of the challenge of developing students as learners. the nottingham advantage award was a mechanism to assist in this, supplementary to the critical thinking and other generic skills developed through the academic curriculum. but uk interviewees did not highlight learner autonomy as a developmental need unlike their unnc colleague (and especially the senior staff interviewed in 2011) who seemed to agree that: “independent and critical thinking is unfamiliar territory for most chinese students, hindering their ability to gain a thorough understanding of the country‟s economic, social and political challenges” (wu & morgan, 2011). while specifically asian values in education may be identified by western commentators (or, in this research, by commentators working within a western-style university in china), they need to be understood rather than problematised: “it is not simply a question of understanding how chinese cultural norms might impact on teaching and learning; it is equally important to understand the motivations and needs of particular groups of chinese learners. second, a support system is required in institutions to help learners overcome the stress and frustration caused by initial cultural shock and enables them to enjoy the professional and personal benefits of intercultural experiences. such support needs to be both socially and academically targeted” (gu & schweisfurth, 2006, p.88). student intercultural experiences at unnc are limited while the student population remains predominantly mono-cultural. at the present time, the international staff are best placed to support students to „enjoy the professional and personal benefits of intercultural experiences‟. hence it is important that they see their role as going beyond the support or delivery of an academic curriculum narrowly-conceived. careers in china are no longer about a series of progressive moves towards seniority in the same company (jiangqin & zhiwen, 2011). jiangqin and zhiwen use the notion of the „protean career‟ (from the shape-changing greek god proteus) to represent the individual‟s need to adapt to change on various levels: individual, company or industry, society. this adaptability requires a “strong commitment to learning continuously” (velde, 2009, p.35). academics understand this at unnc. they recognise but may be nervous about their responsibility for developing their students as all-round learners and hence see the nottingham advantage award as a safe space where up to date learning for employability can be delivered. despite their nervousness, they are less likely to see a disconnect between the academy and the workplace than are their uk colleagues. the differences we found in the perspectives of unnc and unuk staff, and of university stakeholders and employers, resonate with the wider debate about the purpose of higher education and whether or not it is a public or private good (calhoun, 2006). this debate fuels an „information asymmetry‟ that requires resolution. universities need to focus efforts upon providing quality information and guidance to their students to ensure that they understand speight, s., lackovic, n., and cooker, l. (2012). stakeholder attitudes towards employability in a sino-british university. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 3(1), 26 – 40. 38 the skills or capabilities required by employers (li, morgan & ding, 2008). for a transnational university like nottingham there is a prior stage of reducing internal information asymmetries between different stakeholder groups within and between campuses in order “to bring together the best of uk and chinese educational values and practices” (ennew & fujia, 2009, p.30). limitations this was a small study limited to two campuses of one university. the research was designed in two phases solely for the uk campus and only subsequently expanded when an opportunity arose to conduct and then incorporate further interviews at unnc. participant numbers were small and spread widely across stakeholder groups. participants were also those sympathetic to the research aims, hence their agreement to be interviewed. this may have bearing on the results in that everyone had views on employability and were willing to engage in discussion. however, the research captured voices from across the university of nottingham and was able to nuance these by stakeholder category and by learning location. conclusion this study revealed a disconnect between the opinions of university stakeholders in the uk and china and the theoretical underpinning of the nottingham advantage award which was shifting in line with the research literature from skills to capabilities and from human capital to human development. while there was broad agreement about the significant contribution that higher education makes to graduate employability, there were contested positions on the issue of visibility (the role of the academic curriculum in employability), responsibility (whose job is it to teach employability) and understanding (ranging from instrumental to holistic definitions). both the research literature and the uk employers agreed that the academic curriculum was the essential location for employability learning, while students and tutors at both locations expressed polarised opinions (with unnc colleagues being more sympathetic to this than uk colleagues but also nervous about the responsibility). additional themes and emphasis emerged from the unnc interviews to indicate a consciousness of difference on the part of staff and students. discussing the award, several commented on the need to ensure that it was fit for purpose in its chinese setting. the research suggested that, for a global institution like nottingham, it is crucial to understand the host as well as the international context in order to enable students to forge meaningful careers in china and beyond. this is a challenge. parental influence featured several times in the unnc interviews but not once in those from the uk. while the chinese government may have removed the job assignment system, a form of parental assignment clearly exists and must be understood within its context (e.g. one-child policy, high income sacrifice). in addition to revealing both convergence and divergence between stakeholder views on the two campuses, this research also revealed disciplinary differences which require further investigation. research is needed to illustrate how understandings of employability and its place within the academic curriculum vary between arts and sciences, between vocational and non-vocational courses and the extent to which disciplinary differences are enlarged or reduced by the cultural context of each home campus (which may also include national professional bodies). follow-up research would also be useful to explore the impact of the nottingham advantage award on each campus as student recruitment increases and the award becomes a routine part of the student experience. the award is well-placed to support nottingham in reducing those information asymmetries, but only if its own development is informed by the research literature and by the opinions and concerns of its stakeholders. speight, s., lackovic, n., and cooker, l. 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(2023). global vs local careers taxonomy for graduate employability: through the lens of students’ typology and destination. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 14(1), 187-204. 187 the journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability issn: 1838-3815 (online) journal homepage: https://ojs.deakin.edu.au/index.php/jtlge/ global vs local careers taxonomy for graduate employability: through the lens of students’ typology and destination marina iskhakova 1 and sofia kosheleva2 corresponding author: marina iskhakova (marina.iskhakova@anu.edu.au) 1 college of business and economics, research school of economics, australian national university 2 graduate school of management, st. petersburg state university abstract career studies literature suggests that careers become more boundaryless and more global. students, the agents of the choice of career, are not a homogeneous cohort anymore. we add to the discussion the students’ typology proposition for the career choice to further develop the graduate employability discourse. we make the first attempt to develop a student global vs local career taxonomy to contribute into understanding of graduate employability and career decision making. our contribution offers a two-dimensional taxonomy, with one dimension being a type of student and another dimension being a career destination. the conceptual taxonomy is empirically tested with data from more than 400 business and economics students. we show that a global career choice would prevail above a local career choice for each of the student types. our findings contribute into deeper understanding of career decision making and broadens our comprehension of the variety of global vs local careers for graduate employability. the study develops the future research agenda for career development researchers and multinational corporations’ (mnc) practitioners and practical agenda for teaching and learning in universities. keywords graduate employability; career intentions; intention to work abroad; global vs local career; career type; international students introduction recent discourse in the career studies literature suggests that careers have become more boundaryless and more global (baruch and reis, 2016). students, the agents of the choice of career, are not a homogeneous cohort anymore. deep understanding and realistic reflection of the current student body for career development purposes is a critically needed step in providing relevant career preparation and support for students, but also a valuable tool to support students with the best possible career fit which allows for a successful career and realisation of personal and professional potential. the body of research with the main focus on student career development and graduate employability constantly grows (ayoobzadeh et al., 2021; belle et al., 2022; hou at al., 2018; schweisfurth and gu, 2009; kinash et al., 2017; latukha et al., 2022; nilsson and ripmeester, 2016; pham, 2022; singaravelu, et. al., 2005; sung et al., 2013). this growing body of research with focus on student career choice discusses mainly vocational and subject matter dimensions. for example, auyeung and sands (1997) focus on accounting students career decisions; santric-milicevic et al. iskhakova, m. and kosheleva, s. (2023). global vs local careers taxonomy for graduate employability: through the lens of students’ typology and destination. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 14(1), 187-204. 188 (2015) focus on determinants of international careers of nursing graduates. wang and bu (2004) explore the attitudes towards international careers among male and female canadian business students in the after 9/11 in the us. at the same time only a few graduate employability studies raised the decision-making question regarding the destination. demel et al. (2019) explore the variety of factors influencing job preferences of business and economics students in three european countries. musumba et al. (2011) study factors influencing career location preferences of international graduate students in the united states and shows that career opportunities and social climate are the most critical factors for all. hof (2019) studies young europeans who moved to two global cities – tokyo and singapore and shows that decisions to build careers in asia are linked to professional aspirations and to the idea of accumulating social and cultural capital. veitch’s et al. (2006) findings show that medical graduates tend to undertake careers in non-metropolitan settings. so, while we noticed that growing number of student career development papers talk about the factors affecting the choice of the destination (hof, 2019; musumba et a., 2011; santric-milicevic et al., 2015), still the wholistic and comprehensive career typology based on a student type and destination doesn’t exist. in expatriate literature, an extensive body of research does focus on career mobility, global mobility, and development of global, regional, ethnocentric, host-country career (baruch and altman, 2002; briscoe and finkelstein, 2009; doherty et al., 2013). the majority of those studies have organisations or mncs as their focus, and those papers emphasise career decisions and relocations made at the organisational level for organisational purposes (tharenou et al., 2015; fey, 2020; mcphail et al., 2012). thus, our study assists current students (potential future expatriates) in their own career development and career planning strategies. our contribution offers a two-dimensional taxonomy, with one dimension being a type of student and another dimension being a career destination. based on given dimensions we propose a global vs local career taxonomy with eight possible career types for graduate employability. the suggested taxonomy contributes valuably to the discussion of global career opportunities and students’ career trajectories. our conceptual taxonomy is empirically tested with quantitative survey data from more than 400 students from two countries. qualitative data from students' journaling comments contribute to our deeper understanding of career decision making for global vs local careers and graduate employability. we reiterate the timeliness and importance of the current study in business and economics students domain, as particularly business and economics students they are likely to become the next generation of managers (wang and bu, 2004). many mnc deliberately highlight the global features of their companies’ operations and the international opportunities they provide to employees for the purpose of attracting young graduates with initial international career aspirations for international careers avenues (scullion, 1994). another important consideration we are trying to address by our study is the notion of illusory and too positive, favourable, and optimistic imagery of the future global career by students. the topic of international careers was substantially explored from the corporate expatriates' perspective, where a number of studies proved that international jobs are seen as more interesting and challenging, providing better financial rewards, and allowing for more autonomy, responsibility and career advancement (adler, 1984; black and gregersen, 1990). but only a few studies to date address the perceptions and expectations of global vs local careers outcomes for students. for example, wang and bu (2004) state that current canadian undergraduate business students would perceive international careers as enhancing career success and status, even though domestic careers might bring more recognition in their organisations. an additional final issue we address with our paper is the problematic concern of the 'brain drain' phenomenon, impacted by career decisions of domestic and international students to leave their home countries for pursuing international careers. brain drain can be defined as the migration of skilled human capital, including students who attend universities in developed countries but don’t iskhakova, m. and kosheleva, s. (2023). global vs local careers taxonomy for graduate employability: through the lens of students’ typology and destination. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 14(1), 187-204. 189 return home (rao, 1979). international graduates constitute highly educated individuals; therefore, their decisions on where to start their professional careers have socio-economic impacts on both the country of study and their home country (musumba et al, 2011). finally, the paper discusses practical implications, as well a number of limitations of the current study. we conclude with the key sound messages of a future agenda for career development researchers and industry practitioners and make a valuable contribution for teaching and learning practices in universities. students’ typology for career choice expatriate management literature and practice don’t treat all employees in unified ways: different types of employees, such as home-country nationals, host-country nationals and third-country nationals are specified for research and practice purposes (jain, et al., 1998; kang and shen, 201). in an education domain, the dual classification still prevails: classification on domestic (local) vs international students (ayoobzadeh et al., 2021; bozionelos et al., 2015; hou et al., 2018; iskhakova and kosheleva 2020; pham, 2022; schweisfurth and gu, 2009). this traditional divide is chosen mainly based on the convenience of citizenship criteria for such practical and operational issues as financial purposes (e.g. course fees), and administrative purposes of data processing and admissions (different admission documents, deadlines and processes). the prevailing majority of student career development and graduate employability studies utilise this dual classification. thus, hou at al. (2018) examined the relationships between career and cultural characteristics among international and domestic students at a large university in the us. schweisfurth and gu (2009) show that international students do experience many more transitional and adaptive challenges that domestic students do not experience, such as culture, learning, education, and language shocks. peng and hu (2020) study the career development intentions of international students from the countries of the belt and road initiatives those countries engaged in major global infrastructure projects initiated by china. ayoobzadeh et al. (2021) studied domestic and international students in canada and argued that challenging experiences can potentially make international students stronger and change their perceptions of what they want to achieve in their future careers based on their heightened levels of maturity and self-confidence. at the same time, when it comes to the students’ career development decision making, more inclusive classifications started to appear in the literature, such singaravelu, et. al. (2005) who studied the variation of degree of certainty of career decisions between asian international, non-asian international, and domestic students. luzzo (1993) studied the perceived career barriers by variety of ethnic groups, namely african, americans, hispanics, caucasian, filipinos and asian americans. sung et al. (2013) studied career development behaviour of various ethnic groups in the us and international students, whereas gim (1992) focused on how environmental factors, such as family, culture, and community, were found to influence the career development behaviour of several key ethnic minorities in the united states. while cultural and ethnic aspects of these studies are important and deserve future attention, one of the main tasks and contributions of our study is to bring into consideration the students typology in the context of international education and to extend it from a binary (domestic/international) to more inclusive one, that more carefully reflects the changing societal and cultural situation. with the rapid globalisation of international education, the traditional binary classification no longer fits with the much richer reality of the international education context. in our study, we suggest the conceptual contribution of considering more relevant student classifications that includes three student types: local students, dual-home students, and international students. these are described in table 1. iskhakova, m. and kosheleva, s. (2023). global vs local careers taxonomy for graduate employability: through the lens of students’ typology and destination. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 14(1), 187-204. 190 table 1: students’ typology for career choice type description example local students regular domestic students who identify themselves primarily with this domestic local culture of the university an australian student at the university of sydney (20 years old) who was born in australia and spent most of their life in australia dual-home students students who administratively could be either domestic or international, but they are students who have culturally and geographically more than one home countries (which are country of origin and at least one new acquired home country). they normally came to the current country of study since significant period in life, which is longer that period of study itself and those students typically identify themselves with at least two distinct cultures – with the original home culture and with the new home culture an indian student (20 years old) at the university of sydney who moved to australia when she was 12, so she spent her first 12 years in india and the most recent 8 years in australia, and equally identifies herself as indian and australian international students (or overseas students) students who are currently in the country of study on a temporary visa, including a temporary protection visa. we understand regular international students, who came to the country of study primarily for the purposes of study, with no early cultural identification with this country of study an indian student (20 years old) in university of sydney, who spent all his life in india and has moved to sydney for the purposes of study several months before the study period commences. he has a full identification of himself as an indian student the us immigration authorities define an international student as anyone who is not a u.s. citizen, permanent resident, refugee, or asylee, and who came to the country for an educational purpose. they are also often referred in the literature as internationally mobile students are individuals who have physically crossed an international border between two countries with the objective to participate in educational activities in the country of destination, where the country of destination of a given student is different from their country of origin (migration data portal, 2023). international students can also identify with several overseas cultures, but for purposes of our study we simplify the case and assume that international students identify with one overseas culture, and the culture of the country of study is a novel and unfamiliar one. this brings us to the formulation of the first research question: rq1: how many types of students can be distinguished in an international education context, and what is their career destination? this richer and more realistic classification is important, because it sheds the light on the actual situation in the global student’s domain. while even this newly suggested typology doesn’t distinguish the full variety of multicultural upbringing options, at least the suggested classification caters for the dominating majority of cases. with more detailed and specified classification, scholars and practitioners will be much better equipped in teaching, learning and supporting career aspirations of this cohort of students. thus, our study contributes to the students’ typology development for the purposes of career choice and graduate employability. now when the world turned to be truly global iskhakova, m. and kosheleva, s. (2023). global vs local careers taxonomy for graduate employability: through the lens of students’ typology and destination. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 14(1), 187-204. 191 and the universities are among the most global international multicultural institutions, it is critically important to understand these student cohorts more deeply, and to be able to study and to provide the most relevant career development avenues for each of the cohorts of students. career destination contemporary careers present unpredictable challenges for individuals, organisations, and societies. among the major developments in the practice of careers are the increased dynamism of the global labour market system, and the ever-growing globalisation of careers (baruch and reis, 2016). global careers are those that span two or more countries and may take a number of forms (baruch et al., 2013; mcphail et al., 2012). certainly, global careers involve boundary crossing at least geographical and cultural boundaries (baruch and reis, 2016). debates on a career type and its classification has been a long-term theme in the career development field, with the dominating focus and dominant classifications addressed to expatriate managers (e.g. baruch et al., 2013; fey, 2020; mcphail et all., 2012). for the purposes of global career types, expatriate managers have traditionally been classified from the organisation’s perspective: previous classifications have used the manager’s country of origin (home-country, host-country, or third-country) or the home office region (the united states, europe, japan) as the standards for comparison (e.g. jain et al., 1998; kang and shen, 2018). others have used the manager’s international assignment’s length of time, or frequency of traveling as a classification criterion (banai and wes, 2004). another dominating theme in career studies has been the globalisation of the business realm (bartlett and ghoshal, 1999) and, as a result, the globalisation of careers (dickmann and baruch, 2011). global careers may come in various types and forms, with several dimensions helping to draw distinctions across different types of global careers (e.g., baruch et al., 2013). sullivan and arthur (2006) explored the physical versus psychological boundaries and looked at the impact of crossing different types of boundaries on expatriates. however, the focus on geographical and career mobility across borders is not analysed (baruch and reis, 2016). previous research on international work tends to focus on the reasons why individuals are choosing international components for their careers, and which types of individuals are more likely to make this career choice. our study goes beyond an individual level analysis and focuses on a career type choice for graduate employability. shaffer et al. (2012) proposed to use the following taxonomy to conceptualise different forms of global work: short-term assignees, 'flexpatriates', and international business travellers. they used several classifying characteristics such as purpose, location, duration, the nature of relocation, the nature of repatriation and compensation type. cappellen and janssens (2005) proposed global career paths as the intersection of three domains: an individual, an organisational, and a global environment domain. those classifications are very useful, but they focused strictly on expatriates and therefore are not fully relevant for the students for the purpose of the career planning. shaffer et al. (2012) accept their limitations and encourage researchers to develop a broader and more theoretical view of global work experiences that goes beyond the current focus on expatriation. it moves us to the adaptation of terminology of global vs local career, the terminology that is intuitively understood by the students. we based our study on a very wide definition of a local career as a career that develops mainly in a home country, and a global career as a career that crosses borders and demands the employee live and work physically beyond the borders of a home country. two critical differences between those polar options are the condition of crossing the home country border and crossing the culture (table 2). the border crossing dimension is important as includes the physical relocation and assumes needed adjustment to a new legal, economic, financial and political system, that requires additional efforts, time, resources and associated with a risk of failure. the culture crossing dimension is important as it assumes actual cultural change and needed adjustment to a new culture, language, local traditions, iskhakova, m. and kosheleva, s. (2023). global vs local careers taxonomy for graduate employability: through the lens of students’ typology and destination. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 14(1), 187-204. 192 customs, etiquette, manners, and behavioural patterns, and is also associated with a risk of a failure in a different culture. so we are suggesting to distinguish the following three types of destinations for the purpose of global vs local careers: (1) local destination; (2) new home destination (a new country of study and life for the student); (3) global destination (third country) (table 2). table 2: global vs local career destinations characteristics local destination new home destination global destination border crossing no border crossing border crossed but time spent to adjust border crossing culture crossing no culture crossing culture crossed but time spent to adjust culture crossing based on the destination dimensions introduced above, we define more precisely each of the destination opportunities for graduate employability: 1. local destination: implies that career develops locally without crossing cultural and geographical national borders. this type of career implies that not much cultural preparation is needed and a career success will be defined by internal factors of the domestic environment. 2. new home destination: implies that many obstacles and challenges of current new home career destination could be hidden. assumptions could be made that as cultural and geographical borders were crossed already, graduates could be classified as domestic candidates, means much less support could be provided to them to assist them with a career development at a new home destination. as this cohort of students already crossed cultural and geographical borders, another threat for this cohort is that they could perceive their experience as global already. it means they can prefer to don’t advance further to truly global careers. as a consequence, they could miss potentially a path which could take them to execute their full professional and personal potential. 3. global destination: implies that career develops with the crossings of cultural and geographical borders and needs a serious sufficient preparation; global destination type means a third country destination, which is not a destination of birth, or life or study of a student. we combine together the typology of students with the typology of destinations discussed above and move to the discussion of proposed taxonomy. global vs local careers taxonomy based on the analysis of students’ typology and career destinations we suggest the following global vs local careers taxonomy for graduate employability (table 3). we distinguish between eight career type options based on a student type and destination. thus we summarise, that out of eight career options shown in table 3 – options 1, 2 and 3 are classified as a local career; option 4 is classified as a new home career and options 5,6,7 and 8 are classified as a global career. a clear identification of eight career options based on destination and a type of student allows students, academics, education practitioners and consultants to provide the best possible support for the students to prepare them for their career and to facilitate the best match. this is important because students will be aware of all potential options and will be encouraged and supported to explore the full potential of truly global careers. it leads us to the formulation of our second research question: iskhakova, m. and kosheleva, s. (2023). global vs local careers taxonomy for graduate employability: through the lens of students’ typology and destination. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 14(1), 187-204. 193 rq2: how many types of global vs local career options could be distinguished in international students context? which of those career types will prevail among students? table 3: global vs local careers taxonomy: type of students vs destination # global vs local careers taxonomy for graduate employability career type 1 local career for local student local career 2 local career for dual-home student 3 local career for international student 4 new home career for dual-home student new home career 5 global career for local student global career 6 global career for dual-home student 7 global career (study country) for international student 8 global career (non-study country) for international student method sample occupational choice and the related decision of where to live are among the most important career decisions and business students show a high receptivity to international careers (wang and bu, 2004). students represent the next generation of managers (tharenou, 2003). focus on students reveals vocational preferences at a time individual face an important career-decision (remhof et al., 2013). participants consisted of 404 students close to graduation (44% males, 56% females) enrolled in business and economics degree during february 2020 – november 2021 at one of the g8 universities in australia (equivalent of an ivy-leagues in the us) and at one of the top-3 leading business schools in russia. graduates from these universities are typically the prime targets of mncs. the thirdand fourth-year undergraduate students and year oneand twograduate students were chosen as respondents because they were at a stage where employment options and future careers are seriously evaluated. participation in the research project was voluntary. students’ age ranged from 18 to 36 years (m = 21.7; sd = 3.46), participants came from 18 countries with the majority being russian (44%) and australian (40%), followed by students from china (11%) and kazakhstan (3%). table 4 provides additional details about the participants through a profile summary of the entire sample. data collection survey quantitative data collection consisted of an online survey stage. the online survey instrument was developed using survey monkey, and was piloted with a small sample of university students (n = 20). this allowed researchers to ensure that the questions and language of the survey were appropriate and clear to the target respondents. the original questionnaire was developed on the basis of existing items in english. to avoid response and selection biases, we translated the questionnaires into russian for the russian students by using the back-translation method (brislin, 1986). the questionnaire covered demographics, previous international experience, questions on intention to work abroad and concluded with the list of factors influencing decision to work abroad. estimated time for filling survey was around 15 min, and all responses were anonymised. the participation rate reached 56.1%, which is in line with similar high-engagement career-oriented and graduate employability studies, including iskhakova, m. and kosheleva, s. (2023). global vs local careers taxonomy for graduate employability: through the lens of students’ typology and destination. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 14(1), 187-204. 194 wang and bu (2004), baluku et al., (2018). ethics approval n11476_2019/235 for the project was granted by australian national university. journaling students’ journal comments were collected and analysed as the qualitative part of the research study in the format of journal entries and reflections on graduate employability and career choice preferences. journaling, as a form of reflective writing, has been suggested by numerous scholars as a tool to facilitate training and learning (moon, 2006). as such, journaling has become a method of contemplative inquiry (haynes, 2015). moon (2006) suggests that journal writing can improve learning in several ways: it slows down the pace of learning, increases the student’s sense of ownership, acknowledges the role of emotion in learning, provides a different kind of learning experience, and enhances learning through the writing process. students were invited to maintain weekly fortnightly reflective journals through the semester of study and were encouraged to reflect on topics related to international employability, international careers, career paths, and career preferences. reflective journals submissions did not have a specified format to allow students discretion and flexibility to write about what they felt was the interesting, important, or memorable to them. as such, some students arranged their reflections by themes, challenges, insights, stereotypes, or professional goals. in total 60 students gave permission to analyse their online journals entries. all the learning journals were between 1,000 and 2,000 words and were analysed by primary researcher with the use of thematic analysis. key themes were coded and are presented in the results section of this paper. we used gibbs’ (2002) analysis framework to employ a three-stage coding process: 1) open coding to identify relevant themes; 2) axial coding to refine the categories, and 3) selective coding that links the categories together to enable a narrative to be told. measurements while our methodology consisted of quantitative (survey) and qualitative (journaling) parts, formal measurements were used only at the quantitative stage. we studied a number of international experiences variables, such as: age of the first overseas trip; number of countries visited; months travelled overseas; percentage of friends from other culture; percentage of friends with different mother tongue and other variables broadly utilised in international business, international education and expatriation management literature (ott and iskhakova, 2019; iskhakova et al., 2022). a dependent variable intention to work abroad is measured with question adapted from vandor (2009): 'with a probability of ____%, i will live and work in another country than australia/russia in the course of my life after having finished my studies.' also, students would specify the preferred location if they indicated the preference for a global career. domestic, dual-home and international students' responses in a range 0-49% were interpreted as primarily local career intentions. domestic, dualhomes and international students’ responses in a range 50-100% were interpreted as primarily global career intentions. dual-home and international students who indicated a preference for a global career would indicate the preferred country, which allowed us to classify those students to a newhome/global career type or truly global career type. results and discussion descriptive statistics next, we move to the results presentation. we start with the presentation of some selected descriptive statistics (table 4). data shows that the sample is characterised by the high level of prestudy of international experience, with the average age of the first overseas trip being 8 years old with an average 11.5 countries visited, and 78.5% of students reported having friends overseas, with at least 59.5% of students reported an experience of living or studying overseas. iskhakova, m. and kosheleva, s. (2023). global vs local careers taxonomy for graduate employability: through the lens of students’ typology and destination. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 14(1), 187-204. 195 table 4: selected international experience characteristics (n=404) international experience characteristics (1) students sample, (*mean) international experience characteristics (92) students sample, (*mean) number of respondents 404 have you lived overseas? (yes) 59.5% age 21.53* months lived overseas 15* age of the first overseas trip 8* % of students born in the same country as parents 78.5% age of the most memorable overseas memory 11* % of students with relatives overseas 65% number of languages spoken 1.85* % of students with friends overseas 78.5% number of countries visited 11.5* % of friends from other culture 25.5% months travelled overseas 8.5* % of friends with different mother tongue 20.5% students' taxonomy we now move to the testing of our first research question: how many types of students for a career choice purpose could be practically distinguished in international education context? table 5 shows that empirically we can distinguish three types of students – local students, dual-home students and international students. table 5. students taxonomy tested on empirical data (numbers show the % of all students) # global vs local careers taxonomy for graduate employability % of all students from a sample career type (% of a sample) 1 local career for local student 16.8% local career (28.0%) 2 local career for dual-home student 2.7% 3 local career for international student 8.4% 4 new home career for dual-home student 1.8% new home career (1.8%) 5 global career for local student 42.3% global career (70.2%) 6 global career for dual-home student 7.5% 7 global career (study country) for international student 6.2% 8 global career (non-study country) for international student 14.1% iskhakova, m. and kosheleva, s. (2023). global vs local careers taxonomy for graduate employability: through the lens of students’ typology and destination. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 14(1), 187-204. 196 local career, new home career and global career we now move to test our second research question: how many types of global vs local career options could be distinguished in international students context? which of those career types will prevail among students? table 5 shows that dominating cohort of graduates in a sample is local students intending for a global career (42.3%), then local students pursuing local careers (16.8%) and then international students taking on global career (14.1%). figure 1 reflects the split of preferences between career types separately for each cohort (local students, dual-home students and international students), so we have 100% count by the cohort. here we show very insightful results: figure 1 reveals that a truly global career choice (in non-study country) will prevail over new-home career (in study country) and local career for each student cohort – international (49.1%), dual-home (61.7%) and local (71.5%). of the dual-home students, 16.3% prefer to stay in a country of study – and to have new home career. for international students, this figure is 21.5%. it could mean that those students could receive lower support for building a truly global career and will not be able to exploit and execute their true potential through the challenge of global careers. only 49.1% of international students (compared to 71.5% of local students) reported on intentions of taking on a global career journey. it suggests that additional support at career departments of universities should address international students' needs to support them in building truly global careers. the gap could exist due to lower academic performance, harder academic challenges during international study, lower self-esteem, lower opportunities for business connections, lower ambitions and confidence in successful global career and should be addressed by scholars and practitioners. figure 1. students taxonomy empirically tested for each students cohort (for international students, dual-home students and local students) 28.5 22.4 29.3 0 16.3 21.5 71.5 61.7 49.1 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 local students dual-homes students international students global new home global local iskhakova, m. and kosheleva, s. (2023). global vs local careers taxonomy for graduate employability: through the lens of students’ typology and destination. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 14(1), 187-204. 197 we would like to illustrate and enrich our quantitative data with our qualitative findings from the students’ journal comments. while students provided individual intentions and reflected on own individual intended career pathway without knowing the right answer or preferable or expected career path, those students journals comments shed an insightful light on the process of their thinking and diverse arguments and factors students are taking into consideration. see the students comments from the journals below, they are insightful and enriching. results are presented by three types of careers – local careers, dual-home careers and global careers. and inside of each career type we undertook a thematic analysis of pull and push factors for the choice of global vs local career. the most significant pull and push factors are discussed for each career type. under pull factors we understand factors which tie an individual to his/her/their home country; under push factors we understand factors which motivate and drive an individual to explore career options beyond a home country. local careers and pull-push factors our results (table 5) show that a local career was preferable choice for only 28% of all types of students. but as we can learn from the following quotes, those students not depending on their cohort are very confident in their career intention and clearly aware of the benefits they would gain from a local career. so we will reflect on 3 types of local careers and their perceived benefits. among the key pull factors for local career were named – family concerns, comfort considerations, patriotism considerations, importance of contributing to the economy of the country of origin, uncertainty of global career, lack of preparation for global career, and perceived cultural, economic and political challenges of integration in the global environment. local career for local student one local student taking on a local career mentions the importance of family connections, challenges of adaptation to a new cultural environment, and the nostalgia and cultural loyalty to the country of origin: i would like to stay and work in my home country and don’t go very far away from my parents. i also think that i will not be able to fully adopt the mentality of another country, no matter how good and comfortable it is for life, and i will always miss my home country character and lifestyle. for some reason, everyone thinks that 'the grass is greener' abroad, but i believe that abroad there are national, cultural and political problems with which i am not ready to live. (student l) local career for dual-home student a dual-home student taking on a local career mentions the notion of patriotism and the critical and primary importance of contribution to the development of their country of origin. we would like to highlight that dual-home students cohort career choice is the most challenging as they are facing three possible choices, when local students and international students have to choose between only two choices. even if i consider myself as a world citizen and closely connected to both countries kazakhstan and russia, after graduation i want to develop my career in kazakhstan. however, i always consider myself as a patriot person who loves her country of origin indeed. after being back to kazakhstan, i would like to continue my career in education sphere and contribute to the development of my country of origin. (student k) iskhakova, m. and kosheleva, s. (2023). global vs local careers taxonomy for graduate employability: through the lens of students’ typology and destination. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 14(1), 187-204. 198 local career for international student an international student taking on a local career mentions the notion of comfort, stability, and family connections: nevertheless, i would prefer to go back home after graduation and to develop a career in my home country (luxembourg) as it provides a more stable economic environment for business and a good social structure beneficial for founding a family (of course this also depends on my future partner). (student j) we have provided a summary of all pull and push factors in table 6 below. table 6. pull and push factors for the career preferences dual-home careers and pull-push factors the smallest cohort so far fell under the classification new home career for dual-home student (1.8%), partly due to an absence of precisely developed measurements employed by universities to distinguish this cohort, we forecast that this cohort will increase its numbers all over the globe, so further attention to it is critically needed. the following example of a dual-home student taking on a new home career mentions the notion of having an interesting job, the importance of personal and professional development, and career challenges and benefits. # global vs local careers taxonomy for graduate employability pull factors for local careers push factors for global careers 1 local career for local student family concerns, comfort, patriotism, contributing to own country, uncertainty of a global career, challenges of adjustments 2 local career for dual-home student 3 local career for international student 4 new home career for dualhome student interesting job, importance of personal and professional development, career challenges and benefits. 5 global career for local student interesting and challenging job, career opportunities, cultural diversity, career advancement, financial reward, status, development of expertise, global dimension, personal and professional development 6 global career for dual-home student 7 global career (study country) for international student 8 global career (non-study country) for international student iskhakova, m. and kosheleva, s. (2023). global vs local careers taxonomy for graduate employability: through the lens of students’ typology and destination. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 14(1), 187-204. 199 new home career for dual-home student i do have an intention of working in a country of current study. one could say i am working abroad right now since i am a born and raised canadian who happens to speak and understand russia due to my heritage and lives and studies in russia now. i can tell that i am "abroad" since my habits and philosophies do not coincide with what is standard in russia. (student d) global careers and pull-push factors global career choice (table 5) tends to be the most popular not dependent on a cohort type. of the total sample, 70.2% preferred a global career choice. what is very interesting about this choice comparing to the local career choice, is that it is based more on expectations and predictions, rather than on experience, facts and knowledge. but as we know that intentions are the best predictor of behaviour, we appreciate those intentional results being high. intentions reflect the degree to which an individual, who considers a specific goal state, plans to perform or not to perform a particular behaviour in the future. extensive evidence in various management fields suggests that intention is the single best predictor of actual behaviour (ajzen, 1991). so we will reflect on the four types of global careers and their perceived benefits. among the key push factors for global career were: interesting and challenging jobs, career opportunities, cultural diversity, career advancement, financial reward, status, development of expertise, and global dimension (see table 6). global career for local student one local student taking on global career mentions the importance of global dimension, the importance of cultural immersion and development of cultural and global expertise, higher status, and faster career advancement. i’ve been thinking about working abroad since i was a pupil at school. when i only started reflecting upon my future career track, i had already realised that it should be somehow connected with interaction with other countries. that is why i took my bachelors in international relations. today i fully consider working abroad as a viable option for me and i express an extreme desire to build my entire career outside of my home country. (student m) global career for dual-home student a dual-home student taking on global career mentions better career opportunities, truly global career opportunities, higher financial reward, cultural diversity and global mind development, and a greater range of career options and opportunities. yes, i have intention to work abroad. i want to develop my career in the third country – not in my two home countries because better career opportunities and prospects: depending on your skill set, there may be a greater range of career opportunities open to you outside your home market. (student o) global career (study country) for international student an example of an international student taking on global career (in country of study) mentions better career opportunities, higher financial reward, greater range of career opportunities, and comfort and cultural familiarity of country of study. i am an international student. my home country is turkey. i don't think about starting a career in turkey at the beginning of my career. there are a lot of reasons for this. many of them are also due to employers. i do not think that employers in turkey give value to their employees. by employers, employees work too much with low salaries, and the life of the workers becomes just their job. i am thinking to develop a career in a country of my study. (student b) iskhakova, m. and kosheleva, s. (2023). global vs local careers taxonomy for graduate employability: through the lens of students’ typology and destination. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 14(1), 187-204. 200 global career (non-study country) for international student the following international student taking on a global career (in a non-study country) mentions better career opportunities, higher financial reward, greater range of career opportunities, stronger professional and personal development, and a more exciting, interesting life. i understood from an early age that living in my home country would not satisfy my appetite to understand the world in which we are living and, more importantly, the realities experienced across the globe. i truly believe that working globally brings a unique value: it challenges someone in every aspect of their life and values. this is the best ingredient to what can makes us richer, as a person cultural diversity, the real wealth to our world! (student s) the students' comments above are insightful, transparent and enriching. they shed a critical light on a variety of motives, drivers and factors behind the global vs local career decision making and serve as excellent base for shaping a future research agenda for graduate employability. we conclude that the proposed students’ typology for a career choice purpose and graduate employability show the relevance with evidence from empirical data. we show that all eight types of suggested global vs local career choices are supported by empirical data above and we show that global career choice would prevail above local career choice among all types of the students. practical implications our study makes several practical contributions to the internationalisation of business education as well as to the graduate employability domain and into teaching and learning practices in universities. first, we provide practitioners who work in academia, government or industry with the first attempt of developing a taxonomy of global vs local careers, which can serve as an excellent tool for deeper understanding of students’ previous international experience, its influence on students motivations, drives and international career intentions. outcomes of the study could be included into career development programs, universities mandatory and elective curricula, graduate employability modules, and workshops at the universities so students can make more informed decisions about types of careers that exist and about possible variety of career choices. this allows them to make the best choice that matches the individual characteristics the most. we suggest the first attempt of global vs local careers taxonomy where we distinguish between eight career type options, based on a student type and a destination choice. a clear identification of eight career types based on destination and type of student allows students, academics, education practitioners, graduates employment policy makers and consultants to provide the best possible support for the students to prepare them for their career and to facilitate the best person-career match for them. we show that all eight types of suggested global vs local career choices are supported by empirical data and we show that global career choice would prevail above local career choice for each of the student’s types. second, our study shows that actual students’ intentions of global careers are higher than factual percentages of local and international students who embark on international careers (between 1030%, australian bureau of statistics, 2023). it could be due to significant lack of preparation of students for truly global careers, or due to illusory, or rose-coloured glasses. a much more positive, seamless image of a global career could be projected, supported by an extensive list of attractive characteristics of international jobs which create a favourable and successful image of a global career (wang and bu, 2004). we argue that the importance of realistic expectations, along with a proper preparation for a global career should be the paramount characteristic of graduate employability preparation and should be properly emphasised. we suggest that every educator should incorporate the elements of global employability in each course and subject delivery, for example, an accounting lecturer providing examples on local accounting and global accounting careers. iskhakova, m. and kosheleva, s. (2023). global vs local careers taxonomy for graduate employability: through the lens of students’ typology and destination. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 14(1), 187-204. 201 third, with a significant percentage of students intending to build international careers (between 49.1% of international students, 61.7% of dual-home students and 71.5% of local students reporting an intention to build truly global career), we show the importance of thinking about brain drain issues for local economies (musumba et al, 2011; rao, 1979) and provide stronger incentives for all types of students to contribute as graduates into local economies. fourth, our recommendations would be appropriate in settings with a significant international student population, for example usa, canada, australia, and the uk. internationally mobile students ranged from 5 25% of domestic student population, and in total accounted for more than 6 million internationally mobile students in 2020 (guillerme, 2022). policy makers in the field of graduate employment and international student mobility should consider carefully and balance the pull-push factors of local and global career intentions to be able to create appropriate incentives for international students with newly acquired expertise to contribute to the current countries of study. research limitations in spite of a number of valuable theoretical and practical contributions, our study has a number of limitations. first, we drew from a limited sample of students (only 404 observations) from only two universities of two countries. additional research is needed not only to confirm these findings with student cohorts from different countries, but also to test our hypotheses on different fields of study (beyond business and economics, which traditionally tend to lean towards international careers, due to well-developed paths for expatriates in mncs (scullion, 1994). second, we accept that the fact that majority of participants being local students (australians and russians) may introduce cultural bias, due to cultural stereotypes and mind frames. we encourage scholars to expand our study on various cultural audiences. third, our study has a cross-sectional nature and a longitudinal method is highly recommended to get more pronounced results. an attempt to follow a realisation of students' careers in 5-year and 10-year periods will provide with insightful relationships between global career intention and global career building. fourth, despite our data collection featuring quantitative and qualitative data, the use of self-reported data presents another limitation that may result in some possible bias in conclusions related to local and global graduate employability. conclusion thus, our paper brings valuable practical contributions to the graduate employability and career development literature in the student context, namely by suggesting the global vs local careers taxonomy with eight career type options based on a student type and based on a destination choice. we outline the most critical pull-push factors for each type of career. career development in a student context is a critically important part of the global mobility domain and graduate employability and career development scholars and international education researchers are invited to build on a current study and continue this important conversation. references adler, n. j. 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(2014) speech pathology students’ perceptions of workplace-based volunteer placements in a school setting. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 5(1). 2 speech pathology students’ perceptions of workplace-based volunteer placements in a school setting marleen westerveld 1 , susanne garvis 1 m.westerveld@griffith.edu.au; s.garvis@griffith.edu.au 1 griffith university abstract workplace-based learning has long been recognised as crucial in preparing higher education students in allied-health related disciplines for clinical practice. most of these learning opportunities are embedded in traditional programs and referred to as clinical placements. this study explored the perceptions of university students studying speech pathology who volunteered their services in a school setting. in particular the research aimed to determine what motivated students to undertake volunteer workplace-based learning (for no academic credit), what students learned from being involved in this innovative type of placement, and whether students perceived any benefits in terms of future employability. student perceptions were gathered using focus group discussions which were subsequently analysed using a content analysis approach to identify key meanings. as expected, students’ main motivation to volunteer their service was to add the experience to their resume and thus make them more competitive upon graduation. however, results indicated that the students’ learning went beyond their initial expectations of gaining experience in administering assessment tasks. more importantly, the volunteer placement provided the students with clear mastery experiences, leading to improved confidence in their clinical skills and a growth in professional identity. these findings are important for understanding and improving learning experiences within higher education for students who engage in relational work with children and schools. keywords: workplace-based learning, learning outcomes, volunteer placements, speech pathology, higher education background clinical education plays a pivotal role in preparing students to meet accepted professional standards of practice in speech-language pathology upon graduation. considering a growing number of university students are studying towards a degree in speech-language pathology, demand for workplace-based learning is high. university programs are increasingly considering the adoption of innovative workplace-based learning models (sheepway, lincoln, & togher, 2011), with the awareness that student learning outcomes need to be met and that positive student learning experiences are vital. this study explores a non-traditional workplace-based learning model in which students volunteered their services in a school setting. the students involved were studying towards a master of speech pathology degree at griffith university. the placement facilitated a project that would not have been possible without these students’ volunteer assistance. the volunteer placements participated in a literacy screening clinic of all preparatory students (hereafter known as prep) attending three primary schools in a low socio-economic area, comprised of students from many culturally and linguistically diverse (cald) mailto:m.westerveld@griffith.edu.au mailto:s.garvis@griffith.edu.au w esterveld, m. & garvis, s. (2014) speech pathology students’ perceptions of workplace-based volunteer placements in a school setting. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 5(1). 3 backgrounds. prep consists of the first year of schooling in queensland (state within australia) with children aged five years. the australian early development index (aedi; australian government, 2013) results show that 17.8 per cent of children in the school district are considered developmentally vulnerable across two or more areas (http://www.aedi.org.au), which is higher than the national average of 10.8 per cent. running the screening clinic allowed for detailed evaluation of these children’s emergent literacy skills prior to, and following the implementation of a school-wide tier 1 type intervention within a response to intervention framework (rti) (brown-chidsey & steege, 2010). the first tier of this type of intervention demands that all children receive the same evidence-based instruction and that assessment is undertaken to determine which students fail to make expected progress. the clinic resembled a project placement as described by prigg and mackenzie (2002) in that the students completed work initiated by a fieldwork site. one of the main drivers of the current project, however, was to help build capacity of the school to more rigorously evaluate the effectiveness of its curriculum delivery, in this instance the implementation of a novel classroom-based small-group intervention program aimed at raising the prep students’ early literacy skills (lennox & westerveld, 2013). under the rti model students’ progress needs to be monitored by regular assessment to determine which students are at risk for learning difficulties and thus may require tier 2 intervention (www.rti4success.org). only by speech pathology students volunteering their services, were the schools able to obtain the required staffing resources to assess individual prep students on a range of oral language and literacy-related skills. another driver for the current project was the need for additional training of recent graduates in speech pathology (see rosenberg, heimler, & morote, 2012). in australia, more than 400 different languages are spoken (australian bureau of statistics, 2010) and more than 20 per cent of australian preschool-age children grow up speaking more than one language (mcleod, 2011). considering the high possibility of speech pathologists to encounter clients who speak a language other than english, and who are from a cultural background different from their own, mcleod (2011) rightly argued the importance of cultural and linguistic competence of speech pathologists to work ‘sensitively and holistically’ with their culturally and linguistically diverse (cald) clients. although the master of speech pathology degree program offers clinical placements across the range of practice areas of speech pathology (speech, language, voice, fluency, swallowing, and multimodal communication), there is often little or no opportunity for direct engagement with children from cald backgrounds. the workplace-based project placement aimed to meet this need by offering extended practice in administering assessment tasks with children from cald backgrounds. from a clinical education perspective, some practical and regulatory issues needed to be considered before implementation. these included supervision arrangements, group versus individual placement, and appraisal of student performance. concerns about non-traditional student placements, such as those involving group supervision, included the amount and quality of the supervision received by the students (sheepway et al., 2011). even though the students volunteered for this placement, indirect supervision was provided as mandated by the university. supervision involved initial training of the students in administering the set battery of assessment tasks by certified practising speech pathologists: 1) students observed their supervisors administering the assessments; 2) students then administered the assessments and received feedback from their peers and supervisor. in addition, daily debriefs were held to discuss progress and administrative or logistical issues and at least one supervisor was on site at all times. because of the voluntary nature of the placement, students were not formally assessed, nor did they receive formal recognition (i.e. clinical hours towards their degree) for their services. instead, the students received a certificate of appreciation to include in their professional portfolio. the current project invited all students who volunteered their services to attend a focus group to address the aim of the research which was to determine the extent to which http://www.aedi.org.au/ http://www.rti4success.org/ w esterveld, m. & garvis, s. (2014) speech pathology students’ perceptions of workplace-based volunteer placements in a school setting. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 5(1). 4 volunteer placements were valued by and contributed to participants’ learning. the following research questions were posed:  what motivated the students to volunteer for this project during their semester break?  what were their expectations?  what were the students’ perceived learning outcomes?  did the placement meet their expectations in terms of experience and learning?  should any improvements be made to the placement? it was anticipated that the key factor motivating the students to volunteer was to add the experience to their resume and thus make them more competitive when applying for positions as new graduates. obtaining students’ views regarding their expectations and learning outcomes would not only determine if this project placement provided a viable learning model, it would also help shape future volunteering experiences for speech pathology students. method this project received ethical clearance from the university. this allowed all speech pathology students who took part in the volunteering experience to be contacted with an information letter and consent form. the students were post-graduate-entry master of speech pathology students at griffith university, located on the gold coast, australia. griffith university recently introduced a master of speech pathology program to meet the growing demand for allied health professionals in queensland. to gain entry into the program, students were required to have a bachelor degree (in any subject). the master of speech pathology program is a two-year postgraduate degree program which offers four clinical placement opportunities (one in each semester of study). the degree program addresses all speech pathology range of practice areas (speech, language, swallowing, voice, stuttering, and multimodal communication) across adults and paediatrics to meet occupational competency at entry level (speech pathology australia, 2011).the program recently obtained accreditation from speech pathology australia, the professional body representing speech pathologists in australia. the convenor of one of the speech pathology courses contacted the students in november 2012, outlining the volunteer project and explaining how the students could be involved. the volunteering experience took place during the summer break; one clinic ran at the beginning of the summer break and involved post-testing of prep children, and one clinic took place at the end of the students’ summer break and involved pre-testing of the next prep cohort. testing involved administration of a battery of emergent literacy assessment tasks, including letter name knowledge, phonological awareness, vocabulary, and story retelling and comprehension. although the speech pathology students had been informed about these types of tasks during content lectures, few students had had the opportunity to administer the tasks in real world situations. of the nine students who participated in the volunteer experience, six were available at a set time to take part in a focus group with a researcher who did not have any affiliation with the students. these students ranged in age from 26 to 54 years, and had completed bachelor degree programs in arts, teaching, education, psychology, psychological sciences, and social sciences. focus groups are a form of group interviewing that involves a number of people at the same time, with an emphasis being on questions and responses between the researcher and participants. powell, single, and lloyd (1996, p. 499) define a focus group as a group of individuals selected and assembled by researchers to discuss and comment on, from personal experience, the topic that is the subject of the research. the importance of focus groups is that they rely on interaction within the group based on topics that are supplied by the researcher (morgan, 1997). this allows for the participants to interact about certain beliefs and experiences. in the case of this research, it allowed participants to share w esterveld, m. & garvis, s. (2014) speech pathology students’ perceptions of workplace-based volunteer placements in a school setting. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 5(1). 5 and interact on the experiences of being involved in volunteering in an authentic placement. the non-affiliated researcher allowed greater opportunity for an honest and open discussion. students were reassured that all information would be de-identified. a semi-structured interview approach was used for the focus group that allowed the researcher to explore certain ideas and perceptions as they arose in the conversation. prompt questions were created to elicit responses based on experience from the volunteering experience. questions were shared with the participants prior to the interview to allow them to be familiar with the structure and format of the interview. this also allowed the participants to thoughtfully consider their responses to the prompt questions. the focus group lasted for 40 minutes and was audio-taped. consent was gained through signing of the written consent form and verbal agreement at the start of the interview. participants were also reminded to be respectful of the views of group members and that information shared was confidential. participants were informed that all information would be de-identified upon the creation of the transcript from the audio-file. the transcript was returned to participants for verification. this allowed the participants to confirm that what was in the transcript was correct. once verification had been received from all participants, the transcript was analysed. data in the transcript was analysed using an adapted version of cavana, delahaye, and sekaran’s (2001) 15 stages of content analysis (garvis, 2010). the content analysis approach allowed the re-working of themes and ideas to ensure that all data had undergone rigorous analysis. in the writing-up process, data was continually interpreted and revisited to ensure accuracy and consistency. the adapted stages of analysis are listed in table 1. after undergoing the 15 stages of analysis, key findings were produced that allowed a fuller picture for the study. table 1: adapted stages of content analysis procedure stage description 1 all raw data from interviews were transcribed into single-spaced data and organised under the interviewee’s name. 2 at the beginning of each paragraph, the interviewee’s name was used as the source code. 3 all data was photocopied to provide more than one original. 4 all data was securely stored on the computer and in the locked filing cabinet. 5 all notes and transcripts were read to view emerging themes. 6 data was re-read with the coding of themes as they surface. 7 constant comparative analysis occurred as themes were compared. sub-themes began to emerge. 8 themes were given abbreviations and a data index was created. 9 themes were organised using a cut and paste technique. themes were continually compared with one another to ensure internal homogeneity (the extent to which the data in the theme ‘dovetail’ or hold together in a meaningful way) and external heterogeneity (the extent to which differences between themes are bold and clear (cavana et al., 2001, p. 173). 10 the open coding phase is now complete. the first pass allowed the researcher to open up the text, create new concepts and explore themes (cavana et al., 2001, p.173). 11 axial coding began with identification of categories of concepts that cluster together. 12 after reviewing each category, rules for inclusion were established about including or not including subsequent data. w esterveld, m. & garvis, s. (2014) speech pathology students’ perceptions of workplace-based volunteer placements in a school setting. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 5(1). 6 13 selective coding was carried out with the raw data. evidence that justified themes and sub themes was compared and contrasted. 14 mapping across categories to investigate relationships occurred to draw a fuller picture for the study. 15 all results were written up through an interactive process, with data continually revisited and checked to support various arguments. findings motivation for volunteering the participants stated that their motivation for volunteering was based on the appeal of working with school-aged children and, in particular, the opportunity to gain skills in implementing a variety of assessments to a range of school-aged children was valued. the participants suggested that they were able to really understand how different assessment tools worked and what changes needed to be made when they dealt with different children. for a small group of participants, it also confirmed whether they would like to work in paediatrics once they finished their university qualification. while the participants had just undertaken a practicum in a paediatric setting, they reported that they had not had time to develop relationships with individuals. one participant commented that the previous experience in paediatrics was too short and made her feel nervous because she rarely saw the same children twice for a session. in this volunteering experience, the participants were motivated to learn about the dynamics of being a paediatric speech pathologist in one particular type of school context as opposed to travelling across a variety of schooling contexts. after the experience, three participants confirmed they would like to work in paediatrics, one participant did not, and one participant was still undecided. one student commented: for me, the appeal was the school-aged children because i've been doing my behaviour therapy with early interventions at two to six. i had a small window of experience in first semester at a school and i really liked it, so i thought, well, let's get back into the school. it could be a career opportunity one day down the track (respondent 3). expectations participants were asked to comment on whether their expectations had been met. all participants commented that the experience had exceeded their expectations. they suggested this was because they had a supportive supervisor and speech pathologists who were able to support their learning and needs. the participants suggested they were tre ated as equals, developing an identity as a practising speech pathologist as opposed to being a student under supervision. one participant commented: i think it exceeded mine in terms of the level of support that we got. the supervisor there from the school, the speech pathologist at the school was very, very supportive and she was very accommodating. the participants also stated they were valued as part of a wider project that was aimed at improving the oral language development of young children. the participants commented they were making an important contribution to the lives of young children and felt good about this factor. they considered involvement in the project valuable for not only their own learning but also for the greater good of the young children. the participants valued the importance of receiving a certificate for their portfolio at the end of the program. they believed that being able to draw on ‘real life’ experience when seeking w esterveld, m. & garvis, s. (2014) speech pathology students’ perceptions of workplace-based volunteer placements in a school setting. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 5(1). 7 employment made them more employable than others in the speech pathology program who had not undertaken this volunteering program. the participants suggested that an employer would be looking for a range of practical experiences that they could now demonstrate. for example, one participant commented: if a girl went to apply for a job in a school, i think the employer would go, hmm, they've done some experience, they haven't, so from that perspective, i think it's really important (respondent 1). perceived learning outcomes the participants were also asked to comment on what they had learned from the experience. many participants commented on the value of learning about the school culture, including the different roles of teachers, principals, and administration. one participant stated: there was that side of it, but there was also the side of it that showed that some teachers were a bit more receptive than others to working with the speech pathologist, whereas others seemed to see it as a little bit of a challenge to their own knowledge because this aspect of literacy crosses over both professional boundaries, i suppose. that collaboration is you can get so much further ahead if you work in that way, but not everybody seems willing to do that (respondent 2). this was important to the participants as it allowed them to experience the importance of communication between all team members to ensure consistency for children’s learning. participants also stated that they had learnt important insights into children’s lives and learning. there was general agreement that the experience had allowed them to observe the differing abilities of the children and develop a greater understanding about the home life of the child. the participants were able to experiment with their own communication styles and engagement styles to cater for a diverse range of children. for example, one participant commented: with the more challenging children or the ones that would flat out not respond, you'd have to get creative in ways to inviting them to respond while still using the constraints; using the prompts that were given but i would pause the recorder and bring out a toy if i needed to for the re-tell if they were flat out refusing, and often that would bring them back so it's just finding those things that you need to do in that situation. this also included developing an understanding of children who came from a range of diverse backgrounds including english as second language and different socio-economic status. one participant commented: i found that some of them said things that were a bit eye-opening for me, and probably not something i would have experienced. i don't have children of my own, so i don't have a lot of experience with children. for me, it's always a bit of a challenge to go into something like that, but i really liked it so it really has shifted my view but also that whole socioeconomic perspective and different culture. some of the things those kids said really were quite surprising to me (respondent 4). from this experience the participants gained a greater understanding of having staff in a school who speak a language other than english to directly engage with the children. a number of participants commented on the benefits of having a teacher aide who spoke other languages to directly assist the children in the oral language development. w esterveld, m. & garvis, s. (2014) speech pathology students’ perceptions of workplace-based volunteer placements in a school setting. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 5(1). 8 peer learning emerged as an important learning outcome for the participants. they were able to learn from one another and reflect on each other’s capabilities. this allowed more open dialogue about what they were doing, again creating a supportive and collaborative environment in which to work. participants also suggested that they gained personal growth and confidence from the experience. they commented that they were able to learn from a range of mistakes they had made initially in the assessment of the children. the participants suggested that as the volunteering experience was not formally assessed by a supervising speech pathologist, they were able to relax and concentrate on the task. they valued the feedback that was given to them after each session and viewed the speech pathologists more as mentors than assessors. one participant commented: for me, it made me feel more relaxed about what i was doing. i knew that i was just going to give it my best shot (respondent 3). the final learning outcome was based around seeing the development of the children’s oral language. as some of the participants undertook a pre and post-test assessment of the individual children, they were able to see first-hand the influence of a speech pathologist in helping a child’s development be extended. even in cases where the observed improvement was minimal, the participants realised the importance of regular engagement with young children to support the development of oral language. improvements while the volunteering was a valuable experience for participants, some improvements for future programs were suggested. the first was an economic consideration with participants commenting on the costs of undertaking the volunteering as a university student. in particular all participants commented on the cost of travel to get to the school that was not easily accessible by public transport. the participants suggested it would be helpful to consider a more cost-effective way to travel to the schools. the second concern of participants was for a better communication strategy with the generalist classroom teachers about what they were doing. some participants suggested the teachers were unaware of the assessments that were being undertaken and the importance of sharing information about the oral language development of children. one participant commented: i just wonder how much the teachers were actually told what was going on because the few that i talked to, they were saying, what are you doing? i had thought, maybe naively, that they would be notified that this is what's happening (respondent 4). this response raises awareness of the importance of belonging during a placement. for students to feel as though they belong and are accepted within a context, it is important that all professionals are aware of their role, including those professionals (such as teachers) who may not previously have worked with a student speech pathologist in a schooling context. the final recommendation was based around developing a better understanding of the bigger research project in which the participants were involved and knowing the results of the overall progress of the children. the participants would have liked to have more information about the intervention program that the speech pathologists had delivered to also improve their own understanding about intervention programs. overall the participants agreed unanimously that they would undertake the volunteering experience again. some participants suggested it was not easy to volunteer in organisations w esterveld, m. & garvis, s. (2014) speech pathology students’ perceptions of workplace-based volunteer placements in a school setting. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 5(1). 9 and suggested that this was a good learning experience organised by the university. the participants also suggested they would recommend the experience to other speech pathology students. discussion this project investigated speech pathology students’ perspectives regarding a volunteering experience that was organised by the university during the summer break. the master of speech pathology students volunteered to participate in a literacy screening clinic for 5-yearold prep students attending primary schools in a low socio-economic and culturally and linguistically diverse community. their involvement consisted of administering a battery of assessment tasks related to young children’s emergent literacy skills. the focus of the research project was to determine what motivated the students to participate, what the perceived learning outcomes were, and how the experience could be improved in the future. these findings would potentially help shape future workplace-based volunteering experiences for speech pathology students. as expected, the students’ main motivation for volunteering was to help them develop confidence, build their clinical speech pathology skills and ultimately help them become more competitive when applying for positions following graduation. another motivation, however, was that the volunteer placement gave some students the opportunity to better understand the role of a speech pathologist in a school setting, thus providing a sound basis for making career choices following graduation. as mentioned previously, although the master of speech pathology degree program addresses all speech pathology range of practice areas (speech, language, swallowing, voice, stuttering, and multimodal communication) across adults and paediatrics to meet occupational competency at entry level (speech pathology australia, 2011), the degree program cannot offer clinical placements across the wide range of settings in which speech pathologists typically practice. providing the students with this optional volunteering experience therefore indirectly adds value to the degree program while at the same time enhancing their employability. regarding the question of learning outcomes, it is evident from the student responses that their learning clearly went beyond their initial expectations of gaining experience in administering emergent literacy tests, and included a better understanding about the school culture as well as an enhanced awareness of the practical implications of working with prep students from low socio-economic and/or culturally and linguistically diversity (cald) backgrounds. the experience highlighted the need for the students to be flexible in their working style, and provided them with a real appreciation of working with school staff who spoke languages other than english. considering the high number of cald children in australia (mcleod, 2011), this placement therefore fulfilled the intention of the volunteering placement in this particular educational setting. a further positive finding was that the volunteering experience exceeded all students’ expectations. the students clearly valued the model of supervision and the advantage of peer learning. advantages of peer learning in more traditional placement models include active learning, clinical independence, and a sense of ownership of the learning experience (see lekkas et al., 2007). perhaps more importantly, however, the speech pathology students reported that the experience contributed to the development of their professional identity as a speech pathologist. as explained by godsey (2011), development of professional identity is ‘a critical and formative process’ that starts during the students’ education training program and continues ‘throughout a lifetime of practice’ (p.1). considering the speech pathology students were halfway through their postgraduate degree program, the volunteering experience was clearly perceived by the students as being beneficial to their learning, and provided a valuable foundation for their second and final years of studies and further clinical placements. w esterveld, m. & garvis, s. (2014) speech pathology students’ perceptions of workplace-based volunteer placements in a school setting. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 5(1). 10 the final question to the speech pathology students related to possible improvements to the volunteering placement. although some of the suggestions were of a practical nature (i.e. cost of transport), the most significant finding related to the need to improve overall communication by ensuring all school staff were fully aware of the research project and the associated assessment schedule. the speech pathology students also showed a keen interest in learning more about the school-wide tier 1 intervention plan. one of the limitations of this type of research is that findings cannot be generalised beyond the participants to a larger population. the results may not generalise to undergraduate speech pathology students, who are generally younger and may have less life experience (see martin, wilson, liem & ginns, 2013). however, the study does provide important insights about the value of a volunteering learning experience to enhance individual learning outcomes and personal growth, and allow a greater understanding of the role of a speech pathologist in a school setting, both critical to a first professional appointment. while the study did not attempt to compare the perceived outcomes of the volunteer placement with the experiences of more traditional placements, this is an area of interest for future research. despite the limitations, the study does suggest that students are willing to engage in learning which enhances their professional skills and understanding even though it does not carry academic credit points. conclusion the results from this study not only support the importance of providing speech pathology students with opportunities to practise their skills in a real world situation, they also demonstrate the need to formally evaluate these types of work-place based initiatives. the volunteering project provided the students with clear mastery experiences as illustrated by the students’ reports of improved confidence in their clinical skills and their growth in professional identity. positive beliefs of self-efficacy are important, as professionals with higher self-efficacy are more likely to be successful and effective in their clinical practice. acknowledgement our heartfelt thanks go to the speech pathology students for generously volunteering their time to support the research project. w esterveld, m. & garvis, s. 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(2011). the work readiness scale (wrs): developing a measure to assess work readiness in college graduates. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 2(2), 41 54. 41 the work readiness scale (wrs): developing a measure to assess work readiness in college graduates catherine lissette caballero 1 , arlene walker 2 , matthew fuller-tyszkiewicz 2 cathy.caballero@deakin.edu.au 1 human resources services division (culture and organisational development), deakin university, and 2 school of psychology, deakin university abstract work readiness is a relatively new concept which has emerged in the literature as a selection criterion for predicting graduate potential. its definition and validity however, is contentious. to address this issue, the current study aimed to identify the attributes and characteristics that comprise work readiness and develop a scale to assess graduate work readiness. a qualitative study was conducted to assist in generating a representative pool of items for quantitative measurement. the resultant 167 item work readiness scale (wrs) which we developed was validated in a sample of 251 graduates across a range of disciplines. item analysis assisted in refining the scale. exploratory factor analyses supported a four factor solution, with the final wrs consisting of 64 items. the four factors explained 44.7% of the variance, demonstrated excellent reliability and were labelled personal characteristics, organisational acumen, work competence, and social intelligence. the findings indicate that work readiness is a multidimensional construct and initial evidence is provided for the construct validity of the wrs. keywords: work readiness, graduate employability, graduate recruitment, graduate selection, graduate assessment, transferable skills, graduate competencies. introduction for many organisations, hiring graduates is a key source of new employee recruitment and a core component of human resource (hr) strategy (rynes & boudreau, 1986; slaughter, stanton, mohr, william, & schoel, 2005). as with all selection decisions, deciding on the skills and characteristics believed to be predictive of a graduate’s job success is a vital consideration for organisations. generally, the most common assessment methods used for selection in graduate recruitment include application forms, academic achievement, interviews (structured and unstructured), and cognitive ability tests (carless, 2007; hodgkinson & payne, 1998; keenan, 1995). academic achievement, in particular, has traditionally played a key role in graduate selection (roth & bobko, 2000) and is used as a predictor of intellectual capability, capacity to learn, and motivation to pursue and achieve goals (acnielsen research services, 2000). however, there is growing demand for graduates to possess a diverse range of generic attributes and skills for work (hager & holland, 2006). a qualitative study by acnielsen (2000) indicated that australian employers value a range of personal attributes including enthusiasm, motivation, ambition, and personal presentation, which lie outside strict academic performance. work readiness is a relatively new concept which has emerged in the literature as a selection criterion for predicting graduate potential (acnielsen research services, 2000; casner-lotto & barrington, 2006; gardner & liu, 1997; hart, 2008). work readiness can be mailto:cathy.caballero@deakin.edu.au caballero, c., walker, a., & fuller-tyszkiewicz, m. (2011). the work readiness scale (wrs): developing a measure to assess work readiness in college graduates. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 2(2), 41 54. 42 defined as the extent to which graduates are perceived to possess the attitudes and attributes that make them prepared or ready for success in the work environment (caballero & walker, 2010). the extent to which graduates are work ready is seen as indicative of potential in terms of job performance, success, and potential for promotion and career advancement (atlay & harris, 2000; casner-lotto & barrington, 2006; gabb, 1997; gardner & liu, 1997; hambur, rowe, & luc, 2002; hart, 2008; stewart & knowles, 1999, 2000). as a construct however, work readiness is still in its early stages of development and there appears to be a lack of clarity and consensus, first, regarding what is meant by work readiness, and second, with respect to the general skills and attributes that indicate work readiness (casner-lotto & barrington, 2006). studies examining the work readiness of new graduate recruits from employers’ perspectives (acnielsen research services, 2000; casner-lotto & barrington, 2006; gardner & liu, 1997; hart, 2008) indicate that some graduates entering the workforce lack the preparedness and work readiness that is expected of them by employers, particularly in the areas of relational and personal competencies skills not directly taught in the classroom. the discrepancy between employer expectations and employer ratings of work readiness suggests that work readiness is not a criterion that is being examined effectively by current graduate assessment practices, if at all (gardner & liu, 1997). in light of the importance being placed on work readiness as a selection criterion, it is evident that there is a growing need to systematically assess work readiness as a construct. it is evident from studies that have examined the work readiness and performance of new graduate entrants (acnielsen research services, 2000; casner-lotto & barrington, 2006; gardner & liu, 1997; hart, 2008) that variation exists in the generic skills and attributes articulated by employers as indicative of work readiness. furthermore, different terms are used to refer to the same or similar attributes. for instance, ‘generic skills’ is used interchangeably with ‘core skills’, ‘basic skills’, ‘transferable skills’, and ‘employability skills’. similarly, different labels are used to describe the notion of work readiness including ‘work preparedness’, ‘graduate employability’, ‘transferable skills’, and ‘generic attributes’. the inconsistent use of terminology might explain the difficulty in assessing the usefulness of work readiness across studies. (atlay & harris, 2000; casner-lotto & barrington, 2006; gabb, 1997; gardner & liu, 1997; hambur, et al., 2002; hart, 2008; stewart & knowles, 2000). hence, as a first step towards a rigorous definition of work readiness, we attempt to develop a comprehensive measure of the attributes and characteristics of work readiness for graduate contexts. a review of the literature identified one scale developed for a graduate population and relevant in an australian context: the graduate skills assessment (gsa). the gsa developed by the australian council for educational research assesses widely applicable generic skills acquired through university experience, such as written communication, critical thinking, problem-solving, and interpersonal understanding (hambur, et al., 2002). however, the gsa does not directly assess personal attributes and capabilities, such as self -efficacy that may be associated with the application of generic skills. furthermore, the gsa was primarily developed to provide an indicator to universities of generic skills in their students at entry/exit level, and as such, its effectiveness as a tool for assessing work readiness is contentious. current assessment methods used in graduate selection lack the rigour and construct validity required to effectively assess work readiness (see caballero & walker, 2010 for a review of current graduate recruitment and selection methods). in australia, organisations typically utilise three selection methods for graduate selection including application forms, interviews and cognitive ability tests (carless, 2007). literature on academic achievement suggests that university grades are related to general mental ability, with typical correlations caballero, c., walker, a., & fuller-tyszkiewicz, m. (2011). the work readiness scale (wrs): developing a measure to assess work readiness in college graduates. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 2(2), 41 54. 43 indicating a positive relationship of .05 (jensen, 1980). however, hart (2008) found employers do not support academic achievement as being effective in predicting work readiness and potential to succeed. the validity of interviews in assessing work readiness is also doubtful. traditionally, interviews have been designed to provide insight into future performance of the applicant based on their past experience. hence, the validity of this method for graduates who lack job-related experience needs consideration. it is also unclear from the research whether employers adapt interviews for graduate contexts. one common refinement to the traditional interview format is to utilise future-oriented questions. however, salgado (1999) argued that past-oriented questions demonstrate higher validity than future-orientated questions in selection interviews. the development of a scale designed to measure work readiness in graduate contexts could provide a systematic method of assessing the construct and may also assist in making more effective selection decisions. the present research will explore work readiness using qualitative methodology and use the qualitative findings to develop a work readiness scale (wrs). the specific objectives are to: (a) identify the attributes and characteristics of work readiness; (b) use the qualitative data to develop items for a wrs; and (c) pilot test the scale. phase 1: attributes and characteristics of work readiness a qualitative study was conducted to provide greater understanding and clarity of work readiness. qualitative exploration of phenomena is becoming increasingly common, and is seen as a powerful technique (patterson, 2001), particularly when integrated in the development of quantitative scales (steckler, kenneth, goodman, bird, & mccormick, 1992). two separate samples of participants were asked about their perceptions of work readiness and the various attributes and characteristics it comprises. previous research and theory were also examined for attributes and characteristics which are indicative of work readiness. participants a total of 30 participants (16 males and 14 females) participated in this study. of the participants, nine (4 males, 5 females) were hr professionals with experience in the recruitment and/or assessment of graduate job applicants and 21 (12 males, 9 females) were graduate students who had recently been employed in a graduate program. of the professional participants, 55.6% had experience in graduate recruitment and 77.8% had experience in graduate assessment, graduate induction, and graduate training. these participants had an average age of 36.7 years (sd = 11.3) and had worked an average of 5.2 years (sd = 2.42) in the graduate recruitment/assessment industry. of the 21 graduate participants, 95.2% had completed an undergraduate degree at university. these participants had an average age of 23.2 years (sd = 1.9) and had an average of 2.19 years (sd = 1.03) work experience in their field of study. procedure the qualitative study was conducted separately for the two participant groups. participants in the hr sample were required to have a minimum of three years experience in the recruitment and/or assessment of graduate job applicants and were recruited through the personal business contacts of one of the researchers. emails containing a plain language statement were sent to prospective participants inviting them to participate in a semistructured qualitative interview. the plain language statement assured anonymity and provided information regarding the general purpose of the study. participants were also required to complete a consent form. interviews were conducted face to face or over the caballero, c., walker, a., & fuller-tyszkiewicz, m. (2011). the work readiness scale (wrs): developing a measure to assess work readiness in college graduates. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 2(2), 41 54. 44 phone. participants were asked about their perceptions of graduate work readiness with questions such as ‘what do you believe makes a graduate student ready for work?’ demographic data such as age, gender, and work experience was also collected during the interview. the interviews were recorded and then transcribed verbatim. a sample of recently employed graduates was chosen in order to obtain a holistic perspective of work readiness and as a means of counter-balancing employer and graduate perspectives. graduate participants were sourced via an organisation with an established graduate recruitment program that utilises academic achievement, personality testing, cognitive ability testing, and interview procedures as part of its selection processes. following negotiations with the organisation, one of the researchers attended a graduate induction program to conduct two focus group interviews with the graduates. the researcher was introduced at the beginning of each session and consent to participate in the focus group interview and have the proceedings tape recorded was obtained from the participants. the focus group interviews explored participants’ perceptions of what it means to be ‘work ready’ and the attributes and qualities that make a graduate student ready for work with questions such as ‘what characteristics do you think are most important for a work ready graduate?’ demographical data such as age, gender, and current course being completed was gathered prior to the focus group interview. the focus group interviews were taped and then transcribed verbatim. analysis and results thematic analysis of the 11 transcripts (9 semi-structured interviews, 2 focus group interviews) was undertaken using the qualitative data analysis software nvivo 2.0. to create categories for the thematic analysis, transcripts were read several times and text that showed commonalities between employer and graduate transcripts was initially isolated for category development. a list of broad categories was developed and expanded as the analysis progressed. to assign data to categories, text that closely resembled the category meanings was used as the unit of coding. the transcripts were initially coded using 16 broad categories identified in the data. once the transcripts had been coded into the broad categories, text within each category was read and analysed to identify themes within categories. to establish sufficient reliability to proceed with the analysis and interpretation of the data, a second researcher familiar with the aims and objectives of the research reviewed the data, categories and themes within categories. discussions were then held between the two researchers to reach agreement over the final categories and themes. refinement of the initial 16 categories, whereby categories were expanded, combined or re-named, resulted in 10 categories being established. the final 10 categories and underlying themes identified in the data are displayed in table 1. caballero, c., walker, a., & fuller-tyszkiewicz, m. (2011). the work readiness scale (wrs): developing a measure to assess work readiness in college graduates. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 2(2), 41 54. 45 table 1. coding categories and themes. category themes motivation commitment, drive, persistence, achievement orientation maturity sense of responsibility/accountability, self awareness, mental/emotional maturity. personal growth/ development willingness to learn, openness to feedback, developmental insight organisational awareness understanding of organisational structures, awareness of organisational culture, rule/process conscious. technical focus confidence in technical / theoretical knowledge, initiative, personal structure, task management interpersonal orientation communication skills, social confidence, collaboration/teamwork, building relationships/engaging with others, social intelligence attitudes to work optimism, respect for others, realistic expectations, humility problem solving analytical/evaluative, decision making, ideas generation adaptability open to change (flexibility), acceptance of diversity, able to adapt behaviour resilience resilience to negative feedback, capacity to deal with competing work demands/challenges phase 2: development of the work readiness scale to develop the categories and themes into items for the wrs, a process recommended by devellis (2003) was carried out. this included using simple language, avoiding ambiguities, and avoiding double-barrelled items. in addition, to avoid affirmation, acquiescence, or agreement bias, a combination of positively and negatively worded items were used. an eleven point rating scale (0 – 10) anchored by completely disagree to completely agree was chosen for the scale for two reasons; first, it allows for greater levels of variance in the data (dawes, 2001), and second, ratings out of ten are intuitively more meaningful than higher or lower ratings, which can impose greater cognitive load on respondents (cummins, 2002). the qualitative data generated a pool of 180 items. item review the 180 items were reviewed by the nine hr experts who had significant experience in the recruitment and assessment of graduate applicants. items were reviewed on the basis of whether they were indicative of work readiness by assigning a rating of yes, no, or unsure. items that received a rating of no or unsure were either rewritten or eliminated from the item pool. for instance, the item ‘i am able to fit into any social situation’ was rewritten as ‘adapting to different social situations is one of my strengths’. as a result of this process, 167 items were retained and placed into a questionnaire for a pilot test of the scale. participants a total of 251 participants (189 males and 62 females) participated in the pilot test of the measure. participants were graduate job applicants applying for paid vacation positions as part of a graduate recruitment program. participants represented a range of disciplines including engineering (46.1%), science (13.6%), commerce (11.9%), business (4.5%), accounting (4.9%), finance (2.1%), law (3.7%), and combined business/science fields (13.2%). the average age for the combined sample was 21.9 years (sd = 3.4), while the average years of education was 15.89 (sd = 1.73). of the respondents, 54.3% had previous work experience in their field of study, with an average of 0.8 years work experience (sd = 0.88). caballero, c., walker, a., & fuller-tyszkiewicz, m. (2011). the work readiness scale (wrs): developing a measure to assess work readiness in college graduates. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 2(2), 41 54. 46 procedure approval was obtained from an organisation with an established graduate recruitment program to distribute the wrs to its prospective applicants as part of their online psychological testing process. two hundred and eighty emails were distributed to the graduate job applicants with an attached plain language statement outlining the purpose of the study and login details for the online survey. completion and submission of the questionnaire signified consent. data screening and analytic strategy data cleaning two hundred and fifty-one responses were received, giving a response rate of 90%. four surveys contained a large proportion of missing data and were removed from the analysis. the remaining 247 cases were inspected for outliers and out-of-range scores. univariate outliers were detected for several items and, to reduce their influence, these scores were adjusted to 3.29 standard deviations from their respective means (tabachnick & fidell, 2007). scale refinement item analysis was conducted to detect items exhibiting floor or ceiling effects, heavy skew or low amounts of variance, all of which have been shown to produce spurious and/or unstable factor solutions (nunnally & bernstein, 1994). item-subscale total correlations were also inspected and items that had a correlation <.25 with their respective subscale were also deleted. this resulted in the deletion of 53 items. bivariate correlations were conducted to check for presence of redundancy among the remaining 114 items and revealed that the highest correlation among items was .75. as such, no further items were deleted. factor analysis initially, a confirmatory approach was adopted, in which the 10 factor solution derived from the qualitative findings was tested in amos v6. however, the proposed solution was inadmissible due to empirical under-identification (kenny, 1979; kenny & kashy, 1992), which was traced to highly multi-collinear latent variables in the model. thus, exploratory factor analysis was used in the final analyses in order to provide a more parsimonious solution for the data set. given prior indication that the factors of this wrs were related, the decision was made to submit the selected number of factors to maximum likelihood-based extraction with direct oblimin rotation. the scree plot and kaiser-guttman criterion (i.e., eigenvalues greater than 1.0) were used to determine the number of factors to retain. oblique rotation has the advantage that it allows for assessment of the relationship between factors. in the event that at least some of the factors correlate with each other above .3, the factors were to be submitted to a further factor analysis with a schmid-leiman transformation (schmid & leiman, 1957) to evaluate the existence and nature of higherorder factors in the data set. the schmid-leiman transformation permits researchers to evaluate the unique contributions of factors (within and across levels) for variables, thus easing interpretation of the factor structure. in essence, this method allows researchers to obtain: (1) direct contributions of higher order factors to the variables, and (2) relation of lower-order factors to variables which partial out the influence of higher-order factors (for a more detailed discussion, see wolff & preising, 2005). finally, variables were used for interpretation of the meaning of factors if their factor loading exceeded .45 ( hair, anderson, tatham, & black, 1995). items with loadings ≥ .45 were also required to load at least .20 less on other factors in order to be considered as distinctive items. items loading onto more than one factor were included in the factor with the highest loading, if the items were caballero, c., walker, a., & fuller-tyszkiewicz, m. (2011). the work readiness scale (wrs): developing a measure to assess work readiness in college graduates. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 2(2), 41 54. 47 distinctive or if there was theoretical reason for retaining the cross-loading item (tabachnick & fidell, 2007). the stability of a factor was determined by the factor having at least three items loading onto it. results factor analyses a series of exploratory factor analyses with oblique rotation were conducted to determine a stable factor structure for the work readiness items. this iterative process resulted in a final solution with four factors accounting for 44.7% of the variance shared among the remaining 64 items. the four factors, which were all moderately related with each other, were submitted to a further factor analysis to assess the presence of higher-order factors. one factor was extracted and accounted for 42.5% of variance in the four, lower-order factors. the factor loadings onto this higher-order factor were strong, ranging from .56 to -.72. table 2 shows the unique contributions of the firstand second-order factors and communalities for the 64 work readiness items following a schmid-leiman transformation of the lower order factor structure. factor one accounted for 14.1% of the variance extracted by the factor solution. twenty two items loaded onto this factor with the focus being on perceptions of personal characteristics related to work readiness. items such as ‘i sometimes experience difficulty starting tasks’ and ‘i don’t like the idea of change’ illustrate this factor. nineteen items loaded onto factor two, which accounted for 16.1% of the explained variance. this factor appeared to be structured around organisational acumen and awareness of workplace practices and protocols. the factor is illustrated with items such as ‘it is important to respect authority figures’, ‘at work it is important to always take responsibility for your decisions and actions’ and ‘it is important to learn as much as you can about the organisation’. factor three related to work competence and accounted for 7.7% of the explained variance. the factor was measured by 15 items that had a focus on individuals’ strengths and overall competence in relation to work. items included ‘i have a solid theoretical understanding of my field of work’, ‘i set high standards for myself and others’ and ‘one of my strengths is that i have an eye for detail’. eight items loaded onto factor four, which accounted for 8% of the explained variance. this factor appeared to be structured around social intelligence and the extent to which individuals can adapt and interact in social work situations. the factor is illustrated with items such as ‘adapting to different social situations is one of my strengths’, ‘i can express myself easily’, and ‘developing relationships with people is one of my strengths’. finally, the single higher-order factor accounted for 54.1% of the variance explained by the first-order factors in the work readiness items. this general work readiness factor comprised the majority of items from each of these first-order factors, thus incorporating items reflecting personal characteristics, organizational awareness and acumen, work competence, and social intelligence. reliability analysis revealed that overall the wrs had good internal consistency, with a cronbach’s alpha value of .96. the four factors also had good internal consistency with a cronbach’s alpha value of .93 for personal characteristics (factor 1), .92 for organisational acumen (factor 2), .90 for work competence (factor 3), and .88 for social intelligence (factor 4). caballero, c., walker, a., & fuller-tyszkiewicz, m. (2011). the work readiness scale (wrs): developing a measure to assess work readiness in college graduates. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 2(2), 41 54. 48 table 2. communalities and factor loadings for the work readiness scale (n = 247) item general factor factor 1 factor 2 factor 3 factor 4 h2total* h2 g* h2 1st* taking things personally .45 .08 .11 .00 .44 .42 .21 .21 intolerance of critics .55 .13 .26 -.02 .30 .47 .30 .17 stress when managing many things .42 .13 .32 -.08 -.07 .31 .18 .13 averse to criticism .31 -.01 .49 .04 -.06 .34 .10 .24 comfort approaching senior people at work .49 .25 -.02 -.04 .34 .42 .24 .18 difficulty starting tasks .50 .17 -.04 -.18 .27 .38 .25 .14 dealing with competing demands .40 -.08 .02 -.39 .08 .32 .16 .16 easily offended .42 .06 .52 .10 .08 .46 .18 .29 unsure when appropriate to speak up/stay quiet .53 .43 .16 .09 .14 .51 .28 .23 discomfort asking questions when unsure .47 .42 .03 .02 .12 .41 .22 .19 overwhelmed by challenging circumstances .38 -.02 .37 .00 .13 .30 .14 .16 don’t like being told how to do things differently .68 .13 .15 -.34 .13 .63 .46 .17 upset if others change the way i have organised things .68 .15 .20 -.20 .25 .62 .46 .16 managing new social situations .45 .22 .32 .05 .03 .36 .20 .16 difficulty understanding abstract ideas .53 .47 .03 .05 .17 .53 .28 .25 don’t think i will succeed with goals i have set .55 .22 .08 -.06 .32 .46 .30 .16 tendency to judge others .52 .08 .37 -.17 -.06 .45 .27 .18 superiority over others who have less knowledge .34 .06 .42 -.01 -.11 .31 .11 .20 difficulty establishing trust and rapport .32 -.08 .48 .04 .06 .34 .10 .24 juggling too many things at once .42 .03 .03 -.10 .40 .35 .18 .17 don’t like the idea of change .63 .01 .01 -.61 -.04 .78 .40 .37 don’t like learning new things .59 .37 .08 -.05 .18 .52 .35 .18 learning from your colleagues .41 .06 .55 .13 .07 .50 .17 .33 learning from employees who have worked at an organisation for years .59 .45 -.03 -.06 .19 .58 .34 .24 learning from long serving employees .49 .08 .01 -.16 .35 .39 .24 .16 understanding organisational processes .44 .43 -.05 -.04 .06 .38 .19 .19 learning as much as you can about the organisation .59 .35 -.02 -.13 .22 .54 .35 .19 respecting colleagues .57 .10 .05 -.49 -.11 .60 .33 .27 keeping abreast of business affairs .51 .43 .09 -.07 -.06 .46 .26 .20 taking responsibility for decisions and actions .36 .35 .03 .00 .01 .25 .13 .12 respecting authority figures .60 -.03 .21 -.26 .29 .55 .36 .19 impact of world issues on business .47 .17 -.06 -.13 .33 .39 .22 .16 openness to opportunities to learn and grow .39 .54 -.05 -.01 -.12 .46 .16 .30 eager to throw myself into my work .43 .43 .02 .01 .02 .37 .18 .19 always working on improving myself .41 -.11 .60 .01 .04 .55 .17 .38 organisation’s values and beliefs forms part of its culture .61 .27 .09 -.09 .28 .53 .37 .17 feedback as an opportunity for learning .49 .38 .11 -.05 -.01 .39 .24 .16 caballero, c., walker, a., & fuller-tyszkiewicz, m. (2011). the work readiness scale (wrs): developing a measure to assess work readiness in college graduates. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 2(2), 41 54. 49 item general factor factor 1 factor 2 factor 3 factor 4 h2total* h2 g* h2 1st* thrive on completing tasks and achieving results .50 -.10 .49 -.12 .09 .52 .25 .27 can’t wait to start work and throw myself into a project .62 .02 .07 -.43 .13 .59 .38 .21 graduates need to be willing to start at the bottom .56 -.02 .44 -.12 .13 .53 .31 .22 listening and learning is more important than showing your knowledge .33 .05 .40 -.03 -.11 .28 .11 .17 confidence about learnt knowledge .35 .36 -.03 .00 .07 .26 .13 .13 solid theoretical understanding of field of work .42 -.06 .54 -.03 .02 .48 .18 .30 people approach me for original ideas .50 .44 -.05 -.04 .12 .46 .25 .22 confidence in technical competency .56 .11 .10 -.04 .48 .57 .31 .26 awareness of strengths and weaknesses .51 .13 .37 -.05 .04 .42 .26 .16 remain calm under pressure .502 -.05 .42 -.05 .23 .49 .25 .24 being successful at work is very important .52 .02 .48 -.04 .11 .52 .27 .24 ability to apply learnt knowledge in workplace .41 .42 .00 .00 .04 .35 .17 .18 coping with multiple demands .60 .12 .38 -.15 .03 .54 .36 .18 set high standards for myself and others .53 .05 .42 -.15 -.02 .49 .28 .20 analysing and solving complex problems .59 .21 .04 -.31 .04 .50 .35 .15 passion about field of study/work .53 .57 .04 -.02 -.07 .62 .29 .33 being the best in the field is very important .34 .14 .37 -.04 -.21 .32 .12 .20 have an eye for detail .53 .01 .47 -.14 -.02 .52 .28 .24 have a mature view of life .59 .35 .19 -.08 .03 .51 .35 .17 adapting to different social situations .47 .11 .09 -.06 .34 .36 .22 .14 developing relationships with people .39 .35 .04 -.04 -.02 .28 .15 .13 open and friendly approach .39 .09 .36 -.11 -.15 .32 .15 .17 can express myself easily .40 -.02 -.02 -.35 .11 .30 .16 .14 good at making impromptu speeches .33 .53 -.03 .01 -.20 .44 .11 .32 adapt easily to new situations .57 -.02 .06 -.31 .32 .53 .33 .20 reading body language .50 .12 .07 -.14 .27 .36 .25 .11 working in groups .59 .06 .01 -.62 -.18 .77 .35 .42 cronbach’s α .96 .93 .92 .90 .88 sum of squared loadings factor 1 factor 2 factor 3 factor 4 general f total h 2 * 4.08 4.66 2.23 2.31 15.65 28.92 % 14.1 16.1 7.7 8.0 54.1 percentage of extracted variance explained by the general factor 54.1% percentage of extracted variance explained by first-order factors 45.9% note: * h 2 = variance extracted from items, h 2 1st = variance extracted by first level factors, h 2 g = variance extracted by the higher level factor, h 2 total = the sum of h 2 g and h 2 1st. caballero, c., walker, a., & fuller-tyszkiewicz, m. (2011). the work readiness scale (wrs): developing a measure to assess work readiness in college graduates. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 2(2), 41 54. 50 discussion the purpose of this study was to identify the attributes and characteristics of work readiness using qualitative methods and to then develop a scale to quantify work readiness in graduate populations. the qualitative data identified ten broad categories indicative of work readiness including; motivation, maturity, personal growth/development, organisational awareness, technical focus, interpersonal orientation, attitudes to work, problem-solving, adaptability, and resilience. the ten broad categories informed the development of an initial 167 item wrs. following a pilot test of the measure a 64-item, four factor solution was obtained and psychometric analyses indicated high reliability for all factors. the final four factors were labelled personal characteristics, organisational acumen, work competence, and social intelligence. the results of this study and the final four factor structure support the notion that work readiness is a multidimensional construct (atlay & harris, 2000; casner-lotto & barrington, 2006; gabb, 1997; gardner & liu, 1997; hambur, et al., 2002; hart, 2008; stewart & knowles, 2000). these results, however, do not support the ten broad categories identified in the qualitative study as being distinct factors of work readiness. in examining the four factor structure, it is evident that the final scale did not eliminate any of the original ten categories, but rather collapsed them into the final four factors. for instance, within the personal characteristics factor, items that were originally developed to assess resilience, adaptability, and personal development have been retained. the organisational acumen factor comprises items aimed at assessing motivation, maturity, organisational awareness, personal development, and attitude to work. furthermore, work competence consists of items measuring technical focus, motivation, and problem-solving. finally, in the social intelligence factor, items designed to assess interpersonal orientation and adaptability were retained in the final questionnaire. the final four factors share similarities with attributes and characteristics suggested in the literature as being indicative of workforce readiness, work preparedness, and graduate transferable skills and qualities (graduateness) (atlay & harris, 2000; casner-lotto & barrington, 2006; gabb, 1997; gardner & liu, 1997; hambur, et al., 2002; hart, 2008; stewart & knowles, 2000). for instance, some of the skills and attributes which are closely tied in with the personal characteristics factor include personal skills (gardner & liu, 1997), self direction (casner-lotto & barrington, 2006), self knowledge and adaptability (hart, 2008), and flexibility (gabb, 1997). organisational acumen shares common elements with competencies such as professionalism/work ethic, ethical judgement, social responsibility, and global knowledge (casner-lotto & barrington, 2006; hart, 2008), motivation (gabb, 1997; hambur, et al., 2002; stewart & knowles, 1999), and lifelong learning/self direction (casner-lotto & barrington, 2006). aligned with the work competence factor are competencies such as organisational ability, critical thinking, problem-solving, and creativity/innovation (casner-lotto & barrington, 2006; gardner & liu, 1997). similarly, social intelligence appears consistent with concepts identified in the literature such as teamwork/collaboration (casner-lotto & barrington, 2006; gardner & liu, 1997), interpersonal/social skills, adaptability, and communication skills (casner-lotto & barrington, 2006; gabb, 1997; gardner & liu, 1997; hambur, et al., 2002; stewart & knowles, 1999, 2000). in comparing the final wrs with the gsa measure developed by the australian council for educational research (hambur, et al., 2002), similarities are also evident. the gsa assesses students’ generic skills including written communication, critical thinking, problem-solving, and interpersonal understandings. these generic skill areas seem to be encompassed within the work competence and social intelligence factors of the wrs. caballero, c., walker, a., & fuller-tyszkiewicz, m. (2011). the work readiness scale (wrs): developing a measure to assess work readiness in college graduates. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 2(2), 41 54. 51 however, the personal characteristics and organisational acumen factors appear to be unique to the wrs. these findings support the assertion that as a measure of work readiness, the gsa might not be an effective and valid assessment tool. the results of this study also highlight the ineffectiveness of the current assessment methods most commonly used in assessing work readiness in graduates. the findings indicate that work readiness is a multidimensional construct, and hence the use of current assessment methods which have not been specifically designed to assess work readiness in a graduate context is questionable. with further validation and development the wrs could provide graduate employers with a systematic method of assessing the multidimensional construct of work readiness. however, like many employment selection methods, i.e. interviews, personality and integrity tests, the wrs is a self-report measure. as such, various biases may affect the results including the over reporting of good behaviours/attitudes and under reporting of less desirable behaviours/attitudes. it is for this reason that recruitment and selection processes should utilise multiple assessment methods in combination (converse, peterson & griffith, 2009). encompassed within a battery of selection methods, the wrs could be an effective tool to provide a more rounded assessment of graduate’s work readiness. the goal of this study has been accomplished in that support has been found for the construct validity of the wrs. however, it should be noted that the process of validating a construct is often on-going and that no measure can be said to be validated in a final sense. it can be argued that it takes time and numerous empirical studies to provide evidence for the validity of a particular measure (nunnally & bernstein, 1994). as such, the results of the current study constitute initial evidence of the construct validity of the wrs. although this study has made an incremental contribution to the graduate recruitment and selection literature, several limitations must also be noted. it could be argued that the methods used for data collection and sampling in the pilot test may not have fully captured the nature of work readiness. in particular, the gender imbalance of 75% males and 25% females may have impacted the findings. in addition, the participants were graduate recruits for a specific organisation, resulting in 46.1% of the sample being graduates with an engineering background. whilst other disciplines were also represented in the participant sample, the high proportion of graduate engineers may also have impacted the findings. with regard to personal characteristics and attributes, it is expected that these could vary across disciplines and occupational groups. as such, future studies might consider recruiting graduate participants from a cross-section of disciplines and occupational groups. a further limitation of this study is that participants responded to the wrs as part of a graduate recruitment program. although participation was voluntary and graduates were advised that completing the wrs would not impact their employment, social desirability bias may have influenced the manner in which the graduates responded to the items. future research could recruit graduate participants as part of a university initiative. this may eliminate the tendency for graduates to respond to items in a manner they believe employers might perceive favourably. to date, empirical research on work readiness has been scant. one explanation for the limited research might be that, as a construct, work readiness is still in its infancy. the results of this study provide some support for the attributes and characteristics researchers have previously identified as indicative of work readiness. while measures have been developed to assess some of the individual attributes thought to constitute work readiness, such as motivation, it has also been argued that measures that take into account families or caballero, c., walker, a., & fuller-tyszkiewicz, m. (2011). the work readiness scale (wrs): developing a measure to assess work readiness in college graduates. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 2(2), 41 54. 52 clusters of behaviours may provide a more reliable and valid measure of an underlying theoretical construct (fisher & locke, 1992). broad, comprehensive measures are also believed to assist in better understanding underlying constructs (fisher & locke, 1992). therefore, investigating the broader construct of graduate work readiness, rather than dissecting the construct into individual behaviours and attempting to assess these, may provide researchers and practitioners with a clearer perspective on the dimensions of work readiness and ultimately provide a more effective and valid measure for its assessment. this study provides a sound foundation on which to continue building and refining the construct of work readiness. the aim was to validate the scale items using item analysis. future research could also consider the range of responses and scoring of the wrs across disciplines or occupational groups. work readiness is a concept believed to be applicable to all types of graduates, however differences in scoring and the manner in which scores are interpreted could be expected for different occupational groups and/or work contexts. another area for future research would be to compare graduates’ ability versus employerbased measures of work readiness for predicting job performance, job satisfaction and person-environment fit. caballero, c., walker, a., & fuller-tyszkiewicz, m. 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(2023). employability attributes of hospitality graduates and expectations of hotel managers. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 14(1), 88–103. 88 the journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability issn: 1838-3815 (online) journal homepage: https://ojs.deakin.edu.au/index.php/jtlge/ employability attributes of hospitality graduates and expectations of hotel managers lehlogonolo l ngoepe1 and nicola wakelin-theron1 corresponding author: lehlogonolo l. ngoepe (lelophab@gmail.com) 1 school of tourism and hospitality, university of johannesburg abstract employers worldwide place the responsibility of ensuring that graduates are employable on institutions of higher learning. this study was conducted to determine the employability attributes of hospitality management students from private higher education institutions. the study adopted a qualitative research approach using semi-structured interviews. purposive, judgement sampling was used to gather hotel managers’ thoughts, knowledge and opinions. the findings suggest that hotel managers require eight knowledge sub-domains, and seven skill sub-domains, and a wide range of competencies from hospitality graduates from private higher education institutions. however, private higher education institutions, hotel managers, hospitality graduates and human resources personnel have a great responsibility to ensure that graduates are competent, competitive and valuable and can make meaningful contributions to the hotel industry. data was only gathered from hotel managers from 4 and 5-star hotels, therefore the findings cannot be generalised to all hotels in south africa. consequently, the findings cannot be generalised to all the tertiary institutions in south africa. suggestions are made that can assist higher education institutions, hotel managers, hospitality management graduates, students and future researchers, particularly now in this time of globalisation, knowledge economy, and rise of technological advancements. keywords attributes, employability, hospitality graduates private higher education institutions introduction the demand for graduates will continue to increase within the world of work. thus the right set of attributes — also referred to as employability — to enter the world of work would be an advantage. employability of graduates is essential. this study seeks to determine which employability attributes hotel managers seek from hospitality graduates from private higher education institutions (pheis), and whether hotel managers are satisfied with the future-readiness of graduates from private academic institutions. according to neroorkar (2022), considering the work environment of different stakeholders, it is vital to apply suitable metrics to assess employability. higher academic institutions experience substantial pressure from employers and students to ensure that graduates are ready for the work environment (ahmed et al., 2017). pheis do not receive government support, and need to collaborate extensively with the private sector to provide students with exceptional career guidance as they need to deliver quality students for the industry to absorb these graduates. ngoepe, l.l and wakelin-theron, n. (2023). employability attributes of hospitality graduates and expectations of hotel managers. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 14(1), 88–103. 89 the advancement of technology and evolving guest preferences have created both opportunities and challenges that affect graduates’ employability and education (aurecon group, 2020). furthermore, globalisation has created concerns regarding developing the employability attributes that graduates should possess (abas & imam, 2016). employers are often looking for employability attributes beyond formal qualifications (adler et al., 2016; ahmed et al., 2017; tran, 2015). the nature of employability is changing (wakelin-theron et al., 2019a; jezard, 2018). it is becoming increasingly difficult to define the term in today’s society because of the wide range of definitions that exist in current literature. the way in which employability has been described keeps changing, depending on the time frame, country and economic situation (chetty, 2012; williams et al., 2015). it may be ingenuous to think that a single dominant definition of employability exists. eurico et al. (2015) define employability as the capability of an individual to adjust to the current dynamic and professional needs of labour markets. these authors suggest that there is a direct link between the ability to find employment and maintain employment. how each individual uses their knowledge, skills and competencies to benefit themselves are key factors that lead to secure employment (wakelin-theron et al., 2018). abas and imam (2016) state that employability refers to qualities that employees have other than technical competence, which make them valuable to an employer. in this regard, they state: “employability attributes vary in categorisations from personal qualities, basic theoretical skills, thinking skills and are valuable across all levels of positions” (abas & imam, 2016, p. 120). various studies have been conducted in south africa and abroad regarding the employability attributes required in the tourism and hospitality industry (spowart, 2011; caiyod et al., 2015; jonck & minnaar, 2015; khatibi et al., 2015; wakelin-theron et al., 2019a; wessels et al., 2017). however, most studies were conducted in the general tourism and hospitality industry and public higher education intuitions. limited literature exists for the hospitality and private higher education institution sectors combined. while many international studies have been conducted regarding the employability of graduates, it is imperative to consider that the south african business environment is different due to its history, education, geography, political climate and diversity (wessels et al., 2017). problem statement the hotel industry has been facing difficulties in finding and retaining employees with the correct employability attributes to fill positions in hotels. rapid growth of pheis offer niche qualifications and pride themselves in meeting industry standards, due to their specialised courses and options on where and how to study. pheis provide various benefits to a potential student. yet, the industry requires graduates with the right set of employability attributes (chhinzer & russo, 2018). graduates are finding it hard to secure, retain and build sustainable careers in the hotel industry because they possess inadequate employability attributes, work experience and practical skills (jezard, 2018; espellita & maravilla, 2019). students are expected to display multiple skills in real-world situations at workplaces. the skills domains related to interpersonal, problem solving, and self-management are perceived to be very important in the hospitality industry. yet, many hospitality graduates to not enter into employment due to inaccurate expectations and perceptions of the industry. ngoepe, l.l and wakelin-theron, n. (2023). employability attributes of hospitality graduates and expectations of hotel managers. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 14(1), 88–103. 90 theoretical framework this paper adopts ahmed et al.’s (2017) definition of employability as the set of knowledge, skills and competencies that all job applicants should possess to ensure they are proficient in being effective in the workplace. the research objective for this study is to determine employability attributes from hospitality graduates from pheis and expectations from hotel managers. literature review private higher education institutions private higher education institutions (pheis) provide students with a wealth of options when choosing a degree, diploma or other qualification. public and private higher education institutions are subject to some oversight and regulation, and will receive the same qualification regardless of whether you opt for state-funded university or a private institution (department of higher education and training (dhet), 2020). pheis do not receive financial support from government. the benefits of studying at a private institution is that it has smaller class sizes, with more network opportunities, which are key factors in future success with quality education. it is perceived that pheis provide graduates with greater employment prospects and have international links (bezuidenhout & de jager, 2014), but at a substantially higher fee. there is a substantial and consistent increase in student numbers who opt for private higher education institutions. some additional benefits according to one well-known establishment are: students do not have to relocate to a new city to pursue their dreams; less of a financial burden; improved access to support and staff; a large percentage of lecturers are not only academics but actively work in the industry and have real world experiences while studying. according to bezuidenhout and de jager (2014), students perceive pheis to have better security and safety conditions on campus, and spacious classes well-equipped with facilities. according to the dhet (2020), because pheis do not receive state subsidies, they are wholly reliant on student fees. students are treated as valued customers, require value for money, and demand quality education. therefore, pheis need to provide good services, be credible, and offer quality education, or face closing their doors. employability is a key success factor for pheis, and hospitality qualifications presented to students are closely associated to the industry. defining employability countries such as australia, the united states of america, the united kingdom and south africa have highlighted the importance of generic, non-contextualised, or transferable employability attributes (ahmed et al., 2017). furthermore, terms such as soft skills, hard skills, essential skills, key competencies, enterprise competencies, practical skills, work-readiness, knowledge-based skills and twenty-first century skills have been widely used in studies related to employment and employability (jonck & minnaar, 2015; abas & imam, 2016; ahmed et al., 2017). as a result, generic skills frameworks have been developed that propose the attributes that need to be imparted to all graduates, regardless of the discipline being studied (wakelin-theron et al., 2019a). an analysis of past literature on employability reveals that different definitions exist to describe this notion. according to rowe and zegwaard (2017), the term ‘employability’ is often confused with employment outcomes (securing a job after graduation or having the potential to earn a higher income). furthermore, employability is often used interchangeably with the concept of workreadiness (kaushal & srivastava, 2021). ngoepe, l.l and wakelin-theron, n. (2023). employability attributes of hospitality graduates and expectations of hotel managers. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 14(1), 88–103. 91 work-readiness is described as a set of circumstances satisfactory for gaining initial employment, while employability is described as the set of knowledge, skills and competencies necessary, but not sufficient for securing and retaining employment (wakelin-theron et al., 2018). irrespective of how the term is used, it is better to consider holistically that a graduate has to be both ready for employment and be employable to enhance their chances of employment (kleynhans et al., 2019). employability is viewed and defined as a multi-layered notion that has broadened to summarise a variety of skills, qualities and other measures such as networking, having a professional identity, and being an active citizen. employers expect graduates to possess a broad set of attributes. the employment focus has shifted from practical skills and attributes essential for graduates to be considered work-ready, to a broader notion that includes non-technical areas such as being able to negotiate, having a professional identity, and being able to network (lowden et al., 2011). according to gill (2018, p. 2), employability can be defined as ‘an array of soft skills, intangible assets, achievements, personal characteristics and understandings.’ although employability is often difficult to replicate authentically in a classroom environment, it improves graduates’ ability to secure employment and be prosperous in their preferred professions, thereby benefiting themselves, the labour force, the economy and the greater community (chhinzer & russo, 2018; gianotti, 2020). crane and kinash (2015) refer to employability as the capacity to create work or obtain work. they further describe employability as the agreement between higher academic institutions and employers regarding the knowledge, skills and competencies essential for graduates to be successful in the workplace. employability skills can be defined as the transferable skills necessary for an individual to be employable within the world of work (ahmed et al., 2017). this term highlights the skills that an employee can transfer from one job to another. some of these skills include communication, personal and interpersonal, teamwork, ethical behaviour, critical thinking and problem-solving skills (doyle, 2019). espellita and maravilla (2019) suggest that employability attributes are those that prepare students for the workplace. they cover a variety of competencies within hotel departments, such as conceptual skills, hospitality operations skills, personal skills, and human resources skills. the researchers feel that these skills are essential to maintain work within the hotel industry. the hotel industry requires highly skilled and competent employees who possess employability attributes that contribute to the prosperity of the business, as this industry is not just about the attractions and facilities accessible to guests (espellita & maravilla, 2019). every individual employed in the hotel industry needs to have the knowledge, skills and competencies to offer the standard of products and services that hotel guests expect (chinyamurindi et al., 2018). acquiring knowledge about the hotel industry, product offerings, target market, and employees’ roles and responsibilities is an important starting point to a successful career in the industry (espellita & maravilla, 2019). as mentioned previously, this study adopted ahmed et al.’s (2017) definition of employability as the set of knowledge, skills and competencies that all job applicants should possess to ensure they are proficient and effective in the workplace. skills required in the hotel industry hotel employees need to possess both hard and soft skills (chetty, 2012). hard skills are described as the tangible abilities that graduates bring to the table as potential employees. often, these skills are taught in secondary schools and public or private tertiary hospitality academic institutions. ngoepe, l.l and wakelin-theron, n. (2023). employability attributes of hospitality graduates and expectations of hotel managers. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 14(1), 88–103. 92 according to majid et al. (2020), hard skills include formal academic qualifications in a specific industry, language fluency, social media skills, and information technology (it) systems proficiency. most of the time, new entrants need to possess a set of hard skills related to the specific hotel department where they are going to work (wakelin-theron et al., 2021). soft skills are described as the aptitudes and capabilities learned organically through past interpersonal relationships and work experiences. they are more about what an individual offers as an employee (half, 2020). hotel employees engage and interact with people and, therefore, should possess many soft skills to meet guests’ needs, wants, preferences, and expectations (espellita & maravilla, 2019). these soft skills include communication, problem-solving skills, a strong work ethic, team leadership, time management, flexibility, organisation, a positive attitude, and multitasking skills (gianotti, 2020). examples of hard skills required in the hotel environment include basic numeracy skills and knowledge about hygiene and safety for the food and beverage department, and laundry and cleaning skills for the housekeeping department (half, 2020). if graduates are applying for a front-office job, hard skills such as computer and typing skills would be beneficial. social media skills are beneficial to hotel employees, as apps provide the easiest and fastest way to access and share information. furthermore, numerous apps have been created to make managing hotel staff easier, such as hive mind, which allows employees to set personal passwords when they clock in or out of a shift (le cordon bleu, 2020). examples of soft skill for front-office staff include language proficiency, attitude, critical thinking, problem-solving, flexibility, communication, organisation and multitasking. in the housekeeping and food and beverage departments, soft skills such as flexibility, organisation, communication, and multitasking are essential (gianotti, 2020). skills identified by the world economic forum the world economic forum (wef) (2020) further identified that, due to the fourth industrial revolution, the skills necessary to perform many occupations will change substantially. the universal average ‘skills stability’ (the percentage of essential skills necessary to execute tasks that will remain the same) is estimated at 58%. thus, the workforce will experience an average shift of 42% in compulsory workplace skills leading up to the fourth industrial revolution (ivanov, 2020). the skills required include active learning, analytical thinking, learning strategies, innovation, technology design and programming, systems analysis and evaluation, creativity, critical thinking, originality, emotional intelligence, reasoning, ideation, initiative, complex problem-solving and analysis (jezard, 2018). technology design has already transformed how hotels conduct business. chidera (2020) declared certain skills necessary for employees in the workplace for 2020. the skills required in a hotel environment include communication skills, emotional intelligence, people management, customer service, critical thinking, complex problem-solving, teamwork, judgement, cognitive flexibility, decision-making, service orientation, creativity and negotiation. new entrants need to possess emotional intelligence, judgement and negotiation skills to deal with difficult guests and handle guest complaints. furthermore, creativity is critical in the hotel industry as automation and artificial intelligence are changing employees’ roles in the workplace (jezard, 2018, ivanov, 2020;). going forward, hotels will be more economic, ergonomic, ecological and competitive. therefore, new entrants should be well equipped to keep up with evolving trends (panayotis, 2017). ngoepe, l.l and wakelin-theron, n. (2023). employability attributes of hospitality graduates and expectations of hotel managers. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 14(1), 88–103. 93 the evolution of technology and the need for improved employability the use of technologies such as self-service kiosks, chatbots and artificial intelligence is common (ivanov, 2020). hotel guests expect to access the internet effortlessly and without too many disturbances (aurecon group, 2020). successful hotels make great contributions towards better and faster wi-fi so guests can use their devices effortlessly when they make reservations and conduct business (aurecon group, 2020). thus, new employees need skills to assist guests with any problems they may encounter while trying to use hotel services. in addition, chidera (2020) deemed the following skills necessary for the year 2030: higher cognitive skills, technological skills, and social and emotional skills. higher cognitive skills comprise complex information processing, advanced literacy, advanced writing, critical thinking, and quantitative and statistical skills (chidera, 2020). according to gao (2019), exceptional test scores and expertise are becoming more important in entry-level positions. however, the characteristics and high-level talents that the industry requires for graduates are self-learning, finding and solving problems, and critical thinking. these traits are commonly described as higher cognitive abilities (gao, 2019; wef, 2020b). technological skills include everything from basic to advanced it skills, engineering, and data analysis to research (chidera, 2020). these skills are expected to be the most rewarded as companies seek more engineers, software developers, and robotics and scientific experts (wakelin-theron, 2021). some industry disruptors, such as airbnb establishments, also challenge the hotel industry. these disrupters are online trading platforms for short-term rentals that list a substantial number of properties that serve as homes for visitors whilst travelling. digitalisation has become the norm and, to be competitive, hotel employees need to be innovative and use the most up-to-date technology to support their guests. cade (2015) suggests that a hotel is a ‘home away from home’ for guests. thus, it is important that guests feel welcome and comfortable, as it makes their stay more memorable and enjoyable. in order for hotel guest experiences and overall guest engagement to be above standard, hotel employees need to possess social and emotional skills such as empathy and emotional intelligence to build deeper connections that will result in better service (cade, 2015). these skill sets cannot be ignored, as they are essential in ensuring that graduates are successful and competent in the hotel environment (chidera, 2020). research design and methodology this study was conducted in pretoria, the capital city of the gauteng province of south africa. the rationale for selecting this city was that pretoria is the administrative capital of south africa. many travellers visit the city for both business and leisure. furthermore, there has been an emergence of private hospitality academic institutions in pretoria, for example, the international hotel school, capital hotel school, capsicum culinary studio, and legend hospitality school & academy, which has increased the number of hospitality graduates. the population for this study was hotel managers in fourand five star hotels in pretoria. from this population, the researcher, using non-probability, purposive, judgement sampling to select seven managers for participation in interviews. before any data were collected, the researcher obtained ethical clearance from the university ethics committee to conduct the research (ethical clearance code 2019sth090). ngoepe, l.l and wakelin-theron, n. (2023). employability attributes of hospitality graduates and expectations of hotel managers. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 14(1), 88–103. 94 data collection consent to conduct interviews was obtained from various hotels, and the aim of the study was clarified. participation in the interviews was voluntary, and participants could withdraw from the study at any time, without harm. the main concern of this research study was the identification of the target population in the industry. there are a total of 708 hotels in the city of tshwane, a metropolitan municipality in gauteng province. yet, when the researcher identified the four-star hotels in a 5km radius within the city of pretoria, only 11 hotels were identified, of which six were five-star hotels. a total of 17 hotels were asked to participate in the study. however, only four agreed, and seven managers agreed to be interviewed. this study was carried out during the coronavirus (covid-19) pandemic, while south africa had strict lockdown regulations, which disrupted the tourism and hospitality industry. in this study, the hotel population consisted of hotel managers from different operational areas who were active during the time period of the study. the table below identifies the number of interviews with manager of different operational areas in the hotels. table 1: number of interviewees from different operational areas in the hotels job role number interviewed front-office manager 2 food and beverage manager 2 banqueting manager 1 housekeeping manager 2 total 7 four key departments were selected to obtain the required data, as these managers know which employability attributes are required of employees. these departments were chosen as they are the four main departments in any hotel, and managers are part of the selection process when looking to fill positions in their various departments. according to tesone and ricci (2006), in hospitality and related operations, these managers are expert individuals to consult with regard to the identification of job competencies. research instrument: semi-structured interviews the semi-structured nature of the interviews allowed the researcher to formulate questions in advance and probe participants to gain more insight by asking questions on employability attributes that hotel managers from the aforementioned four departments seek in hospitality graduates from pheis (farooq, 2015). the participants were able to disclose their thoughts and ideas in their own words. thus, the semi-structured interviews offered information that was both reliable and comparable (cohen & crabtree, 2008; costa et al., 2016; bhandari, 2020). the reliability was tested by constant comparison of responses by multiples coders of the data sets. data analysis data analysis is central to credible qualitative research (kelly, 2023). qualitative data analysis aims to create interpretations from large amounts of collected data (sekaran & bougie, 2016). to select relevant data on which to base judgments is also the aim of data analysis (kelly, 2023). a thematic analysis framework was used to note thoughts, ideas, knowledge and insights gathered from the study participants (caulfield, 2020). both deductive and inductive analysis approaches were used to reduce ngoepe, l.l and wakelin-theron, n. (2023). employability attributes of hospitality graduates and expectations of hotel managers. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 14(1), 88–103. 95 the wide and varied data, link the data to the research objectives (deductive), uncover new themes, and review interpretations and multiple meanings of the data (inductive) (costa et al., 2016). method of data analysis: thematic analysis thematic analysis is a method of analysing qualitative data. it is often used for data in the form of text. a thematic approach is an excellent approach to take when the study attempts to understand people’s ideas, beliefs, knowledge, experiences, or values from a set of qualitative data – such as interview transcripts, social media profiles, or survey responses (caulfield, 2020). this study followed braun and clarke’s (2006) thematic framework. the phases are displayed in figure 1, below. figure 1: phases of thematic analysis (braun & clarke, 2006) phase 1: familiarising oneself with the data in this phase, familiarisation with data was achieved by transcribing the data and reading through the transcripts. according to braun and clarke (2006), transcription is a time-intensive process, which is frustrating and, at times, boring, but is an excellent way of familiarising oneself with the data. furthermore, when data are collected through an interactive means (such as an interview), the researcher gains prior knowledge of the data. phase 2: generating initial codes according to braun and clarke (2006), phase 2 begins when the data have been transcribed and read. thereafter, the data are used to generate initial codes that appear important or interesting to the researcher (braun & clarke, 2006). in this study, the researcher started by reading through each transcript and highlighting important and interesting parts of the data. once this was complete, the researcher used the comments function in microsoft word to code the data in a systematic manner across the entire data set, organising data relevant to each code. lineby-line coding was used to summarise each line of text in the data set, and the researcher noted phrases the participants used. many codes were created in this phase, as line-by-line coding allowed the researcher to look into the data rigorously. 6. producing the report 5. defining and naming themes 4.reviewing themes 3. searching for themes 2. generating initial codes 1. familiarising oneself with the data ngoepe, l.l and wakelin-theron, n. (2023). employability attributes of hospitality graduates and expectations of hotel managers. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 14(1), 88–103. 96 phase 3: searching for themes phase 3 began after the researcher had coded all the data and had a list of the various codes discovered across the data set. this phase entailed categorising the codes into suitable themes and combining all the relevant coded data extracts inside the selected themes, thereby refocusing the investigation on themes rather than codes (braun & clarke, 2006). in this phase, the researcher used microsoft excel to categorise codes into overarching themes (racer, 2019; quirkos, 2019). a spreadsheet was created with the following headings: source (the participants of the study), star grading, department, data collection method, notes (direct quotes from the participants), codes, abbreviations, and themes. as the data were categorised, some of the codes were dropped or adopted as main themes and subthemes. themes started emerging as the data were recorded. the researcher started seeing patterns, similarities and repetitions. once all the data had been categorised, the researcher reviewed it again to check whether the data first recorded matched the findings. some initial codes developed into core themes, whereas others developed into sub-themes, and others were rejected. the researcher used the ‘find and replace’ function in microsoft excel to ensure that the abbreviations created for each heading matched the code in the category section. the abbreviation column helped the researcher to track and match all the codes and themes using the ‘filter’ function. phase 4: reviewing themes during this phase, the themes created in phase 3 were reviewed, modified, and developed (delahunt & maguire, 2017). throughout this phase, it become clear that some themes were not truly themes (for example, if there were inadequate data to support them, or if the data were too diverse), while others were merged. other themes were divided into sub-categories (see braun & clarke, 2006). furthermore, the theme ‘employability attributes’ was refined and sub-themes were created. knowledge, skills and competencies were included, as this theme was too broad. phase 5: defining and naming themes when there was a suitable thematic map of the data, phase 5 commenced. in this phase, themes were developed and established, and the associated data were analysed (braun & clarke, 2006). the employability themes identified in this study included knowledge, skills, competencies, and manager’s satisfaction and dissatisfaction regarding the employability attributes of graduates. phase 6: producing the report this is the last phase of the analysis, during which the researcher selected rich, engaging examples related to the research topic and literature, and wrote a description of the analysis (braun & clarke, 2006). latent and semantic themes another choice is identifying themes at a semantic or explicit level, or a latent or interpretive level. a thematic analysis typically focuses solely or mostly on either a semantic or a latent level (braun & clarke, 2006). in this study, the data were analysed at a latent level to learn about and examine underlying assumptions, concepts, conceptualisations, and beliefs that were theorised as affecting or informing the semantic content of the data and to look beyond what a participant had said (delahunt & maguire, 2017). thematic analysis was utilised to analyse the data in this study. this method of data analysis is explained in the section below. ngoepe, l.l and wakelin-theron, n. (2023). employability attributes of hospitality graduates and expectations of hotel managers. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 14(1), 88–103. 97 discussion of findings the study’s findings suggest that hotel managers, namely: front office, food and beverage, banqueting and housekeeping, require eight knowledge sub-domains and seven skill sub-domains, with a wide range of competencies, from hospitality graduates from pheis. the eight knowledge attributes that hotel managers appreciate are: basic knowledge, service knowledge, product knowledge, cultural knowledge, practical knowledge, process/systems knowledge, cleaning knowledge and theoretical knowledge. the seven skill sets that hotel managers require are: basic skills, technical skills, technological skills, cognitive skills, interpersonal skills, skills related to the fourth industrial revolution, and other skills such as life skills and customer skills. more attention was placed on competencies, mostly soft skills, including passion, personality, and attitude. hotel managers indicated that knowledge and hard skills could be learned on the job. however, without soft skills (for example, an employee with the wrong attitude or no passion for the industry), it is harder for graduates to cope, contribute effectively, and remain in and sustain a job in the hotel industry (majid et al., 2019). in consensus, lie et al. (2008) found that employers ranked a positive attitude and mind-set as the most important attributes, which were followed by specialisation in content area, communication, vocational/professional competency, language and communication, critical thinking, general knowledge, cultural awareness, and sustainable citizenship. similarly, finch et al. (2016) found that intelligence and personality attributes were viewed as foundational resources. thus, managers require evidence that graduates have a core personality that aligns with the job and the organisation (wakelintheron et al., 2019b). this evidence includes extracurricular activities, pre-graduate work experience, interviews, and references from past employment, if any (finch et al., 2016). formal qualifications were perceived as a proxy of intellectual capabilities, and academic performance as signs of other important characteristics such as goal orientation, organisation and discipline. the participants indicated that formal qualifications are not a scarce resource, as all graduates possess this credential. thus, participants concluded that a qualification does not offer a competitive advantage. this finding is in line with the findings of spowart et al. (2019), namely that graduates require a combination of industry exposure, a wide variety of experience, and practical skills. moreover, kleynhans et al. (2019) noted that 83% of stakeholders indicated that they required a grade 12 qualification for entry-level employment in the industry. however, 75% of managers in kleynhans et al.’s (2019) study indicated that number of years of exposure or service in the industry was important. yet, 75% of participants mentioned that attitude was the main personal trait that was required, while only 33% of participants indicated that hospitality studies at a high-school level affected graduates’ ability to be recruited. these participants indicated that the knowledge, basic skills and abilities studied at school are adequate for entry-level employment, whereas, 67% of participants stated that all the knowledge, skills and abilities required can be learned on the job. interestingly, 42% of stakeholders indicated that they expected entry-level employees with or without qualifications to start at the bottom of the hierarchy. moolman and wilkinson (2014) conducted a qualitative content analysis of 21 broad skill frameworks. the researchers identified 1,129 generic attributes and categorised them into four domains: a) fundamental, b) thinking, c) people, and d) personal attributes. first, the fundamental attribute domain consists of literacy skills, numeracy skills, technical skills, and technological skills. second, the thinking attribute domain comprises creativity and innovation, critical thinking, decision-making skills, problem-solving skills, learning skills, reflective and critical reading skills, reflection skills, intellectual ability, an inquiring mind, willingness to learning and self-development. third, the people domain ngoepe, l.l and wakelin-theron, n. (2023). employability attributes of hospitality graduates and expectations of hotel managers. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 14(1), 88–103. 98 consists of communication skills and social intelligence attributes. fourth, the personal attributes domain comprises emotional intelligence, attitudes and values (moolman & wilkinson, 2014). the hotel managers in this study did not pay close attention to critical thinking skills, innovation, or creativity. it is important to emphasise that these attributes may lead to greater productivity levels and positively affect the overall efficiency and effectiveness of the achievement of business goals, including creativity, the ability to motivate staff, greater innovation, and higher job performance satisfaction (mcfee, 2020). nonetheless, it is clear that soft skills are extremely valuable in the hotel industry and hospitality management, and that graduates should invest in soft skills to gain a competitive edge when looking for employment (spowart et al., 2019). creativity, critical thinking, innovation and adaptability enhance products and service in the industry, which are extremely important in a post-covid world to gain a competitive edge (majid et al., 2019). the findings of this study confirm that there is indeed a mismatch between the employability of graduates from pheis and the attributes that hotel managers seek. they expressed great concern regarding the work-readiness of graduates as they enter the hotel labour market. hotel profit margins relate to guest satisfaction and guest retention, which are affected by the service they receive from hotel employees across the entire hierarchy of the organisation. practical implications of the study through the reflections from the findings, suggestions are made that can assist pheis, hotel managers, hospitality management graduates, students and future researchers — particularly during this time of globalisation, the knowledge economy, and the rise of technological advancements. this paper contributes to the literature on graduate employability and pheis in the hospitality domain to address and review both the industry and the workplace, in order to make it more attractive and rewarding for young graduates, and also to enhance the educational model that still dominates hospitality management programmes in preparing graduates for careers. originality and value a good understanding of the employability attributes expected of hospitality graduates will contribute to retaining graduates in the hotel sector, advance the industry, and ensure more sustained graduate employment in the future. this study may further assist pheis to improve the hospitality curriculum and more accurately address the employability attributes relevant to and necessary in the hotel industry. even as new entrants in the hotel industry, graduates ought to be prepared and equipped with current employability attributes to be valuable to hotels, solve the challenges they encounter, and continue to work in the industry. this study can be further utilised as an instrument to recognise the capability of graduates to become managers in the future. it will also confirm that hotels and pheis are in accord with what is essential for employment in the hotel industry. limitations and future directions as data were gathered only from hotel managers of fourand five-star hotels in pretoria, the findings may not be transferable to all hotels in south africa. the targeted sample size was not reached, which is common in studies involving hotel managers. fraser (2017) mentions that, due to the demanding nature of their work, hotel managers are known to be reluctant to participate in research. although this is a contributing factor in this study, the researcher identified other possible reasons for the small ngoepe, l.l and wakelin-theron, n. (2023). employability attributes of hospitality graduates and expectations of hotel managers. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 14(1), 88–103. 99 sample size, namely (a) covid-19 restrictions, (b) low staff morale, and (c) hesitancy to participate in any form of research. the limited number of participants was also experienced by kleynhans et al. (2019). they conducted a study in the city of tshwane that targeted front-office, housekeeping, and food and beverage managers. although 25 hotels were approached, only 12 agreed to participate. unfortunately, kleynhans et al. (2019) were unable to gather responses from departmental managers, as general managers refused to give consent to interview departmental managers; thus, the researchers opted to collect data from the general managers themselves. saturation point was reached after seven hotel managers were interviewed, indicating that additional data collection and analysis are unnecessary. furthermore, demographic variables were not compared in this study. thus, the researcher was unable to compare which relationships existed between the different demographic factors and opinions of the study participants. moreover, the study only focused on hospitality management programmes (diploma and certificate qualifications); therefore, the findings of the study may not be transferable to all hospitality qualifications in pheis. the researcher acknowledges that some attributes used in this study may be interrelated and overlap with one another. some attributes may be categorised differently by other researchers, depending on the nature of the research. recommendations both public higher education institutions and pheis are striving to build a knowledge-based economy that can compete on a global scale, secure employment, and retain and sustain employees in the respective industries in south africa, a developing country. indeed, pheis have the responsibility to educate, train, prepare and equip students with employability, work-readiness, and future-ready attributes; however, they cannot achieve this goal singlehandedly. they require private institutions to support and equip graduates from a productand service base. the relationship between pheis, hotel managers, and human resources managers is important. ongoing conversations and engagement between these stakeholders will benefit the tourism and hospitality industry as a whole. according to mgaiwa (2021), these partnerships will assist pheis in refining and improving their curricula by ensuring that they include up-to-date and future-ready knowledge, skills and competencies. if institutions design their curricula without engaging the industry, the programmes offered may fall short of societal needs and increase unemployment among graduates. therefore, higher education institutions need to redesign and realign hospitality qualifications that are future-ready to equip students for the industry, as well as adapt to post-covid19 skills. the issues of partnerships and collaborations of higher education institutions and the hotel industry have been suggested by several researchers (kleynhans et al., 2019; mgaiwa, 2021; spowart et al., 2019). the lack of these partnerships may result in higher unemployment rates, graduates leaving the hotel industry and pursuing careers in other industries, and a greater mismatch between the employability of hospitality management graduates and the requirements of hotel managers. these partnerships will benefit all higher education institutions, the hotel industry, and graduates (wakelin-theron et al., 2019a). higher education institutions will have better employment records after graduation. hotel managers will save on training costs, as graduates will be workand futureready. thus, graduates will be able to add meaningful contributions, solve problems, use critical thinking skills, and move the industry to greater heights. moreover, industry partnerships may benefit higher education institutions. partnerships between higher education institutions and hotels will ngoepe, l.l and wakelin-theron, n. (2023). employability attributes of hospitality graduates and expectations of hotel managers. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 14(1), 88–103. 100 enable students and graduates to secure and retain employment. graduates will be happy and motivated in their jobs because they will contribute effectively and be employable. furthermore, graduates may be able to venture into many opportunities, such as entrepreneurship and gig work. graduates and students are encouraged to pay close attention to the nature of the hotel industry and its demands. they are further encouraged to invest in lifelong learning and upskill themselves to remain competent and competitive, as employability in the hospitality industry is not a one-sided approach. conclusion this study achieved its objective by presenting the employability attributes required by hotel managers. however, a significant amount of work still needs to be done to ensure that hospitality management graduates from pheis possess the correct employability attributes. pheis, hotel managers, hospitality graduates, and human resources personnel have a great responsibility to ensure that graduates are competent, competitive, and valuable and can make meaningful contributions to the hotel industry. hospitality higher education institutions are urged to re-examine, develop and refine their curricula to meet the current labour requirements and produce future-ready graduates. employability attributes such as creativity, critical thinking, innovation, empathy and adaptability enhance products and services in the industry; therefore, possessing these attributes will enhance the competitive edge of new hospitality industry entrants in a post-covid-19 world. this research contributes significantly to education and curriculum design to improve employability among hospitality management graduates. the study contributes empirical data on the many employability approaches that exist. institutions and governments are placing greater emphasis on employability as the main expected outcome of higher education; therefore, it is critical to demonstrate the impact of various attributes and factors related to employability from various angles to support graduates and students in different academic disciplines. in conclusion, this study highlights that both hotel managers and graduates need to better understand the employability attributes required of graduates, as this will enhance graduates’ chances are of securing and sustaining satisfactory employment. references abas, m. c., & imam, o. a. 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(2021). enhancing graduate employability through targeting eportfolios to employer expectations: a systematic scoping review. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(2), 82-98. 82 the journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability issn: 1838-3815 (online) journal homepage: https://ojs.deakin.edu.au/index.php/jtlge/ enhancing graduate employability through targeting eportfolios to employer expectations: a systematic scoping review lana mitchell1,2, chris campbell1,3, mari somerville1,4, elizabeth cardell1,5 and lauren t. williams1,6 corresponding author: lana mitchell (lana.mitchell@griffith.edu.au) 1griffith university 2orcid.org/0000-0002-7892-2131 3orcid.org/0000-0001-7749-8538 4orcid.org/0000-0002-4699-7278 5orcid.org/0000-0002-8327-1003 6orcid.org/0000-0002-7860-0319 abstract electronic portfolios (eportfolios) are increasingly being used in university degrees to showcase graduate employability. however, evidence on employers’ views and use of eportfolios has not been synthesised. this study aimed to systematically review the evidence on employer, industry representative and university educator views on the use of eportfolios in recruiting graduates, including recommended eportfolio content. six databases were searched to identify original research on views and utilisation of eportfolios published since 2000. studies were screened in duplicate, and the full texts of 163 articles reviewed. included studies were synthesised to reveal common themes. the 17 included studies represented a range of industries and most were conducted in the usa (n=10). awareness of eportfolios was low, as was use within recruitment. perceived advantages of eportfolios in recruitment included showcasing key skills/work; ability to comprehensively assess and differentiate between candidates quickly; and accessibility. the main disadvantages were the time taken to review, excessive information and establishing authenticity. recommended eportfolios content included samples of professional work, reflections, videos and photos. inclusion of typical resume content, work experience, skills, transcripts, certificates, references, supervisor evaluations were important, as was a clear and concise structure. keywords: employability, employers, eportfolio, graduate, recruitment, resume introduction enhancing graduate employability is a key educational role of universities. employers are seeking graduates with more than the technical knowledge and skills related to the profession; they also want the transferable skills of communication, problem solving, team work, analytical skills (oliver, https://ojs.deakin.edu.au/index.php/jtlge/ mailto:lana.mitchell@griffith.edu.au mitchell, l., campbell, c., somerville, m., cardell, e., & williams, l. t. (2021). enhancing graduate employability through targeting eportfolios to employer expectations: a systematic scoping review. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(2), 82-98. 83 2013; stevens, 2008), and reflection (cleveland, 2018). thus, many universities have developed employability frameworks to provide students with a sense of mastery, building their professional identity as well as allowing for a range of skill development. the creation and use of a portfolio is one employability strategy. while hard copy portfolios have a long history of use in education and employment, the rise of electronic versions, or eportfolios, commenced at the start of the 21st century. eportfolios are an online collection of digitised artefacts to demonstrate various skills, resources and accomplishments that represent an individual (lorenzo & ittelson, 2005). there are several distinct advantages of online eportfolios over hard copy portfolios, such as enhancing students’ digital literacy (lorenzo & ittelson, 2005) and creating a product that is easily modifiable (simatele, 2015), as well as something that can be easily shared in a variety of online modes including email and online platforms. in the digital age, which is heavily invested in technological learning, eportfolios are receiving increased attention within universities (pearson et al., 2018). eportfolios are a useful tool for collaboration, reflection and facilitating student-centred learning (kimball, 2005; pearson et al., 2018), and can encourage an attitude of ‘lifelong learning’ amongst students (green, wyllie, & jackson, 2014; willmarth-stec & beery, 2015). through an eportfolio, students are able to critically reflect ‘on one's learning and for compiling and demonstrating evidence of learning and skill development’ (krause, 2006, p. 1). eportfolios also allow for knowledge and skill transfer into other contexts (penny light, chen, & ittelson 2012) and the development of metacognitive skills (pate & main, 2017). of particular interest in educating professionals is the use of eportfolios in demonstrating competency development (woodley & sims, 2011). thus universities have a strong interest in the use of eportfolios as a learning and teaching tool, in career development, and in the transition to employment (hallam & creagh, 2010). however, the way in which employers from a range of industries use eportfolios in recruitment processes also needs to be considered. the aim of this scoping review was to review the evidence of employer, industry representative and university educator views and use of eportfolios related to employability and recruitment. scoping reviews are becoming increasingly recognised as a valid way of collating the research in an area that has a developing evidence base (levac, colquhoun, & o'brien 2010; peterson et al., 2017; tricco et al., 2016). the purpose of scoping reviews has been highlighted as providing an overview of a research topic, identifying gaps in the area (peterson et al., 2017). while systematic reviews aim to answer clearly defined questions, scoping reviews focus on broader questions, while still following a systematic process (tricco et al., 2016). the specific research questions this scoping review aimed to answer were: 1) to what extent do employers and industry representatives use and plan to use eportfolios in the recruitment process? 2) in what ways do employers, industry representatives, and university educators’ value eportfolios? 3) how can the use of eportfolios in graduate recruitment be improved? methods the methodology outlined by arksey and o’malley (2005) and reported by peterson et al. (2017) was used to guide the scoping review. the authors suggest following five steps: identify the research question; identify relevant studies; study selection; charting the data; collating, summarizing and reporting the results (arksey & o'malley, 2005; peterson et al., 2017). the prisma-scr (preferred reporting items for systematic reviews and meta-analyses – scoping review) (tricco et al., 2016) was used to guide the reporting of the review. the review protocol was registered with open science framework (available at: https://osf.io/rj53v), as it was not eligible for prospero https://osf.io/rj53v mitchell, l., campbell, c., somerville, m., cardell, e., & williams, l. t. (2021). enhancing graduate employability through targeting eportfolios to employer expectations: a systematic scoping review. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(2), 82-98. 84 registration. the first part of the scoping review process was to identify the aim of the study and the research question which has been outlined above. identifying relevant studies to capture studies relevant to the research question, a systematic literature search was conducted. key search terms were identified based on the research aims and with assistance from a research librarian. all studies with at least one search term in the article title, abstract, or keywords from the following two categories were included for consideration: ‘eportfolio*’ or ‘e-portfolio*’ or ‘webfolio*’ or ‘web-folio*’ or ‘portfolio*’ and ‘employment’ or ‘employability’ or ‘recruitment’ or ‘employer’ or ‘employee’. a search was performed in six databases: business source complete, cinahl, eric, proquest, scopus and web of science using the key search terms. hand searching of reference lists was also undertaken as well as a google scholar search to identify additional potential eligible studies with original research. one additional thesis was identified through this means (dewhurst, 2017). a sample search strategy is outlined in supplement 1. study selection the initial search was conducted in october 2018, with an updated search conducted in april 2020 to identify any articles that may have been published since the original search was undertaken. the eportfolio literature dates back to around the year 2000, although early pioneers such as barrett were publishing just prior to this time (barrett, 2000). articles older than this are not relevant to the current context due to the changing nature of portfolios, including the development of eportfolios as programs, internet access and improvements to technology, and therefore were not included in this search. examination of the earlier articles found that they referred to paper-based portfolios rather than using electronic technology (anderson & demeulle, 1998). eligible studies were collated in endnote x9.3 (clarivate analytics, philadelphia, united states) and exported to covidence (veritas health innovation, melbourne, australia), an online program for managing systematic reviews. title and abstract screening were conducted in duplicate, using the outlined inclusion and exclusion criteria in table 1. to ensure screening consistency, 100 articles were initially screened by all reviewers with inclusion and exclusion criteria finalised. full text screening was undertaken in duplicate, with conflicts resolved through discussion by the two reviewers, with the option of involving a third member of the research team if required. table 1: inclusion and exclusion criteria for the scoping review of the use of eportfolios in the graduate recruitment process domain inclusion criteria exclusion criteria time period 2000 to present (april 2020) published prior to 2000 language english nonenglish population employers of university graduates; industry representatives; university educators graduates seeking employment; any employment/ career planning for promotion; university students; school students; long term workforce; career change; investors, banking, finance. intervention (eportfolio) articles with a key focus on eportfolios or online portfolios for recruitment/employment/ employability generic portfolios (i.e. not specified eportfolios or online); paper portfolios; investment, banking, business, finance, or retirement portfolios; portfolio career mitchell, l., campbell, c., somerville, m., cardell, e., & williams, l. t. (2021). enhancing graduate employability through targeting eportfolios to employer expectations: a systematic scoping review. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(2), 82-98. 85 comparison no comparison required outcome employability; views of eportfolios related to employment/ recruitment; using eportfolios for employment/ to enhance employability main focus on employed professionals evidencing professional development study design original research published in a peer review journal or thesis with full text available. nonpeer reviewed, conference proceedings or abstract only; websites, social media charting the data relevant data were extracted into an excel spreadsheet purpose-developed for this review. information extracted included authors, year, title, country, profession, study design, aim, type of ep, population, demographics, outcomes and key findings. data extraction was originally conducted independently (ljm), with checking of data against manuscripts conducted by a separate author (ms). where gaps existed, study authors were contacted via email to provide additional information. collating, summarising and reporting the results data were collated based on the key outcomes (employability; views of eportfolios related to employment/recruitment; using eportfolios for employment/ to enhance employability) as reported in the studies. the data were then summarised for comparative purposes. results database search and screening the initial database search in october 2018 identified 4593 publications, with an updated search in april 2020 identifying an additional 423 articles published since the original search (see figure 1). overall, 3603 studies were imported into covidence for screening after most duplicates were removed. full text screening was undertaken for 163 studies. seventeen studies were eligible for inclusion in the final review (table 2). reasons for excluding publications were an ineligible study design (not original research) (n=61), ineligible intervention (not electronic portfolios) (n=39), not an outcome of interest (electronic portfolios) (n=23), not a population of interest (employers/ industry representatives) (n=19), or full text not available (n=3). mitchell, l., campbell, c., somerville, m., cardell, e., & williams, l. t. (2021). enhancing graduate employability through targeting eportfolios to employer expectations: a systematic scoping review. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(2), 82-98. 86 figure 1: flow diagram of the literature search and filtering results for the scoping review of the use of eportfolios in graduate recruitment and employability. characteristics of included studies the characteristics of the 17 included studies are outlined in table 2. the most common setting in which the research occurred was teacher education (n=6), followed by general industry (n=3) and engineering (n=3). the majority of studies were published in the usa (n=10). survey was the most used data collection method (n=11), followed by individual (n=4) or focus group interviews (n=3), with one using case studies. participant numbers ranged from six to 107. the majority of studies did not specify a specific ep platform that was evaluated within the study (n=14). two studies utilised a platform that was developed by the individual university, and one utilised google sites. the outcome measure data extracted related to: awareness and knowledge of eportfolios; current and expected use of eportfolios; perceived advantages and disadvantages of eportfolios; and recommended content for eportfolios. the detailed key findings of the papers are provided in supplement 2. records after duplicates removed and limited to studies published after the year 2000 n=3603 records screened n=3602 full-text articles assessed for eligibility n= 162 studies included in qualitative synthesis n= 17 full text articles excluded: # not an eligible study/design 61 not an eligible intervention 39 not an outcome of interest 23 not a population of interest 19 full text not available 3 records excluded: n=2684 s c re e n in g in c lu d e d e li g ib il it y id e n ti fi c a ti o n records identified through updated database search (nov 2018april 2020): n=423 records identified through original database search (october 2018): n=4593 additional records identified through google search: n=1 mitchell, l., campbell, c., somerville, m., cardell, e., & williams, l. t. (2021). enhancing graduate employability through targeting eportfolios to employer expectations: a systematic scoping review. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(2), 82-98. 87 table 2: characteristics of 17 cross-sectional studies included in the scoping review for enhancing graduate employability through targeting eportfolios to employer expectations first author, year, country profession methods study aim ep platform participants outcomes assessed support ep use chang, 2019, usa engineering and science survey – qualitative (5 open items) employer perspectives on exploring how a reflective ep enhances student competitiveness for future positions. google sites 10 employers: academia (n=4); industry (n=3); national lab (n=3). advantages of eps; recommended ep content. yes ciesielkiewicz 2019, spain teacher education (primary and secondary) online survey – quantitative (1 open; 5 likert scale) to explore if school principals would use an educational ep for recruiting purposes. not specified 35 school principals (64% rr) (spain n=23, latin america n=9, africa n=3). expected use of eps. yes clayson, 2019, usa business and technical communication interviews – qualitative to explore use of assessment ep by employers. not specified 7 business and technical communication employers. current & expected use of eps in recruitment; advantages of eps; recommended ep content. mixed dewhurst, 2017, canada medical radiation therapy survey – mixed (8 closed items; 3 open) to explore the role of employment ep in medical radiation therapy recruitment. not specified 26: managers (n=19); supervisors (n=4); resource or charge therapists (n=2); hr employers (n=1). expected use of eps in recruitment; advantages & disadvantages of eps; recommended ep content. mixed fowler, 2012, usa manufacturing and nursing industries case studies – qualitative to determine if manufacturing and nursing employers valued use of ep in hiring process, and to develop suggested template for ep format for career and not specified 12 employers (manufacturing and nursing), 12 cases (6 employers from manufacturing + 6 from nursing). current & expected use of eps in recruitment; advantages of eps; recommendations including ep content. yes mitchell, l., campbell, c., somerville, m., cardell, e., & williams, l. t. (2021). enhancing graduate employability through targeting eportfolios to employer expectations: a systematic scoping review. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(2), 82-98. 88 first author, year, country profession methods study aim ep platform participants outcomes assessed support ep use technical education. heinrich, 2007, new zealand engineering and computer science industry interviews – qualitative (semistructured) to increase awareness of characterises of a lifelong learner and the value of developing ep. not specified 6 industry representatives. advantages of eps; recommended ep content. yes hsieh, 2015, taiwan higher education survey – quantitative to review perceptions related to the development and implementation of ep within taiwanese institutions of higher education. not specified 107: college and university educators (n=48); corporate recruiters (n=59). awareness and knowledge of eps; current & expected use of eps in recruitment; disadvantages of eps; recommendations including ep content. yes leahy, 2017, usa industry (general) survey – quantitative (9 likert; 1 open) to examine employers’ perceptions of effectiveness of employment eps in evaluating job candidates. not specified 85 recruiters from a range of industries. expected use of eps in recruitment. yes leece, 2005, australia industry (general) survey – quantitative (7 multichoice/ likert) to gather employer feedback on ep use in recruitment to university careers services. not specified 55 members of the australian association of graduate employers (23% rr). awareness and knowledge of eps; expected use of eps in recruitment; advantages & disadvantages of eps. mixed mitchell, l., campbell, c., somerville, m., cardell, e., & williams, l. t. (2021). enhancing graduate employability through targeting eportfolios to employer expectations: a systematic scoping review. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(2), 82-98. 89 first author, year, country profession methods study aim ep platform participants outcomes assessed support ep use ndoye, 2012, usa teacher education (primary and secondary) online survey – mixed method (21 closed items, 2 open) to evaluate eps in the hiring of k–12 teachers. not specified 49 school principals (44% rr) (11 counties in south eastern north carolina). current & expected use of eps in recruitment; advantages & disadvantages of eps; recommended ep content. mixed painter, 2005, usa teacher education (primary) focus groups (example ep) – qualitative to understand if and how eps are used in the hiring process, including most effective content, format, and use. not specified 13 employers in arizona: hr staff (n=6); school principals (n=5); retired principals/ lecturers (n=2). awareness and knowledge of eps; current & expected use of eps in recruitment; advantages & disadvantages of eps; recommendations including ep content. mixed rowley, 2015, australia music industry survey – mixed (4 closed items; 9 open) focus group – qualitative to evaluate how potential employers of music graduates perceive eps in the workplace. not specified 10 music industry employers. current & expected use of eps in recruitment; advantages & disadvantages of eps; recommended ep content. yes snoeyink, 2007, usa teacher education (primary and secondary) focus groups; online survey mixed to investigate p–12 school administrators’ perceptions of teacher education candidates’ online digital portfolios for hiring purposes. individual university developed tool 23 school personnel involved in hiring teachers. awareness and knowledge of eps; current & expected use of eps in recruitment; advantages of eps; recommendations including ep content. yes strawhecker, teacher education survey – mixed (17 to explore the perspectives of principals not specified 37 school principals (from expected use of eps in yes mitchell, l., campbell, c., somerville, m., cardell, e., & williams, l. t. (2021). enhancing graduate employability through targeting eportfolios to employer expectations: a systematic scoping review. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(2), 82-98. 90 first author, year, country profession methods study aim ep platform participants outcomes assessed support ep use 2008, usa (primary) closed items, 4 open) involved in the hiring process of k–12 teachers. one midwestern state). recruitment; advantages & disadvantages of eps; recommendations including ep content. thornton, 2011, usa university, music program survey mixed to examine impact of ep program on a variety of stakeholders. not specified 29 music professionals: teachers (n=18); administrators hiring music teacher graduates (n=6); academics (n=5). current & expected use of eps in recruitment; recommended ep content. mixed weber, 2018, usa engineering industry semistructured interview – qualitative (21 items) to examine engineering employers’ perspectives on an ep for hiring purposes. not specified 11 engineering employers. current & expected use of eps in recruitment; advantages & disadvantages of eps; recommended ep content. mixed yu, 2012, taiwan industry (general) semistructured interview (4 items) to understand: i) what employers think about eps; ii) whether eps are perceived as a suitable hiring tool; iii) ep factors that attract potential employers. individual university developed tool 10 hr managers from different companies including tourism, product design, real estate, it, insurance, recruitment. awareness and knowledge of eps; current & expected use of eps in recruitment; advantages of eps; recommended ep content. yes ep=eportfolio; it=information technology; rr=response rate mitchell, l., campbell, c., somerville, m., cardell, e., & williams, l. t. (2021). enhancing graduate employability through targeting eportfolios to employer expectations: a systematic scoping review. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(2), 82-98. 91 awareness and knowledge of eportfolios four studies reported on awareness of eportfolios, which all showed that at the time of publication (2005-2015) the majority of employers and recruiters had little or no knowledge of eportfolios (hsieh, lee & chen, 2015; leece, 2005; painter & wetzel, 2005; yu, 2012). current and expected use of eportfolios by recruiters ten studies reported on the current use of eportfolios. of these, three reported that participants did not use eportfolios in the hiring process (snoeyink & meyer, 2007; weber, 2018; yu, 2012) and one had limited experience with eportfolios (fowler, 2012). the other five studies found mixed levels of use of an eportfolio. clayson. (2019), hsieh et al. (2015), rowley and dunbar-hall (2015) and thornton et al. (2011), all found that around half of their participants had received an eportfolio. while nodye et al. (2012) did not indicate the overall proportion of participants using eportfolios in recruitment, they indicated that 69% of participants used them during the interview process, 44% during initial screening, 24% after shortlisting, and 14% after the interview. despite this experience with eportfolios, only the study by clayson (2019) explicitly stated that participants requested eportfolios during a higher search. fifteen of the studies addressed the expected use of eportfolios, with all showing potential for inclusion in the recruitment process. however, the stage of the recruitment process in which eportfolios were considered most useful varied (n=11) (see table 3). using eportfolios within the initial job application process of submitting documents was the most common expected use (n=7). some studies suggested that applicants should be encouraged to provide the url links on initial application material, including: resumés (leahy & filiatrault, 2017; painter & wetzel, 2005), cover letter (leahy & filiatrault, 2017), application forms (fowler, 2012) or via email (leahy & filiatrault, 2017). one study suggested that graduates should show potential employers their eportfolio on a tablet at a career fair (leahy & filiatrault, 2017). while some studies concluded that, in future, eportfolios will be used in the same way as ‘hard copy’ job applications (rowley & dunbar-hall, 2015), or as a supplementary resource (yu, 2012), others felt that eportfolios will not replace the traditional resume or application (fowler, 2012). five studies reported that their participants felt eportfolios would be useful during the initial shortlisting or screening process, with one-third of participants in the leece (2005) study feeling that this was the most important stage for use. eportfolios were seen in one study as being easily sent to panel members during job application assessment (rowley & dunbar-hall, 2015). other studies reported that the use of the eportfolios during the initial screening was not as useful (snoeyink & meyer, 2007) or there was not sufficient time to examine them (painter & wetzel, 2005). four studies reported that their participants saw eportfolios as being useful during the interview process, however, two studies felt that the interview stage was not appropriate, with the remaining seven studies not commenting on this stage of the recruitment process. five studies had participants who felt there was a benefit to using an eportfolio to distinguish between candidates (painter & wetzel, 2005) and make the final hiring decision (ciesielkiewicz, 2019; painter & wetzel, 2005; snoeyink & meyer, 2007; weber, 2018; yu, 2012). perceived advantages and disadvantages of eportfolios twelve studies captured the advantages of eportfolios from the perspective of employers, industry representatives and university educators. advantages reported by participants in at least two studies are included in table 3. the most commonly perceived advantages of eportfolios for the candidate were the ability of candidate to showcase themselves (n=6); demonstration of key skills (n=6); and provide examples of their work (n=5). key perceived benefits to recruiters of eportfolios was the mitchell, l., campbell, c., somerville, m., cardell, e., & williams, l. t. (2021). enhancing graduate employability through targeting eportfolios to employer expectations: a systematic scoping review. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(2), 82-98. 92 capacity for a more comprehensive assessment (n=6); and an enhanced ability to differentiate between candidates (n=3). disadvantages highlighted by two or more studies are included in table 3. the primary disadvantage of eportfolios from the perspective of employers was the time required for recruiters to review (n=10), due to the large volume of information provided (n=4). difficulty in establishing authenticity and ability to plagiarise were also identified as barriers (n=5). table 3: preferred stage of use and perceived advantages and disadvantages of eportfolios in recruitment found in the 16/17 included studies examining these factors* study reference recommended stage of use 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 initial job application        initial shortlisting/ screening      interview x    x  distinguish between candidates/final decision      unclear best time to use in recruitment process    advantages 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 ability for candidate to showcase themselves (provide additional information)       provides more comprehensive candidate assessment       provides examples of candidates’ work      demonstrates organisational skills     demonstrates technological/ creativity skills   ease of storing, accessing, sharing and retrieving information    time efficient overview of candidate/ timely decision making    helps to differentiate between candidates    disadvantages 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 time consuming for recruiters to review/ lack of time           time consuming for candidates to develop    establishing authenticity/ can be copied/ plagiarism risk      mitchell, l., campbell, c., somerville, m., cardell, e., & williams, l. t. (2021). enhancing graduate employability through targeting eportfolios to employer expectations: a systematic scoping review. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(2), 82-98. 93 large volume of information to review     give false sense of applicant/ only best work shown    *note: only those factors identified by 2 or more sources are included. 1=chang, 2019; 2=ciesilkiewicz, 2019; 3=clayson, 2019; 4=dewhurst, 2017; 5=fowler, 2012; 6=heinrich, 2007; 7=hsieh, 2015; 8=leahy, 2017; 9= leece, 2005; 10=ndoye, 2012; 11=painter, 2005; 12=rowley, 2015; 13=snoeyink, 2007; 14=strawhecker, 2008; 15=weber, 2018; 16=yu, 2012. recommended content for eportfolio fourteen studies provided insight into the type of content that employers, industry representatives and university educators felt that eportfolios should contain (outlined in table 4). many of these were elements common to traditional paper-based applications, such as the resume/cv (n=6). many studies recommended including samples of work, in particular professional work (n=12), reflections (n=11), and video (n=11) or photographic (n=5) evidence of work. including elements in eportfolios that demonstrate the applicant’s skills were commonly suggested, such as technical/professional (n=4), communication (n=4), problem solving (n=3), technology skills (n=3) and teamwork (n=2). in several studies the employers, industry representatives and university educators felt it important that the eportfolio be clearly structured and easy to navigate (n=7). five studies highlighted the importance of awareness building and training for enhancing the use of eportfolios in the recruitment process (data not shown) (fowler, 2012; hsieh et al., 2015; painter & wetzel, 2005; snoeyink & meyer, 2007; strawhecker, messersmith, & balcom, 2008). table 4: recommended content of eportfolios, views of employers/recruiters/university educators in the 14/17 included studies examining these factors* study reference traditional application content 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 resume/ cv         introduction to the candidate (brief bio)       work experience (including volunteer work, learning experiences)        transcripts        references     letters of recommendation/ endorsements    certificates/ licences    achievements/ awards   additional courses (electives) that were not part of standard degree structure.   samples of work 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 professional work (university, paid work, volunteer, other/hobbies)             1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 mitchell, l., campbell, c., somerville, m., cardell, e., & williams, l. t. (2021). enhancing graduate employability through targeting eportfolios to employer expectations: a systematic scoping review. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(2), 82-98. 94 reflective work (development, selfawareness, lessons learnt)            video clip or sound files (teaching, performances, conducting tasks)            photos (professional, extracurricular, special events, represent meaningful idea/ concept)      supervisor feedback and comments (student teacher evaluations)      evidence of impact   evidence of experience with cultural and ethnic diversity   evidence of community service activities   extra-curricular activities   demonstration of skills 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 proof of relevant technical/professional skills     communication skills (interpersonal, written)     problem solving    technology skills & programs can use    evidence of teamwork   personality/ motivations/ interests 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 teaching philosophy     passion and understanding of organisation/ industry    behaviour aspects, personality   structure 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 clear structure & layout, well organised        free from spelling mistakes    concise   hyperlink information (ensure working)   target to audience/ position   *note: only those factors identified by 2 or more sources are included. 1=chang, 2019;; 2=clayson, 2019; 3=dewhurst, 2017; 4=fowler, 2012; 5=heinrich, 2007; 6=hsieh, 2015; 7=ndoye, 2012; 8=painter, 2005; 9=rowley, 2015; 10=snoeyink, 2007; 11=strawhecker, 2008; 32=thornton, 13=weber, 2018; 14=yu, 2012. mitchell, l., campbell, c., somerville, m., cardell, e., & williams, l. t. (2021). enhancing graduate employability through targeting eportfolios to employer expectations: a systematic scoping review. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(2), 82-98. 95 discussion this scoping review is the first to synthesise employer, industry representative and university educator views and perceived uses of eportfolios related to graduate employability and recruitment. despite the search period spanning two decades there were only 17 studies on the topic, the majority of which were published in the last decade. research into employer, industry representative and university educator views of eportfolio was most prominent in teacher education, with research in the health sector limited to one study in nursing (fowler, 2012) and one in medical radiation therapy (dewhurst, 2017), both of which were dissertations. with expanded use of eportfolios in tertiary education (pearson et al., 2018) the number of studies providing evidence for their use will hopefully also increase. it would also benefit from enhanced methodological rigour, given the included studies were all of cross-sectional design, and based on relatively small participant numbers. the overwhelming evidence was that eportfolios were currently under-utilised by the study participants relative to their potential for use. the relatively recent emergence of this literature parallels the development of eportfolio awareness and use; for instance, two of the four studies reporting low awareness of eportfolios by employers, were published in 2005 (leece, 2005; painter & wetzel, 2005). however, the lack of use was only partly due to lack of awareness, with several barriers to use raised by participants in the studies. the primary perceived disadvantage was the time required for candidates to develop eportfolios and for recruiters to review them. this observation was validated by the leece (2005) study that reported it was those participants with knowledge of eportfolios who believed eportfolios to be too time consuming. the extensive time required for review is due to the large volume of information included within eportfolios. it is noteworthy that participants in at least one study, that by heinrich, bhattacharya and rayudu (2007), felt the additional information provided in eportfolios was an advantage that outweighed the additional time cost, however, this observation was in the minority in this scoping review. other perceived eportfolio disadvantages were those characteristic of traditional portfolios, including the potential to plagiarise, and providing a false sense of the applicant, with only best work being shown. these perceived limitations are consistent with findings in the literature for traditional employment application processes (martin, 2016). factors identified in the studies as increasing the likelihood of considering eportfolios included prior knowledge of eportfolios (leece, 2005; strawhecker et al., 2008), more years of recruiting experience (leahy & filiatrault, 2017; strawhecker et al., 2008), and larger size of the employing company (fowler, 2012). despite the current use of eportfolios in the recruitment process being relatively limited, employers, industry representatives and university educators had several suggestions for the potential use of eportfolios, particularly in the application phase of the recruitment process. while many of the elements suggested for inclusion were consistent with those included in a traditional application, participants in some studies recognised the unique advantages an eportfolio format, such as the ability to include video evidence of a sample of work. photographs were also seen as beneficial elements in some studies, highlighting professional, extra-curricular, and special events, or images that represent idea or something meaningful to the applicant. there was some acknowledgement of the ability of applicants to demonstrate creativity through their eportfolio itself. only one study concluded that eportfolios will be used in the same way as ‘hard copy’ job applications (rowley & dunbar-hall, 2015), with another seeing it as a supplementary resource (yu, 2012). in this more minor utilisation of the platform, a url link to an online eportfolio would be submitted with the standard application to use during initial screening and shortlisting (ciesielkiewicz, 2019; leece, 2005; ndoye et al., 2012; weber, 2018). while linkedin may be considered a form of online portfolio, it was not used in any of these studies. mitchell, l., campbell, c., somerville, m., cardell, e., & williams, l. t. (2021). enhancing graduate employability through targeting eportfolios to employer expectations: a systematic scoping review. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(2), 82-98. 96 in terms of the second aim of this scoping review, the value placed on eportfolios by employers, industry representatives and university educators, this varied between studies. some studies had participants who felt that eportfolios allowed for a more detailed evaluation of applicant qualities (ciesielkiewicz, 2019; weber, 2018; yu, 2012). other studies noted the ability for a more detailed assessment of an applicant’s potential ability to fit within the employer culture and succeed in the role (dewhurst, 2017; thornton et al., 2011). a few studies noted the advantage eportfolios provided in terms of ease of information storage and access (ndoye et al., 2012; rowley & dunbarhall, 2015; strawhecker et al., 2008). one study expressed concern that applicants providing eportfolios may be given preferential treatment in the screening process (fowler, 2012). despite some of the studies having positive findings, there was no overwhelming evidence that eportfolios would replace traditional forms of job applications in the near future. the final aim of this scoping review was to explore how the use of eportfolios could be improved. the importance of awareness building and training for enhancing the use of eportfolios in the recruitment process was highlighted. this could be by educational institutions (fowler, 2012), conference presentations (painter & wetzel, 2005), standard formats provided for development and rubrics for review (strawhecker et al., 2008), integration in recruitment systems (hsieh et al., 2015), training in the technology (strawhecker et al., 2008) or individuals providing their own eportfolio link when applying for jobs (snoeyink & meyer, 2007). the understanding of employer, industry representative and university educator views revealed by this scoping review can be used by eportfolio software developers to improve software capabilities and enhance marketing material, potentially expanding the perceived value of the software to organisations and users. the training of students in eportfolio development has the potential to enhance student and new graduate preparedness, confidence and employability. as the field develops, employers and recruiters can potentially benefit from improvements made to eportfolios based on their feedback in making them more user-friendly. utilising scoping review methodology has allowed this review to capture a breadth of concepts related to employer, industry representative and university educator views of eportfolios in the recruitment process. searching published literature dating back to the year 2000 has allowed identification of relevant studies since the inception of eportfolios. a few limitations have been highlighted in this literature. scoping reviews do not include quality assessments of included studies; therefore, findings have not been evaluated in relation to study quality. conclusion eportfolios have the potential to allow employers to make a more comprehensive assessment of the candidate, and to differentiate between candidates. this scoping review showed that the current use of eportfolios by employers recruiting graduates is limited. while eportfolios are not likely to replace traditional applications in the near future, the additional benefits that eportfolios provide allow them to compliment traditional recruitment methods. understanding employer views of the use of eportfolios is important given they are the intended target audience of eportfolios for recruitment. targeting eportfolio content to employer preferences could enhance the acceptability of eportfolios in the recruitment process and thereby enhance graduate employability. exploration of graduate and students’ views of the use of eportfolios to enhance employability and assist in recruitment, particularly in the areas that include little studies to date such as health professional employment, will be important and needs to be considered in future research. acknowledgements funding for this project was provided from the griffith university health group, dean (learning and teaching) ($3000) as well as pebble learning pty ltd ($2500). mitchell, l., campbell, c., somerville, m., cardell, e., & williams, l. t. 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(2016). editorial. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 7(1), p.1. 1 editorial welcome to volume 7 of the journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability. higher education is experiencing ‘interesting times’ in most parts of the globe: in the united states, for example, key themes include digital innovation (moocs) and the rising costs of higher education and associated student debt. in the united kingdom, a recent white paper proposes a teaching excellence framework. and in australia we have tightening budgets, the demise of our quality enhancement body, the office for teaching and learning, and increased resources for quality assurance, including the web-enabled quality indicators for learning and teaching (qilt). most jurisdictions gather and report graduate employment data, but often these data are predicated on twentieth century ideas about the world of work. in australia, for example, the percentage of graduates in full-time and part-time employment is reported, and the unwritten assumption is that full-time work is the aim for all, and the higher the percentage the better the educational institution. as we approach the unknown future of work, and embrace the ‘gig’ economy where work is increasingly sporadic, short-term, flexible and online, the challenge we face is to devise indicators that reflect that university graduates are appropriately employed – or creating their own employment, and that they have the skills to do so. while being employed is often a key goal, being regarded as a 'good employee’ is perhaps even more important. are employers satisfied with higher education graduates? this is a notoriously difficult question to answer – firstly because the employers are difficult to engage in surveys and similar data gathering mechanisms. in the age of platform economics and digital innovation, there must be a solution to gathering and reporting such information at scale – perhaps this is a solution that enterprising graduates might solve in a startup. our first paper in this issue looks at how threshold learning outcomes can inform curriculum evaluation and design in order to prepare more ‘business’ ready graduates. threshold learning outcomes (tlos) describe the minimum discipline knowledge, and articulate the expectations of graduates in terms of what they know, understand and are able to do. the development of the tlos, in this case in the field of agriculture, took account of existing award-level descriptors defined in the australian qualifications framework and involved the participation of professional and accreditation bodies, employers, graduates, academic institutions and teachers. in particular, the involvement of industry ensures that the learning and teaching academic standards meet their needs thus improving the employability of graduates. one of the key issues raised in the paper is the need to strengthen students’ understanding of business and its related social and cultural aspects to make them more commercially relevant graduates. with enhanced employability, more commercially relevant graduates might also facilitate the exchange of knowledge and ideas between universities and industry and the promotion of a partnership approach to research carried out within academia, making it more relevant to industry needs. on behalf of the editorial committee and deputy editor beatrice tucker i commend the first paper to you and invite you to engage with the forthcoming papers throughout the year as we seek to promote scholarly communication and debate, and scholarship in learning and teaching for graduate employability. beverley oliver editor 1658 coetzee (final) coetzee, m. (2023). students’ career capital resource needs for employability in the technology-driven work world. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 14(1), 136–150. 136 the journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability issn: 1838-3815 (online) journal homepage: https://ojs.deakin.edu.au/index.php/jtlge/ students’ career capital resource needs for employability in the technology-driven work world melinde coetzee1 corresponding author: melinde coetzee (coetzm1@unisa.ac.za) 1 department of industrial and organisational psychology, university of south africa abstract the present study assessed the world of work awareness of a random sample of (n = 486) higher education undergraduate students from an emerging country. in addition, the study explored these students’ needs for information they need from their studies about the technology-driven world of work. the needs were evaluated in terms specific career capital resources that should be addressed in the higher education curriculum to foster the employability of graduates in a rapid evolving digital-era workplace. a mixed methods concurrent triangulation design was employed to analyse quantitative (numeric descriptive statistics and correlations) and qualitative (text) data from the same sample. the quantitative descriptive findings suggested an open-mindedness toward new technology, being responsive to changing work conditions and a need for continuous upskilling opportunities. the participants exhibited sound awareness of the impact of technology on their future employability and careers. predominantly, the qualitative findings indicated a strong need for 'knowing how' career capital resource development in the form of career planning and job search guidance and gaining deeper knowledge and understanding of the impact of technology on the job market, job and occupation opportunities and employability requirements. participants expressed a need to understand the relevance of the qualification curriculum and content to the digital-era world of work and shifting employer expectations. the findings also revealed a need for 'knowing what', 'knowing why' and 'knowing whom' career capital resource development for employability as part of university studies. recommendations are made for incurriculating career and employability development in university courses. keywords career capital resources; career development; employability development; digital-era world of work awareness; human capital; graduate employability; technologydriven work world; undergraduate students introduction the challenge of sustainable employability remains extremely high for contemporary graduates who are obliged to adapt to a rapidly evolving technological-driven global work landscape (wallis, 2021). digital-innovative work practices and hybrid work models require digital-savviness, including the capacity for continuous learning, upskilling and reskilling which raises the standards for employability (ramnund-mansingh & reddy, 2021; coetzee & veldsman, 2022; spöttl & windelband, 2021; van laar et al., 2022). moreover, technological innovation may in future make some known occupations obsolete while also creating new, but unfathomed, jobs and occupations (lockwood, 2020). the gig economy has further opened opportunities for skills-on-demand hiring and employment which blurs the notion of job security and clear career progression paths for graduates (ogunwale, 2022). coetzee, m. (2023). students’ career capital resource needs for employability in the technology-driven work world. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 14(1), 136–150. 137 employability becomes more challenging because of digital transformation in talent searching, recruiting and selection (lockwood, 2020; manyika, 2017; ogunwale, 2022). digital and online talent platforms and artificial intelligence-based digital software enable expedient and efficient talent searching, job-skills-matching and on-demand skills hiring across a higher volume of diverse and global talent pools (heaslip, 2022; lockwood, 2020; manyika, 2017; ogunwale, 2022). virtual hiring technology including video resumes and online coding interviews (or simulation) of job-related skills now serve as virtual job auditions that help recruiters get a clearer and more reliable picture of a candidate’s employability, skills and expertise (heaslip, 2022; ogunwale, 2022). in this regard, digital recruiting levels the playing field for job seekers because candidates can be interviewed in parallel and be compared in a more reliable, equitable and valid manner (heaslip, 2022). on the other hand, advances in mobile and social media technology such as job searching apps also enable job seekers to apply for the most appealing jobs, market their employability, skills and expertise portfolio through online platforms and communicate with potential employers via conferencing and online video interviews (heaslip, 2022; ogunwale, 2022). the global war for skilled talent increases opportunities to move across jobs, industries and countries with greater career mobility. technology-enabled remote and flexible working conditions make it possible to be in multiple jobs at a time and engage in hybrid entrepreneurial forms of employment (coetzee & veldsman, 2022; ogunwale, 2022). entrepreneurial attitudes toward employability are evident in fast emerging hybrid approaches to employment in the form of portfolio careers (i.e. moving between employment, self-employment and freelancing) and online job creation made possible by technology (clinkard, 2018). scholars note higher education’s imminent role in the cultivation of an entrepreneurial and job creation intention and the development of knowledge and skills for career and business start-up in today’s turbulent, uncertain job market that heralds high unemployment trends (ehiobucheet al., 2022). higher education plays a critical role in leveraging graduates’ awareness of employability in the digital era in respect of the job market becoming more complex and competitive because of technological advancement (goulart et al., 2022; ramnund-mansingh & reddy, 2021). higher education must adopt a more pervasive role in developing the career capital resources graduates need to confidently navigate a complex digital-driven employment market for achieving the career goals and livelihoods they aspire to (bennett, 2019; wallis, 2021). in this regard, research highlights the value of integrating career guidance and employability development services including career development learning into the curriculum to foster graduate career capital, employability and job readiness (bennett, 2018; bridgstock et al., 2019; glerum & judge, 2021; lexis et al., 2021). addressing graduates’ career capital and employment needs in their higher education studies enriches their capacity to navigate the work world for shifts in job and career opportunities. graduates are not only better prepared to adopt agency for managing their employability and careers but also become more proactive in successfully adapting to changes in the work world (bates et al., 2019; bennett, 2018; bridgstock et al., 2019). although research highlights the importance of student career guidance services and career and employability development learning as part of the curriculum (bennett, 2018; bridgstock et al., 2019; ciarocco, 2018; glerum & judge, 2021; lexis et al., 2021), higher education students’ digital-era world of work awareness and career capital resource needs for employability seem unclear and underresearched. the study examined higher education students’ digital-era work world awareness and their specific career capital resource needs to inform their career and employability development. suggestions are made to integrate career capital resource development in the curriculum to enhance students’ selfregulatory employability capability for the digital-era employment context. the study contributes to novel studies of teaching and learning for graduate employability in the digital era by elucidating new insights into the unique career capital resources needs of students who reside within an emerging country higher education context. generally, emerging countries are technologically lagging behind first world countries in their transition to a more competitive economy because of resource constraints which may potentially impact on graduates’ readiness for the digital-driven work world (goulart et al., 2022; ramnund-mansingh & reddy, 2021). coetzee, m. (2023). students’ career capital resource needs for employability in the technology-driven work world. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 14(1), 136–150. 138 literature review theoretical framework: career capital drawing from human capital theory (tomlinson, 2017; tomlinson et al., 2017; williams et al., 2016), career capital represents individuals’ subjective (soft) human capital and self-regulatory employability capability (arthur et al., 1995; defillippi & arthur, 1994; sutherland et al., 2015). research highlights four inter-related dynamic facets of career capital that serve as important personal resources of graduate employability (sutherland et al., 2015): 'knowing why' career capital denotes individuals’ awareness of the work world, their personal career and study interests, career-related choices, and the motivation they bring to their careers and work. 'knowing why' career capital is dynamic because career identities shift in response to contextual changes (dickmann et al., 2018). 'knowing what' career capital refers to awareness and knowledge of industry dynamics and its impact on employability requirements in the context within which the career is pursued. 'knowing how' career capital involves the explicit or tacit knowledge, skills, attributes, insights and information needed to be successful in one’s career. 'knowing whom' career capital refers to career-relevant social and professional networks and relations that help advance job search and career advancement (defillippi & arthur, 1994; inkson & arthur, 2001). career capital is malleable and can be enhanced through the accumulation of experience, training, learning and development, information (knowledge), skills, and exposure to work (lamb & sutherland, 2010; sutherland et al., 2015). a well-rounded portfolio of career capital resources enhances a sense of self-effectuation in intrinsic employability capability (clinkard, 2018; dickmann et al., 2018). the dynamic and future-oriented nature of intrinsic employability increases the likelihood of successful movement in the labour market, finding or creating employment that matches one’s interests, values and competencies, and provide opportunities for continuous upskilling and learning to enhance access to future job prospects and careers success (cortellazzo et al., 2020). in the present study, career capital resources allude to the value that university studies create through ongoing improvement of students’ human capital, employability capability and career position in a competitive job market (bridgstock et al., 2019; defillippi & arthur, 1994; sutherland et al., 2015; tomlinson et al., 2017). accordingly, higher education studies serve as an important conduit for enhancing students’ repertoire of career capital resources for sustained employability (tomlinson, 2017; tomlinson et al., 2017; wallis, 2021). world of work awareness as a career capital resource in the present study, students’ world of work awareness alludes to their technological adaptivity, awareness of the digital nature of work, digital-era skills and knowledge relevant to occupations and jobs in the field of study, awareness of the importance of continuous learning and upskilling, and perceptions of the degree to which their higher education studies help them to investigate jobs and occupations that best match their career and study interests (coetzee, 2022; coetzee et al., 2021). technological adaptivity reflects an adaptive readiness for careers in the technology-driven work world. individuals feel that evolving job roles as a result of new technologies optimize their creativity, growth and happiness; they are more willing to update their knowledge and skills to capitalize on new job opportunities created by accelerated technological developments. individuals are actively marketing their unique brand of values and portfolio of skills across digital networks (coetzee, 2022). bennett (2018) views employability in the context of higher education as the process of preparing students to successfully navigate their careers in their personal and work lives. in this regard, it is essential that academics and students understand the characteristics and future of work. graduate employability has a dynamic adaptive nature; graduates must engage in continuous learning and upskilling processes to ensure sustainable employability and careers in rapid shifting and technological evolving employment contexts (bennett, 2018; wallis, 2021). research showed positive associations between technological adaptivity and individuals’ awareness of the digital nature of work, digital-era requirements for jobs and occupations, and continuous coetzee, m. (2023). students’ career capital resource needs for employability in the technology-driven work world. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 14(1), 136–150. 139 learning and upskilling (coetzee, 2022). in the context of employability, technological adaptivity reflects the personal motivation ('knowing why' career capital) to adapt to a changing employment context that signals new employment requirements ('knowing what' career capital: defillippi & arthur, 1994; jones & defillippi, 1996; sutherland et al., 2015). these attributes are generally described as psychological capital features of the human capital needed for self-regulatory employability capability (tomlinson, 2017; tomlinson et al., 2017; williams et al., 2016). perceptions of university studies’ contribution to the fit between acquired knowledge and skills in the study field and career pathways in the digital work world (i.e. job and occupation fitness) positively predict employability competencies such as business ingenuity and socio-digital agility (potgieter et al., 2023). generally, students’ level of world of work awareness is deemed important because it reflects the degree to which university studies’ help prepare them for the work world and their psychological readiness to craft career paths in a changing uncertain job market (bennett, 2018; coetzee, 2022; ramnund-mansingh & reddy, 2021). scholars emphasise that university students need active preparation for the digital-era workplace (bates et al., 2019; bennett, 2018; bremner & laing, 2019; ramnund-mansingh & reddy, 2021; wallis, 2021). research shows associations between students’ perceptions and understanding of career paths and the labour market and their capacity to manage their employability (bennett, 2018; coetzee, 2022; winterton & turner, 2019). drawing from human capital theory (tomlinson, 2017; tomlinson et al., 2017; williams et al., 2016), students’ world of work awareness elucidates some important digital-era career capital attributes (i.e. 'knowing why' and 'knowing what') they need for career success in the job market and workplace. research shows that career capital enhances individuals’ self-regulatory employability capability which facilitates career satisfaction (sutherland et al., 2015). however, research on the digital-era work world awareness of higher education students in an emerging country context is sparse (coetzee, 2022; ramnund-mansingh & reddy, 2021). the present study addresses this research gap by assessing the world of work awareness of students who resides within an emerging country, including exploring, in general, the information they need about the digital work world. students’ information needs are then evaluated in terms of specific career capital resources that should be addressed in the higher education curriculum to foster the employability of graduates in a rapidly evolving work world. career capital resources for employability students’ 'knowing why' and 'knowing what' career capital resources are strengthened by their world of work awareness which is cultivated through their higher education studies (bridgstock et al., 2019; glerum & judge, 2021). in similar vein, higher education has a pivotal role in equipping students with the 'knowing how' and 'knowing whom' career capital resources they need to sustain their employability in a technology-driven work world. career capital are important resources for students’ optimal career and employability development and learning (tomlinson, 2017; tomlinson et al., 2017; bridgstock et al., 2019; glerum & judge, 2021; lexis et al., 2021). higher education generally provides career capital-related services (i.e. 'knowing why'; 'knowing how'; 'knowing whom' career capital) to students that are available separate to the curriculum. in the context of the sample relevant to the present study, the higher education institution has a department dedicated to specialised career and employability guidance and counselling services. these services are advertised as a resource for students on the university website (university of south africa, 2022). however, an employability survey by the university (coetzee et al., 2019) showed that students are often unaware of these services and therefore tend to make little use of them. typical career guidance services that are provided on the university general website for students include job searching, cv writing, career portfolio building, interview skills, networking skills, graduateness and employability requirements, matching interests with career options, self-development, career information, mentoring, and study skills (university of south africa, 2022). although university career guidance services are essential, there is a great need for incurriculating career and employability development in coursework in collaboration with university experts who provide such career guidance services to students (bennett, 2018; bridgstock et al., 2019; glerum & coetzee, m. (2023). students’ career capital resource needs for employability in the technology-driven work world. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 14(1), 136–150. 140 judge, 2021; lexis et al., 2021). the incurriculation of career and employability development in coursework equips students with important skills and mindsets including greater self-awareness of their employability-related career capital resources. such an approach helps students see the relevance between their university studies, the competencies and knowledge they gain in a study field and the extent to which these are in alignment with shifting employer requirements and career paths (bridgstock et al., 2019; glerum & judge, 2021; lexis et al., 2021). the present study explored, in general, the career capital resource needs of students that may help inform career and employability development and learning as part of the curriculum. method participants the participants were a random sample (n = 486) of undergraduate students pursuing further studies in the economic and management sciences field at a comprehensive open distance learning higher education university situated in a southern african emerging country context. the participants were represented by male (35%) and female (65%) students with a mean age of 34 years (sd = 9.12; age range 25 – 55 years). most of the participants were black africans (72%). the sample was further represented by participants from coloured (7%), indian (5%) and white (16%) origin. seventy-two percent (72%) of the participants were in employment and only 28% were unemployed. procedure the research ethics review and permission committees of the university (#2020_cems-iop_031 and #2020_rpc_051) provided approval for the study. students received an invitation via an email from a 'no reply' student system administrator with an url link to the online questionnaire for anonymous, voluntary participation. the participants provided informed consent that the researcher may use the data for anonymous, group-based research purposes. measures the world of work awareness scale (wwas – 28 items) developed by coetzee et al. (2023) was used to measure students’ level of technological adaptivity (7 items; e.g. 'i market my unique brand of values and portfolio of skills across my digital networks'), awareness of the digital nature of work (5 items; e.g. 'i believe that work can be done virtually from anywhere by anyone through smart digital technology'), occupation and job awareness (3 items; e.g. ' i have a clear picture of jobs and occupational opportunities made possible by new technological advancements in my field of study'), continuous learning and upskilling awareness (7 items; 'i accept continuous life-long learning as important to ensure i can adapt to changing forms of work, jobs and occupations') and study contribution to job and occupation fitness (6 items; e.g. ' i feel satisfied that my university studies prepare me for the digital world of work'). responses were measured on a 7-point likert scale (1 = strongly disagree; 7 = strongly agree). the internal reliability coefficients of the subscales ranged between .84 and .92. because of the relatively large sample and the study’s core interest to explore, in general, students’ information needs regarding the digital work world, the measure also contained an open-ended question, phrased as follows: 'explain the information you need about the digital world of work'. it was assumed that the information needs would translate into specific career capital resource needs. data analysis a mixed methods concurrent triangulation design was employed to analyse quantitative (numeric) and qualitative (text) data from the same sample (creswell, 2013). this design facilitated a rich and deeper understanding of the research phenomenon. the first stage involved the quantitative analysis of students’ level of awareness of the digital era world of work. spss version 3.0 (2017) was used to coetzee, m. (2023). students’ career capital resource needs for employability in the technology-driven work world. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 14(1), 136–150. 141 calculate the frequencies, descriptive statistics, reliability coefficients and bivariate correlations on the measurement scale. in the second stage, six phases of inductive, data-driven thematic analysis were conducted for analysing the open-ended question responses. following the guidelines of braun and clark (2006), this process involved familiarising oneself with the data, generating initial codes, searching for themes, reviewing themes, defining and naming themes and summarizing the findings in a report. the qualitative data analysis was an iterative process of reading and rereading open-ended, narrative text responses, and refining and relabelling identified themes. to reduce the bias of subjective thematic analysis and enhance trustworthiness and validity of the findings, two additional academic researchers independently reviewed the narrative, text responses and corroborated the identified themes. a record of the research process, the data coding and labelling of themes was kept for data integrity. because of the large sample, themes that emerged from half or more of the participants were identified for labelling and reporting. results quantitative results: students’ current level of awareness of the digital era world of work the means reported in table 1 reflect mid-range scores ranging from 'slightly agree' for occupation and job awareness (mean = 4.90; sd = 1.39) to 'agree' for technological adaptivity (mean = 5.30; sd = 1.02), and job and occupation fitness (mean = 5.30; sd = 1.16). awareness of the digital nature of work (mean = 5.60; sd = 1.04 ) and continuous learning and upskilling awareness (mean = 5.86; sd = .97) reflected the highest mean scores ('definitely agree'). the bi-variate correlations reflect positive associations of moderate to large practical significant effect (r ≥ .31 to r ≤ .69; p = .0001) between the various facets of digital-era world of work awareness. the relatively low correlations among the construct variables indicated that the subdimensions measured uniquely differentiating constructs. the positive direction of the correlations suggested that the constructs are complementary in explaining students’ work world awareness. table 1: descriptive statistics and bi-variate correlations variables α mean sd 1 2 3 4 5 1 technological adaptivity .84 5.30 1.02 2 awareness of digital nature of work .87 5.60 1.04 .46*** 3 occupation/job awareness .87 4.90 1.39 .39*** .50*** 4 continuous learning/upskilling awareness .92 5.86 .97 .36*** .69*** .43*** 5 job/occupation fitness .92 5.30 1.16 .36*** .31*** .51*** .32*** note: n = 486. ***p ≤ .001 qualitative findings: students’ career capital resource needs the open-ended question yielded rich information that related to the notion of career capital described by defillipi and arthur (1994). as shown in table 2, the themes were categorised in terms of 'knowing why' and 'knowing what' career capital; 'knowing how' career capital and 'knowing whom' career capital. although the open-ended question was very broadly phrased, the narrative responses clearly alluded to employability concerns in respect of a technological-driven world of work. in this regard, the themes enriched the notion of career capital in the context of digital-era employability. the themes of career guidance and job search support and sustainable employability emerged as the predominant information needs. table 2 summarises the core themes. coetzee, m. (2023). students’ career capital resource needs for employability in the technology-driven work world. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 14(1), 136–150. 142 table 2: students’ career capital resource needs 'knowing why' and 'knowing what' career capital resource needs adaptation support (5%) • nature of digital and technological advances and its impact on employability • adapting to remote work, hybrid workplaces and balancing work, studies and life in digitaldriven workspaces • sustaining employability and career longevity • personal upskilling and development guidance for sustainable employability the digital world of work 'knowing how' career capital resource needs technological resources needed (5%) • student access to data, internet and computers for further studies career guidance and job search support (30%) • conducting job searches on digital platforms and social networks • career guidance and planning for employability • online interview preparation skills • online self-positioning (differentiation) and profiling through use of technology in a competitive employment market • legitimate job search websites [avoiding internet scams] upskilling for digital savviness (10%) • courses as part of qualification that teach about it systems and technology, and enhance capability to utilise smart-digital technology and platforms in virtualised workspaces • use of technology in world of work sustainable employability insight: knowledge and understanding needed (40%) • impact of technology-driven employment context on job market and opportunities, career paths, and future employability • relevance of qualification curriculum and content to world of work • career and job opportunities in field of study • employer employability expectations, skills and competencies needed in global virtualised employment market • qualification contribution to the development of graduate skills and competencies required by employers job creation intention in a digital-online world of work (5%) • how to create own employment and career success and sustainable income through use of technological advances • entrepreneurial capability development: how to be innovative and create job opportunities for self and others 'knowing whom' career capital resource needs social networking (5%) • connecting and networking effectively in digital age on social media platforms with people who give moral advice and support • advancing one’s career through online social networking coetzee, m. (2023). students’ career capital resource needs for employability in the technology-driven work world. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 14(1), 136–150. 143 'knowing why' and 'knowing what' career capital resource needs some of the responses highlighted digital and technological advances and its impact on employability and work as important motivational forces for adaptation and the need for information about the digital-era world of work. adaptation is also associated with the motivation for information on selfimprovement and continuous growth for sustainable employability. adaptation support the need for adaptation support was evident, with one participant expressing a need for more knowledge about new opportunities that digital changes bring: 'adapting to the digital changes (i.e. where are opportunities?). what technology advances will be taking place in the next 5-10 years in your particular industry so you can pivot accordingly' (participant f50). another participant pointed out the need for upskilling support to better adapt to the changes that technology bring by stating 'i need to know how to adapt to the changing times by equipping myself with the necessary skills more specifically technology' (participant m14). 'knowing how' career capital resource needs some of the participants expressed a need for technological resources such as access to data and the internet, laptops and personal computers. these resources are not always readily available to students in an emerging country context (ramnund-mansingh & reddy, 2021). technological resources need one participant noted the need to 'accommodate students with no access to data and laptops to further their studies' (participant f80), highlighting the technological resource challenges that students in an emerging country face (participant f80). another participant also highlighted the dire need for gaining 'access to the internet and a laptop/pc' (participant f15). in most of the accounts given by the participants, the theme of career guidance and job search revolved around information and guidance on understanding employers’ employability requirements in a technological-driven work world. it was evident that the participants were aware of the competitive challenges of digital or online job searching, e-recruiting, e-interviewing and the importance of being able to successfully position oneself in more creative ways as a suitable or best candidate for the job. some participants expressed the need for information on credible digital platforms for global online job searching, career guidance on jobs and occupations and skills demands, and courses to take for further upskilling. career guidance and job search support participant f95 expressed a need to better understand what the organisation and interview panels are looking for in employees in a technology-driven world of work, stating 'what an organisation needs in candidates? what does the panel need during the interview? what is expected from employees in a global digital-era world with such technological innovation?' job search support pertained also to knowledge about the e-recruitment process including the qualifications needed in an e-recruitment work world, exemplified by participant f120: 'how organisations are using the e-recruitment process. and what qualifications do i need to add to my degree which supports e-recruitment'. the career guidance support needed included knowing more about finding employment and how to differentiate oneself in a competitive job market with one’s degree, e.g. 'i do need to know how to find work, but more than that i need to know how to set myself apart in an interview. similarly, i need to know how to compete with the skill and knowledge i’ve gained from my degree' (participant f140). the theme of guidance regarding finding job opportunities relevant to the digital-era work world and new employer requirements was echoed in a participant stating 'i need to know how to find job opportunities that are in line with the digital-era world of work, what employers are looking for (market requirements)' (participant m155). coetzee, m. (2023). students’ career capital resource needs for employability in the technology-driven work world. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 14(1), 136–150. 144 career guidance support needs also included specific job search skills such as, e.g. 'new ways of online job posting, creating video cvs.' (participant f75) and information on careers and skills in demand, for example '…the careers and skills in demand of the 4ir future.' (participant f67). another participant emphasised the need for guidance on employment opportunities including information on jobs, job descriptions in the field of study, and further post-graduate studies needed: 'i need guidance on employment opportunities, types of jobs, job descriptions in my field and preferred post-graduate qualification to pursue onwards' (participant f35). one participant highlighted the darker side of digital job searching by expressing a need for guidance and information on credible job search websites so as to be better protected against potential scammers, explaining 'as technology is improving scammers are finding new ways to target job seekers. job seekers need to know which websites are legit for looking for employment' (participant f126). concerning technology and digital skills upskilling, participants expressed a need for additional higher educational courses that equip them with basic knowledge and skills of it, digital software design and utilisation of technology and social media platforms in the workplace and social sphere of life. it was evident that they regard technological or digital upskilling as essential for their employability in the digital-era work world. upskilling for digital savviness the need for the curriculum to include an introductory course on specialised careers that require digital savviness including it knowledge of technology and software design to help differentiate them as job seekers, was highlighted by participant m160: 'besides basic knowledge needed for jobs, some specialized careers require knowledge of it, software systems, designing software. it would be beneficial if we could get an introductory course in this, with some basic knowledge that could enable job seekers to get their foot in the door'. this need was echoed by participant f186, stating the general need to develop digital-savviness in the use of technology: 'i need to know how to use technology to its full capacity. i want to do more with it, not only in my work environment.' sustainable employability emerged as the highest concern about information needed. the information needs related to knowledge and understanding of how the technology-driven employment context will impact on job market and opportunities, career paths, and future employability. some participants raised the need to have knowledge on the relevance of the university qualification curriculum and content to the digital-era world of work, including career and job opportunities in their field of study. a strong need was expressed for knowledge about employer employability expectations, skills and competencies needed in global virtualised employment market and the qualification’s contribution to the development of graduate skills and competencies required by employers. sustainable employability insight: knowledge and understanding needed one participant pointed out the need for information on employer employability competency requirements in the digital-era work world by stating 'i need to have more information about what is expected of the potential employee in terms of capabilities and core competencies of an economic and management sciences graduate in the 'new' world of work' (participant f193). participant f154 echoed the need for career guidance on upskilling for employability in the digital-era job market, noting 'i need to know how i can upskill myself to make myself more employable in the job market. career guidance and planning is necessary and how technological innovation will impact the job market and employment opportunities.' the need to understand the relevance of the skills gained through one’s university for employability including guidance on skills to differentiate oneself as job seeker was evident in quotes such as, i need to know if the skills that i am gaining through studying at this university will still be relevant in the next 10 to 15 years and how to find work opportunities and what skills i need to have to be the best candidate for those particular jobs. (participant f163) coetzee, m. (2023). students’ career capital resource needs for employability in the technology-driven work world. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 14(1), 136–150. 145 some accounts expressed an awareness of technology opening new doors for job creation opportunities. participants highlighted a need for information on how to create their own employment and career success and sustainable income through use of technological advances. they also expressed a need for entrepreneurial capability development through their higher education studies including information on how to be innovative and create job opportunities for self and others through online technology. job creation intention in a digital-online world of work participants with an intent to create jobs in a digital-online work world highlighted the need for the curriculum to equip them with entrepreneurial skills and knowledge, including financial planning and management that would help them expand their business, e.g. 'finding entrepreneurial skills and knowledge through mentorship and also finding opportunities in order to expand my business through financial planning and management'(m128). job creation intent was also expressed in quotes such as, e.g. 'creating my own success digitally with the world online'(participant f136) and 'i need to know how to create job and business opportunities' (participant f143). 'knowing whom' career capital resource needs the participants provided evidence of their awareness of the use of technology for social networking to ensure sustained employability. these responses expressed a need for information on how to connect and network effectively in the digital age on social media platforms with people who give moral advice and support and using networking for the advancement of one’s studies and career. social networking the need for social networking guidance pertained to knowing how to use digital technology and social media to connect with others that can promote one’s job search and employability, as represented by the following quote: 'be connected with people who give you moral advice and support, and also search opportunities on google linkedin, join groups on facebook pages, government sites' (participant f199). discussion main findings: students’ level of 2020s work world awareness generally, the quantitative findings suggest an open-mindedness toward new technology, being responsive to changing work conditions and a need for continuous upskilling opportunities. moreover, the participants seem to have a sound awareness of the impact of technology on their future employability and careers. the continuous learning awareness was positively associated with their awareness of the digital nature of work i.e. being able to do work virtually from anywhere through smart technology; viewing technological innovation as a major driver of new employment and career opportunities; seeing digital platform work as a new way to create and deliver multiple services through online marketplaces (coetzee, 2022). these findings bring to light the psychological digital work world readiness ('knowing why' career capital) of the participants which has become crucial for employability in the technology-driven work world (mercer, 2022; ramnund-mansingh & reddy, 2021; van laar et al., 2022). participants were moderately certain about their technological adaptivity (i.e. actively updating their skills and knowledge to capitalise on new job opportunities created by accelerated technological developments; marketing their unique brand of values and portfolio of skills across digital networks and searching for jobs that are evolving as result of technological conditions: coetzee, 2022). participants felt slightly certain that their university studies help them to develop the special knowledge and skills they need for desired jobs and occupations including helping them to actively investigate jobs and occupations that may emerge in the digital-era work world (i.e. occupation/job awareness and job/occupation fitness). they were moderately certain that their university studies will open new career pathways and prepare them for the digital work world (coetzee, 2022). coetzee, m. (2023). students’ career capital resource needs for employability in the technology-driven work world. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 14(1), 136–150. 146 these findings may be attributed to participants’ psychological digital work world readiness ('knowing why' career capital) observed from their awareness of the impact of technology on their future employability and careers, including their internal motivation for continuous learning and upskilling. the moderate mean scores on technological adaptivity, occupation and job awareness, and job and occupation fitness signal a dire need for career development support ('knowing what' and 'knowing how' career capital) for employability in the curriculum. although the participants are aware of, and psychological ready for the new employability demands of a technology-driven work world, they appear to need more explicit and tacit support from their studies to prepare and equip them with the career capital resources they need to manage their careers and employability in a self-efficacious manner. research shows positive associations between students’ perceptions of their studies and qualifications preparing and equipping them for careers in the digital work world and their sense of employability competency (winterton & turner, 2019; zakaria & alhassan, 2019). scholars further express the need for higher education to integrate career development planning, upskilling and work world awareness in the curriculum and advocate for a refinement of the curriculum to help students gain the requisite knowledge and skills for the employment market (choate et al., 2019; clinkard, 2018; ramnund-mansingh & reddy, 2021). the findings contributed new insights regarding the participants’ level of work world awareness and signalled a need for more tacit career capital resources in their studies to be better prepared for employability and career development in the digital-driven work world. scholarly views on employability as a repertoire of personal career-building skills argue that work world awareness and career capital resources help students to navigate the labour market and help them gain access to work and contribute to their career success glerum & judge, 2021; lo presti & pluviano, 2016; tomlinson, 2017; tomlinson et al., 2017). main findings: career capital resource needs for employability in the technology-driven work world predominantly, the findings indicated a strong need for 'knowing how' career capital resources in the form of gaining deeper knowledge and understanding of the impact of technology on the job market, job and occupation opportunities and employability requirements. participants expressed a need to understand the relevance of the qualification curriculum and content to the digital-era world of work and shifting employer expectations, that is, whether the qualification and the skills and knowledge they gained from their studies will enable them to secure desired or in-demand jobs and occupations. the strong need for career guidance and online job search support in a virtualised work world may be attributed to the new technological-driven challenges in the form of digital platforms and e-recruiting strategies that heighten competition in qualifying for jobs (lockwood, 2020; manyika, 2017; ogunwale, 2022). these career capital resource needs may explain the findings observed for participants’ world of work awareness. the strong open-mindedness toward continuous life-long learning and upskilling observed in the quantitative findings may explain the participants’ need for a better understanding of the relevance of the university studies and qualification in a technologydriven work world. the somewhat moderate level of job and occupation awareness exhibited by the participants may explain the need for more information regarding the job and occupation and career path opportunities associated with the qualification. the career capital resources of career and employability development guidance are critical in a more competitive global job market. university studies are pursued out of a need to better qualify oneself for the job market and improve one’s employability (bennett, 2018;bridgstock et al., 2019; tomlinson, 2017; tomlinson et al., 2017). the drive toward career capital resources for enhanced employability was quite evident from the findings. noteworthy is participants’ entrepreneurial open-mindedness toward creating jobs for self and others because of the new possibilities for online, virtualised business proffered by technological innovation (clinkard, 2018; ogunwale, 2022). in this regard, participants also expressed a need for upskilling in especially the use of technology in their work and personal lives. the open and distance learning context of the participants including the emerging country nature of coetzee, m. (2023). students’ career capital resource needs for employability in the technology-driven work world. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 14(1), 136–150. 147 the university may explain the need for access to internet, data and computers as career capital resources (ramnund-mansingh & reddy, 2021). the 'knowing why' and 'knowing what' career capital resources seem to revolve around gaining deeper insight into the impact of the shifting technology-driven dynamics of the industry and workplace on one’s employability. this need could explain the 'knowing why' one must learn to adapt to the new nature of work being performed remotely or in hybrid workspaces. the 'knowing why' and 'knowing what' career capital resources further seem to revolve around needing information to help one development and grow of sustainable employability (bennett, 2018; tomlinson et al., 2017). these findings corroborate the sound level of continuous learning awareness and openness to change (i.e. technological adaptivity) exhibited by the participants. finally, the need for 'knowing whom' career capital resources was evident in some participants expressing a need for information on online networking and collaborating effectively in the digital era to advance one’s careers. this need could also explain the need for courses that offer basic technological skills in the use of technology and social media platforms in work and one’s personal life. tomlinson (2017) argues that graduates’ social networks and relationships (i.e. social capital) help them mobilise their existing human capital and facilitate their access to and awareness of job market opportunities. 'knowing whom' career (social) capital help generate new resources that spring from social ties in the labour market (santos & thune, 2022). recommendations for incurriculating career capital resource development the findings provided evidence of the importance of assessing students’ work world awareness to better understand their career capital resource needs for sustained employability. in line with the arguments of bennett (2018), the findings suggested that students’ work world awareness ('knowing why' career capital) are positively associated with a need for 'knowing what', 'knowing how' and 'knowing whom' career capital resources in their studies’ curriculum. students want to feel confident that the qualification curriculum and content will enhance their chances of quality employment in a competitive digital-driven work world (beaumont et al., 2016). the 'knowing how' and 'knowing whom' career capital resources denote certain skills, knowledge, competencies and supportive information that can be successfully derived through their qualification studies. a course should generally address 'knowing what' and 'knowing why' when teaching and developing 'knowing how' and 'knowing whom' skills. incurriculating employability implies that the curriculum content, teaching and learning process should develop students’ abilities to conceptualise their future lives and work by learning the practice of the discipline in formal and informal real-life work contexts and in greater collaboration between the university, industry and students. the teaching process should facilitate narrative articulation of and self-reflection on employability across the career capital resources to foster meaning-making of learning experiences and build confidence in the alignment between university studies and jobs and skills in demand (bennett, 2018; bridgstock et al., 2019; reid et al., 2021). the benefit of incurriculating the development of career capital resources for employability is that students can reflect on and assess their progress in developing these career capital resources and experience their university studies as personally more meaningful (bennett, 2018). career capital resource development may further enhance their confidence in job searching, job creation, networking for career advancement and managing their employability (bridgstock et al., 2019). research shows lack of skills and abilities as reasons for students’ low confidence of success in job hunting and gaining employment (beaumont et al., 2016). mandatory careers, employability and enterprise-related modules as part of the curriculum seem to increase students’ confidence in job searching, job creation intent and gaining employment (beaumont et al., 2016; ehiobuche et al., 2022). coetzee, m. (2023). students’ career capital resource needs for employability in the technology-driven work world. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 14(1), 136–150. 148 limitations and future research the study findings contributed new knowledge to the understanding of university students’ world of work awareness and career capital resource needs for employability in an emerging country context. however, it should be noted that the study was cross-sectional in nature and limited to a specific research setting in the field of economic and management sciences. the unique higher education setting and sample characteristics could have influenced the nature of the findings which cannot be generalised to other university settings and study fields. it would be interesting to replicate this study with students from different study fields across different higher education settings to explore whether the world of work awareness and career capital resource needs outlined in this study remain relevant. different contexts may expose variations in career capital resource needs because of varying approaches in qualification curriculum content for preparing students for the technology-driven work world. the study included only a single open-ended question which could have limited deeper probing of the career capital resource needs. notwithstanding the limitation of a single open-ended question, the narrative themes yielded rich data that could be categorised in terms of the career capital framework to inform career development support for students in the curriculum. conclusion the importance of the research findings has been shown through the plethora of research on the graduate employability agenda and the quest to prepare graduates for a technological advanced work world and job market. the concept of career capital resource development for graduate employability provided a meaningful theoretical lens to better understand students’ work world awareness, continued employability concerns for which they need a range of career capital resources, and the role that higher education can play through curriculation in preparing students for the work world. the study further extended career capital theory and its relevance for informing student career and employability support for the digital-driven work world in the higher education domain. the findings informed teaching and learning practices for graduate career and employability development. references arthur, m., claman, j., & defillippi, r. 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(2013). developing indigenous cultural competence: a model for implementing indigenous content into curricula. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 4(1), 39-63. 39 developing indigenous australian cultural competence: a model for implementing indigenous content into curricula helen flavell1, rosalie thackrah1, julie hoffman1 h.flavell@curtin.edu.au; r.thackrah@email.curtin.edu.au; j.hoffman@curtin.edu.au 1 faculty of health sciences, curtin university abstract this case study describes the implementation of a stand-alone unit on indigenous australian culture and health within a nursing and midwifery program, and presents quantitative and qualitative data from the university’s anonymous online student teaching and learning questionnaire. in doing so, this study aims to determine whether a single, compulsory unit has the capacity to develop graduate indigenous australian cultural competence. qualitative data from the nine teaching periods over the five years the unit was taught is analysed to determine student satisfaction and motivation. a total of 1742 students enrolled in the unit over five years and 748 completed the online questionnaire (a response rate of 43%). qualitative data from the same teaching and learning questionnaire is drawn on to highlight the impact of the unit on student attitudes towards aboriginal and torres strait islander peoples, as well as the pedagogical approaches adopted to teach compulsory aboriginal studies to predominately non-aboriginal students. data suggests that overall students were satisfied and engaged with the unit. for many the experience was transformative, not having had prior experience with indigenous australians or aboriginal studies’ content. a discrete unit on indigenous culture and health has the capacity to assist students to begin their journey to cultural competence. however, to be successful and sustainable, such a unit must be aligned with the three key areas identified in a reconciliation action plan: relationships, respect and opportunities. furthermore, key pedagogical approaches are required to ensure students are motivated to engage with the content. keywords: indigenous australian cultural competency, cross-cultural graduate capability, indigenising curricula, cross-cultural pedagogy, intercultural education it is with respect that we acknowledge the nyungar people and their elders, who are the custodians and guardians of this land on which we live. we thank the elders for their continued guidance and support of the work that we do in the interests of improving outcomes for all aboriginal and torres strait islanders. introduction across all typical markers to gauge a population’s well-being—education, employment, socio-economic standing, representation in the criminal justice and child protection systems, and health—the statistics for aboriginal and torres strait islanders are disproportionately poor (turale & miller, 2006). the literature concerned with improving outcomes for aboriginal mailto:h.flavell@curtin.edu.au mailto:r.thackrah@email.curtin.edu.au mailto:j.hoffman@curtin.edu.au flavell, h., thackrah, r. & hoffman, r. (2013). developing indigenous cultural competence: a model for implementing indigenous content into curricula. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 4(1), 39-63. 40 and torres strait islanders1 consistently emphasises the need for the provision of culturally appropriate inclusive practices characterised by partnerships between indigenous and nonindigenous australians across all sectors. therefore, whilst other approaches are required, one important mechanism for improving outcomes for aboriginal and torres strait islanders is to develop culturally competent graduates able to demonstrate an understanding of indigenous australian culture and history, as well as the ability to communicate effectively with community to deliver culturally appropriate and effective services (behrendt, larkin, griew & kelly, 2012; charles sturt university, 2013; grote, 2008; leaders in indigenous medical education (lime); universities australia, 2011). recent reports, such as that of universities australia (2011), indicate that there is increasing emphasis on graduate indigenous cultural competency in australian higher education. in fact the universities australia report recommends that indigenous cultural competency be included as a formal graduate attribute and this recommendation stems from earlier work by the indigenous higher education advisory council (2006) as well as individual aboriginal and torres strait islander academics (collard, walker & dudgeon, 1998; nakata, 2007a). the review of higher education access and outcomes for aboriginal and torres strait islander people final report (behrendt et al., 2012) similarly recommends aligning graduate capabilities and indigenous knowledge and perspectives (recommendation 14). according to yorke (2006) graduate attributes are: the skills, understandings and personal attributes that make an individual more likely to secure employment and be successful in their chosen occupations to the benefit of themselves, the workforce, the community and the economy (p.8). currently, most australian universities include an attribute related to ethical and inclusive engagement with communities, cultures and nations (oliver, 2011, p. 3). according to universities australia (2011) only nine australian universities include reference to indigenous people and cultures within their graduate attributes or qualities, although most require their graduates to develop skills in cross-cultural awareness and communication. attributes related to cultural competency, however, tend to be embedded into the curriculum poorly and rarely measured and assured (oliver, 2011). generally speaking, academics are most comfortable with embedding discipline specific attributes (de la harpe et al., 2009). what makes embedding cultural competency as a generic graduate attribute challenging is that cultural competency and cross-cultural education are complex and specialised areas of teaching and learning, and few academics have the confidence, skills and ability to teach and assess these capabilities effectively (de la harpe et al., 2009; nash, mieklejohn & sacre, 2006). added to this, in the context of postcolonial australia, a nation founded through colonisation, many academics have a lack of knowledge and understanding of aboriginal and torres strait islander cultures and history (universities australia, 2011), they frequently cannot make the connection between their unit and indigenous perspectives and are anxious about undertaking inappropriate activities (williamson & dalal, 2007). furthermore, in some instances, researchers in the field report ‘territorial’ responses from non-aboriginal academics who identify an already overcrowded curriculum as a barrier to including indigenous australian history, culture and knowledge (gunstone, 2009; nakata, nakata & chin, 2008). another related factor to preventing the incorporation of indigenous content in a way that supports cultural competence development is that indigenous perspectives and experience often gets lost among broader considerations leading to ‘one off’ presentations by an indigenous guest speaker (wimshurst, marchetti & allard, 2004). whilst this can be a starting point and a way to build relationships, it is not enough to continue with guest lectures; a more scaffolded approach is required (universities australia, 2011). 1 in respect of the diversity of indigenous australians, ‘aboriginal and torres strait islander’ has been used in this paper to refer to the original custodians and guardians of the land which makes up what is now known as australia. however, at times, ‘indigenous australians’ is also used as this is a phrase often found in the literature exploring aboriginal and torres strait islander cultural competency. the authors acknowledge that many of these terms are contentious and problematic, and that some aboriginal people prefer to be identified by their language group. the authors respectfully apologise for any offence that may be caused. flavell, h., thackrah, r. & hoffman, r. (2013). developing indigenous cultural competence: a model for implementing indigenous content into curricula. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 4(1), 39-63. 41 despite these challenges, a number of universities and disciplines have worked to embed indigenous australian perspectives into their curriculum. for example, it is a requirement that pre-service teachers complete compulsory content on indigenous australia to achieve the graduate teacher standards (australian institute for teaching and school leadership, 2012). in engineering at the university of south australia work has been done to include indigenous knowledge into the curriculum to develop the cultural competence of graduates (duff, brodie, furber-gillick, quinn & smith, 2011), as is also the case in criminal justice studies at griffith university (wimshurst et al., 2004) and queensland university of technology (grote, 2008). heath education curricula has made some significant progress towards embedding relevant content (grote, 2008; nash et al., 2006; ranzijn et al., 2008; raymond, 2008), the development of a curriculum framework for medical education (phillips, 2004) as well as efforts to showcase best practice case studies (lime, 2012). furthermore, health workforce australia has announced a new national project to develop an indigenous curriculum framework for incorporation into undergraduate tertiary level health professional training (health workforce australia, 2013). more broadly, however, several universities are leading the way by committing to embedding indigenous knowledge into all undergraduate programs of study, including charles sturt university (grote, 2008; universities australia, 2011), the university of south australia (duff et al., 2011), the university of western sydney (anning, 2010), and griffith university (universities australia, 2011). although not a complete list, the range and level of activity in higher education to address indigenous cultural competence confirms the need for non-aboriginal academic staff to build their skills and confidence to teach in this area in a culturally respectful manner. aims this case study aims to contribute to the body of knowledge on teaching indigenous australian content to non-indigenous australian students by addressing the research question: can a compulsory stand-alone unit develop graduate indigenous australian competence? specifically the study will: 1. provide a conceptual framework for indigenous australian cultural competence. 2. describe the context, pedagogical approaches and implementation of a compulsory unit titled indigenous australian health and culture (iahc) within a nursing and midwifery program. 3. provide evidence of the outcomes of iahc in relation to graduate indigenous australian cultural competence. 4. explore some of the complexities of teaching at the ‘cultural interface’ (nakata, 2007a). furthermore, the paper provides some insight and practical strategies for managing the tensions inherent in this space. conceptual framework: indigenous australian cultural competence cultural competence is a complex and contested concept (thackrah & thompson, 2013; universities australia, 2011) which builds on other related terms such as cultural awareness, cultural security, cultural respect, cultural safety (gower, nakata & mackean, 2007), culturally responsive (macmillan, 2013) and cultural humility (tervalon & murray-garcia, 1998). most of these concepts come from health. in australia, in relation to aboriginal and torres strait islander peoples, there is debate regarding what constitutes cultural competence and whether it can ever be achieved by non-aboriginal people (nakata, 2007a). criticism has also been made of ‘cultural competency’ which has an implied finality that does not mirror the life-long self-reflection required to be culturally responsive (macmillan, 2013). according to coffin (2007), cultural awareness is the first step, and typically this form of cross-cultural education provides information about basic cultural protocols and appropriate, flavell, h., thackrah, r. & hoffman, r. (2013). developing indigenous cultural competence: a model for implementing indigenous content into curricula. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 4(1), 39-63. 42 respectful ways of being in aboriginal communities. cultural safety, however, is more sophisticated and requires individuals to combine cultural awareness with an ability to adjust their treatment of an aboriginal person (evident through actions and gestures). significantly, cultural safety is a term that developed in the 1980s in new zealand in response to the colonial history of aotearoa (new zealand) and specifically out of maori consumer dissatisfaction with nursing care (eckermann et al., 2010, p. 184). following on from cultural safety, cultural security includes brokerage and protocols where (a) all parties involved are equally important and informed, and (b) where an aboriginal context is formally recognised through the involvement of community and elders (coffin, 2007, pp. 22-23). the terms cultural awareness, safety, security and competence are often used loosely and interchangeably (coffin, 2007; grant, parry & geurin, 2013), risking not only the complexity of cultural competence being overlooked but also a tendency for students and graduates to assume that they have attained the level of competence required or, in the case of academics, sufficiently addressed the ‘issue’ in their course or curriculum. it is important to consider that one-off experiences have limited capacity to achieve cultural competence (lawrence & bunche, 1996). similarly, recent research has demonstrated that mere cultural awareness training is not sufficient to develop cultural competence as it tends to essentialise indigenous australians, ignoring the diversity within populations and often evokes a static notion of culture rather than culture as dynamic and changing (carpenter-song, nordquest schwallie & longhofer, 2007; downing & kowal, 2011). gower et al. (2007) define indigenous australian cultural competence as building on the attributes of awareness, knowledge, understanding, sensitivity, interaction, proficiency and skill to interact with others. it can be viewed as a non-linear and dynamic process which integrates and interlinks individuals with the organisation and its systems (p. 36). their definition is useful as it recognises the developmental continuum of cultural competence (campinha-bacote, 2002), the need for critical self-reflexivity (banks, 1994), an interrogation of the power relations inherent in intercultural exchange, as well as the skills, knowledge and understanding to adapt service delivery to meet indigenous australians’ needs (coffin, 2007). in the (post) colonial state, graduate indigenous australian cultural competence is of particular relevance due to the legacy of historical and enduring racism on aboriginal and torres strait islander peoples. pedagogical approaches in the context of australian history, education and, indeed, the formation of the nation on the white australia policy, developing graduate capabilities of cultural competence in relation to aboriginal and torres strait islander presents particular challenges (gunstone, 2009). for example, according to the indigenous higher education advisory council (2006) knowledge of indigenous history and culture is very low in white australia—possibly even at a trivial level (p.8). similarly, universities australia (2011) argue that many academics and students confirm that they have had little or no exposure to this topic at school or university levels (p. 60). as a consequence of this lack of knowledge and experience, the majority of non-aboriginal australians hold stereotypical notions (white, frawley & dang thi, 2013), and many have developed their opinions on indigenous australians through the media and popular mythology (for example, extensive, ‘special’ social security payments for aboriginal australians) (atsic, 1999; duffy, harju, huittinen & trayner, 1999; mickler, 1998; morgan & golding, 2010; white et al., 2013). for non-aboriginal students who comprise the dominant group there is a continuing notion that minority groups such as aboriginal and torres strait islanders are offered advantages they as the ‘majority’ cannot access (wimshurst et al., 2004). added to this, no individual wants the stigma of being identified as a racist (o'dowd, 2010). yet, as has been noted in research into non-aboriginal student attitudes, racist discourses about indigenous australians tend to be normalised in everyday life (mitchell, flavell, h., thackrah, r. & hoffman, r. (2013). developing indigenous cultural competence: a model for implementing indigenous content into curricula. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 4(1), 39-63. 43 every & ranzijn, 2011). teaching in this space, therefore, requires skilful pedagogical approaches that draw students to express their ideas whilst shifting their viewpoint. with limited understanding and knowledge of indigenous cultures, history and world views, combined with a lack of knowledge about the history of colonisation in australia and popular stereotypes, many non-indigenous students do not immediately appreciate the relevance of a course or unit on indigenous australian studies. the published literature in the field clearly identifies student resistance to compulsory indigenous content as a barrier to developing indigenous cultural competence (charles sturt university, 2013; o'dowd, 2010; wimshurst et al., 2004). interestingly, negative responses from students from the majority group tend to fall into common patterns of objection which have been recorded in other (post) colonial contexts (crey & perrault, 2007). these include those mentioned above such as the perceived special treatment of minorities, a lack of understanding of the relevance of the content to them and their profession, arguments that all this ‘happened in the past’ and to other groups (for example, the forced removal of poor english children who were sent to australia), and why don’t aboriginal and torres strait islanders ‘just move on.’ although not representative of all students’ reactions to compulsory content on aboriginal and torres strait islanders, resistance is evident from non-aboriginal students. similarly, it is important to recognise that not all students will respond the same way depending on their own experiences, understanding and knowledge of their racial identity when they enter a unit such as iahc. in fact, for some students there may never be a shift in attitudes during the course. anecdotal evidence from academics teaching the unit explored here (iahc) suggests that any transformation may occur years after completion; an ex-student contacted a lecturer up to two years later to let them know they finally ‘got it!’ this reflects the specialised nature of teaching and curriculum development in cultural competency education and the complexities of intercultural education. in north america, and in the field of whiteness studies, there has been considerable work in the area of racial identity formation, which has been applied to cultural competence (for example howard, 1999; singleton & linton, 2006). many of the models of racial identity, such as those developed by helms (1990), indicate that the realisation of oneself as a racialised being is a process—part of a continuum—rather than something which is achieved through a single event (campinha-bacote, 2002). helm’s (1990) theory of racial identify formation implies that singular exposure to alternative views/positionings of self/identity are not enough to develop cultural competence particularly when one is part of the dominant group. consistent with the conceptualisations of cultural competence provided above, oneoff experiences are not sufficient to develop cultural competence as ideally, indigenous content and cross-cultural/cultural competence pedagogy should be scaffolded vertically through the curriculum (as well as horizontally) (universities australia, 2011). this gives students the opportunity to build on their knowledge and experiences in this area as they progress through their degree. indeed even the most experienced person working within aboriginal contexts needs to be aware that cultural competencies have to be regularly evaluated and adjusted to meet changing cultural environments (macmillan, 2013). academics involved in cross-cultural education need to have reflected on their own racial and ethnic identity and understand the journey undertaken in recognising one’s own particular racial and ethnic biases and cultural lenses. they also require a sound knowledge of cross-cultural pedagogy as cross-cultural learning and identity development are complex processes that involve many factors such as age, gender, ethnicity, race, social-class, and sexual orientation (mcalister & irvine, 2000, p. 6). as already argued, teaching indigenous australian health and culture presents challenges given the nation’s dominant colonial discourses and the prevalence of western epistemology (jarvis-selinger et al., 2008) and ontology in the academy (nakata, 2007b). the associated challenges are particularly evident when the inclusion of indigenous australian content is compulsory (asmar & page, 2009). as suggested earlier, students move along a continuum of cultural competence to recognise their culturally specific world view, biases, ethnicity and associated privilege and for many flavell, h., thackrah, r. & hoffman, r. (2013). developing indigenous cultural competence: a model for implementing indigenous content into curricula. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 4(1), 39-63. 44 white australian students one of the stages of this continuum is guilt (helms, 1990; williams, 2000). to address such stumbling blocks to learning and cross-cultural capability development, the learning experiences need to be constructed and sequenced to support and motivate student learning. they also need to provide a framework for effective interventions to promote attitudinal change. for example, notions of white privilege should not be introduced early in the curriculum as this can enhance feelings of guilt and stall the development of an integrated, positive racial identity (mcallister & irvine, 2000). the design and implementation of indigenous australian health and culture indigenous australian health and culture was introduced to the school of nursing and midwifery (somn) in 2006 and taught to first year students. significantly, the unit received the australian office for learning and teaching neville bonner award in 2010 for outstanding contribution to indigenous education and reflects current good practice as identified in the literature (universities australia, 2011). the success of iahc and its approach, including the development of relationships between the university’s centre for aboriginal studies (cas) and somn staff, has enabled and supported the introduction of a new compulsory unit which is taught across the faculty of health sciences’ 21 disciplines to approximately 2,300 students annually (kickett, hoffman & flavell, 2013 ). the introduction of this new wide-scale compulsory unit in 2011 was a major achievement for the university and aligns with the university’s commitment to a reconciliation action plan (rap). such plans are structured around three key areas: relationships, respect and opportunities (reconciliation australia, 2005-2012), and iahc was designed and implemented with these three areas in mind. for example, although the majority of enrolled students in iahc were non-indigenous (both australian and international), iahc, which was informed by research and best practice, was part of a multi-pronged approach to increase indigenous australian participation in nursing and midwifery. furthermore, it aimed to improve outcomes for aboriginal and torres strait islanders and address the discrepancy between outcomes for indigenous australians and the broader non-indigenous australian population (office of aboriginal and torres strait islander health, 2002). indigenous australian health and culture worked in conjunction with several other initiatives including: relationships • links with aboriginal community and health organisations to provide recruitment pathways for students; • a student mentoring program; respect • cross-cultural training for non-indigenous staff (teaching and administrative); opportunities • the establishment of an indigenous australian academic staff position within sonm; • scholarships for aboriginal and torres strait islander students; • reserved places for aboriginal and torres strait islander students within sonm’s programs. this multi-faceted approach reflecting the rap framework was (and is) needed due to the number and complexity of barriers limiting indigenous australian participation in health professions and their access to culturally secure services. according to universities australia (2011) merely embedding content is not enough to achieve cultural competence, there needs to be a systematic approach in higher education to achieve graduate indigenous australian cultural competence. in the same way, many working in the field have flavell, h., thackrah, r. & hoffman, r. (2013). developing indigenous cultural competence: a model for implementing indigenous content into curricula. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 4(1), 39-63. 45 identified the need for key principles to underpin any ‘indigenisation of the curriculum’ (nash et al., 2006; ranzijn, mcconnochie, nolan & day, 2007). one of those key principles—identified in a rap—is partnerships with community. modelling the importance of partnerships in improving outcomes for indigenous australians (duff et al., 2011; gunstone, 2009; white et al., 2013), iahc developed from relationships built over a long period of time between sonm, cas, aboriginal elders, community groups and aboriginal health workers. in fact, without the strong central partnership between cas and sonm this unit would have been impossible and certainly its expansion to the new facultywide compulsory unit unlikely. initial collaboration toward the unit between cas and sonm began in 1997, however, the introduction of a memorandum of understanding (mou) in 2002 helped strengthen the relationship. on the basis of this mou—which privileges aboriginal terms of reference—staff from cas led the implementation of iahc and the development of the curriculum. the mou was an important symbol of respect essential to building trusting relationships. the centre for aboriginal studies and sonm continue to work collaboratively to teach the new interprofessional first-year unit that has replaced iahc; which is co-coordinated by a nyungar and wadjela (non-aboriginal) academic and continues the tradition of respectful collaboration. table 1 below provides an overview of the weekly topics; guest lectures were provided by local aboriginal health workers and staff from cas. table 1: iahc weekly topics week tutorial topic/s 1 kaya…welcome… welcome to country – by nuyngar elder cultural spaces and indigenous identity terms of reference and terminology 2 why bother? working in indigenous australian contexts-relevance to nursing? historical overview – past policies and practices 3 contemporary indigenous australian contexts identity and diversity. guest indigenous speaker 4 indigenous terms of reference indigenous australian terms of reference in practice guest indigenous speaker 5 issues in cross-cultural communication working in indigenous australian contexts guest indigenous speaker 6 indigenous health aboriginal health: getting better? getting involved? guest indigenous speaker flavell, h., thackrah, r. & hoffman, r. (2013). developing indigenous cultural competence: a model for implementing indigenous content into curricula. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 4(1), 39-63. 46 7 indigenous mental health guest indigenous speaker 8 contemporary issues in indigenous health indigenous health policy and practice today; brief history of indigenous health organisations; two systems of health care service, indigenous & mainstream; urban, remote & rural area issues; working towards a partnership in the delivery of care to indigenous australians; indigenous health care programs; role of the indigenous health worker guest indigenous speaker 9 contemporary view of indigenous health comparison of indigenous and mainstream health statistics; morbidity and mortality statistics in full; children’s health eg infant mortality, immunisation, infection; men’s health eg violence, injury, alcohol; women’s health e.g. fertility, diseases. guest indigenous speaker 10 practical strategies for effective working relationships ‘where to from here?’ taking into account the developmental continuum of cultural competency and the stages of the journey including a period of guilt for non-aboriginal students (helms, 1990; williams, 2000), iahc began with broad exposure to aboriginal and torres strait islander health issues and moved towards challenging the views and assumptions of students. understanding the emotional process of non-aboriginal australian students when exposed to aboriginal studies is important in assisting those teaching to support students on their journey. one of the key methods adopted in a carefully sequenced approach to the content is one of ‘no blame’ where students are encouraged to discuss a range of viewpoints in an informal and non-judgemental context. this helps students to explore their views with an understanding that this knowledge is new to them; this approach has been identified by others working in the field as an important element in creating a safe learning environment in which concerns can be raised and addressed whilst seeking to shift understanding (o'dowd, 2010; williamson & dalal, 2007). students were supported and at the same time challenged to reassess their ideas regarding indigenous australians—and how they have been constructed—through round table yarning sessions that model indigenous cultural pedagogies and protocols, mutual respect and draw the audience into the speaker’s circle (bessarab & ng'andu, 2010; yunkaporta & kirby, 2011). incorporating indigenous australian ways of teaching and learning in aboriginal studies is significant as it reconfirms aboriginal and torres strait islander ways of being and knowing, as well as emphasising that western pedagogy, although privileged in australian higher education, is one of many models of learning. similarly, students were challenged to explore where their knowledge of indigenous australia comes from. this was facilitated through a variety of guest indigenous australian lecturers, tutorial discussion and reflection, selected readings and assessment activities, and as many opportunities to engage with aboriginal people as possible. yarning with members of the stolen generation and hearing of experiences of racism and discrimination from flavell, h., thackrah, r. & hoffman, r. (2013). developing indigenous cultural competence: a model for implementing indigenous content into curricula. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 4(1), 39-63. 47 aboriginal professionals and fellow university students moves students to reflect on their assumptions and personalises statistics which, it has been argued, tend to be glibly repeated to the point where most non-indigenous australians no longer register their personal or community significance (morgan & golding, 2010, p.12) such personalised encounters bring home the lived experience of aboriginal and torres strait islanders. this is the essence of the unit which incorporated real people with real stories to tell, and demonstrates why there was such an emphasis on employing aboriginal tutors and lecturers. the respectful relationship between cas and sonm, which informed the unit, also enabled partnerships with indigenous organisations outside the university such as the marr mooditj foundation, which is a registered training organisation delivering courses in primary health care and enrolled nursing for aboriginal students. such networks have meant that a wide range of experts on indigenous australian health and culture have been willing to provide lectures. many of the lecturers are highly regarded experts who are in great demand, such as dr joan winch who is a respected nyungar elder, founder of marr mooditj, premier's indigenous leaders scholar and the recipient of national and international awards. the guest speakers are, therefore, not just experts in the field of indigenous health they are cultural knowledge holders who command respect in both indigenous and non-indigenous communities. whenever possible (to meet with tuition patterns in cas) iahc students were given the opportunity to meet and interview aboriginal students. such experiences are invaluable work-integrated-learning opportunities and a privilege for non-indigenous students who more often than not move in a world completely removed from the realities of life for indigenous australians. the learning experiences provided by iahc, therefore, go some way to challenging ‘cultural encapsulation’ (banks, 1994) or isolation, a barrier to cross-cultural competency. most importantly, however, the design and implementation of the unit was underpinned by relationships, respect and opportunities as outlined in the rap framework. methods student feedback on their learning experiences of iahc was gathered using evaluate, which is the university’s online unit evaluation survey. student feedback was collected from nine study periods from the first semester the unit was introduced in semester two, 2006, to semester two, 2010 (there are two semesters each year which are the two major annual teaching periods). as mentioned earlier, in 2011 iahc was replaced with a core interprofessional unit (kickett, hoffman & flavell, 2013 ). ethics approval to use anonymous student feedback data was granted through the university’s ethics committee. the online unit survey has eleven quantitative items and two qualitative items. the survey asks students to report their perceptions of what helps them to achieve the unit learning outcomes (items 1 to 7), their engagement and motivation (items 8 to 10) and overall satisfaction (item 11). for each quantitative item, students rate their level of agreement (strongly agree, agree, disagree strongly disagree) or select ‘unable to judge’ (tucker & pegden, 2010). the two qualitative items include ‘comment on the most helpful aspects of the unit’ and ‘how the unit might be improved’. over the nine semesters 1,742 students were enrolled in the unit and a total of 748 of those students responded to the online teaching questionnaire (with an overall response rate of 43%). flavell, h., thackrah, r. & hoffman, r. (2013). developing indigenous cultural competence: a model for implementing indigenous content into curricula. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 4(1), 39-63. 48 results quantitative data quantitative student feedback through the university’s online student survey for teaching and learning suggests that overall learning experiences were well received and valued (table 1). this is particularly so from the second year that iahc was offered (2007) onwards, where percentage agreement was at 80% and above (with the exception of semester one, 2009 for overall satisfaction). quantitative feedback from students indicates that the majority were satisfied with the teaching and the unit, which was above university averages for items 7 (teaching quality) and 8 (motivation) for seven of the nine semesters it was taught. for item 11 (overall satisfaction), iahc achieved above university percentage agreement for seven of the nine semesters it was taught. table 2: evaluate quantitative data for items 7, 8 and 11 (percentage agreement) year /semester student enrolment response rate item 7 teaching quality item 8 motivation item 11 overall satisfaction iahc university percentage agreement iahc university percentage agreement iahc university percentage agreement 2006/2 166 48% 62 78 67 82 51 80 2007/1 139 40% 82 80 87 83 83 82 2007/2 158 44% 90 80 89 83 90 81 2008/1 139 39% 93 81 85 84 87 82 2008/2 183 49% 83 82 89 84 91 83 2009/1 106 41% 91 82 95 84 79 83 2009/2 204 38% 95 83 85 84 91 83 2010/1 142 44% 95 83 92 85 85 83 2010/2 505 43% 78 84 73 85 67 84 qualitative feedback qualitative student comments similarly confirm that the teaching within the unit engaged and motivated students: “the entire unit was excellent. the enthusiasm and passion of the tutor encouraged us to attend each week – i liked going to class! there were definite learning outcomes and gave incentive to go and find out more…brilliant.” “every part of this unit was very interesting and i was motivated to do extra work.... i especially like how there was a range of group assignments and individual assignments. xxx was a great help, excellent teaching and guidance.” flavell, h., thackrah, r. & hoffman, r. (2013). developing indigenous cultural competence: a model for implementing indigenous content into curricula. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 4(1), 39-63. 49 “i found this unit to be very appropriate and informative, the guest speakers were all fantastic, i noticed that of all the units for sem 2 this unit was consistent with people showing up to lectures right through to the last, whereas others units decreased to 6-8 students by the end of semester.” similarly, being able to attract—through respectful partnerships—aboriginal health professionals and experts was also well received and assisted students to appreciate the diversity of indigenous australians and their experience. “having people who are actively involved in the health care of aboriginal australians made the unit real and relevant.” “guest lecturers gave relevant and diverse experiences to expand students’ views.” “i feel because xxx, an indigenous australian, was my tutor and he was very open to informing students of the difficulties most australian aborigines face i was helped to understand the problems the indigenous australians face in their everyday lives. i am now more tolerant of why & how some people respond to oppression. i think that in the future i would like to work in remote communities. i will be continuing my studies on indigenous australian culture and health problems.” “i gained a better understanding of the aboriginal culture and was made aware that there are many groups of aboriginal people throughout australia all with their own culture. the most useful part of the course was when xxx told her story.” “i really enjoyed this unit especially the interview this really helped me to understand what the whole unit was about and i got a deeper understanding of what indigenous australians have been through and why things are the way they are now.” consistent with the literature, and as the feedback from students of iahc indicates, the reality for the majority of urban non-indigenous australians entering the tertiary system is that they frequently have not met an aboriginal person nor do they have knowledge, or an understanding, of the history of colonisation in australia and the profound effect of historical, socio-cultural and political factors on the well-being of aboriginal and torres strait islander peoples. “it was interesting and learning about our history was good, the first time.” “having minimal interaction with indigenous australian people, and having never been involved in any indigenous studies before (in previous university degree). i learned a lot about various factors that affect indigenous health. i also learned about resources i can access in order to learn more on various topics, and the knowledge i have gained will help me when i am working in indigenous contexts.” “i only wish that all students could have the opportunity to do this unit as i think that would help a lot.” echoing non-aboriginal students’ views a comment from an aboriginal student of iahc indicates that it comes as no surprise that non-aboriginal students have a lack of understanding and knowledge of aboriginal and torres strait islanders, their history and culture. flavell, h., thackrah, r. & hoffman, r. (2013). developing indigenous cultural competence: a model for implementing indigenous content into curricula. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 4(1), 39-63. 50 “…being aboriginal. it gave other students an idea of ab’l issues and the way it affects us” the sequencing of the learning experiences, including the learning environment or tone of interactions, was created to enable adequate space for reflection and the development of students’ awareness of their own ethnic and racial self-identity, worldviews and belief systems. students were encouraged to explore a range of texts from an indigenous perspective, including films, plays, television documentaries and fiction. importantly, the discussions that ensued in the tutorial groups from these texts and the unit readings are focussed on understanding the importance of privileging aboriginal terms of reference as a health care professional when dealing with indigenous australian clients. “having an environment, and tutor that allows ++group discussion is very helpful as it evokes a lot of different questions, ideas etc which overall improves the quality of our learning. the tutorials have flexibility in content in this regard which is great.” “xxx’s unbiased view point allowed our class discussions that at time got quite heated, to see two points of view and be more open minded. i will certainly see other races differently after taking this class and may better be able to empathise with them.” “it was well designed, in the way that it looked at everything to do with indigenous health. it started off with colonisation/history and then gently led to other broader sections.” “an interesting semester. i was not quite sure what to expect on the first day of class. i think just having this subject is helpful enough in being able to understand the injustice of our fellow indigenous australians. allowing students to be brave enough to have their say without being judged. wish more units were like this.” “the unit was run in informal sessions that allowed for personal expression and growth. the unit presents a variety of experiences and allows students to individually develop without fear of judgement and without being pushy. very skilful!” students commented on the transformational nature of the journey provided by the unit, which spoke to the very core of the individual student’s identity, self-perception and understanding of australia and their place within it. quantitative feedback suggests that iahc has raised the confidence of the majority of students to positively interact with indigenous australians and suggests the beginning of their journey along the continuum of indigenous intercultural competency. “this unit has not only helped me understand aspects of indigenous culture but also their people. this is such a fulfilling unit that kept me interested and prepared for my interaction with indigenous people. this unit is the first step to help ‘close the gap’, by involving students and teachers to help create a better understanding of issues faced by indigenous people.” “i think the unit has a lot of potential.. i picked up concepts that i wouldn’t have without this unit that will stay with me for my whole career” “the unit has helped me gain a greater understanding of how past events have impacted on today and future generations of indigenous people in relation to their health. also for use for nurses to recognise the importance of culturally appropriate communication when treating a indigenous person.” flavell, h., thackrah, r. & hoffman, r. (2013). developing indigenous cultural competence: a model for implementing indigenous content into curricula. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 4(1), 39-63. 51 “i enjoyed every aspect of this unit, i found it very helpful to be able to talk to the whole class and the tutor about very controversial issues. i learnt so much about the stolen generations. i feel that i am better prepared for indigenous clients thanks to this unit.” discussion student feedback from the university’s online student survey of teaching and learning indicates that the majority of students were motivated by the teaching and unit design, and were satisfied with the unit. general lower student satisfaction in 2006, its first iteration, likely reflects teething issues in the unit design, delivery, coordination, and possibly challenges related to disciplinary cultural change. as has been discussed, compulsory indigenous australian content is challenging to teach when the relevance of the content is not always immediately apparent to predominately european students who are unaware of the privilege associated with their racial and cultural identity. similarly, international students not planning to work in australia may also initially question the value of the content until the application of the knowledge gained in iahc is applied to other minority groups and local indigenous peoples. in this way, intercultural education provides opportunities for students to develop not just cultural skills, but also other key graduate capabilities such as communication and reflective skills through the exploration of differing cultural perspectives and practices. for example, communication skills can be enhanced by opening students’ eyes to different ways of communicating and through encouraging reflection on their own communication style and behaviour. the comments above suggest that iahc is contributing to students developing an awareness of different cultural communication practices and the need to alter communication in different contexts with different people. furthermore, units such as iahc challenge students to reconsider their cultural perspective as one of many as western authority undergoes a consistent unsettling through privileging aboriginal and torres strait islander viewpoints (williamson & dalal, 2007). students are, consequently, encouraged to develop an understanding of power and knowledge systems in racial terms thus supporting the development of critical thinking. for european australians this can be particularly transformative as students are given the opportunity to reflect on their own cultural and racial identity which is typically normalised; it is the neutral or invisible racial and ethnic identity against which all others are measured. for example, generally when white people (and dominant discourses) speak of ‘ethnic identities’ they are referring to groups other than european australian. naming whiteness and its associated privilege can be challenging for some students as most have given little or no thought to their racial identity and associated privilege, and how their own complacency could reinforce institutional and other forms of racism (lawrence & bunche, 1996).teaching indigenous australian cultural competence is thus challenging and complex as it often speaks directly to individuals’ own racial identity, unsettling and destabilising self-perceptions and value systems. minority groups, on the other hand, constantly negotiate the cultural interface; to survive they must learn the dominant group’s code (fanon, 1952). the story of one mature-aged non-indigenous student of iahc shows how the teaching team of iahc impacted positively on student views. this student began the course very negatively, resenting the compulsory nature of the unit, arguing that it was simply political correctness (grafton & lye, 2000). the student did not see its value or relevance to them as a professional. during the semester, however, the student’s views were transformed. the student recounted an experience at a dinner party they hosted where a guest began to make a racist joke about aboriginal people. the student reported in the tutorial—to their own surprise and their spouses’—how they had felt compelled to challenge their guest. the same student commented that the course had made them ‘take a look at’ themself, and that they flavell, h., thackrah, r. & hoffman, r. (2013). developing indigenous cultural competence: a model for implementing indigenous content into curricula. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 4(1), 39-63. 52 didn’t want their children to be as judgemental as they had been. the student wanted to ensure they understood australian history from an aboriginal perspective. this story highlights that many students do not initially appreciate the importance of a compulsory unit on indigenous australian studies. some students may never realise the importance of this content during a twelve-week course which is why it is important that content is scaffolded throughout a program of study. a unit such as iahc, however, does have the potential to shift the majority of students’ views if taught using an appropriate pedagogical approach that recognises the challenges and complexities of teaching in this space. furthermore, for sustained and meaningful change to occur the principles that inform a reconciliation action plan—which underpinned the design, implementation and continuation of iahc over five years—must be addressed. that is: relationships, respect and opportunities. a lack of aboriginal and torres strait islander academics and students has been documented by non-aboriginal administrators and the sector struggles with how to be more inclusive. the exploration of the iahc unit presented here provides some potential guidelines, however, in the rush to indigenise the curriculum and instil in all graduates indigenous cultural competency it is important that indigenous australian academics are not further overburdened and a critical understanding of cultural competency be embraced. research undertaken into aboriginal and torres strait islander academics shows there is already a large amount of unacknowledged cultural work that goes on (page & asmar, 2004, 2008). this is consistent with research into minority academics in the united states (tierney & bensimon, 1996). furthermore, the emotional labour for an aboriginal or torres strait islander academic associated with teaching non-indigenous students is considerable, as resistant and or racist non-indigenous students are common (asmar & page, 2009). the cultural knowledge and experience of aboriginal and torres strait islander academics, as well as their existing unacknowledged work, must be formally recognised and valued within the tertiary sector if the goal of graduate indigenous cultural competency is to be achieved. conclusion the qualitative comments from students of iahc indicate that the unit has impacted on the development of indigenous australian cultural competence. key to the success of the unit, however, was that it was designed and delivered in a partnership with aboriginal and nonaboriginal academics underpinned by a memorandum of understanding foregrounding aboriginal terms of reference. relationship building and reciprocity were key elements in the partnership. this was achieved through recognising the centrality and importance of relationships, the local nyungar community, and through recognising aboriginal knowledge as a ‘way of being’ linked strongly to spirituality, land and community rather than content to be inserted into curriculum (yunkaporta & kirby, 2011). these elements are crucial, particularly in a unit aimed at developing indigenous cultural competency, as the recreation of colonial structures would not model appropriate cultural sensitivity or create cultural safety (nakata, 2007b). these issues, amongst others, must be considered in developing indigenous cultural competency in australia and suggest that non-aboriginal academics and administrators require considerable staff development. the majority of academics do not have indigenous australian cultural skills for many of the same reasons that non-aboriginal students do not have these skills. consequently, they lack the understanding and confidence to teach indigenous content or indeed the ability to create a culturally safe environment for aboriginal and torres strait islander colleagues and students. changes are occurring, however, and if the current level of interest and engagement in inclusive curricula is any indication there is indeed hope for beginning graduates on their journey to indigenous cultural competence. further research is required, and this is beginning to be explored (for example, ewen & paul, 2012), on the impact of courses and programs such as iahc on graduate practice as well as flavell, h., thackrah, r. & hoffman, r. 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(2011). yarning up indigenous pedagogies: a dialogue about eight aboriginal ways of learning. in r. bell, g. milgate & n. purdie (eds.). two way teaching and learning: toward culturally reflective and relevant education victoria: acer press, (pp. 205–213). developing indigenous australian cultural competence: a model for implementing indigenous content into curricula abstract introduction aims conceptual framework: indigenous australian cultural competence pedagogical approaches the design and implementation of indigenous australian health and culture tutorial topic/s kaya…welcome… why bother? contemporary indigenous australian contexts methods results quantitative data discussion conclusion references thompson, j. and soccio, p. (2022). ‘this is what gets people hired!’: academic perspectives on employability skills in architecture and the potential impact of covid-19. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 13(1), 127–141. 127 the journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability issn: 1838-3815 (online) journal homepage: https://ojs.deakin.edu.au/index.php/jtlge/ ‘this is what gets people hired!’: academic perspectives on employability skills in architecture and the potential impact of covid-19 james thompson1 and pippa soccio1 corresponding author: james thompson (james.thompson1@unimelb.edu.au) 1 faculty of architecture, building and planning, the university of melbourne, australia abstract this article presents findings from a recent study of academic perspectives towards employability in architecture. the aim of the study was to gauge the perceived impact of covid-19 on employer values, and the degree to which these perceived changes were impacting teaching practices. thematic analysis of data from semi-structured interviews with eight members of a postgraduate architecture community in australia—including educators, practitioners, and students—revealed strong consensus. the relative value of skills such as teamwork and autonomy were deemed increasingly important following the widespread uptake of remote work. on the other hand, the value of competencies associated with the design process itself, as reflected in professional accreditation criteria, were perceived as stable. most enlightening were participants’ views on how they believe employability skills are encouraged, observed and judged in academic contexts. by reinforcing how employability skill development tends to rely on the discipline’s tacit enculturation practices, this study raises critical questions about quality assurance and assessment practices within the architectural community. embedded in these questions is the understanding that the challenge of employability skills assessment is entangled within the discipline’s failure to address its ongoing challenges around diversity, equity and inclusion. keywords employability, architecture, competency, assessment, quality assurance, accreditation, enculturation, covid-19 introduction as the world adapts to the covid-19 pandemic, its long-term impact has garnered much attention, including in higher education. like so many aspects of life, educational responses amidst the pandemic altered our everyday practices and priorities, in many cases foregrounding or accelerating changes inchoate before the pandemic struck. the study reported in this article was prompted by local observations and global commentary surrounding 2020’s emergency shift online and subsequent questions regarding its impact on architectural education and practice: how might short and long-term changes in learning, teaching and design practice affect notions of employability and professional competency? will those who graduate during or after the height of the pandemic be judged by potential employers against different criteria than those who graduated before 2020? how might emergent notions of competency inform ongoing discussions around assessment, pedagogy, and curricula? this project contributes to recent efforts to better understand, and ultimately align, disciplinary values with teaching and learning practices in ways that support emerging professionals. thompson, j. and soccio, p. (2022). ‘this is what gets people hired!’: academic perspectives on employability skills in architecture and the potential impact of covid-19. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 13(1), 127–141. 128 in architecture, as in other professional disciplines, the consensus between academics and employers is that employability skills—often described as ‘soft’ or ‘generic’, such as teamwork, time management and communication—are a curricular priority (see maroya et al., 2019). however, architecture has yet to embrace the efforts currently underway in other disciplines to develop mechanisms for effectively assessing these skills. although architecture has long acknowledged the problematic role of its ‘hidden curriculum’ for enculturating future professionals, it has yet to rectify the fact that the values communicated through its assessment practices do not align with its stated values or those identified by stakeholder groups. indeed, resolving the gap between values and practices may be an important step in finally addressing the decades of disturbing evidence on psychological distress amongst architecture students and the disproportionate impact of pedagogical practices on women and people of colour (see anthony, 1991; thompson and song, 2021; howlett brown, 2022). following a review of global and disciplinary discourses surrounding the concepts of competency and employability, most of which predates the pandemic, the paper discusses the study’s context and presents key findings with the intent of informing critical conversations in the discipline and followup studies. competency, employability skills and assessment as numerous scholars have argued, competence is a complex concept, ‘difficult to define and even more difficult to measure’ (levett-jones et al., 2011, p. 64). in architecture, the term competency is typically associated with accreditation and licensure criteria, and therefore closely linked to skills deemed necessary to carry out and manage the building design process. however, broader understandings of competency in scholarship point to ways in which the concept pervades everyday practice, including knowledge, knowing-in-action, people, and artefacts like tools (sandberg & pinnington, 2009, p. 1143). the inclusion of relational and contextual dimensions immediately suggests ways that competency in architectural practice can be understood as broader than accreditation criteria commonly adopted around the world. globally, and in australia beginning in the 1990s, the so-called competency movement has adopted the notion of generic skills—also known as ‘transferable’, ‘work-ready’, ‘essential’, ‘twenty-first century’ or ‘employability’ skills (oraison et al., 2019)—with the aim of ‘creating a more flexible and mobile labour force to increase productivity […] by redefining work as a set of transferable or ‘soft’ generic skills that is transportable and is the possession of the individual’ (windsor et al., 2012, p. 213). as gill (2020, p. 146) argues, this shift is reflective of the increasing pressure placed on universities to produce employable graduates, leading to ‘less focus on philosophical and higherorder thinking skills and greater focus on being job-ready.’ despite acknowledging the value of employability skills, a key challenge is how universities and university teachers balance these skills alongside the demands for discipline-specific knowledge and skills (badcock et al., 2010, p. 442). in certain countries like australia, each university develops a set of graduate attributes derived from the values and expectations of various stakeholders with the intention that these are subsequently mapped and integrated into curricula and assessment designs (askland et al., 2012, p. 3-4) . any discussion of quality assurance in relation to graduate competency and employability thus flows directly into the topics of assessment and accreditation. despite criticism and cynicism towards accreditation processes across the disciplines (see timpson & bayerlein, 2021), changes in accreditation criteria have been shown to impact learning (volkwein et al., 2006) precisely because assessment and assessment practices have a significant impact on learning quality (ostwald & askland, 2012a, p. 76). assessment, when designed well, supports students ‘by determining the agenda for learning, guiding attention to issues that matter, promoting student self-regulation, fostering reflection and providing information about progress’ (ostwald & askland, 2012a, p. 76). ostwald and askland (2012b), however, emphasise that assessment is ‘rarely simply pedagogical or altruistic in its intent; it is typically driven by a range of externally derived thompson, j. and soccio, p. (2022). ‘this is what gets people hired!’: academic perspectives on employability skills in architecture and the potential impact of covid-19. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 13(1), 127–141. 129 standards and expectations, all of which have political, social and ethical implications’ (p. 81).this is because stakeholder groups have vested interests in assessment of student learning, and therefore contribute to the setting of expectations codified as graduate attributes (askland et al., 2012, p. 3). finally, such processes are designed to adapt to changing industry practices and expectations. for instance, in australia, universities solicit feedback about their courses through monitoring and benchmarking mechanisms ‘to ensure that essential knowledge is relevant and current and addresses changes in industry standards’ (oraison et al., 2019, p. 174). through this engagement process, employability skills like teamwork, communication, and time management have been consistently identified as essential by employers across the professions long before the pandemic. moreover, their value relative to technical skills has evidently increased over time (deming, 2017). with some variation in relative significance and between disciplines, studies have shown broad acceptance of employability skills amongst academics, students, and graduates, as well as consensus that employability skill development be integrated within disciplinary learning structures (dela harpe & radloff, 2006). on the other hand, studies also reveal discrepancies between assessment/accreditation criteria and employability criteria in the form of job listings (oraison et al., 2019). historically, employability skills have not been assessed explicitly within university assessment designs, meaning employers have not been provided with direct indication of a graduate’s potential workplace-readiness via such metrics. however, over the past decade or so, calls for new approaches to assessment posit that ‘if the development of generic skills is truly prioritised in university teaching, it should be addressed by academic assessment’ (badcock et al., 2010, p. 444). at present, a range of disciplines, including nursing (song & mccreary, 2020), media and communication (gill, 2020), science (sarkar et al., 2020), business (cotronei-baird, 2020), and engineering (burnett et al., 2021) are directing efforts to integrate employability skills into curricula. this includes, for instance within nursing, reviewing the range of direct observation tools for assessing students undertaking authentic clinical activities (ekman et al., 2020). whilst there remains significant room for improvement and innovation in this space, the focus on authentic assessment of employability skills ostensibly lays at the forefront of the ongoing competency movement. the present study, whilst not an attempt to evidence or critique competency or employability skills as such, does acknowledge that neither of these concepts are value-free (windsor et al., 2012). bridgstock’s (2009) critique of employability skills as narrowly focused and employer-centric rather than employee-centric also remains a key reminder to foreground future practitioners. likewise, it is essential to recognise recent work that critiques the broader ‘employability agenda’ (tomlinson & le huu nghia, 2020) and the troubling lack of nuance surrounding student perspectives on the topic (lock & kelly, 2020). ultimately, employability is understood as ‘both contextual and relational as opposed to just an individual problem in accessing favourable labour market returns’ (tomlinson & le huu nghia, 2020). the premise for the present study is that, amidst the values of various disciplinary stakeholders— explicit or otherwise, aligned or otherwise—the perspectives of academics responsible for delivering curricula and assessing student learning represent a linchpin of sorts. as cotronei-baird (2020) has recently noted, ‘there is a dearth of research on academics’ understanding of employability skills and on the extent to which they integrate employability skills development into their teaching and assessment practice’ (p. 204). the trouble evidently is that ‘while [employability] skills and attributes are necessarily implicated in all academic work, their development is often tacitly assumed’ (johnson et al., 2015, p. 1). certain beliefs underpinning this tacit assumption emerged in the findings from the present study, as discussed below. in comparing academics’ espoused understanding of employability skills and reported practice against their actual teaching practices, cotronei-baird (2020) identified a disjuncture between the two. such findings contribute to the idea that ‘employability skills are not systematically and consistently integrated into teaching and assessment practice’ (dyki et al., 2021, p. 231). in the recent study conducted by dyki et al., the majority of academics were ‘mostly ‘discussing’ employability skills, with little opportunities for students to thompson, j. and soccio, p. (2022). ‘this is what gets people hired!’: academic perspectives on employability skills in architecture and the potential impact of covid-19. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 13(1), 127–141. 130 develop and enhance the skills in practice’ (dyki et al., 2021, p. 231). within the architecture context, the hope is that the present study can establish the basis for deeper exploration, including direct observation of teaching and assessment practices, as has been conducted in other disciplines (see cotronei-baird, 2020). this can then inform targeted guidance for leadership and professional development around employability skill development. employability in architecture as the present study context was a postgraduate architecture community, it is important to question where architecture sits in the above discussion on competence, employability, assessment and accreditation. as mentioned, and as in other disciplines, consensus exists between architecture teachers and employers on the importance of employability skills. for instance, a study by the architects accreditation council of australia (aaca) published just before the pandemic found ‘strong alignment between academics and practitioners about the importance of most skills. critical thinking, problem solving, communication, time management and collaboration are all highly rated by both’ (maroya et al., 2019, p. 6). furthermore, the study found that, ‘the key qualities sought when employing graduates are enthusiasm and a willingness to learn, along with the ability to collaborate and work effectively in teams’ (maroya et al., 2019, p. 11). findings from this study suggest that the architecture community, at least in australia, has not raised significant concerns in terms of how graduates are considered more or less employable by educators or industry. this is distinguished from other disciplines in australia like engineering, which has recently proposed a wholesale redesign of its assessment approaches and a revisiting of its core competencies and curricular focus, with an emphasis on work-integrated learning (burnett et al., 2021). this is not to say that architecture is immune to criticism. there remains no effective mechanism for higher education providers, or design practices for that matter, to ensure the degree to which architecture graduates perform against these valued skills and attributes. the lack of any nation-wide requirement for work placements prior to graduation ostensibly contributes to—and is justified by— the ongoing impression within the architecture community that there are certain skills that fall outside universities’ responsibility to promote through assessment (see maroya et al., 2019). this is reflected in the updated 2021 criteria for accrediting architecture courses in australia, which identify professionalism and communication as ‘professional capabilities’ and position these as an ‘umbrella’ for the specific, and primarily technical, units of competency (aaca, 2021). whilst a deeper analysis of these units of competency is beyond the scope of this paper, it should be unsurprising that the emphasis remains on those associated with health, safety and wellbeing of building occupants, as well as issues around ethics and professional liability. again, as with any set of accreditation criteria, these can be understood as a reflection of the values and expectations held across stakeholders who contribute to their development. in the case of architecture, this encompasses a long tradition of maintaining a ‘hidden curriculum’ (see dutton, 1987). a generation ago, scholars raised sharp criticisms of architectural education in suggesting the problematic ways that cultural norms and values get passed to students. cuff (1991) observed the ‘macho, boot camp atmosphere’ (p. 128) widespread in studio culture, and others questioned why the hazing-like ritual of design juries remained as a core feature of architecture’s signature pedagogy despite the devastating impact on so many students, particularly women and people of colour (anthony, 1991; webster, 2005). arguing that such practices serve an enculturation function for the profession, stevens (1995) conceptually distinguished two types of inculcation in the studio: the scholastic or pedagogical approach to teaching explicit knowledge and skills versus the charismatic mode of ‘transferring embodied cultural capital’ (p. 117). the latter type of inculcation, stevens (1998) argues, is how architectural education ‘favors the privileged’ by ignoring privilege (pp. 189). importantly, stevens (1998) makes the case that the socialising function of architectural education is an inherent feature to any profession; the problem is that, within architecture, this occurs through tacit mechanisms and therefore reproduces problematic structures of power and privilege. insofar as employability skills fall under the charismatic side of the equation, which many of them ostensibly thompson, j. and soccio, p. (2022). ‘this is what gets people hired!’: academic perspectives on employability skills in architecture and the potential impact of covid-19. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 13(1), 127–141. 131 do, they tend to fall outside the realm of assessment design. the recent investigation of the bartlett school of architecture (see howlett brown, 2022), one of the discipline’s most recognised providers globally, underscores the lack of progress made since widespread concerns about architectural culture and pedagogy were first identified. the report’s findings support the notion that architecture schools and industry collectively and systemically contribute to a culture of ‘favouritism,’ ‘unhealthy habits’ and ‘psychological games.’ importantly, the report authors tie these persistent cultural features to concerns for diversity, inclusion and pedagogical practices—including common studio feedback mechanisms. one reason that architecture is yet to follow other professional disciplines in developing ways to explicitly assess employability skills can be attributed to the heavy focus on design-based learning and widespread dependence on practitioners as educators. the sense that design itself is a mysterious, individualised and open-ended endeavour leads to the impression that becoming an architect is also comprised of such features. in other words, architectural culture conflates the design process with its pedagogical approach, thereby justifying tacit teaching practices (thompson, 2019). against this backdrop, askland and ostwald (2012) raise the juxtaposition of disciplinary values and higher-education practices through their observation that ‘architecture and design are engaged in a struggle to maintain a balance between professional culture—with its acceptance of subjective judgement by expert designers—and the quality assurance expectations of modern higher-education institutions’ (p. 47). although their work focusses on the assessment of creativity—referring to it as ‘a task which is more complex and nuanced than the assessment of technical skills and factual knowledge’ (askland and ostwald, 2012, p. 47)—the same might be said for the wider suite of employability skills valued within the academy, as reported here. certainly, there are many examples of teamwork, for instance, being assessed at the subject/module-level, and bohemia et al. (2006) marks one of the few published efforts to assess remote/cross-cultural collaboration skills. however, the fact that such attempts ostensibly lie outside quality assurance-related engagement with stakeholders suggests that ‘acceptance of subjective judgement by expert designers’ is winning out over ‘the quality assurance expectations of modern higher-education institutions’ on this front. in the meantime, employability skills tend to remain either implicit, as part of architecture’s longstanding hidden curriculum or as verbally-encouraged-but-not-codified learning outcomes. as revealed in the present study, academics continue to perceive these employability skills as valuable to employers whilst judging them informally through their interactions with students. the interviews presented here were conducted 18 months after covid-19 began disrupting higher education and architectural practice. the community had, as of late 2021, ostensibly passed through all five stages of grief (brown, 2020), reaching a period of reflection and imagining potential longterm repercussions. some observers emphasized the changes to the built environment itself, noting the ramifications wrought by geographically flexible living and working patterns (chayka, 2020), which in architecture’s case include ‘new digital tools and processes’ and new modes of design communication (ravenscroft, 2021). revealing the intersections between academia and practice, the industry’s adoption of digital practices and processes saw parallels in academic studio contexts through remote/hybrid learning and teaching platforms and processes (thompson et al., 2021a). finally, observers noted the pandemic’s impact on the community’s value systems, including spotlighting student and employee wellbeing (gill & bennett 2021; wittenoom & razbash, 2021; waite, 2021). these three foci reflect concerns for the resilience of, respectively, the architectural industry, architectural education and individual members of the community. by mid-2021, the discourse shifted towards forecasting the persistence of covid-associated changes to practices and values. one author predicted the emergence of the design industry’s own version of the gig economy, ‘focused less on full projects, and more on discrete tasks’ and comprised of a ‘new generation of younger, digitally-facile practices, with workers and talent distributed globally’ (bernstein, 2020). the continued interest around architecture’s cultural response to the pandemic highlights the need for up-to-date scholarship on educational practices vis-à-vis graduate employability—and consequently, the need to revisit the discipline’s unresolved issues around thompson, j. and soccio, p. (2022). ‘this is what gets people hired!’: academic perspectives on employability skills in architecture and the potential impact of covid-19. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 13(1), 127–141. 132 enculturation as discussed above. though disruptive events like a pandemic are perhaps unlikely to alter the content of employability skillset lists, they may affect the relative value placed on certain skillsets—and perhaps the relative weight between technical and employability skills. hence, the impetus behind the present study was precisely to explore this notion of post-covid-19 employability by eliciting the perspectives of individuals, each of whom shares connections to a single postgraduate architecture program in australia. by inviting participants to reflect on the disruption to teaching and learning precipitated by the pandemic, conversations progressed from the nature of employability skills themselves towards assessment and quality assurance of these skills, as discussed below. study context and methods the research team was comprised of two members of an academic, discipline-specific learning and teaching group housed within a faculty of architecture at an australian institution. each team member had themselves traversed from architecture course to architectural practice, before returning to the academy as educational researchers. ethics approval for this study was granted through the authors’ institution. the literature reviewed from within the architectural context underscored the thorniness of the proposed topics of discussion. likewise, scholarship from across other disciplines revealed the centrality of stakeholder perceptions and values, and the potential mismatch between espoused values and practices. thus, the present study was approached as a foray into the topic of employability skills from a curriculum and pedagogy standpoint, eliciting indepth and diverse perspectives from a single community. the qualitative approach, and the focus on a small sample group, is intended to inform broader study sets by helping frame potential challenges and opportunities emerging from stakeholder perceptions within the academic community. as the present study concentrated on the perceived impact of employability on teaching and learning, it intentionally did not include perspectives from those primarily beyond the academy, such as industry employers or members of the accrediting body. nor was it designed as a complete case study to capture the cultural and structural aspects of the particular faculty community. study participants were part of the faculty’s learning and teaching community and associated with its accredited master of architecture (m.arch) course. eight individuals were interviewed representing the following cohorts: • full-time educators, each with industry experience and active professional networks, • industry practitioners with part-time teaching roles as studio tutors, and • students who were employed in architectural practice during the pandemic. to provide further framing around the student context, this particular architecture course does not require work placements, and employment in practice whilst enrolled in study—though not uncommon—tends to lie entirely outside curricular offerings or institutional programming. the hybrid composition of participants is reflective of the wider disciplinary community, as well as a desire on the part of the research team for each one-on-one conversation to cover multiple conceptualizations of competency, including both as an (educational) outcome and as a (practicebased) capability. each participant was asked to briefly position themselves in terms of their relationship to academia and industry, then to describe how they understood the broader relationship between academia and architectural practice, both through their lived experience and in their ideal world. in formulating each participant’s position, these framing questions ultimately provided context to better interpret their perspectives (see shreeve, 2010, p. 693). the dialogical approach of the one-on-one interview increased the certainty that, as researchers, we captured and interpreted each participant’s perspective and how their context and identity may inform it. on the other hand, the research team’s position within the faculty community granted an ‘insider’ position that appeared to contribute to (rather than detract from) the forthrightness of participants. echoing another recent study that sought to critically and reflexively examine architectural culture, the thompson, j. and soccio, p. (2022). ‘this is what gets people hired!’: academic perspectives on employability skills in architecture and the potential impact of covid-19. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 13(1), 127–141. 133 present study acknowledges that subjectivity is, in fact, a resource, rather than a threat, to building theory and informing further exploration (see stead et al., 2022). the core of each interview consisted of participants being asked to identify and discuss the skills and competencies they believed shifted the most, in terms of perceived employer value, as a result of the pandemic. participants were provided in advance with two lists. one was of 11 groupings of employability skills (see table 1), as published across two international and two australian reviews of graduate attributes and skillsets of the future (australian trade and investment commission, 2019; kumar et al., 2019; parker et al., 2018; leopold et al., 2018). the other list was comprised of the nine elements from the national standard of competency for architects’ units of competency (aaca, 2018), the accreditation framework in australia (see table 2). thus, each participant had the opportunity to discuss perceived changes to industry expectations in terms of both ‘soft’ and ‘hard’ skills. table 1: list of ‘generic’ skillsets used as interview prompt technical competence; digital literacy; efficiency creativity; problem-solving analytical thinking/reasoning skills; research skills collaboration; teamwork; cultural competency care; empathy; professionalism; ethical conduct confidence; autonomy; self-care oral/written/visual communication skills project management; multi-tasking; time management lifelong learning; resilience; cognitive flexibility financial literacy; business acumen; risk management leadership; entrepreneurialism; people management; mentorship table 2: list of ‘architectural competencies’ used as interview prompt project briefing pre-design conceptual design schematic design detailed design documentation procurement construction stage practice management thompson, j. and soccio, p. (2022). ‘this is what gets people hired!’: academic perspectives on employability skills in architecture and the potential impact of covid-19. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 13(1), 127–141. 134 participants were then prompted to reflect on the implications of these potential changes in expectations from a teaching and learning perspective: • how do you think students and graduates are being judged as potential employees in terms of their proficiency in these skills? (for educators and/or practitioners) • what are you doing to promote these skills in students? (for educators) • how do you come to know which skills are most valuable and how well you have acquired each one? (for students) this portion of the interviews ultimately took the form of a socratic dialogue, with the interviewer encouraging the interviewee to unpack their beliefs in successive fashion. thus, conversations were open-ended and driven by the back-and-forth exchange between interviewer and each participant. this format was intended to prompt reflection and elicit deeper discussion, rather than restricting participants to a series of pre-determined questions. as proposed by curato (2012), this ‘epistemic interview’ approach can be more appropriate than conventional interview approaches, depending on the aim of the interview and the relationship of parties involved. in this case, the aim of collective inquiry and knowledge building outweighed the mere conveying of participants’ experiences. insofar as each conversation framed around the shared topic ultimately veered along a unique path representing each participant’s perspective and values, the advantage of this approach was borne out. interviews were conducted in september 2021, over zoom due to covid-19 restrictions, with each lasting 30 to 60 minutes. the screen-sharing functionality of zoom allowed participants to view a virtual whiteboard of the two lists described above and presented in tables 1 and 2. this content served as a visual probe, to which the participants continually referred throughout the interview. each interview was transcribed, anonymised and analysed independently by four members of the learning and teaching group to identify themes and variations. these are discussed below in two sections. the first directly responds to the question at hand: what impact has covid-19 had on perceived industry expectations of both ‘soft’ and ‘hard’ skills? the second section discusses participants’ views on how employability skills are encouraged, observed and judged in academic contexts. findings across the eight participants, a strong consensus emerged around a shared narrative: that the value placed on certain dimensions of employability by industry had increased during the pandemic. namely, they perceived greater demand for graduates: • with skills necessary for collaborating, presenting and engaging in feedback remotely; • with the ability to be proactive (e.g., reaching out to colleagues for feedback/direction) and autonomous (e.g., in how they manage their time and responsibilities, and how they care for themselves); • with leadership potential and a people management style relevant to a context of remote/hybrid working modes. such a narrative was attributed to the shift in working modes across the industry, and other changes in practices and values accelerated by the pandemic. consistently, participants emphasized two, nontechnical skills required for working remotely: autonomy and collaboration. being able to manage oneself and work effectively in teams were considered two sides of the same coin for working remotely—and together were perceived to be the skillset with the greatest increase in employment value. as one full-time educator articulated: i think [with] the move to remote working and flexible working arrangements, the things that might then begin to impact on graduate skills and the sorts of things that we might want to encourage in our graduates […] i think those things would be: being able to learn or operate thompson, j. and soccio, p. (2022). ‘this is what gets people hired!’: academic perspectives on employability skills in architecture and the potential impact of covid-19. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 13(1), 127–141. 135 remotely and not being physically co-located in an office. and i think tied to that is being able to work in integrated but remote teams. so i think, from my perspective, that is the thing that i think is going to be a critical skill for people going forward. (full-time educator 5) under the umbrella of autonomy, the notion of students needing to be proactive also received considerable attention. as one full-time educator claimed: there's something [as a student] about going into the campus and going to a schedule of classes and having just everything kind of set up for you and you just kind of fall into it. i think with covid […] if you want to really show people your work, you have to set up the zoom link. you have to kind of arrange the time in a way that's different […] i think the good students, the ones who are realizing they needed to not just react to covid but they actually have to be a bit proactive to make sure that they're ahead of it, you know, they decide, ‘look, i'm gonna meet up with three or four friends and talk about our project together and arrange a time when we can all discuss stuff outside of class. 'cause we don't have the luxury of going to a class and then walking out and sitting down at a table after class to talk about it. we have to quite consciously put it together, you know, those extra meetings and those kinds of informal discussions.’ (full-time educator 3) using assessment design to effectively foster collaboration skills, including contributing to a group while working autonomously, had been identified as a challenge within architecture before the pandemic (thompson et al., 2021b). the renewed emphasis on remote/hybrid working models prompted by the pandemic only underscores the significance of promoting and measuring such skills for graduate employability. surprisingly participants tended not to identify digital literacy as an employability skill that had increased in relative relevance, with one educator suggesting it has ‘always been a priority’. instead, participants were concerned with how graduates use technology to communicate, as suggested by one educator: i mean, you'd be tempted to say digital literacy, but i don't think that is critical. i think what we've learned the most in this context is actually more about communication […] the fundamental need there is not to know how to zoom, which we all learn very quickly. it's about how to stay engaged in communication. (full-time educator 4) likewise, strong verbal and non-verbal skills of communication over videoconferencing platforms were perceived as markers of the ideal graduate-practitioner, as suggested by a part-time tutor/practitioner: ‘if they can’t communicate on zoom, have eye contact and be able to speak up, that's a major problem. that leads into confidence and autonomy and independent working’ (parttime tutor/practitioner 1). such perspectives towards communication skills suggests that, if and when they are to be assessed, the context should not be limited to conventional verbal or written modes (e.g., presentations or essays) but include the suite of skills needed for effective communication over virtual platforms, such as active listening. finally, the changing social relations engendered by the shift to remote work suggested to several participants that, as one full-time educator put it, ‘leadership, i think, has never been so important […] people management as a whole. but we need a new breed of leaders, really, for these hybrid ways of working’ (full-time educator 1). again, this raises the issue that assessment criteria—in this case those associated with leadership skills—may need to be revisited to gauge whether prepandemic notions are still applicable to today and tomorrow’s industry context. when prompted to discuss the more technical competencies associated with architectural accreditation criteria, all eight participants believed that the relative value of each competency was unaffected by the pandemic. notably, however, several did critique the list of competencies, either in terms of not explicitly including particular skills related to the design process, or in terms of the balance between which competencies were the responsibility of universities versus industry. most of this commentary was considered unrelated to covid-19’s impact, with the exception of an thompson, j. and soccio, p. (2022). ‘this is what gets people hired!’: academic perspectives on employability skills in architecture and the potential impact of covid-19. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 13(1), 127–141. 136 increased focus on design for healthy buildings—specifically, consideration of indoor environmental quality and the need to embed this perspective earlier in the design process. with each participant having spoken about the importance of employability skills—not just in relative terms but absolutely and sometimes quite passionately—participants were prompted to reflect on the implications from a teaching and learning perspective. half of the participants appeared to accept employability skills remaining an implicit feature of the curriculum. the other half argued that such skills should be explicitly encouraged but not necessarily assessed. of those who endorsed a less ad hoc approach to developing employability skills, obstacles raised included finding space in the ‘already full’ curriculum, potential pushback from students and potential bias in assessment. underlying the full range of participant perspectives towards assessment—namely, the resistance to explicitly assessing employability skills—were beliefs related to some combination of the following: • a critique of the commodification and ‘bureaucratizing’ of higher education more broadly; • the notion that employability skills are best encouraged through dialogue alone, by persuading students through discussion that the reason they are being asked to complete tasks, for example, is to develop certain skills deemed valuable by employers. one full-time educator articulated the importance of employability skills as forming part of architecture’s hidden curriculum: there's no structured learning of those soft skills. that's why they’re soft skills, i suppose. but they are essential. i suppose that the activities that you do as a student of architecture implicitly require you to develop those skills. and they're not skills that are easy to assess […] but the trick is to provide a learning environment where the soft skills become essential. (full-time educator 4) another full-time educator expressed a perspective of making such skills explicit by emphasising their value when framing learning activities to students: i think we should be putting soft skills more under the spotlight, even in the way of how can we actually teach that? how do we teach that? and be more upfront with students that when you have group work, this is part of your soft skills. when we have deadlines, this is about time management and multitasking. or when you actually have engagement with industry, and when you have different people from different fields of specialization, you’re teaching them how they're going to go about behaving in multidisciplinary teams when they’re out there in industry […] so i think universities really need to sharpen the focus on how we explicitly tell students, what are we trying to expose them to? […] i think it's about communicating […] it's really about this dialogue in how you explain what that subject intends to achieve […] but this is not through the formal process of learning outcomes and all this stuff that we have to do. (full-time educator 1) the belief held across this sample of participants was that graduates were, in fact, achieving employability skills through the current approach, as evidenced by employers continuing to seek out students from each graduating cohort who, in the minds of educators and employers, embodied certain attributes valued by industry. this then raised the question of if and how only certain students obtain such valued attributes, and how they are judged by educators and potential employers. one full-time educator claimed that ‘any employer can tell you within about three weeks whether that person's competent or not’ (full-time educator 3). others, including a student participant, described how teachers judge which students have the most highly valued employability skills through their engagement in a subject, and how these judgments inform which students are recommended to industry contacts as potential employees. multiple participants, including current practitioners, discussed frequently receiving requests from industry contacts to identify potential employees from within a student cohort. likewise, the idea of professional networking was identified as an employability skill. several participants, including a part-time tutor/practitioner, spoke about how final reviews—and other thompson, j. and soccio, p. (2022). ‘this is what gets people hired!’: academic perspectives on employability skills in architecture and the potential impact of covid-19. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 13(1), 127–141. 137 instances when practitioners enter the studio environment—serve as opportunities for employers to informally assess potential employees: they see who will be great in the office. they can see [particular students’] strengths and capabilities through just their motivation and the way they carry themselves, how they present, how they talk and can speak up, and that they're not afraid to actually have an opinion. that's something that i know employers really look out for, that skill of being able to carry yourself on your own autonomously in an office. then you don't need the handholding as much. (part-time tutor/practitioner 1) thus, there appeared to be broad recognition across participant cohorts that students are being judged—by their teachers and industry guests—in terms of employability skills that are not evident in any graphic portfolio of design work. however, this was being done informally and without the direct input, or perhaps awareness, of students. this reliance on a hidden curriculum raises concerns about equity and inclusion, as discussed in the following section, and as emphasised in the startling findings of the bartlett school of architecture report cited earlier (see howlett brown, 2022). the broader sense amongst the participants was that the pandemic had led to a heightened awareness of pre-existing issues within architectural education, as opposed to prompting anything entirely new. as one full-time educator claimed: even in design studios, working in teams, working with other people, all those things are important, which weren’t previously addressed in any case across the profession and in the education of the profession. so maybe it just means that there’s more of a need to do that now, rather than covid revealing some huge new gap or some new pressing thing that we should be teaching students. so i think it’s probably more the need to address these pre-existing gaps. so maybe covid has […] heightened them a bit more. (full-time educator 5) another full-time educator described this moment in time as an opportunity to shift the emphasis in academia to employability skills: [employers] do expect [us] to teach the technical aspects by the time [graduates] start working. and they’re after the soft skills that the students don’t necessarily realize they’re learning as they go. i think there is a huge opportunity to actually shift some of the conversation less on the highly technical [skills…] to also have perhaps just as much emphasis on all of the [employability] elements. that, actually, this is what gets people hired! because the irony of this whole thing is when we have industry people coming to our studios to see our students and get to cherry-pick the best students, they’re after qualities that are not technical qualities, because they expect the students to learn the technical qualities once they started working. and here we are still teaching them how to do it! i think it’s a really interesting opportunity to have this conversation about how you teach all these skills or how you expose students to all these skill sets that are not necessarily the traditional professional training that we’ve seen […] so i see this as an opportunity and that’s perhaps being accelerated by the pandemic. it was already there, but not at a pace that it’s taking place now. (full-time educator 1) discussion insofar as this study’s sample may reflect wider perceptions across the architectural community, the findings suggest that architectural education is facing an unprecedented opportunity to embed employability skills more explicitly into its notion of competency and assessment/accreditation practices. other disciplines, particularly those with shared characteristics to architecture, ostensibly face a similar challenge/opportunity. unlike similar studies in other disciplines (e.g., cotronei-baird, 2020), teachers who participated in the present study were not claiming to assess employability skills in the first place; thus, in this case, it is evidently not an issue of dissonance between stated beliefs and teaching practices. rather, most conferred a belief that employability skills can be promoted through processes of implicit judgment and/or verbal persuasion alone. it would appear, then, that thompson, j. and soccio, p. (2022). ‘this is what gets people hired!’: academic perspectives on employability skills in architecture and the potential impact of covid-19. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 13(1), 127–141. 138 the notion of assessment as defining ‘what students regard as important, how they spend their time and how they come to see themselves as students and then as graduates’ (brown et al., 1997, p. 7) has not gained wide adoption in this, or perhaps the wider, architecture community. the degree to which the community ultimately accepts assessment of employability skills will depend, largely, upon consideration for how individual teaching practices are influenced by academic experience and disciplinary context (see cotronei-baird, 2020, p. 203). resurgent interest in the architectural apprenticeship model (see dawson & osborne, 2020) offers potential in-roads for aligning industry values and higher education quality assurance expectations, shifting the student experience away from a focus on professional accreditation criteria. in any case, authentically involving all stakeholders in these efforts towards innovative assessment approaches—most importantly students—will be critical. the most urgent challenge for architecture lies in the fact that implicit approaches towards skill development and their judgment—i.e., its reliance on a hidden curriculum—are potentially insidious. the enculturation of students into the architectural community is an inherent process that is inescapably tied to power and prejudice (dutton, 1989; stevens, 1998), but so long as this process transpires invisibly, it can be expected to perform a certain agenda: [s]tudents are directed toward an invisible gate, through which they can step in once they have internalized the right kind of attitudes, preferences, habitus, and behavior. those students who are willing to accept, maintain, and reinforce the prevailing cultural and social norms are welcomed to enter the gate (yanar, 2007, p. 68). thus, the process by which employers (and educators as proxies for employers) continue to judge their potential and current employees’ level of competency—insofar as it is opaque, unspoken and therefore prone to prejudice—limits ‘the capacity for graduates to make empowered and informed decisions’ by not recognizing employability as ‘a complex interaction between broader structural influences and individuals’ own agency in making sense and mediating these changes’ (tomlinson & le huu nghia, 2020). bridgstock’s (2009) recommendation to shift the focus from employability to ‘career management competence’ continues to offer a valuable way of foregrounding the agency of emerging practitioners in this process of redesign. in the most idealistic vision of the discipline’s future, undergoing a cultural shift towards explicit assessment of employability skills contains the emancipatory potential for the level of agency, diversity, equity and inclusion that has long evaded architectural education and the profession. conclusion long before covid-19, critics observed decades-long changes to architectural culture that lay the foundations for those further precipitated by the pandemic. for instance, allen (2012, p. 229) noted the impact of highly mobile student cohorts and remote design practice, as well as the increasingly hybrid modes being adopted in the face of uncertain futures. an acceleration of these trends over the past few years only adds to the urgency of critically exploring what the community values, and how it promotes such values. the present study is intended as a prompt for the discipline of architecture to consider whether recent changes have affected perceptions of industry values as represented through employability skills—and likewise, how the perceptions of academics inform the ways in which employability skills are promoted and assessed. the findings, as indicated in the reflections of participants, suggest the opportunity currently facing the architecture community: to address its longstanding and problematic dependence on a hidden curriculum of employability skills by embedding these within a revised approach towards assessment. this underscores the need for leadership in steering such a monumental cultural shift, as well as further scholarship to inform policy changes and guidance. indeed, future research is needed to broaden the investigation of employability skills beyond academia to the industry context, specifically to explore hiring practices and how these are shaped thompson, j. and soccio, p. 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(2023). stem students see the value of linkedin as a career development tool and continue to use it in the long-term post-assignment. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 14(1), 53-70. 53 the journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability issn: 1838-3815 (online) journal homepage: https://ojs.deakin.edu.au/index.php/jtlge/ stem students see the value of linkedin as a career development tool and continue to use it in the long-term post-assignment louise lexis1, debbi weaver2, and brianna l. julien1 corresponding author: brianna julien (b.julien@latrobe.edu.au) 1 department of physiology anatomy and microbiology, school of life sciences, la trobe university, melbourne, victoria, australia 2 la trobe education services, la trobe university, melbourne, victoria, australia abstract some empirical case studies provide support for using linkedin as a 21st century career development tool; however, little is known about the long-term impact on students’ use of linkedin. a linkedin assignment was implemented in a third-year subject taken by students in non-specialist science, technology, engineering and mathematics (stem) degrees. the study aimed to determine: 1) student use of linkedin prior to, and during the four months after the assignment was completed; 2) student intentions to use linkedin as a career development tool in the long-term future; 3) student perceptions of a linkedin assignment and associated employability skills; 4) changes to students’ linkedin profiles and professional connections in the two years following completion of the assignment. four months after the assignment, students completed an anonymous and voluntary questionnaire comprised of open-ended and likert-scale questions. descriptive statistical analysis was conducted on the likert-scale responses and content analysis was conducted on the open-ended responses. students’ linkedin profiles were analysed upon completion of the assignment and two years postassignment to determine changes during this time. students saw value in the assignment and linkedin as a career development tool, and many thought they had developed skills in building a connected identity and social network literacy. students were less confident in their ability to build and engage with professional networks, although they thought this was important. most students continued to use linkedin in the two years post-assignment. in conclusion, a linkedin assignment is an effective career development tool for students in non-specialist stem degrees. keywords employability, stem education, career development learning, connectedness capabilities, higher education, preprofessional identity introduction the internet and social media have permeated all aspects of our lives in the past two decades, changing how we live, interact, work and study. it has been argued that for career builders, the internet is a career resource library, an opportunity marketplace, a space for the exchange of social capital, and a democratic media channel (hooley, 2017). job opportunities are increasingly found via informal channels and recruiters use professional networking sites to recruit and hire employees (slone & gaffney, 2016). of concern is that undergraduate students are generally lacking in skills lexis, l. et al. (2023). stem students see the value of linkedin as a career development tool and continue to use it in the long-term post-assignment. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 14(1), 53-70. 54 associated with online technology proficiency and professionalism (bridgstock, 2019), and they therefore need support to develop these skills. to assist in the development of building a career online, hooley (2017) developed a framework of key digital career management skills which includes creating an effective online brand, and connecting with others to build professional networks that support career building. related to this, leading scholars have urged educators in higher education to support undergraduate students in the building of their professional networks while at university, and advise that the development of a professional online presence and professional network is an iterative process that takes time (bridgstock, 2009; slone & gaffney, 2016; wetsch, 2012). social media is one of the connectedness pedagogies in bridgstock’s (2020) connectedness learning model, with connectedness meaning the state of being linked with others for professional and career development purposes. social media has been defined as “internet-based channels that allow users to opportunistically interact and selectively self-present, either in real-time or asynchronously, with both broad and narrow audiences who derive value from user-generated content and the perception of interaction with others” (carr & hayes, 2015, p. 50). recently, employability scholars have argued for an expansion of the definition of employability beyond a skills-centred approach that focusses on graduate attributes and experience, to incorporate development of pre-professional identity (jackson, 2016) and graduate capitals, the “key resources that confer benefits and advantages onto graduates” (tomlinson, 2017, p. 339). jackson (2016, p. 926) defines pre-professional identity as “an understanding of and connection with the skills, qualities, conduct, culture and ideology of a student’s intended profession”. pre-professional identity develops over time into professional identity, the “attitudes, values, knowledge, belief and skills that are shared with others within a professional group and relates to the professional role undertaken by the individual” (adams et al., 2006, p. 56). fowlie and forder (2021) argue that using linkedin in final year core business subjects promoted students’ pre-professional identity development by helping them to envisage themselves in professional roles (fowlie & forder, 2019). a related concept is career identity, which is described as an intellectual compass that helps direct relevant learning, and supports informed and appropriate career choices (fugate et al., 2004). a career identity can be achieved through personal investment in the advancement of one’s future career and employability, and is illustrated in the ability to draw on experiences and clearly communicate a personal narrative which aligns to favoured career options (tomlinson, 2017). a proposed difference between professional and career identity is that one’s professional identity is anchored in one’s profession (e.g., a surgeon even if currently a trainee), whereas career identity is anchored in one’s work at their current employer (e.g., medical trainee at a hospital) (khapova et al., 2007). bridgstock’s (2020) connectedness learning model extends beyond a focus on skills and encompasses a range of capabilities, learning and teaching approaches, and enabling strategies that foster the development of connectedness and social network capabilities. key capabilities include developing social network literacy, building a connected identity, growing connections, working with connections, and strengthening and maintaining connections. development of, and engagement with, professional networks provide a powerful opportunity for students to develop their pre-professional identity. linkedin is an example of a social media connectedness pedagogy and career development learning (cdl) tool that has the potential to facilitate development of connectedness capabilities in undergraduate students (bridgstock, 2019). cdl can be defined as: learning about the content and process of career development or life/career management. the content of [cdl] in essence represents learning about self and learning about the world of work. process learning represents the development of the skills necessary to navigate a successful and satisfying life/career (mcmahon et al., 2003, p. 16). linkedin is the largest professional social media site that is used to find jobs, internships, and connect with and strengthen professional relationships (linkedin corporation, 2020). launched in 2003, linkedin has 756 million users, most (60%) aged between 25 and 34 years, and 57 million companies listed in 2021 (linkedin corporation, 2020). fifty-one percent of americans with bachelors or lexis, l. et al. (2023). stem students see the value of linkedin as a career development tool and continue to use it in the long-term post-assignment. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 14(1), 53-70. 55 advanced degrees report using linkedin (pew research center, 2021). in 2021, 40 million people used linkedin to search for jobs every week, and more that 65% of recruiters in america regularly used linkedin to find and vet candidates (jobvite, 2021). in australia, recruitment using social media has increased from 6% in 2016 to 19% in 2020 (national skills commission, 2020). given the potential benefits to one’s career, it is not surprising that linkedin has been promoted by employability scholars as a valuable cdl tool in higher education in the 21st century (bridgstock, 2019). a small number of empirical case studies provide support for using linkedin as a career development tool in higher education. studies have investigated student perceptions of linkedin upon completion of an assignment that required them to authentically engage with the social media platform. overall, students had positive attitudes towards linkedin, and perceived it to be an important career development tool (badoer et al., 2021; fowlie & forder, 2021; gerard, 2012; mccorkle & mccorkle, 2012; peterson & dover, 2014). importantly, students appreciated that linkedin was a valuable tool for making professional connections (gerard, 2012; mccorkle & mccorkle, 2012; peterson & dover, 2014). fowlie and forder (2021) found that receiving recommendations on their linkedin profile from members of their professional network provided students with “small wins”, that is, minor steps forward that signal progress and contribute positively to motivation, emotion, and engagement in work (amabile & kramer, 2011). interestingly, peterson (2014) found that a significant number of students initially thought the professor was receiving a pay-off for implementing the linkedin assignment, or did not see its value or relevance. however, by the end of the assignment all students found value in the associated activities. other studies have surveyed students on their perceptions of linkedin, without implementing an assignment incorporating its use. carmack and heiss (2018) found through a survey of 107 junior level business and professional communication students, and senior communication students, that they were infrequent and passive users of linkedin (carmack & heiss, 2018). similarly, starcic et al. (2017) found that only 24% of 224 civil and geodetic engineering students had linkedin profiles. bridgstock (2016) found that only 12% of third year students surveyed from two australian universities used linkedin regularly, while 82% used facebook every day. similarly, studies assessing student perceptions of a linkedin assignment found that most students were not using linkedin prior to the assignment being introduced (badoer et al., 2021; peterson & dover, 2014; russ, 2015). it is becoming increasingly understood that systematic integration of employability skill development into the curriculum at a course-level is more effective than coand extra-curricular activities alone, individual subjects, and other ‘bolt on’ programs (bridgstock et al., 2019; bridgstock & jackson, 2019; campbell et al., 2019; minocha et al., 2017). importantly, embedding opportunities to develop employability into the core curriculum allows the entire cohort to benefit and increase equity of access to this learning, and its benefits (bridgstock & jackson, 2019). taken together, these findings indicate that including linkedin as part of assessment is important for introducing students to the authentic career development tool, and without such assignments, students may miss out on the opportunity to experience the many benefits that linkedin has to offer. over three semesters, mccorkle and mccorkle (2012) surveyed 54 students in senior marketing majors, and in a capstone marketing management course to investigate student perceptions of a linkedin assignment, and found that 89% of students intended to use linkedin in the future for their job searches and career. ninety-six percent of students thought the professor should continue with linkedin assignments, reflecting the importance they placed on being introduced to the career development tool through the assignment. in the recommendations for future research section of the paper, the authors commented that a simple post hoc review of former students connected to the professor on linkedin showed that more than two-thirds had continued to update their profiles after graduation and into their careers. to our knowledge, more formal longitudinal research has not been conducted to determine if linkedin assignments embedded into the higher education curriculum result in students’ continued use of the social media tool beyond the bounds of an assignment. the present study aimed to explore this notion, along with student perceptions of a linkedin assignment. lexis, l. et al. (2023). stem students see the value of linkedin as a career development tool and continue to use it in the long-term post-assignment. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 14(1), 53-70. 56 the basis of the study reported in this paper was an assessed linkedin assignment for third-year human physiology students in undergraduate non-specialist health-related science, technology, engineering and mathematics (stem) degrees. the objectives of the study were to determine: 1. student use of linkedin prior to, and during the four months after, the assignment was completed. 2. student intentions to use linkedin as a career development tool in the long-term future. 3. student perceptions of a linkedin assignment and associated employability skills. 4. changes to students’ linkedin profiles and professional connections in the two years following completion of the assignment. methods participants and context the linkedin assignment, worth 4% of the final subject grade, was embedded into a third-year human physiology subject as part of an employability module delivered over 12 weeks. the subject was core to the human physiology and anatomy major in the bachelor of health sciences. ninety-three students were enrolled in the subject, with students enrolled in the bachelor of health sciences (94%) and other stem non-specialist undergraduate degrees (biomedical science 5%, science 1%). eighty-eight students attempted the linkedin module. the linkedin assignment was introduced to students in the first week of semester, both in class and via the subject learning management system site. a guide was provided to students which set out the requirements of the assignment, including a weekly schedule and marking rubric (access guide here doi redacted for review; see appendix 1). students were provided with a suite of online linkedin resources for higher education students (linkedin corporation, 2021), and links to online resources on how to use social media responsibly and safely. two face-to-face classes were held, (weeks 1 and 11) and included presentations by career services staff on employability, professional identity, and the use of linkedin, and several alumni, who shared their career experiences and employability advice. students were instructed to create a linkedin profile that included a professional photo, headline, summary, relevant experience, education, and skills and expertise. students were required to connect with their subject coordinators, three people in industry(s) they were interested in or considering entering in the future, and an industry group or community of interest. students were directed to the institution’s linkedin alumni tool as a starting point if they didn’t have any existing contacts to connect with. students were advised to engage with specific online resources (byers, 2018; university of california berkeley career center, 2019) before requesting to connect with someone they didn’t already know. the study was conducted with approval of the institution’s human research ethics committee (hec18107). study design and data analysis there are two components to the study design. to determine linkedin use and student perceptions after completion of the assignment a mixed methods concurrent triangulation design was conducted. in this design, a researcher collects and analyses quantitative (numeric) and qualitative (text) data concurrently (creswell et al., 2003). the rationale for this approach is to attempt to confirm, crossvalidate or corroborate findings within a single study resulting in well-validated and substantiated findings (creswell et al., 2003). the second component to the study design was a longitudinal panel design (deschenes, 1990) where changes to students’ linkedin profiles were analysed over time. panel designs involve two or more iterations of data collection using the same measures on the same sample. lexis, l. et al. (2023). stem students see the value of linkedin as a career development tool and continue to use it in the long-term post-assignment. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 14(1), 53-70. 57 to address the objectives of the study the following were analysed: 1) student questionnaire responses completed four months after the assignment finished: 2) students’ linkedin profiles at completion of the assignment and two years later. lexis, l. et al. (2023). stem students see the value of linkedin as a career development tool and continue to use it in the long-term post-assignment. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 14(1), 53-70. 58 questionnaire four months after completion of the assignment, students were invited to complete a paper-based questionnaire comprised of 4and 5-point likert-scale questions and an open-ended question. the questionnaire was administered at the end of class; students were assured that this was a voluntary activity (no incentives were offered), and staff members left the room to ensure anonymity of responses. descriptive statistical analysis was conducted on the quantitative data to show each component of the likert-scale as a percentage. inductive content analysis (hsieh & shannon, 2005; vaismoradi & snelgrove, 2019) was conducted on the responses to the open-ended question. frequency of responses within the identified themes are presented quantitatively to show how common the themes are relative to each other. forty-six students completed the questionnaire, which is a response rate of 52.3%. likert-scale questions analysed related to students’ use of linkedin; student perceptions of cdl in higher education; student perceptions of the importance of using linkedin to develop connectedness capabilities; and student ratings of their connectedness capabilities. the open-ended question was: will you continue to use linkedin in the future? why or why not? table 1: connectedness capabilities (bridgstock, 2020) developing social network literacy making connections ability to reflect upon and articulate the roles that social networks play in professional life, and how professional social networks operate; the ability to navigate social networks strategically and effectively. ability to extend and expand professional networks and develop weak ties, including online and face-to-face ‘networking’. activities including joining and participating in professional, industry and interest groups; face-to-face professional networking; development of a digitally mediated professional identity and sharing of content through social media; and informational interviewing. building a connected identity working with connections ability to represent professional identities effectively in the context of social networks, including social media profiles and personal / professional ‘branding’. ability to work effectively and professionally with collaborators in authentic professional contexts and for professional applications. ability to make the most of connections for purposes such as collaborative innovation and problem solving; career development and enterprise; and socially based learning. strengthening and maintaining connections ability to strengthen professional connections and develop strong ties through reciprocity, and then maintain these as needed. often involves more extended face to face contact and interaction and is based in reciprocal benefit and working toward shared goals. lexis, l. et al. (2023). stem students see the value of linkedin as a career development tool and continue to use it in the long-term post-assignment. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 14(1), 53-70. 59 connectedness capabilities connectedness capabilities (bridgstock, 2020) are required to allow for meaningful connections with professional networks and to work productively with networks (table 1). through creation of a linkedin profile, students were supported to develop their social network literacy and build a connected identity. by connecting with professionals through linkedin, students were supported to develop their ability to make connections, which progresses to work with, strengthen and maintain connections. to evaluate the impact of this module on students’ development of connectedness capabilities, students were asked to rate their connectedness capabilities relating to (1) social network literacy and building a connected identity and (2) professional connections, and to rate the importance of linkedin as a tool for developing their connectedness capabilities. table 2: linkedin profile assessment tool profile feature immediately post-assignment two years post-assignment study and employment status n/a primary status: study (details on enrolment in study) / work (details of job provided) / unclear profile photo present – yes/no present – yes/no updated – yes/no headline present – yes/no addressed personal strengths, skills, and aspirations – yes/no present – yes/no updated – yes/no addressed personal strengths, skills, and aspirations – yes/no summary present – yes/no addressed personal strengths, skills, and aspirations – yes/no present – yes/no updated – yes/no addressed personal strengths, skills, and aspirations – yes/no experience present – yes/no present – yes/no updated – yes/no education present – yes/no present – yes/no updated – yes/no connections connected with facilitators – yes/no number of mutual connections with facilitators total number of connections connected with facilitators – yes/no number of mutual connections with facilitators total number of connections analysis of linkedin profiles eighty-one students had linkedin profiles two years post-completion of the assignment; therefore, 81 profiles were analysed for the longitudinal study. the authors of this paper developed an assessment tool to compare student linkedin profiles upon completion of the assignment and two years later (table 2). ratings by a single evaluator are subjective, so to ameliorate this, a sample of three randomly selected submissions were first analysed by all co-authors of this paper together, to discuss and refine the parameters, and agree on standards, with the remainder then being completed by one author. results linkedin use pre-assignment and four months post-assignment prior to the linkedin assessment, 80% of respondents did not have a linkedin profile. sixty-one percent of respondents had used linkedin in the four months following completion of the linkedin lexis, l. et al. (2023). stem students see the value of linkedin as a career development tool and continue to use it in the long-term post-assignment. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 14(1), 53-70. 60 assessment, and 39% had not. students who had used linkedin in the four months following completion of the assessment had done so for a range of reasons with some students choosing multiple options: updating profile (57%), reading other profiles (29%), connecting with professionals (68%), and building relationships with professionals (25%). most respondents reported using linkedin monthly or more (46%), followed by weekly or more (32%), and once or twice a semester was the least cited occurrence (21%). future plans to use linkedin as a career development tool when asked if they would continue to use linkedin in the future, 86.8% of respondents said yes, 7.9% said no, 2.6% said most likely not, and 2.6% said maybe. the most reported reasons for answering yes to this question are related to the themes (with representative quotes) presented in table 3. table 3: themes identified from student responses (n=33). to develop and maintain professional connections (53% of comments) connect with professionals in the same field as me (student no. 2) build and maintain a network that may be useful for the future (student no. 27) to find a job or internship (25% of comments) it provides information on current jobs suited to me (student no. 45) it will be useful when i am looking for a job (student no. 2) professional social networking platform (9% of comments) professional social media platform (student no. 14) excellent professional platform (student no. 42) to improve professional practice (9% of comments) improve contributions to science &/or medicine (student no. 29) professionals share information relating to new research in my field of interest (student no. 45) three students reported that they were not planning to use linkedin in the future. two of these students thought that linkedin was not an effective way to make connections, and the other thought that linkedin would not be relevant to their career path but did not elaborate on what the career was. one student said they would most likely not use linkedin with their reason being that their requests to make professional connections went unanswered. the student who was undecided said they would only use linkedin if their career required it. student perceptions: cdl in higher education most students placed some level of importance on the embedding of cdl modules in the higher education curricula, with the distribution of ratings as follows: not important 13%, somewhat important 43%, important 33%, very important 11%. student perceptions of their connectedness capabilities ratings were provided four months after completion of the assignment on a 5-point likert scale: poor, fair, good, very good, or excellent. students rated their ability to create a profile and use linkedin provided insight into the development of their connectedness capabilities developing social network literacy and building a connected identity. just under 80% of students rated their skills in creating a profile (including all the features) and using linkedin and as either good, very good or excellent. a minority of students rated their capabilities as fair or poor (fig. 1). lexis, l. et al. (2023). stem students see the value of linkedin as a career development tool and continue to use it in the long-term post-assignment. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 14(1), 53-70. 61 figure 1: student ratings of their connectedness capabilities relating to social network literacy and building a connected identity. student ratings of their connectedness capabilities relating to professional connections were variable, with responses ranging from excellent to poor (fig. 2). over half of students rated their capabilities as good, very good or excellent. over 30% of students rated their capabilities as poor or fair. again, ratings were provided four months after completion of the assignment on a 5-point likert scale: poor, fair, good, very good excellent. figure 2: student ratings of their connectedness capabilities relating to professional connections. lexis, l. et al. (2023). stem students see the value of linkedin as a career development tool and continue to use it in the long-term post-assignment. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 14(1), 53-70. 62 over 80% of students placed a degree of importance on using linkedin to develop their connectedness capabilities (fig. 3). a minority of students placed no importance on using linkedin to develop their connectedness capabilities. ratings provided four months after completion of the assignment on a 4point likert scale: not important, somewhat important, important, very important. figure 3: student ratings of the importance of using linkedin to develop connectedness capabilities. analysis of linkedin profiles two years after the assignment was completed, a search on linkedin located profiles for 81 students, which is 92% of students who completed the assignment two years prior. seven students had deleted their profiles in the two years following the assignment. interestingly, the five students who did not complete the assignment had profiles two years later; these were not analysed due to absence of a comparator. for the data provided in this section, percentages are calculated based on the 81 profiles that were active two years post-completion of the assignment. work and study status two years post-assignment analysis of linkedin profiles two years post-assignment showed that 16% of students were employed full time; 56% were engaged in further study, mostly in fields they had previously listed as their aspiration; and there was no information for the remaining 28%. the courses that students were enrolled in included physiotherapy (undergraduate and postgraduate), occupational therapy, speech pathology, podiatry, medical imaging, chiropractic, data science, and safety and ergonomics. employment was more diverse, but also included many jobs in related fields (sports trainers, allied health assistance, dental assistant), as well as some in retail and hospitality. several profiles included both postgraduate study as well as employment – in these cases, study was assumed to be the primary engagement, with part-time employment subsidiary. linkedin profile features features present in the original profiles and two years post-assignment, along with updates, additions, and removal of features from linkedin profiles in the two years since the assignment was completed are shown in table 4. all major features were present in most profiles immediately post-submission lexis, l. et al. (2023). stem students see the value of linkedin as a career development tool and continue to use it in the long-term post-assignment. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 14(1), 53-70. 63 and two years later (table 4). all students who maintained profiles had updated features of their profile, except for one student who had only increased their connections. table 4: linkedin profile features present in the original and two years post-assignment profiles and updated, added, or removed in the two years post-assignment. profile feature present in original profile (%) present two years postassignment (%) updated (%) added (%) removed (%) photo 94 86 17 2 10 headline 100 99 78 0 1 summary 95 93 73 2 5 experience 88 88 60 0 0 education 100 100 75 0 0 headline and summary updates in the original profiles, approximately half had headlines that addressed personal strengths, skills, or aspirations (table 5). only 6% of headlines two years post-assignment addressed personal strengths, skills, and aspirations, with most updates only stating current study or employment status. in the original profiles, over half of the summaries addressed personal strengths, skills, or aspirations. only 38% of the profile summaries two years post-assignment addressed personal strengths, skills, and aspirations, with most updates only detailing current study or employment status. summaries that did address personal strengths, skills, or aspirations focused on career or long-term goals (e.g., i aim to pursue a career in physiotherapy, focusing on pain and musculoskeletal therapy). the percentage of students with headlines or summaries is included in table 5. table 5: percentage of headlines and summaries that addressed personal strengths, skills, or aspirations in the original and two years post-assignment profiles. addressed personal strengths, skills, and aspirations headline summary original profile (%) 2 years postassignment (%) original profile (%) 2 years postassignment (%) no 55 94 43 62 yes 45 6 57 38 connections data on the number of connections was recorded as an indication of the use of linkedin for professional networking (fig. 4). in the original profiles, 99% of students had connected with their teaching staff (as recommended). all students had maintained that connection two years later. students have expanded their networks in the two years post-assignment, with the average number of mutual connections with staff growing from 12 to 19. there was a greater increase in the number of non-mutual connections, with average total connections increasing from 37 to 88. values given in fig.4 are means, plus standard deviation. lexis, l. et al. (2023). stem students see the value of linkedin as a career development tool and continue to use it in the long-term post-assignment. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 14(1), 53-70. 64 figure 4: students’ mutual connections with staff and total connections immediately after, and two years post completion of the linkedin assignment. discussion the main findings of this study showed that most students did not have a linkedin account prior to the assignment. however, after being exposed to linkedin, students intended to use it as a career development tool. four months post-assignment, students generally thought it was important to develop social network literacy and build a connected identity, and they were relatively confident in using linkedin for this. students also thought it was important to develop connectedness capabilities related to professional networking but were less confident in their ability to do so. most students continued to use and update their linkedin profile in the two years post-assignment and, despite low confidence in networking after completing the assignment, students had significantly grown their connections. less well-developed two years post-assignment were the headlines and summaries on the linkedin profiles, suggesting that most graduates lacked professional identity and were still at the beginning stages of creating an effective online brand. student perceptions of career development learning and linkedin pleasingly, most students in the present study, who were completing non-specialist stem undergraduate degrees, thought it was important to undertake cdl modules as part of their higher education studies. after completion of the linkedin assignment, most students agreed that it was important to create a profile and use linkedin, indicating that they saw the value in developing social network literacy and building a connected identity. this is consistent with perceptions of students in pharmaceutical sciences badoer et al. (2021), human physiology (brown et al., 2019), sales and marketing (peterson & dover, 2014), and business and professional communication (carmack & heiss, 2018) disciplines. in the present study, the minority of students not planning to use linkedin in the future, or undecided, gave the reasons that they did not think it was an effective way to make connections, it was not relevant to their career path, and because their connection requests went unanswered. these reasons are consistent with those observed by others (peterson & dover, 2014; starcic et al., 2017) and align with the contention that people who do not use linkedin are inclined to overlook the benefits and do not know how to use the site or find it confusing (colbeck, 2015). alternatively, there may be value in modifying the assessed module to provide students with choice lexis, l. et al. (2023). stem students see the value of linkedin as a career development tool and continue to use it in the long-term post-assignment. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 14(1), 53-70. 65 in the networking tool they engage so we support their development of connectedness capabilities if they do not resonate with linkedin. other professional networking tools include behance, medium, meetup, xing, and bark. in summary, students from a wide range of disciplines saw the value of linkedin for their future careers, and this tended to be the case if they had completed a linkedin assignment or associated inclass activities. students who had not been exposed to the social networking tool tended not to appreciate the potential benefits linkedin has to offer. collectively, the findings support the call of bridgstock (2019) that social media sites such as linkedin should be used as a cdl tool in higher education programs. student use of linkedin in the present study, 80% of students in the final year of their undergraduate degree did not have a linkedin account prior to the beginning of the assignment. this finding is echoed by several other studies (badoer et al., 2021; peterson & dover, 2014; russ, 2015; starcic et al., 2017), indicating that most students do not take the initiative to create and use a linkedin account unless prompted. indeed, carmack and heiss (2018) found that students are infrequent and passive users of linkedin. a lack of engagement with the social media tool has the potential to diminish students’ graduate outcomes and hinder their careers (bridgstock, 2019). in the present study, 87% of students intended to use linkedin in the long-term future, which is consistent with the findings of mccorkle and mccorkle (2012) who reported that 89% of students intended to use linkedin to search for employment opportunities and to support their career. sixtyone percent of students in the present study indicated that they continued to use linkedin in the four months post-assignment, with more than half of students using it to update their profile and connect with professionals. fewer than half of students used linkedin to read other profiles and build relationships with professionals. two years post-assignment, 92% of students still had linkedin profiles, with most having updated their profiles and grown their connections. mccorkle and mccorkle (2012) similarly found, through a simple post hoc review, that former students continued to update their profiles after graduation and into their careers, although the authors did not comment on the time frame. together, these findings indicate that if students are exposed to linkedin during their higher education studies, they are inclined to continue using linkedin beyond the bounds of an assignment. connectedness capabilities building a connected identity four months after completing the assignment in the current study, most students were confident in creating and using their linkedin profile, indicating that they had begun to build social network literacy and a connected identity. similarly, brown et al. (2019) reported that over half of the students were confident in their ability to use linkedin. analysis of written reflections demonstrated that students had begun to advance their connectedness capabilities related to developing social network literacy and building a connected identity. given that 80% of students in the present study did not have a profile prior to the assignment, it is hypothesised that the process of completing the assignment was instrumental to students’ beginning to build their social network literacy and connected identity. this hypothesis is supported by the findings of badoer et al. (2021), that students in first and third years of their course had little confidence using linkedin prior to engaging in scaffolded in-class linkedin activities, however, after the class activities 36% of first year students were confident (4 fold increase) and 68% of third year students were confident (over 5 fold increase). these findings are aligned to others who have shown that casual use of social media by students does not translate to the ability to confidently and ably use it for work and career (benson et al., 2014; pozzi, 2015). bridgstock (2019) advises that it is mostly through exposure and experience that individuals learn how to use linkedin lexis, l. et al. (2023). stem students see the value of linkedin as a career development tool and continue to use it in the long-term post-assignment. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 14(1), 53-70. 66 advantageously for career development. taken together, these findings indicate that linkedin assignments or related in-class activities are important for introducing students to linkedin and helping them to develop social network literacy and a connected identity. analysis of students’ linkedin profiles in the present study showed that over half of students had updated their profile headline, summary, experience, and education in the two years post-assignment. a minority of students had updated their profile photo. bridgstock (2019) contends that linkedin can be used for career identity development, and states that as students update their linkedin profiles, they are revising their career identity. the linkedin summary, or “i am” statement, can connect many incongruent education and career experiences with an all-encompassing statement about career intent and activity, which can incite deeper thinking about career identity (bridgstock, 2019, p. 147). analysis of student profiles two years after completion of the assignment showed that few profiles had headlines (6%) and summaries (38%) that adequately addressed personal strengths, skills, or aspirations and were unlikely to engage the reader and make them want to know more. the lack of long-term career aspirations apparent in the headlines and summaries suggests students limited their aspirations to completing study or getting their first job, and not for whole of career development. this suggests that students were not developing their pre-professional identity, or were at least not conscious of doing so, even as they engaged in specialist postgraduate education with defined career outcomes. this is consistent with the findings of slone and gaffney (2016) showing that most students did not include work passions, key skills and unique qualifications in their linkedin summary. the findings also resonate with daniels and colleagues (2021) who analysed 340 publicly available linkedin profiles of students that reported attending community colleges in america. the authors found that key sections of students’ profiles were often left blank, and profiles did not convey students’ unique value proposition. collectively, the findings indicate that there is much scope in the higher education sector for cdl activities to explicitly introduce students to what is meant by professional identity and the value in communicating features of their identity to others, including through social media. opportunities may also exist for higher education institutions to provide ongoing professional development to alumni to support graduates to continue developing their connected identity as part of their life-long learning journey. professional networks most students in the current study placed a degree of importance on using linkedin to develop connectedness capabilities related to professional networks. in agreement, brown et al. (2019) reported that students felt it was important to connect with others on linkedin, and gerard (2012) found students valued people as an important career asset. aligned to this, students perceived linkedin to be a useful tool for social networking and making connections for employment and career (mccorkle & mccorkle, 2012; peterson & dover, 2014). collectively, these findings indicate that most students who have been exposed to linkedin see its value for making professional connections with others. this should give confidence to educators who are considering embedding linkedin as a cdl tool in higher education curricula. over half of the cohort in the present study rated their connectedness capabilities related to forming and working with professional connections as good, very good, or excellent, whereas over 30% rated them as poor or fair. evidence shows that linkedin assignments encouraged students to build their networks. russ (2015) reported that students’ average number of connections before an assignment was 6, and post assignment was 27. similarly, peterson and dover (2014) reported that preassignment the average number of students’ connections was 6 and post assignment was 52. gerard’s (2012) findings showed that over half of students thought linkedin helped them develop a professional network and make greater use of professional contacts. these findings differed from those of carmack and heiss (2018) who surveyed students on their perceptions of linkedin and found that less than half of students were comfortable using linkedin to communicate with their lexis, l. et al. (2023). stem students see the value of linkedin as a career development tool and continue to use it in the long-term post-assignment. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 14(1), 53-70. 67 connections, and students were unlikely to use features of linkedin that allowed them to proactively network and connect with potential employers. brown et al. (2019) found through analysis of students’ reflections, that although they appreciated the value of connecting with others on linkedin, development of connectedness capabilities were at the foundational level. most students demonstrated the ability to grow connections, but the connectedness capabilities of strengthening and maintaining connections, and working with connections were only apparent in a small number of students, and this was despite students being in their final year of an undergraduate degree. this may be related to the fact that most students had created a linkedin account for the assignment and were novice users of social media for professional purposes. similarly, in the present study, just under half of students rated their ability to strengthen professional connections as poor or fair. analysis of students’ linkedin profiles in the present study showed that students’ average total connections increased from 37 to 88 in the two years post-assignment. students’ mutual connections with staff also increased, but not to the same extent. this suggests that students had been making connections beyond their initial networks (comprised predominantly of staff, fellow students, and a small number of professionals) which likely included professionals in wider networks on linkedin. further research is required to evaluate these professional networks to determine whether the connections are ‘weak’ or ‘strong’ (bridgstock, 2020) and if, and how, graduates are strengthening and maintaining connections. these results are promising, as active participation and networking are argued to be a crucial element of success for members on linkedin (mccabe, 2017). it is therefore not surprising that employability scholars attest that the connectedness capabilities are understated in higher education curricula (bridgstock, 2019). this also aligns with proclamations that cdl should be embedded as assessable and iterative components in the higher education curricula, and introduced early in degree programs to allow time for the development of career management capabilities (bridgstock, 2009, 2019; bridgstock et al., 2019). the findings presented here suggest that students should be encouraged to build professional networks early in their degree, so they have time to hone their skills relating to making connections, maintaining, and strengthening connections, and working with connections. future research undertaking further longitudinal analysis of the linkedin profiles discussed in the present study would provide insight into how graduates’ use of this tool changes as they progress in their careers. interviews or focus groups with students and graduates at different stages of their careers would provide more detailed information about how linkedin is used and positive and negative experiences of using this platform. the nature of the connections students and graduates make could also be of interest, that is, investigation of the disciplines and industries the connections belong to and evidence of the impact of connections on the career trajectories of graduates. future research could focus on evaluation of strategies that embed linkedin as assessable and iterative components in degree programs, with early integration, to determine the effect on development of students’ professional networking connectedness capabilities and their ability to represent professional identities effectively in the context of social networks. it would be valuable to investigate the impact of strengthening the scaffold to provide students with more guidance on how to present themselves (their personal/professional brand) through the linkedin headline and summary. it is important to mention that linkedin may not be the most appropriate social networking tool for all disciplines. we believe that the principles of the module described in this paper would translate well to other disciplines and platforms; this could be a focus of future research. lexis, l. et al. (2023). stem students see the value of linkedin as a career development tool and continue to use it in the long-term post-assignment. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 14(1), 53-70. 68 summary while the internet and social media have become an integral part of our lives, harnessing their potential to support career development is just emerging. while linkedin has existed as a professional networking site for almost two decades, it has only recently started to be incorporated into curricula at higher education institutions, as part of their preparation of job-ready graduates. the present study found that incorporation of a linkedin assignment into a third-year core physiology subject prompted health science, biomedical science, and science students to create a linkedin account for the first time. following completion of the assignment, most students planned to continue using linkedin and investigation two years after the assignment was completed found that most had indeed continued using the platform. opportunities exist to strengthen the scaffolding within a course to support students’ continued development of their connected identity to allow them to represent their professional identity effectively through social media and work with their professional networks. it is recommended that academics from all disciplines consider incorporating the connectedness pedagogy of social media, through discipline-specific authentic cdl social media tools (e.g., linkedin, behance), within their programs to enhance graduate employability. references adams, k., hean, s., sturgis, p., & clark, j. m. 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(2021). employment, work abroad and bilingual education: spanish bilingual graduates’ self-perceived employability, mobility and intercultural competence. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(2), 279-298. 279 the journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability issn: 1838-3815 (online) journal homepage: https://ojs.deakin.edu.au/index.php/jtlge/ employment, work abroad and bilingual education: spanish bilingual graduates’ self-perceived employability, mobility and intercultural competence francisco javier palacios-hidalgo1, maría elena gómez-parra1, roberto espejo-mohedano2 and cristina a. huertas-abril1 corresponding author: francisco javier palacios-hidalgo (francisco.palacios@uco.es) 1department of english and german philologies, university of córdoba, córdoba, spain 2department of statistics, university of córdoba, córdoba, spain abstract bilingual programs have become more common in higher education around the world in an attempt to provide learners with the education they need to face today’s world. these programs can provide academic, linguistic, intercultural, and professional benefits to students. consequently, countries like spain have developed bilingual education to help students become proficient in foreign languages and develop essential competences for their professional futures. research has analysed how spanish bilingual education is implemented, and how teachers are trained. however, few studies examine how bilingual programs impact graduates’ employability, mobility, and intercultural awareness, and how graduates perceive their skill development. moreover, little has been studied about bilingual graduates’ work situation and whether participating in these programs has helped them find work abroad. this paper analyses whether a combination of participation in spanish bilingual programs, employment, and experiences working abroad affects bilingual education graduates’ selfperceived employability, mobility, and intercultural awareness. this study adopts a quantitative approach, in which 741 respondents participated. findings show that bilingual graduates who are currently working have higher self-perceived employability and better perceptions of their mobility and employability competences than those who followed monolingual studies, even when they have not worked abroad. keywords: employment, work abroad; spanish bilingual education, bilingual education graduates, intercultural competence, international mobility, employability, linguistic success. introduction being able to speak more than one’s first language is a skill of paramount importance in today’s world, and political and educational bodies from every part of the globe seem to be well aware of it. such is the case of the council of europe and the european commission (european supranational organizations comprising a group of countries that operate under the same economic, political and legal space and that respond to the same values of democracy and human rights; european https://ojs.deakin.edu.au/index.php/jtlge/ mailto:francisco.palacios@uco.es palacios-hidalgo, f. j., gómez-parra, m. e., espejo-mohedano, r., & huertas-abril, c. a. (2021). employment, work abroad and bilingual education: spanish bilingual graduates’ self-perceived employability, mobility and intercultural competence. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(2), 279-298. 280 commission, 2020), which claim that the knowledge of languages (including their linguistic and cultural aspects) provides a better understanding of other cultures, thus contributing to the development of citizenship and democratic competences (council of europe, 2019, p. 15). indeed, this has been the premise followed in the european continent for decades, as can be seen from the diversity of official documents published in the field of language learning and teaching and intercultural awareness (e.g., the common european framework of reference for languages, council of europe, 2001, 2018; the white paper on education and training, european commission, 1995; and the language learning and the linguistic diversity promotion plan, european commission, 2003) that have shown the urgency of developing the communicative and intercultural skills of young learners to help them actively participate in the globalised society of today. as a result, bilingual and multilingual education has become more common in educational systems around the world in an attempt to provide 21st-century students with the type of adaptive education they need to face the communicative situations they will encounter in their lives (garcía, 2009). this type of education, which may be strictly bilingual or multilingual depending on the number of languages of instruction used, is understood as the use of more than one language (national or foreign) to teach a wide range of non-linguistic areas of the curriculum (ozfidan & toprak, 2019; rascón-moreno, 2021; terra, 2018; turner, 2021). research has reported the benefits of bilingual and multilingual education for students in the academic and linguistic fields (pérez-vidal & roquet, 2015), but also in terms of intercultural awareness (romanowski, 2018), professional skills (callahan & gándara, 2014), and willingness to travel abroad (yang, 2017). considering these gains, and taking europe’s guidelines into account, countries like spain developed bilingual and multilingual education programs at all educational stages (chumbay & quito-ochoa, 2020; garcía-calvo et al., 2019; mancebo-pérez, 2020; pérez-murillo, 2019) in order to help students become proficient in local and foreign languages as well as to develop essential skills. in this light, research has extensively analysed how spanish bilingual education is implemented (barrios & millalara, 2020; chumbay & quito-ochoa, 2020; valdés-sánchez & espinet, 2020), and also how teachers who take part in these programs are trained (custodio-espinar, 2019; marzà, 2021; palacios-hidalgo, gómez-parra, & huertas-abril, 2018). furthermore, the specialized scientific literature has also examined the academic and linguistic results of bilingual programs in europe and other international contexts (dockrell et al., 2021; kirsch, aleksić, mortini, & andersen, 2020; lorenzo, granados, & rico, 2021). similarly, studies have explored the influence of language learning on students’ academic mobility (mitchell, 2021) and employment (hsieh, in press), and the specific effects of bilingual and multilingual education on their intercultural awareness (gómez-parra, 2020). while employability, mobility and intercultural awareness are key elements in evaluating the effects of bilingual education and individuals’ linguistic success (gómez-parra, huertas-abril, & espejomohedano, 2021), few studies examine how these programs impact graduates’ lives concerning these three aspects and how graduates perceive their development of such skills. moreover, little has been studied about the work situation of spanish bilingual/multilingual education graduates or whether their participation in these programs has helped them find work abroad. the study reported in this paper analysed whether a combination of participation in spanish bilingual/multilingual education programs, being currently employed, and having worked abroad affects bilingual education graduates’ self-perceived employability, mobility, and intercultural awareness. three research questions underpin this study: rq1. do graduates from spanish bilingual/multilingual education programs, who are currently employed and have worked abroad, have positive perceptions of their linguistic success? rq2. do graduates from spanish bilingual/multilingual education, who are currently employed, consider themselves more linguistically successful than those who did not participate in these programs? palacios-hidalgo, f. j., gómez-parra, m. e., espejo-mohedano, r., & huertas-abril, c. a. (2021). employment, work abroad and bilingual education: spanish bilingual graduates’ self-perceived employability, mobility and intercultural competence. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(2), 279-298. 281 rq3. do graduates from spanish bilingual/multilingual education, who have worked abroad, consider themselves more linguistically successful than those who did not participate in these programs? theoretical framework: clil, competences and employability the efforts of educational organisations in highlighting the need to enhance language learning among younger generations have been translated into a somewhat widespread implementation of bilingual and multilingual education in every part of the world (e.g., dos santos, 2019; moore, 2021; theobald, 2019). likewise, european educational systems have engaged in developing bilingual and multilingual programs at all educational levels in an attempt to promote the learning of national and foreign languages among their citizens, as well as the development of their communicative competence (e.g., cenoz & gorter, 2019; lundberg, 2018; nance, 2020). these educational programs may be bilingual or multilingual depending on the number of languages of instruction used. countries and regions within them may choose strictly bilingual programs, a trilingual option, or a multilingual type of education. for instance, spanish regions may be monolingual (e.g., andalusia or the canary islands) where spanish is the only official language spoken. conversely, they may be bilingual where a co-official language is also spoken in addition to spanish; such is the case of catalonia (with catalan as the co-official language), galicia (where galician has co-official status), and the basque country (with basque as a co-official language). in this light, monolingual areas follow strict bilingual education programs, since only spanish and a foreign language (generally english) are used as languages of instruction (méndez, 2013); on the other hand, bilingual regions follow trilingual programs to ensure the teaching and learning of spanish, the foreign language and also co-official languages (cenoz & gorter, 2019). other countries, such as luxembourg, implement a multilingual approach (kirsch et al., 2020). among the different existing approaches to bilingual and multilingual education, content and language integrated learning (clil) has become a common approach implemented in europe and spain (bower, 2021; renau-renau, & mas-martí, 2019), and increasingly in other contexts (cf. sasajima, 2019; yang, 2019). according to coyle, hood and marsh (2010), clil is a dual-focused educational approach in which an additional language is used for the learning and teaching of both content and language (p. 23). dalton-puffer and smit (2013) state some of the clear differences between clil and other types of bilingual and multilingual education (such as immersion programs or content-based instruction), highlighting that, while in clil a foreign language or a lingua franca is used for instruction, other bilingual programs focus on second national languages of the context where they are implemented. in this case, students taking part in clil face the difficulty that the use of the language being learnt is almost totally limited to the classroom since it is not frequently spoken in other situations of learners’ daily life (dalton-puffer & smit 2013). moreover, clil usually starts after students have acquired literacy skills in their first language(s), unlike other forms of bilingual and multilingual education, in which literacy in the languages of instruction is regularly acquired simultaneously. moreover, clil teachers are usually non-native speakers of the language of instruction, and lessons are normally established as non-language lessons (i.e., science, music, or mathematics), while also offering the target language as a language subject taught by language specialists. cenoz, genesee and gorter (2014) add other disparities between clil and other ways of bilingual and multilingual education, such as the main learning focus, which in the former is to develop the necessary skills to guarantee effective communication, while in other approaches it is to acquire native-like proficiency. some scholars consider clil as a type of content-based instruction (coyle et al., 2010; dalton-puffer, 2007). however, cenoz (2015) states some differences between the two concepts. despite both being broad terms encompassing different methodologies, clil tends to be used for the learning of palacios-hidalgo, f. j., gómez-parra, m. e., espejo-mohedano, r., & huertas-abril, c. a. (2021). employment, work abroad and bilingual education: spanish bilingual graduates’ self-perceived employability, mobility and intercultural competence. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(2), 279-298. 282 foreign majority languages like english, french or german, whereas content-based instruction is also used for the learning of second or minority languages. additionally, cenoz (2015) refers to the origin and context of both approaches, with clil being more linked to the use of english-medium instruction in europe in the 1990s, and content-based instruction often associated with the first french-medium immersion programmes in canada in the 1960s (p. 21). several studies have reported the varied benefits that bilingual and multilingual education and clil may have for students. in their work, pérez-vidal and roquet (2015) find linguistic gains in certain language domains in students enrolled in a bilingual catalan/spanish program, such as in reading and grammar. similarly, hipfner-boucher, lam and chen (2014) discover that children participating in bilingual education had higher levels of phonological awareness and word reading skills. as for intercultural awareness, romanowski (2018) discusses how certain forms of bilingual education favour intercultural learning, an idea also supported by hus and hegedis (2021), who show that teachers of bilingual programs believe that this sort of education is the most appropriate for intercultural learning. yang (2017) explores the views of bilingual education university undergraduates and reveals that improved international mobility and employability are wellregarded advantages of this type of education according to students. finally, callahan and gándara (2014) and porras, ee and gándara (2014) examine how participation in bilingual education and speaking more than one language enhances employability. certainly, ‘competence’ and ‘communicative competence’ are key terms not only in european bilingual and multilingual education but in european educational systems in general. the former is understood as the set of knowledge, skills and attitudes that involves meeting complex demands, by drawing on and mobilising psychosocial resources (including skills and attitudes) in a particular context (oecd, 2005, p. 4), whereas the latter draws on an individual’s knowledge of language, practical it skills and attitudes towards those with whom he or she is communicating (p. 4). the development of students’ communicative competence is then key in bilingual and multilingual education. nevertheless, if these programs are to prepare students to face the challenges of 21stcentury society, it may be reasonable to assume that communication-related competences are not their only focus, but that other professional skills like international mobility and employability that have become essential dimensions to measure social progress are also important. in this sense, national and international organisations within europe devote efforts to guarantee that european citizens are granted opportunities to freely move within the borders of the continent for professional reasons. these initiatives and efforts seem to be resulting in the growing international mobility of european working-age citizens seeking economic integration (fries-tersch, jones, & siöland, 2021). among the different european countries, spain is rated as one of the most important destinations for high-skilled movers, but it also suffers a considerable outflow of nationals (around 56,000 working-age citizens leaving the country) that choose to look for better labour opportunities somewhere else (fries-tersch, jones, & siöland, 2021). within this context, research shows that bilingual and multilingual education …can help to improve employability of university graduates in the international job market (schluessel 2007; tsung 2009; zelasko and antúnez 2000), as many companies demand an intercultural and multilingual profile for the staff they hire, in addition to the competences which are specific to the job these will develop (gómez-parra, 2018, p. 95). in fact, in the 2006 eurydice report, a summary developed by the european information network that provides insights on the structure of european education, it was already pointed that one of the key aims of bilingual programs and clil specifically was preparing pupils for life in a more internationalised society and offering them better job prospects on the labour market (eurydice european unit, 2006, p. 22). however, it seems necessary to examine to what extent clil and palacios-hidalgo, f. j., gómez-parra, m. e., espejo-mohedano, r., & huertas-abril, c. a. (2021). employment, work abroad and bilingual education: spanish bilingual graduates’ self-perceived employability, mobility and intercultural competence. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(2), 279-298. 283 bilingual and multilingual education contribute to enhancing graduates’ professional competences, something still unknown (tudor, 2008; yang, 2017). as mentioned previously, research is profuse when analysing how bilingual and multilingual education is implemented in different contexts, how teachers who participate in these programs are trained, and the academic results of students, among other areas of study. nevertheless, few investigations have explored whether graduates consider that their participation in these programs has enhanced their linguistic success. this type of success has been traditionally measured in terms of neurolinguistic and psycholinguistic benefits (cf. li & grant, 2016; thierry, 2016), and little has been mentioned in relation to students’ and/or graduates’ professional or intercultural gains. nevertheless, gómez-parra et al. (2021) have recently demonstrated that linguistic success can be understood as a combination of intercultural competence, international mobility, and employability, and that the evaluation of the success of bilingual and multilingual programs may be related to it. methodology this paper reports on a study which aimed to determine whether a combination of participation in spanish bilingual/multilingual education programs, being currently employed, and having worked abroad affects bilingual education graduates’ self-perceived linguistic success, understood as a combination of employability, mobility, and intercultural awareness. to this purpose, an online questionnaire was used to examine potential differences among groups when considering participation in spanish bilingual/multilingual education, employment, and work abroad as grouping variables. the work follows a quantitative approach, which involves measurement and assumes that the phenomena under study can be measured (watson, 2015, p. 1), and which allows using a large group of participants to examine the relations among the variables (muijs, 2010). this study is part of the research project ‘facing bilinguals: study of bilingual education programmes’ results through social data analysis (besoc)’ (ref. no. edu2017-84800-r), granted by the 2017 call of the spanish ministry of science and innovation, and whose objective is to study how bilingual education programs across the world impact on 21st-century citizens. the besoc team has been designed ad hoc and is composed of experts in the fields of philology, psychopedagogy, statistics, informatics, economics, and legal and business sciences. it also had the support of distinguished international experts in bilingual and multilingual education. this guarantees the multidisciplinarity of the research project. procedure an online questionnaire was used for the collection of data. first, facebook audience insights was used for cross-sectional sample modelling; this tool allows selecting individuals that meet certain conditions (such as age, languages spoken, or educational background) by using their personal information and their behaviour on facebook. the researchers chose to use this tool instead of simply selecting a convenience sample as it guarantees to obtain a larger number of participants for the study. once the audience was identified, the questionnaire was made available through surveymonkey, inserted in advertisements, and distributed on facebook. in this way, users located in spain were provided the link to the questionnaire and invited to participate in the study. the research team had access to the anonymous responses to the questionnaire but not to respondents’ personal, activity and interaction information, which was exclusively manipulated by facebook. palacios-hidalgo, f. j., gómez-parra, m. e., espejo-mohedano, r., & huertas-abril, c. a. (2021). employment, work abroad and bilingual education: spanish bilingual graduates’ self-perceived employability, mobility and intercultural competence. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(2), 279-298. 284 after gathering the responses to the questionnaire (from december 2019 to january 2020), data were refined by identifying and dismissing anomalous information, and discarding incomplete responses (due to the size of the sample, this process was applied instead of imputation; van buuren, 2018). instrument an online format was chosen for the design and administration of the instrument in order to guarantee accessibility and reaching a larger sample. the questionnaire (see appendix) was designed by the besoc team as part of the aforementioned research project. it consists of a total of 37 items classified as follows: 13 general questions, with binary and numerical variables, including age, gender, languages spoken, participation in bilingual programs, employment, and experience working abroad, among others; and 24 specific questions related to linguistic success, measured with a 10point likert (1 = very little; 10 = a lot), which are in turn divided into three dimensions (international mobility, employability, and intercultural competence). it is worth mentioning that the instrument makes no reference to the languages of instruction of the bilingual programs in which respondents may have participated, their nationality or region of origin, the educational stage in which they received this teaching, or the type of schooling in which they were enrolled (i.e., public, or statefunded education); these variables, therefore, are not considered in the study. additionally, it is worth noticing the possible conflicts of the questionnaire relying on self-reported answers and the potential bias of the results (devaux & sassi, 2016). nonetheless, as stated by althubaiti (2016), when self-reporting data are correctly utilized, they can help to provide a wider range of responses than many other data collection instruments (p. 212). the questionnaire was published and validated by gómez-parra et al. (2021), who tested its reliability and internal consistency by applying cronbach’s alpha (higher than 0.88 for the three dimensions, and 0.950 for the total scale; taber, 2018), bartlett’s sphericity test (0.00; sig. < 0.05) and kaiser-meyer-olkin measure of sampling adequacy (0.949; sig. > 0.8). the authors also performed confirmatory factor analysis to verify whether the three established dimensions can be used to measure linguistic success (gómez-parra et al., 2021). participants 741 respondents comprised the national representative sample of the study. 472 (63.7%) were women, 263 (35.5%) were men, and one (0.8%) did not answer this question. the mean age was 39.9 (sd = 14.6), while the mean time of study in bilingual/multilingual education was 7.92 years (sd = 6.35). according to their work situation, 483 (65.18%) participants were employed, out of whom only 79 (10.66%) had participated in a spanish bilingual or multilingual program; in terms of experience working abroad, 242 (32.66%) claimed having done so, of whom only 41 (5.53%) had studied in a bilingual or multilingual program. as mentioned before, nationality and educational stage in which respondents participated in bilingual and/or multilingual education were not considered for the study. table 1 shows the distribution of participants (including frequencies and percentages). palacios-hidalgo, f. j., gómez-parra, m. e., espejo-mohedano, r., & huertas-abril, c. a. (2021). employment, work abroad and bilingual education: spanish bilingual graduates’ self-perceived employability, mobility and intercultural competence. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(2), 279-298. 285 table 1: distribution of participants item participation in bilingual or multilingual education n % gender male yes 51 6.88 no 212 28.61 female yes 89 12.01 no 383 51.69 n-a yes 2 0.27 no 4 0.54 total 741 employed yes yes 79 10.66 no 404 54.52 no yes 63 8.50 no 195 26.32 total 741 experience working abroad yes yes 41 5.53 no 201 27.13 no yes 101 13.63 no 398 53.71 total 741 data analysis data were analysed using spss v22.0. first, the 759 responses initially gathered were reduced to 741 after finding 18 participants who had provided contradictory information. then, a descriptive analysis of the data was developed to get a general summary of the collected information. finally, mann-whitney u and wilcoxon signed-rank tests were used to discover statistically significant differences (when sig. < 0.05; field, 2013; sokal & rohlf, 2001) among groups considering the three grouping variables (i.e., participation in spanish bilingual/multilingual education, employment, and experience work abroad). results table 2 shows the results of responses in the items of the questionnaire regarding employability, distinguishing between participants and non-participants of bilingual or multilingual education. palacios-hidalgo, f. j., gómez-parra, m. e., espejo-mohedano, r., & huertas-abril, c. a. (2021). employment, work abroad and bilingual education: spanish bilingual graduates’ self-perceived employability, mobility and intercultural competence. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(2), 279-298. 286 table 2: descriptive results in the dimension ‘employability’ item participation in bilingual or multilingual education n mean sd bilingualism/languages favouring employability yes 142 6.577 3.08123 no 599 5.778 3.33008 total 741 bilingualism/languages impacting job development yes 142 6.485 3.10510 no 599 5.998 3.34899 total 741 use of second language to communicate with colleagues yes 142 5.809 3.39573 no 599 4.609 3.31324 total 741 difficulty to communicate in the second language with colleagues yes 142 4.288 3.06335 no 599 4.297 3.11247 total 741 use of second language abroad when travelling for work yes 142 3.063 3.26541 no 599 6.101 3.42204 total 741 bilingualism/languages improving salary yes 142 6.626 2.90416 no 599 5.581 3.26986 total 741 as presented in table 2, mean scores differ when considering participation in spanish bilingual/multilingual education; when considering their employability, participants of bilingual programs score higher than their non-bilingual counterparts in 4 of the 6 questions. the results of mann-whitney u and wilcoxon signed-rank tests applied to these 6 items are presented in table 3, finding statistically significant differences (sig. < 0.05) in 3 of the 6 items in favour of bilingual education graduates. palacios-hidalgo, f. j., gómez-parra, m. e., espejo-mohedano, r., & huertas-abril, c. a. (2021). employment, work abroad and bilingual education: spanish bilingual graduates’ self-perceived employability, mobility and intercultural competence. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(2), 279-298. 287 table 3: significant differences according to participation in bilingual/multilingual education item mannwhitney u wilcoxon w z sig. bilingualism/languages favouring employability 36727.50 216427.50 -2.556 .011* bilingualism/languages impacting job development 39181.00 218881.00 -1.478 .139 use of second language to communicate with colleagues 33878.00 213578.00 -3.833 .000* difficulty to communicate in the second language with colleagues 42063.00 221763.00 -.206 .837 use of second language abroad when travelling for work 39618.50 219318.50 -1.288 .198 bilingualism/languages improving salary 34791.50 214491.50 -3.406 .001* note. significant differences (sig. < 0.05) marked with (*) and in bold. table 4 shows the descriptive values when considering the three grouping variables of the study (i.e., participation in spanish bilingual/multilingual education, employment, and experience working abroad), the three dimensions (i.e., mobility, employability, and intercultural competence), and the total scale (i.e., linguistic success as a whole). table 4: descriptive values employed experience working abroad participation in bilingual or multilingual education n min. max. mean sd yes yes yes mobility 32 5.00 50.00 38.4375 11.74442 employ. 32 4.00 40.00 28.4375 11.30783 intercult. 32 25.00 50.00 41.4375 8.09993 total 32 59.00 140.00 108.3125 25.75497 no mobility 162 5.00 50.00 39.3148 9.50676 employ. 162 4.00 40.00 29.7346 8.65616 intercult. 162 5.00 50.00 39.9198 10.23814 total 162 14.00 140.00 108.9691 24.88718 no yes mobility 47 5.00 50.00 31.4894 14.18798 employ. 47 4.00 40.00 23.9787 10.78342 intercult. 47 13.00 50.00 36.6383 11.24901 total 47 32.00 140.00 92.1064 32.3131 no mobility 242 5.00 50.00 30.3967 13.57229 palacios-hidalgo, f. j., gómez-parra, m. e., espejo-mohedano, r., & huertas-abril, c. a. (2021). employment, work abroad and bilingual education: spanish bilingual graduates’ self-perceived employability, mobility and intercultural competence. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(2), 279-298. 288 employ. 242 4.00 40.00 20.0413 11.27579 intercult. 242 5.00 50.00 32.5868 13.69567 total 242 14.00 140.00 83.0248 34.41761 no yes yes mobility 9 19.00 50.00 37.4444 10.73675 employ. 9 12.00 40.00 28.1111 11.03907 intercult. 9 25.00 50.00 41.5556 8.83333 total 9 56.00 140.00 107.1111 28.68991 no mobility 39 5.00 50.00 32.6410 13.56367 employ. 39 4.00 39.00 23.2564 11.62058 intercult. 39 5.00 50.00 35.5641 13.13852 total 39 14.00 135.00 91.4615 36.25483 no yes mobility 54 5.00 50.00 33.3333 13.08463 employ. 54 4.00 40.00 24.3519 10.15197 intercult. 54 10.00 50.00 36.1852 10.80020 total 54 36.00 140.00 93.8704 30.24120 no mobility 156 5.00 50.00 28.4295 14.89192 employ. 156 4.00 40.00 18.5641 11.41147 intercult. 156 5.00 50.00 31.1218 14.36184 total 156 14.00 140.00 78.1154 36.21459 table 5 shows the mean ranks and sum of ranks after the cross-tabulation of the three variables, which are necessary to calculate non-parametric mann whitney and wilcoxon tests. table 5: ranks employed experience working abroad participation in bilingual or multilingual education n mean rank sum of ranks yes yes mobility yes 32 98.34 3147.00 no 162 97.33 15768.00 total 194 employability yes 32 96.48 3087.50 no 162 97.70 15827.50 total 194 intercultural yes 32 101.16 3237.00 no 162 96.78 15678.00 total 194 total yes 32 97.33 3114.50 no 162 97.53 15800.50 palacios-hidalgo, f. j., gómez-parra, m. e., espejo-mohedano, r., & huertas-abril, c. a. (2021). employment, work abroad and bilingual education: spanish bilingual graduates’ self-perceived employability, mobility and intercultural competence. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(2), 279-298. 289 total 194 no mobility yes 47 150.88 7091.50 no 242 143.86 34813.50 total 289 employability yes 47 169.83 7982.00 no 242 140.18 33923.00 total 289 intercultural yes 47 164.72 7742.00 no 242 141.17 34163.00 total 289 total yes 47 162.43 7634.00 no 242 141.62 34271.00 total 289 no yes mobility yes 9 27.83 250.50 no 39 23.73 925.50 total 48 employability yes 9 30.44 274.00 no 39 23.13 902.00 total 48 intercultural yes 9 29.72 267.50 no 39 23.29 908.50 total 48 total yes 9 29.50 265.50 no 39 23.35 910.50 total 48 no mobility yes 54 120.21 6491.50 no 156 100.41 15663.50 total 210 employability yes 54 127.88 6905.50 no 156 97.75 15249.50 total 210 intercultural yes 54 119.34 6444.50 no 156 100.71 15710.50 total 210 total yes 54 124.84 6741.50 no 156 98.80 15413.50 total 210 palacios-hidalgo, f. j., gómez-parra, m. e., espejo-mohedano, r., & huertas-abril, c. a. (2021). employment, work abroad and bilingual education: spanish bilingual graduates’ self-perceived employability, mobility and intercultural competence. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(2), 279-298. 290 finally, table 6 presents results of mann-whitney u and wilcoxon w tests applied to the crosstabulations considered in order to discover statistically significant differences between participants and non-participants of bilingual education programs. table 6: significant differences according to participation in bilingual/multilingual education employed experience working abroad mobility employ. intercult. linguistic success yes yes mann-whitney u 2565.000 2559.500 2475.000 2586.500 wilcoxon w 15768.000 3087.500 15678.000 3114.500 z -.093 -.112 -.406 -.019 sig. .926 .911 .685 .985 no mann-whitney u 5410.500 4520.000 4760.000 4868.000 wilcoxon w 34813.500 33923.000 34163.000 34271.000 z -.528 -2.228 -1.770 -1.562 sig. .598 .026* .077 .118 no yes mann-whitney u 145.500 122.000 128.500 130.500 wilcoxon w 925.500 902.000 908.500 910.500 z -.793 -1.416 -1.245 -1.189 sig. .428 .157 .213 .234 sig. (one-sided) .435 .164 .219 .239 no mann-whitney u 3417.500 3003.500 3464.500 3167.500 wilcoxon w 15663.500 15249.500 15710.500 15413.500 z -2.066 -3.148 -1.945 -2.714 sig. .039* .002* .052 .007* note. significant differences (sig. < 0.05) marked with (*) and in bold. when considering participants in bilingual/multilingual education, statistically significant differences are found in mobility, employability, and global linguistic success in favour of graduates who are not employed and have not worked abroad. likewise, significant discrepancies are appreciated in employability in favour of employed graduates who have not worked in another country. discussion the number of subjects that have participated in the study (n = 741) has allowed the identification of how graduates from spanish bilingual/multilingual programs perceive their international mobility, employability, intercultural competence, and global linguistic success in comparison to their nonbilingual/multilingual counterparts. moreover, the results of the study have shown that, unlike individuals’ experiences working abroad, being employed may be a determinant factor in bilingual education graduates’ self-perceived employability. palacios-hidalgo, f. j., gómez-parra, m. e., espejo-mohedano, r., & huertas-abril, c. a. (2021). employment, work abroad and bilingual education: spanish bilingual graduates’ self-perceived employability, mobility and intercultural competence. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(2), 279-298. 291 when examining participants’ responses regarding their employability, different perceptions can be found depending on whether subjects have been enrolled in a bilingual/multilingual program or monolingual education (see tables 2 and 3). graduates from spanish bilingual/multilingual programs are more positive regarding how their bilingualism/languages have favoured their employability and how this can improve their salary; likewise, they claim using the languages they speak more than graduates from monolingual education when communicating with their colleagues, and believing that their bilingualism/languages have a positive impact on the development of their job (although differences are not statistically significant in this respect; cf. table 2 and table 3). these findings are in line with previous studies (e.g., callahan & gándara, 2014; porras, ee, & gándara, 2014) that show employers’ opinions about the potential of bilingual and multilingual education for the improvement of their businesses and the service they offer to their customers, who, as a result, are willing to pay more to employees who speak more than one language. this also links with research on students’ perceived advantages of bilingual/multilingual programs in different contexts (e.g., yang, 2017), which reveals that enhanced employability is one of the key benefits of participating in bilingual/multilingual programs seen by learners. although the results of these studies are not focused on spain, they may help understand bilingual/multilingual education graduates’ high selfperceived employability skills. data analysis has also shown that bilingual/multilingual graduates who are currently working but have not worked abroad have higher self-perceived employability skills than those who followed monolingual studies (see table 6). this reveals that the idea of enhanced employability thanks to participation in bilingual or multilingual education seen among university undergraduates (bozdoğan & karlıdağ, 2013; yang, 2017) prevails among employed graduates, who consider their educational background has helped them to find work. likewise, graduates who have studied in a bilingual/multilingual program but are not employed and have not worked abroad have better perceptions of their mobility and employability competences as well as their global linguistic success than their counterparts, which may also suggest the prevalence of the idea of how beneficial bilingual and multilingual education is in terms of international orientation and job prospects (goris, denessen, & verhoeven, 2019; yang, 2017). moreover, research has shown that students of bilingual and multilingual education consider their participation in this educational option may be an advantage for them to study and work in another country (e.g., bozdoğan & karlıdağ, 2013). the results of the present study, however, indicate that having worked in a different country does not seem to impact participants’ self-perceived linguistic success or employability. similarly, studies in the field of intercultural learning have extensively analysed its essential role in bilingual and multilingual education, and especially in clil, and how these approaches can help enhance students’ intercultural awareness (gómez-parra, 2020; yang, 2019). nevertheless, this study has not found any hints of improved intercultural awareness when considering the combination of participation in spanish bilingual/multilingual education programs, being employed, and having worked abroad. conclusions this paper has reported on the effect of participation in spanish bilingual/multilingual education programs, being currently employed, and having worked abroad on bilingual/multilingual education graduates’ self-perceived employability, mobility, intercultural awareness, and global linguistic success. findings show that having participated in bilingual/multilingual education and being employed are determining factors in graduates’ self-perceived employability skills, while work abroad, seems not to have impacted their perceptions of their linguistic success, employability, mobility, or intercultural awareness. notwithstanding how employment and work-abroad experiences affect bilingual education graduates’ perceptions, participation in bilingual and multilingual programs certainly results in more positive views of linguistic success among alumni. palacios-hidalgo, f. j., gómez-parra, m. e., espejo-mohedano, r., & huertas-abril, c. a. (2021). employment, work abroad and bilingual education: spanish bilingual graduates’ self-perceived employability, mobility and intercultural competence. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(2), 279-298. 292 in relation to rq1 (do graduates from spanish bilingual/multilingual education programs, who are currently employed and have worked abroad, have positive perceptions of their linguistic success?), results have shown that when considering a combination of these three variables, no effect on bilingual graduates’ perceptions of linguistic success, employability, mobility or intercultural competence is found; however, when graduates have studied in a bilingual/multilingual program but are not employed and have not worked abroad, they value their international mobility, employability skills and global linguistic success more positively than graduates from spanish monolingual education. as for rq2 (do graduates from spanish bilingual/multilingual education, who are currently employed, consider themselves more linguistically successful than those who did not participate in these programs?), the study has proved that bilingual/multilingual graduates currently working have higher self-perceived employability only if they have not worked in a foreign country; conversely, the other two dimensions and global linguistic success are not affected when these two variables are combined. finally, regarding rq3 (do graduates from spanish bilingual/multilingual education, who have worked abroad, consider themselves more linguistically successful than those who did not participate in these programs?), findings have revealed that experiences working abroad do not affect how spanish bilingual graduates view their linguistic success. this study and its results should be interpreted considering some limitations. first, deeper analysis is still necessary to determine the relationship between the three established dimensions, participation in bilingual/multilingual education programs, employment, work abroad, and selfperceived linguistic success. second, the sample could be expanded to allow generalising the results, comparing the perceptions of bilingual/multilingual graduates from different countries and contexts, and drawing more conclusions. third, these findings may show bias since they are based on selfreported quantitative information (althubaiti, 2016; devaux & sassi, 2016); in this sense, other instruments and a mixed-method approach could be used in future studies in order to gather more data. notwithstanding these constraints, it is worth mentioning that the besoc team is in the process of studying the correlation between these variables in different contexts, which will allow obtaining more data regarding the real effects of bilingual and multilingual education on graduates. nevertheless, the implications of the study for educational policy are clear. the findings regarding the role of employment, work-abroad experiences and participation in bilingual/multilingual education should be seen as a motivation to promote this type of teaching and more specifically the clil approach. nonetheless, a revision of how this type of education is planned and implemented at all educational levels cannot be overlooked. in this sense, the place that international mobility, employability, and intercultural awareness occupy in spanish bilingual/multilingual education must be revisited so that graduates are fully prepared. furthermore, these results suggest the perceived potential of spanish bilingual/multilingual programs according to graduates, and they should be seen as an encouragement to continue examining how bilingual and multilingual education can be best implemented so as to help improve the professional competences of 21st-century citizens. acknowledgement this paper was supported by the project ‘facing bilinguals: study of bilingual education programmes’ results through social data analysis’ (ref. no. edu2017-84800-r), granted by a competitive call of the spanish ministry of science and innovation. moreover, it was also supported by the spanish ministry of education (resolución de 5 de diciembre de 2017, de la secretaría de estado de educación, formación profesional y universidades, por la que se convocan ayudas para la formación de profesorado universitario, de los subprogramas de formación y de movilidad incluidos en el programa estatal de promoción del talento y su empleabilidad, en el marco del plan estatal de investigación científica y técnica y de innovación 2013-2016). palacios-hidalgo, f. j., gómez-parra, m. e., espejo-mohedano, r., & huertas-abril, c. a. 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(2021). employment, work abroad and bilingual education: spanish bilingual graduates’ self-perceived employability, mobility and intercultural competence. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(2), 279-298. 297 appendix: questionnaire section 1: personal and general information – age – gender – languages you speak – country/countries where you went to school – country where you live now – other countries you have lived in – which language/s did you learn at school? – in a bilingual programme? – if yes, for how long? – are you employed? – how much do you use your second language as written? – how much do you use your second language as oral? – how much do you think your bilingualism/languages help/s you learn more languages? section 2: mobility – have you ever worked abroad? – how much do you think your bilingualism/languages favour/s your mobility abroad? – how much do you use your second language/s abroad when you travel for pleasure? – do you feel more international due to your second language? – how much do you think your second language makes you more willing to travel abroad? – how much does your second language influence your destination when travelling abroad? – have you ever followed a training course abroad? – how much do you think your bilingualism/languages make/s you willing to follow training courses abroad? section 3: employability – how much do you think your bilingualism/languages has/have favoured your employability? – how much do you think your second language has impacted the development of your job? – how much do/would you use your second language to communicate with your colleagues at work? – how difficult do/would you find to communicate in your second language with your colleagues? – how much do/would you use your second language abroad when you travel for work? – e6. how much do you think your bilingualism/languages can improve your salary? section 4: intercultural competence – how much do you think your bilingualism/languages make/s you a citizen of the world? – how much do you think your bilingualism/languages favour/s your understanding and acceptance of others? – how much do you think your bilingualism/languages favour/s your adaptation to other cultures abroad? – how much do you think your bilingualism/languages make/s you willing to live in a foreign country? – how much do you think your bilingualism/languages has/have impacted the way you are? – how much do you think your bilingualism/languages has/have impacted the way you live? – how much do you think your bilingualism/languages make/s you evolve as an intercultural individual? palacios-hidalgo, f. j., gómez-parra, m. e., espejo-mohedano, r., & huertas-abril, c. a. (2021). employment, work abroad and bilingual education: spanish bilingual graduates’ self-perceived employability, mobility and intercultural competence. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(2), 279-298. 298 – how much do you think your bilingualism/languages make/s you competent in different cultural contexts? – how much do you consider that being bilingual/plurilingual helped you understand/feel empathy with foreign citizens? – how much do you think your bilingualism/languages help/s you have access to and enjoy a wider spectrum of cultural products (e.g., books, films, tv series, music, videos, video games, etc.)? note. source: gómez-parra et al., 2021 reid, a., richards, a., & willox, d. (2021). connecting experiences to employability through a meaning-making approach to learning. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(2), 99–113. 99 the journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability issn: 1838-3815 (online) journal homepage: https://ojs.deakin.edu.au/index.php/jtlge/ connecting experiences to employability through a meaningmaking approach to learning andrea reid1, anna richards2 and dino willox2 corresponding author: andrea reid (andreajreid@hotmail.com ) 1university of southern queensland, australia 2the university of queensland, australia abstract a key part of the student experience in the higher education context is employability. there is an expectation that universities will contribute to their students’ employability and indeed they are measured on this contribution and are allocated funding based on it. despite the importance of employability in higher education, it remains a complex and contested concept, often conflated with employment – graduates in jobs and the roles they occupy – and seen as a quantifiable outcome of the student experience. where employability is understood as an individual’s knowledge, capabilities, and personal attributes that make them more likely to gain employment and be successful in their professional lives, it is often framed by the discourse of skills. there are some employability models, however, that champion a more holistic view of employability and highlight the role that experiences play in individual employability development. this paper reports on the development of an institutional employability framework and reflective process in an australian research-intensive university. the paper discusses the experiential learning theories that underpin the reflective process that supports students to understand and articulate employability learning, for framing narratives around the potential to contribute to an organisation for employment, and for the transfer of this potential to professional contexts. the framework and reflective process represent employability as a learning process through which students make meaning from their experiences and learning opportunities. this involves understanding the value of their experiences, how to articulate that value, and how to transfer it to workplace performance. keywords: employability learning, experiential learning, reflection, meaningmaking, experiences, transfer, employability narratives introduction graduate employability continues to be a key issue on the higher education agenda and there is ongoing debate about graduates’ work-readiness and their potential to contribute to the economy through work (tomlinson, 2017). employability is a multifaceted concept, including the skills, understandings and personal attributes that support graduates to gain employment and contribute to organisations and to society (yorke, 2006). employability is distinct from but related to employment (holmes, 2017), the latter denoting the numbers of graduates in jobs and the types of jobs they occupy. in australia and the uk, universities are judged on proxy measures of employment and are allocated government funding based on these measures (cole & willox, 2021; department https://ojs.deakin.edu.au/index.php/jtlge/ mailto:andreajreid@hotmail.com reid, a., richards, a., & willox, d. (2021). connecting experiences to employability through a meaning-making approach to learning. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(2), 99–113. 100 of education, skills and employment, 2020). while employability generally refers to the activities and pedagogies that support personal and professional growth (dacre pool, 2017), it remains a complex and contested concept with no universally recognised measures (behle, 2020). it often focuses on individual potential while paying less attention to how this potential may be realised as job outcomes and the social and economic influences on these outcomes (tomlinson, 2017). what is clear, however, is the expectation that universities should be made accountable for their students’ employability development (behle, 2020; matherly & tillman, 2019). existing models and frameworks, in attempting to make sense of the complexity of employability, provide conceptualisations of individual employability and/or the construct of employability itself. behle’s framework (2020) acknowledges the influences of individual factors and circumstances, enabling support systems and the labour market on employability. there are two models that set out the components of individual employability. one of these is the understanding, skills, efficacy beliefs, and metacognition model (usem) (yorke & knight 2004) and the other is the careeredge model (dacre pool & sewell, 2007), where edge represents experience (work and life), degree subject knowledge, generic skills, and emotional intelligence. these models signify a shift away from the prevailing skills discourse to view employability as a set of interrelated elements, thus exemplifying the ‘things’ students need to develop to become employable. importantly, these models and frameworks show that employability is more than just discipline knowledge and skills. the careeredge model champions the role of work and life experience in the development of graduate employability (dacre pool & sewell 2007). activities such as volunteering, internships, leadership programs, mentoring, and international study offer life-experience learning opportunities that provide the potential to facilitate employability development (nghia, 2017; purcell et al, 2012). these activities have been shown to contribute to employment outcomes (clark et al, 2015; lau, hsu, acosta & hsu, 2014). life experiences are valuable, as they often present students with complexity, challenge, and the risk of failure (curran, 2007). activities outside of formal learning environments are fertile ground for the development of employability capabilities, but also intangible qualities and behavioural characteristics that are difficult to assess (cushing et al, 2019, p. 205) but are vital to becoming an employable graduate. the creators of careeredge (dacre pool & sewell, 2007) contend that universities should provide students with opportunities to develop the elements of their model through reflection and evaluation. this idea aligns with the key tenets of experiential learning theory (elt), where experience is the basis and stimulus for learning (boud, cohen, & walker, 1993) and making meaning from experiences leads to learning (merriam & bierema, 2013; mezirow, 2000). in contrast to classroom and work-integrated learning opportunities, life experiences (i.e. informal and extracurricular) are unstructured and often not assessed or certified (richardson, 2004). the literature acknowledges this as a challenge (montrose, 2002; strange & gibson, 2017), where the difficulty lies in students understanding what they have gained from an unstructured experience and how this learning contributes to their personal and professional growth. these challenges create a solid platform for creating a reflective process to support students to make meaning from extra-curricular experiences for employability learning. this paper reports on the development and implementation of an institutional employability framework and a theoretically-framed reflective process that forms a key part of the implementation of the framework. experiential learning approaches to employability development as an educational philosophy, experiential learning theory (elt) is grounded in the idea that life experiences, education and work are pivotal to the learning and understanding of new knowledge and capabilities (fry, ketteridge, & marshall, 2009). indeed, the fundamental place of experience in learning is central to understandings of adult learning (merriam & bierema, 2013). in the 1980s, kolb (1984) conceptualised the experiential learning process in a model that is now the most widely cited (morris, 2020). this model shows learning from experience as a process of the learner engaging with reid, a., richards, a., & willox, d. (2021). connecting experiences to employability through a meaning-making approach to learning. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(2), 99–113. 101 an experience, observing and reflecting on the experience, using their analytical skills to integrate concepts and ideas from these observations, and then applying new ideas and concepts to practice. while there have been criticisms of kolb’s work, particularly the way it disregards the social context of learning, it remains a fundamental and influential model and the clearest expression of experiential learning theory (seaman, brown, & quay, 2017, p. 3). when learners work through kolb’s experiential learning process, they are undertaking meaning making work to translate experiences into learning (mezirow, 2000). meaning-making is the process by which people interpret situations, events, objects, or discourses, in the light of their previous knowledge and experience (zittoun & brinkmann, 2012, para. 1). meaning-making involves rendering an experience coherent (kegan, 1982; mezirow, 2000) and determining the personal value or significance of the experience (huta, 2017; park, 2017). an experience takes on semiotic shape through meaning-making which makes emotionally-laden life experiences…thinkable and communicable (zittoun & brinkmann, 2012, para. 8). meaning-making requires learners to utilise language to articulate their experiences, both to themselves and to others (mezirow, 2000). importantly, meaning-making is socially and contextually influenced and learners themselves are social constructs (jarvis, 1987). the meanings made from experiences are shaped by the nature of the experience and the learner’s socially-constructed meaning-making lens. in this way, knowledge is situated in context: emphasising place and time (morris, 2020, p. 1068). in the context of employability learning, meaning-making allows the learner to construct authentic narratives that are important for articulating employability to potential employers. these narratives provide a mechanism for graduates to lay claim to the knowledge, skills, attributes and mindsets that are required for employability, and they are part of identity construction (de blaquiere, nolan & wray, 2019). indeed, meaning-making is identity work (erichsen, 2011) as it allows the learner to understand changes to their sense of self and their capabilities as a result of constructing meaning from experiences (reid, 2020). employability narratives are defined by de blaquiere, nolan and wray (2019) as the articulation of skilful practices which demonstrate competent performance of skills in context, thus storying employability and supporting the development of a sense of identity as an employable graduate who perceives what she can offer to an employer expressed in terms an employer will understand (p.29). this makes meaning-making for employability learning highly socially and contextually framed, as learners are constructing and articulating meaning from experiences for personal growth framed as employability narratives that express their identity as employable graduates. to help employers recognise the value of extra-curricular experiences in the recruitment process, it is important for students to determine what they have learned from these experiences and, in the case of outward-bound mobility, re-story ‘travel stories’ as ‘career stories’ (green, king, & gallagher, 2019, p. 34). the same could be said about any experience that occurs outside of formal learning contexts, where stories represent graduates’ perceptions of their employability, or their identity as beginning professionals who can create societal and organisational impact through employment (de blaquiere et al., 2019; oguro & mueller, 2020). holmes (2013) argues that graduate identity should frame perspectives on employability, where a sense of the professional self is validated in workplace settings through the performance of the required skills and capabilities. employment is not the only way that graduates transfer and apply learning from their higher education experiences. universities, however, are positioned as being highly integral to economic prosperity, and the corollary is that graduates are key players on the economic stage with an integral part to play in the labour market (tomlinson, 2017, p. 2). moreover, while students have a range of reasons for attending university, job and career motivations are strong, particularly as tuition fees are high, and may rise in the future (kaye & bates, 2017). while holmes (2017) makes an argument for conceptualising employability as graduate identity, the language of skills is inherent in employers’ expectations of graduates and in their recruitment practices (de blaquiere et al., 2019). employability, however, is more than just ‘possession’ of a set of skills. graduates need to understand what to do with these skills to make an impact on the reid, a., richards, a., & willox, d. (2021). connecting experiences to employability through a meaning-making approach to learning. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(2), 99–113. 102 organisations in which they work, i.e. to turn these ‘here and now’ skills into future-focussed capabilities. the reality, though, is that success in the recruitment process is based largely on a graduate’s ability to express what they can offer an employer using the language of skills and present compelling examples of those skills in practice (de blaquiere et al., 2019). moving beyond recruitment to the practice of work requires the learner to make meaning from their experiences and connect those meanings to personal and professional development. the learner needs to understand the potential utilisation of this development. one of the challenges is that students may not have given much thought to the learning potential of these experiences nor to the nature of their professional identity, career development and management and how to articulate what they can offer in job interviews or in the workplace itself (oguro & mueller, 2020). the reflective process presented in this paper addresses this challenge. a new approach to student employability development the development of a reflective process to support students to understand and articulate employability learning from non-formal experiences was situated in the work on the university of queensland’s (uq) student employability framework (reid, 2015). the university is one of the group of eight research-intensive universities in australia which, at the time, had no formal, shared approach to student employability development. the framework acknowledges that students develop discipline-based skills and knowledge through their degree studies and the degree is something that is taken for granted by employers and the first step in the application process (brown, hesketh, & williams, 2003). the framework is underpinned by work on graduate employability (holmes, 2013; jackson, 2016; trede, macklin, & bridges, 2012) that recognises the contribution of curricular learning and participation in activities provided by the university and the community to professional identity development (oguro & mueller, 2020). methodology the aim of the research was to provide an evidence base for the university’s employability work. a small consultative, qualitative study was undertaken with human resources (hr) professionals using semi-structured interviews and a short online survey. these research instruments sought to ascertain expectations of graduates and perceptions of graduate performance. as this was a practice-based project, ethics approval was not required. in total, 28 hr professionals were recruited for the study through professional networks to represent a broad range of graduate positions. nineteen people were interviewed and nine completed the survey. the sample included recruiters and graduate program facilitators in medium and large organisations in the fields of health, engineering, local government, and business. a thematic approach (braun & clark, 2006) was taken to the data analysis process. findings the themes that emerged from the findings aligned with the literature on the need for students to be ‘more than just their degree’, that professional mindsets and capabilities underpinned by personal attributes and behavioural characteristics connect degree learning to effective workplace performance (ortlieb, 2015). the findings also echoed the employability research on the value of extra-curricular activities (clark et al., 2015; purcell et al., 2012) and on broader conceptions of employability (holmes, 2013; tomlinson, 2017; yorke, 2006). the findings speak to the nature of graduate recruitment, where graduates lack professional work experience and are therefore usually selected for their perceived potential rather than a demonstrable capacity to perform in a particular role (caballero & walker, 2010). recruiters draw on a range of selection techniques to connect past achievements and behaviours to the role they need to fill, where this past performance is seen as an indicator of future workplace performance reid, a., richards, a., & willox, d. (2021). connecting experiences to employability through a meaning-making approach to learning. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(2), 99–113. 103 (caballero & walker, 2010; tomlinson, 2017). graduates need to be able to draw on a range of experiences to effectively address behavioural interview questions and demonstrate workplace potential by making convincing claims about their professional identity and the attributes and characteristics that make them employable (de blaquiere et al., 2019). as the findings revealed the value of experiences to employability development, literature on elt (e.g. kolb, 1984) and adult learning (e.g. merriam & bierema, 2013) was reviewed and key concepts were synthesised with the findings. the literature that underpins the employability framework and reflective process is discussed below. the uq employability framework the work was focussed on providing a framework for understanding and articulating employability learning, for framing narratives around the potential to contribute to an organisation for employment and for application of this potential. the framework represents employability as a learning process through which students make meaning from their experiences and learning opportunities. this involves understanding the value of their experiences, how to articulate that value, and how to transfer it to workplace performance. the four pillars of the framework are set out below (and in figure 1): ● awareness: employability is understood as the development of both discipline knowledge and skills, as well as personal attributes that guide workplace performance ● experiences: engaging with a range of curricular, co-curricular, and extracurricular experiences helps to develop employability ● learning: reflecting on experiences realises individual employability and, therefore, the value of the experience ● transfer: effectively communicating their employability in the recruitment process and applying it in the workplace translates learning into performance (i.e. graduates articulating their value and transferring it to professional contexts). figure 1: the university of queensland employability framework (the university of queensland, 2015) the first pillar stems from the need to raise awareness of employability as a learning process that involves more than just development of degree knowledge and skills. this pillar addresses the conceptual confusion that still exists around employability that seeks to differentiate employability from the act of securing a job (tomlinson, 2017). the second pillar is informed by the established value of experiences both within and outside formal settings for employability (holmes, 2013; jackson, 2016; trede et al., 2012) and the use of non-professional experiences by recruiters to make selection decisions (caballero & walker, 2010). the third and fourth pillars reflect the approach to employability as a learning process, underpinned by adult learning (jarvis, 2006) and experiential learning theories (kolb, 1984). the pillars reflect the challenge that graduates often face in reid, a., richards, a., & willox, d. (2021). connecting experiences to employability through a meaning-making approach to learning. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(2), 99–113. 104 understanding and articulating the value of their experiences (reid, 2015), particular extracurricular, unstructured experiences such as international study (forsey, broomhall, & davis, 2012; wong, 2015). research shows that returned international study participants face difficulties applying their learning to professional contexts (oguro & mueller, 2020). this finding could be applied to any extra-curricular or informal learning experience, given the lack of curricular structure of such experiences and the difference and distance between the learning context and the application of the learning. the seal reflective process the framework established the vital role that engaging with a range of experiences plays in employability development (dacre pool & sewell, 2007) and the meaning-making process that turns experiences into learning (reid, 2020). early operationalisation of the framework involved working in partnership with students in post-program workshops. the workshops were designed to help students unpack their experiences and link them to their employability (reid, 2015). this aligned with research on the challenges students face in articulating their employability (forsey et al., 2012; wong, 2015), thus demonstrating the need for a structured process for making meaning from experiences for employability learning. moreover, as a study by tomasson goodwin, goh, verkoeyen and lithgow (2019) suggests, it is possible to teach students to articulate their employability. creating a structured reflective process for employability learning acknowledges the challenges students often face when undertaking reflective writing, and the need for students to be taught to think and write in this way (newcomb, burton, & edwards, 2018). a structure that steps students through their reflections is aimed at shifting thinking from descriptive to critically reflective, by giving students the chance to be more consciously aware of their experiences (bourner, 2003). it was intended that a structured learning process would not only benefit students in their employability development but would also address the challenges that academic staff often face in teaching and assessing reflective writing (bourner, 2003). the reflective process was aimed at supporting students to learn from experiences for employability development, but it was designed so that it could be used for reflective practice in a range of contexts. the development of the structured learning process was an iterative and co-creative, where experiences working with students were aligned to experiential learning theory and peter jarvis’s (2006) conceptualisation of the learning process. the goal was for the approach to be meaningful to students and not solely a theoretical frame for employability learning. the structured process developed was conceptualised around four meaning-making steps – situation, effect, action and learning expressed as the acronym, seal (see figure 2). the process allows students to consider: ● the particular development opportunity (the situation of seal, or task, activity, event, experience and why it was a learning opportunity). ● the challenges or new experiences faced and how they impacted the learner (the effect of seal). ● what the learner did to deal with the challenge or new experience and why they did this (the action of seal). ● the learner’s reflection on what they gained from the experience (the learning of seal). the emphasis in the learning part of the process is on how the experience contributed to the student’s personal and professional development and how it may guide future thought and action. the learning part of seal is then used as the basis for identifying the skills or attributes that were developed or enhanced as a result of the experience, and then how they relate to workplace performance. reid, a., richards, a., & willox, d. (2021). connecting experiences to employability through a meaning-making approach to learning. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(2), 99–113. 105 figure 2: the seal reflective process (the university of queensland, 2015) the seal reflective process is underpinned by kolb’s (1984) conceptualisation of the experiential learning process. it acknowledges jarvis’s (2006; 2018) contention that learning always begins with experiencing a social situation, where the learner interacts with their life-world and they have a concrete experience (kolb, 1984) (the situation step in seal). in this way seal is intentionally utilised to construct and articulate learning from experiences (particularly in extra-curricular spaces) for a defined purpose. this speaks to morris’s (2020) suggested modification of kolb’s (1984) concept of concrete experience as contextually-rich concrete experience, recognising that knowledge is situated in context that emphasises place and time. it is acknowledged that the meaning-making parts of kolb’s model represented in seal by the effect, action and learning steps are socially and contextually influenced (i.e. to support students to construct and articulate employability learning in the language of skills). revisions of kolb’s model by morris (2020) emphasise the context-specific nature of the reflections and conceptualisations of experiential learning and seal mirrors these revisions. situation the situation step of seal reflects the work with students which revealed that students needed a starting point for their meaning-making work to raise their awareness of their experiences as a learning opportunity and understand what the learning context meant to them. during postprogram workshops, students were asked to brainstorm the things that had happened to them reid, a., richards, a., & willox, d. (2021). connecting experiences to employability through a meaning-making approach to learning. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(2), 99–113. 106 during those experiences that they felt were personally significant. this brainstorming work demonstrated the value of establishing a conceptual centre for the students’ meaning-making work (reid, 2020) and identifying the stimulus for learning. the awareness of a situation that characterises an experience may be stimulated by something that causes learners to question their assumptions about themselves and their worlds (merriam & bierema, 2013) or creates a sense of disjuncture (jarvis, 2010) or inner discomfort or perplexity (brookfield, 1987). effect the effect step of seal gives students the chance to reflect on how the situation created personal impact or how and why it may have stimulated growth, framed by the nature of the experience and time and place (morris, 2020). learning involves making meaning of an experience by converting the learner’s bodily sensations or reactions to episodic experiences into mental meanings (jarvis, 2006). these mental meanings help explain an experience to the learner, i.e. they render the experience coherent, shaped by the learner’s socially-constructed frame of reference (mezirow, 2000), and social, intellectual, and physical engagement with experiences (jordan, gagnon, anderson, & pilcher, 2018). these ideas align with developments in adult learning theory that look beyond just cognitive processes to acknowledge the place of body and mind in the learning process (dirkx, 2001; merriam, 2017). action the action step of seal further acknowledges that the learner is responsive to their world and the activities that happen around them through thoughts, feelings and actions (jarvis, 2006). responses to experiences are a product of the learner’s social world, using socially-acquired language, so that interpretations of experiences reflect that world (jarvis, 2018). meaning-making in relation to actions taken to mitigate or handle the challenges faced in a situation allows the learner to evaluate their actions to determine if those actions produced a desirable outcome and if not, how they may react differently if faced with a similar challenge in the future. the action step allows learners to start to consider how they might test out their learning in subsequent concrete experiences (kolb, 1984; morris, 2020). learning the final step, learning, is where learners understand and articulate how their contextually-rich experiences (morris, 2020) have contributed to their personal and professional growth. the learning step asks students to translate that learning into professional settings, giving them the chance to start thinking about how they might act pragmatically (morris, 2020) in active experimentation (kolb, 1984) with new concrete experiences. when students experience informal activities such as study abroad, volunteering, or leadership programs, making meaning of these experiences supports students to arrive at new understandings of their identities and capabilities (reid, 2020) and what they can offer to an employer (de blaquiere, et al., 2019). students were asked to consider how their learning may align with the language of skills that employers and recruiters use to make judgements on role suitability (tomlinson, 2017). this idea acknowledges that employability is more than just skills (holmes, 2013), however confidence to articulate employability using the language of skills is crucial for success. this approach provides parameters for the reflection process with the aim of assisting students to unlock employability learning. it is important to provide this support as students do not know to reflect automatically and must be taught how to do so (lutterman-aguilar & gingerich, 1992, p. 45). the learning part of seal is a vital culmination step for framing students’ employability stories (de blaquiere et al., 2019). reid, a., richards, a., & willox, d. (2021). connecting experiences to employability through a meaning-making approach to learning. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(2), 99–113. 107 the seal reflective process allows students to take their experiences and evaluate why they might have learning potential and how those experiences had an effect on them. they are able to analyse their thoughts and actions in different situations and consider how they may do things differently in the future. the reflective process asks students to respond to searching questions (bourner, 2003) (see table 1 below). using meaning-making work to create employability narratives helps students to validate their identities as employable graduates and provides resources to draw on in the recruitment process (de blaquiere et al., 2019). the process underpins the concept of self-perceived employability (spe) which is usually applied in the context of the transition between education and work to indicate an individuals’ sense of their own situation and opportunities (rothwell & rothwell, 2017). below is an example of a student’s reflection using seal with the transcript of the reflection as it was provided verbally. commentary on the students’ use of the stages of seal is also provided. table 1: an example seal reflection situation what happened? what was the situation in which you found yourself? i was asked to present a short segment of a presentation for [university name and study abroad program], the exchange program here at the university. i just had to cover things like money, transportation, organising your accommodation once you get there. they had asked me to do it because i’ve previously been on exchange, and they also asked me and another girl if we could just give some of our top tips. the student identified giving a presentation as a potential learning opportunity, i.e. the stimulus for the student’s meaning-making work, or their contextually-rich concrete experience (morris, 2020). effect what effect did the situation have on you? why did it matter to you? i must admit i was a little bit nervous beforehand. i’d never presented in front of such a large cohort. it was an auditorium full of students, probably about maybe 300 students. and i was representing [university name], so i had to make sure that i was covering all the information that the coordinator had given me because she’d actually asked me to say specific things, and then i could just add the little bit for myself on my personal experiences. originally, when she asked me to do it, i was pretty excited about it because i love talking about my exchange experience, but once i was in the auditorium and i saw all of the students there, it really started to hit me what i was about to do. my heart was beating out of my chest, and my palms were getting a little bit sweaty. i was sitting up the front, and our segment was in the middle of the presentation, so i was watching the whole presentation unfold. my part was getting closer and closer. yes, so i think the nerves sort of hit you, and then you start running through your head, “have i done everything right? am i going to cover everything?” yes, it’s a little bit daunting. one of my majors is drama, so i have experience like on the stage and acting in front of people. definitely, the nerves hit you in the beginning, but once you get up there and you just start rolling with it, it’s fine. here the student describes the nervousness they felt giving the presentation. this reaction to the situation created what brookfield (1987) calls an inner discomfort or reid, a., richards, a., & willox, d. (2021). connecting experiences to employability through a meaning-making approach to learning. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(2), 99–113. 108 perplexity, forming the stimulus for the learning the student gained from the experience. action what action did you take to deal with the situation? why did you take that action? well, originally, before i went into the auditorium, i was given the notes by the coordinator of what she would like me to say, and i just went through them and really read over them, made sure that i knew the content that i was supposed to deliver. i highlighted, like, the really important parts there that i wanted to make sure that i said, and then i thought of my top tips before i went into the auditorium and just wrote them down in the margins on the powerpoint slides so that i knew what i was going to say so i wasn’t standing there um-ing and oh-ing. once i was in the auditorium and my heart was beating really fast, i just sort of – i had a bottle of water with me. i just took a sip, sips of water, had to take some deep breaths, just sort of some self-talk, just reassuring myself that i’d been asked to do this for a reason, so i could do it. here the student describes the actions they took to mitigate the nervousness of giving a presentation. these actions represent the student’s response to the context of the experience and how the experience created personal impact in that time and place. the student was able to transform the reaction to the situation into actions that framed the learning they gained from the experience. learning what did you learn from the experience? one of the best things that i took out of that experience was that i did have to volunteer for that presentation, so i had to put my hand up and say, "yes, it's scary, but i'm going to give it a go." i definitely think that has given me the confidence to put my hand up for other things. i have been asked to be on a panel for a symposium for [university name]. that is also daunting, and there will obviously be more learning involved because i will have to actually organise my own presentation for that. i have also recently been on an internship in [city] with [place of internship] where i had to speak in another language. that was extremely challenging, but i guess if you throw yourself into the deep end and you know that the learning is going to outweigh the nerves, and the experience is going to be totally worth it, then you're not so afraid to put your hand up for things anymore. i think, just in general having this having the experience itself, it just sort of puts you in this position where you realise that you sort of can do anything. it doesn't matter how daunting or challenging you think something is going to be, if you give it a go, everything is going to work out. you're going to find things within yourself that you didn't know that you could do, or people are going to be there along the way to help you, and you're just going to keep growing and growing and growing. here the student articulates what they “took out of that experience” and how they will take the learning they gained forward and apply it to new concrete experiences. they have an example to give to an employer for a job application and/or recruitment interview of how they took a challenge and turned it into a learning experience. (seal reflection reproduced with permission from the student.) reid, a., richards, a., & willox, d. (2021). connecting experiences to employability through a meaning-making approach to learning. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(2), 99–113. 109 implementation of seal the first use of seal came in late 2014, when working collaboratively with uq students, who had recently returned from a semester of study overseas, to pilot the reflective process in voluntary post-experience employability workshops (reid, 2015). this pilot work showed that the reflective process contributed to students’ understanding of the value of non-work-based experiences to their employability development. it was also found that seal enabled students to identify the capabilities and attributes they had developed through their experiences more easily. in particular, there was an emphasis on how the process helped students to better articulate the value of their experience to a potential employer and how to differentiate themselves. students also indicated that they would use the tool in future with other learning opportunities (reid, 2015). on conclusion of the pilot, regular provision of the post-experience workshops for returning study abroad students was implemented. the workshops were also gradually incorporated into the delivery of other extracurricular programs, including summer and winter research program, career mentoring, and student-staff partnerships programs. these post-experience employability workshops continue to be a core component of these programs. the work on uq’s student employability framework was extended in 2015 following its endorsement by the university’s student experience committee. the committee recognised that the experiential learning focus of the framework aligned with the university’s teaching and learning and research approach, and it was subsequently incorporated into the 2016-2020 institutional student strategy. development of student employability was articulated in the strategy as a priority for the next four years. a massive open online course (mooc) was then designed and developed on the edx platform, the first employability course to be offered on that platform. the course, employ101x unlocking your employability, was launched in january 2016 and to date over 57 000 learners across the world have enrolled. the course was based on the framework and created modules that stepped students through the four stages of employability development that the framework sets out. the seal selfreflective process is a foundational element of the course and is used to teach students to make meaning of their experiences for employability learning. from 2017, the focus has been on embedding employability in the curriculum, working with academic staff to adopt seal as the mechanism through which students could self-reflect on their experiential learning activities (i.e. work integrated learning) to make meaning from them for employability learning. initially, a variation of the post-experience workshop was delivered in tutorials, but through the development of teaching materials adapted from the mooc, staff training sessions and resources around the use of seal, staff were able to use seal without being reliant on the workshops. staff have been supported to implement seal, including close liaison with student employability centre staff and the provision of staff development workshops. a rubric was created for assessing seal and is included in the teacher resources developed for implementing the employability framework. written exemplars are used in the mooc and in the accompanying teaching resources and there are videos in mooc that showcase students reflecting on experiences using seal. to date, the focus has been on evaluating the reach of seal and other mooc resources across uq and beyond. at uq, the seal self-reflective process has since been used in a variety of ways within the curriculum to identify and articulate employability learning from activities. the dual nursing and midwifery program in the school of nursing, midwifery and social work had historically used a selfreflection tool for critiquing critical incidents to evaluate competency achievements for accreditation processes across the program. in 2017 they replaced this with the seal process to enable students to identify the development of complementary personal qualities and attributes in addition to the particular competencies that students must evidence for accreditation. the bachelor of criminology and criminal justice program have introduced seal in a first year criminology course. in this course, reid, a., richards, a., & willox, d. (2021). connecting experiences to employability through a meaning-making approach to learning. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(2), 99–113. 110 students are taught the seal process and then they apply it to their classroom activities. this early introduction to the process sets the students up to reflect on their employability throughout the rest of their studies. the school of pharmacy has used seal in a final year course to focus on understanding how the capabilities that the students have identified from their experiences can be put to use effectively in their professional capacity as pharmacists. there is a strong focus in the program on lifelong learning and on developing ongoing and habitual reflective practice. other disciplines at uq consistently use the seal self-reflective process to structure student reflection on work integrated learning activities (predominantly placements and industry projects). these include business management, education, journalism, environmental management, tourism, speech pathology, economics and finance, and engineering. data shows 12 499 student encounters with seal between 2016 and 2020. the existing and emerging data on these encounters with seal is being used to investigate staff and student perspectives on the value of the process for employability learning. encounters with seal include students using the process for wil reflections, when studying the mooc as a course requirement, and through participating in a range of coand extra-curricular activities. students need to submit reflections on their experiences to claim those experiences for the university’s employability award. students may use seal across several curricular and co-and extra-curricular activities and can retain their reflections within an eportfolio, both during study and after graduation to inform their employability narratives in the recruitment process and into professional roles and/or entrepreneurial endeavours. the resources are open-source material. it was always intended they be freely available, in alignment with the researchers’ ethical and moral stance on the importance of education. the mooc is a free course on the edx platform and the university’s website contains information on the institutional framework and seal. it is typically difficult to accurately record the use and implementation of open-source educational materials. this work has been disseminated at a number of academic and professional conferences and other networking events worldwide. through these opportunities and as practitioners in the field, it has been noted that other institutions around australia, including high schools, have adopted seal and are using the mooc resources, including macquarie university and the australian catholic university. international higher education providers are also using the materials, including in an online course for all commencing postgraduate students at the university of exeter business school in the uk, as training material for doctoral students at the institut de science des matériaux de mulhouse in france, and within an introductory employability course within the faculty of arts at the university of auckland. seal is also used by international internships provider the global students in malaysia to support students to understand the value of their international internship. future work will investigate the efficacy of seal as a reflective process for employability learning. conclusion it has been argued that universities should bear some responsibility for assisting students to identify and articulate their employability (tomasson goodwin et al., 2019), to bridge what joy, shea and youden-walsh (2013) describe as the ‘articulation of skills’ gap. identifying and articulating employability involves making meaning from learning experiences, including those that sit outside formal settings, for ongoing personal growth (reid, 2020). the application of employability learning to professional contexts (including recruitment) is vital for graduates, however it is important to recognise that this is a challenging and complex process. some students find it difficult to make the connection between an experience (such as international study) and employability development and the professional applications of their learning (oguro & mueller, 2020). the seal reflective process was developed in response to these challenges. the process responds to the call for universities to provide meaningful pedagogical processes for employability development (green, king, & gallagher, 2019; oguro & mueller, 2020). reid, a., richards, a., & willox, d. (2021). connecting experiences to employability through a meaning-making approach to learning. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(2), 99–113. 111 it is important to acknowledge the problematic nature of measuring life-experience learning (behle, 2020) and the often-intangible outcomes of experiences like international study (cushing et al, 2019). similarly, the challenges that students often face when undertaking reflective thinking and writing (newcomb, burton & edwards, 2018) and the difficulties that academic staff have with supporting students in their endeavours and assessing reflective writing (bourner, 2003) must also be acknowledged. holmes (2017) recognised that the idea of a set of skills and attributes is inherent in most definitions of employability and that the employability research agenda has been focussed on lists of skills and attributes, despite the problematic nature of the production of these lists (holmes, 2013). employability, however, is an expected outcome for higher education (matherly & tillman, 2019) and achieving this outcome in part involves students learning from a range of experiences to become employable. given the high stakes of the political economy of graduate employability for graduates, universities, and employers (tomlinson, 2017), it is vital that students in higher education are able to understand and articulate their employability. the seal reflective process was developed to support all learners to make meaning from a range of learning experiences. the aim was to assist learners to identify the value of all of their experiences, so that they can articulate this value and transfer it into different places and spaces to demonstrate their employability. the reflective process was also developed to assist academic staff to support their students in reflective practice and provide a structured process for assessing reflective writing. the process affords personal responsibility to students for their personal and professional growth. it maximises learning opportunities so that graduates may become more than just a list of skills on a resume. they can become individuals who are empowered to embark on their career journeys with confidence in their potential to contribute to society and the economy through their professional endeavours. references behle, h. 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(2023). do alumni practise what you teach? impact of science master-tracks: preparation for academic careers versus preparation for societal-oriented careers. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 14(1), 119–121. 119 the journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability issn: 1838-3815 (online) journal homepage: https://ojs.deakin.edu.au/index.php/jtlge/ do alumni practise what you teach? impact of science mastertracks: preparation for academic careers versus preparation for societal-oriented careers saskia grooters1, emma zaal2, yfke ongena2 and menno gerkema1 corresponding author: saskia grooters (s.grooters@rug.nl) 1 faculty of science and engineering, rijksuniversiteit groningen, groningen, the netherlands 2 faculty of arts, rijksuniversiteit groningen, groningen, the netherlands abstract career development of science students seems dependent on more than disciplinary education, such as the nature and focus of career preparation. in this study we compare graduate outcomes of science students at the university of groningen, completing two master-level program streams with different focal points, by using career progress surveys from alumni (n=242) with self-reported societal development data. the first program is a classical research-oriented master (rom), that aims to prepare students for a career within academia. the second program, called science, business and policy (sbp) focusses on a societal profile and aims to prepare for a career outside academia. sbp is different from rom because it has a practical and multidisciplinary orientation (vs a theoretical and mono-disciplinary orientation in rom) and it includes a long work-placement outside academia, a form of work based learning. the differences in the tracks translate to differences in career paths. both profiles resulted in good but distinct career opportunities, corresponding to alumni’s discipline and sector. although rom-alumni felt especially prepared for an academic career, only a quarter actually continued in academia and many we employed in education. in contrast, most sbp-alumni were employed in business or policy. targeting specific job preparation seems more successful with a societal profile. reflecting on skills, in both groups research-related skills decreased during careers while soft skills increased. alumni were generally satisfied with their first job and also with their current job, with sbp-alumni scoring significantly higher on satisfaction with income, status, appreciation and perspective. it can be concluded that diversification in educational profiles changes the societal career paths of science students. keywords science and society, master track impact, employability, career development, alumni satisfaction introduction today’s science students face more diverse career decisions during their studies than a few decades ago (grooters et al., 2021b). the rather self-evident focus on a research career has been widened towards more societal oriented perspectives, leading to careers in business and policy. the bologna process (bologna working group, 2004) aimed at coherence in higher education systems across europe as well as strengthening the quality and societal relevance of academic grooters, s. et al. (2023). do alumni practise what you teach? impact of science master-tracks: preparation for academic careers versus preparation for societal-oriented careers. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 14(1), 119–121. 120 learning (keeling, 2006). one of the consequences of the european bologna process for dutch science master programs has been an extension from a one-year to a two-year master curriculum. in view of the bologna process, it seems logical for science faculties to broaden their educational scope and focus on more than only how to do research. otherwise, a career fallout is likely created since there is no room to facilitate all master graduates with a phd position (enders, 2004). inevitably master students will continue in jobs outside academia (leyman, 2009), where there is a high demand for well-educated and well-skilled personnel (de grande et al., 2014). however, preparation for an academic career requires different skills compared to a career outside academia (enders, 2004). differentiating between programs thereby goes further than offering more disciplines, it is also about offering programs fine-tuned to different career perspectives including work based learning approaches (grooters et al., 2021a). consequently, three different science master profiles (all international standard classification of education (isced) level 7) were introduced at the university of groningen, the netherlands, after the introduction of bologna in 2002 with a research, an educational and a societal orientation. whereas the interest of students for a societal orientation has increased over the years (grooters et al., 2021a), an evaluation of how effective this policy aimed at a better alignment of higher education and societal demands, has been suggested (wexhe consortium, 2019) but hardly undertaken. this paper will compare the retrospective view on career perspectives of science master alumni from two different profiles within the university of groningen. alumni from a research-oriented master (rom) program, and a societal profile, the science, business and policy (sbp) program, were surveyed on career and societal development and skills obtained during and after graduation. the rom-profile corresponds to a classical research master’s program, from which a comparable program is available at every science university. currently this is the regular education form of science masters and the common way to prepare students for an academic career around the world. however, very few graduates will go on to be academics and often universities offer some kind of alternative program to prepare students for a career outside academia (enders, 2004). in groningen a very outspoken example of this alternative is the sbpprofile, that is aimed at applying scientific knowledge to business and policy cases in order to solve societal challenges. by exploring the differences between sbp and rom, a broader translation to other educational settings or regions can be made. the results of this paper will therefore be of interest for science policy makers, educational staff and potentially future students of research-, and societalmaster profiles. societal education profile: the position of students a relatively high social engagement among people entering higher education (egerton, 2002) is found, which implies a purported desire to tackle social problems within their degrees. this is in line with what we found in our own previous study in groningen, where an important factor to choose a science degree program turned out to be the potential for those degrees to offer opportunities for disciplinary learning from a societal perspective and with direct societal relevance (grooters et al., 2021a). learning the right skills is important in terms of (future) job satisfaction, and a match of skills can be a good predictor for higher wages to be expected (allen & van der velden, 2001; de santis, 2021). however, students often do not know which skills are required and are thus not sufficiently prepared for the non-academic labour market (leyman, 2009). for instance, among doctoral candidates there seems to be an underestimation of the importance of transferable skills like project management and business skills (de grande et al., 2014). there seem to be a remarkable lack of awareness of the mismatch in skills among students (usher, 2002). for master students it is also important to make a well-timed decision for a career outside academia, since over-qualification in general, with for example a phd, can grooters, s. et al. (2023). do alumni practise what you teach? impact of science master-tracks: preparation for academic careers versus preparation for societal-oriented careers. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 14(1), 119–121. 121 result in negative outcomes on the labour market (mavromaras et al., 2013). it is found that the industry prefers experienced and broadly oriented master students over doctorate holders, especially in smaller companies (borrell-damian et al., 2010). more generally, policy institutions and the industry have a different appreciation of research skills compared to academia (borrell-damian et al., 2010). besides research skills, governmental agencies and companies expect soft skills, like leadership skills. a combination of these skills can influence the future career perspective of the individual student, for instance by supporting knowledge validation in general (de grande et al., 2014). master students can play a big role in university-industry collaboration (santos et al., 2020) and can help companies with the application of scientific knowledge, as recently also shown by de wit-de vries et al. (2019). in the past, the main tasks of universities were focussed on conducting research and providing education on research. recently, cooperation with companies and other societal partners as well as valorisation, integrating social awareness and responsibility into broader university operations, and also into curriculum have become important additions. the university of groningen added ‘the use of knowledge’ as the third pillar of its mission (university of groningen, n.d.) besides education and research, indicating its appreciation of transferring academic knowledge to society and direct application of knowledge. this approach fits an increasing trend of community engagement of universities (chile & black, 2015). corporate social responsibility is becoming more important for universities (ali et al., 2021) like most organizations. it seems to contribute not only to a positive brand but also to positive outcomes for individual students (chile & black, 2015). however, shifting towards a broader role and creating a social pact between academic science and society (gimenez & bonacelli, 2021) can be challenging to universities (göransson et al., 2009). the social responsibility of universities has, in a curious way, focused mainly on entrepreneurship. academic transition towards entrepreneurship has been encouraged by governments now for two decades (as already described by etzkowitz et al., 2000) and an explicit societal role has been stimulated simultaneously, as exemplified by the society profile in the bologna papers (bologna working group, 2004). recent european policy initiatives comprise projects on work-based learning and entrepreneurship (wexhe consortium, 2019), aimed on cooperation with small-medium enterprises, (recaphe consortium, 2021) and employability (international teaching & learning for employability and citizenship (intelec), 2018). all of these projects stimulate universities to pay attention to broad competences and skills of students by gaining onsite experience. universities often do offer programs to promote entrepreneurial skills of students (etzkowitz et al., 2000). one can raise doubts on how effective these programs are, as these programs tend to focus too much on the economical side of running an own business. (siegel& wright, 2015). the translation of social responsibility of universities in only entrepreneurship seems too narrow. for academics, entrepreneurial engagement might be more feasible within policy and business institutions, in other words in an intrapreneurial context (blanka, 2019) rather than in the role of the independent entrepreneur. thereby stimulation of different transferable and career management skills, besides strict scientific skills, can be considered as social responsibility of universities. (olesen et al., 2020). still, transferable skills are often described in policy recommendations for universities as important values (european university association, 2007), but are often absent in practise (enders, 2004). grooters, s. et al. (2023). do alumni practise what you teach? impact of science master-tracks: preparation for academic careers versus preparation for societal-oriented careers. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 14(1), 119–121. 122 societal program in practice: science masters in groningen inspired by the bologna process, the faculty of science and engineering (fse) of the university of groningen asks master students to select both a scientific discipline (for example chemistry or biology) and a type of profile to adjust to their future career plans. so, a student not only has to pay attention to what to study, but also to how their choices influence their employment after graduation (grooters et al., 2021b). the three types of profiles mentioned before that are available as two-year master programs are laid out here: 1. a research-oriented master program (from now on rom), in which students spend both years of their master on research courses and carrying out large research projects (at least two master theses), colloquia and learning to write scientific articles. students are trained to become a researcher. the employment perspective is one within academia, ideally continued in a phd. 2. the science, business and policy program (from now on sbp), that shares an identical first year with the rom (i.e., research courses, thesis and colloquium). in the second year, business and policy courses based on work-based learning, and a long work-placement (experience on the work floor) are offered. by pursuing this option, the students can build their societal profile and are trained to become a science advisor and use scientific knowledge to solve problems in society. the matching careers are typically outside academia, as an intrapreneur in a company or a (non-) governmental organisation. 3. a communication and education program, with an identical first-year program and training on education and pedagogy or journalism in the second year. this program prepares students for careers as (high-school) teachers or for a job in science communication. in this paper, we will focus on sbp and rom only as we will evaluate the effectiveness of a differentiation between a research and societal profile, that leads to the main research question of this article, which is whether a track aimed at preparation for an academic career really leads to other career paths as a track that aims to prepare for a career outside academia. a comprehensive survey among sbp, and rom-alumni was conducted on their career path after graduation. previously we reported on assessments in the same cohorts of alumni to investigate motivation for their master programs, self-perceived learning outcomes and skills, as well perceived preparation for a career within or outside academia (grooters et al., 2021b). this study showed that alumni of both sbp-, and rom-programs felt well prepared for their career, although each for a different career. for a career outside academia, the sbp-alumni felt significantly better prepared and for a career within academia, the rom-alumni felt significantly more prepared. but the question that remains is how this appreciation translates in their actual career. the current article therefore compares the reflections of rom and sbp-alumni both right after graduation and the state of their current career. we will relate the outcomes to the employment expectation of the university’s master profiles. specific questions touch on aspects of employment (initial employment search time, initial and later employment sectors), on the development of skills during the career and on the satisfaction with the career development (e.g., income, status, appreciation, career perspectives). the final balance has to be made up whether the investments needed for the development of a specific societal and research profile (grooters et al., 2021a) pays off, at least in view of the appreciation and wishes of (former) students. grooters, s. et al. (2023). do alumni practise what you teach? impact of science master-tracks: preparation for academic careers versus preparation for societal-oriented careers. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 14(1), 119–121. 123 materials and methods the ethical committee of the university of groningen approved the approach of alumni to participate in a web-based questionnaire (ceto submission number 63104880). the web-based survey contained two main parts, one on evaluation of the study program (grooters et al., 2021b) and one on career progression (current article). participants a total of 242 faculty of science and engineering (fse) alumni of the university of groningen participated in the study, with 111 sbp-alumni and 131 rom-alumni. in total, 2473 fse alumni who graduated between the academic years 2001/2002 and 2017/2018 were approached. the response rate was higher in the sbp-alumni group (32.0%) than in the rom-alumni group (6.2%). there are at least two possible explanations of the higher response rate among the sbp-alumni approached. first, sbp-alumni were approached by staff of the sbp organization, which former students may have perceived as more direct and personal than communications from the general alumni organization of the university of groningen. as such, sbp-alumni may have had a greater tendency to participate in the survey. in addition, sbp-alumni received a reminder email that contained a second invitation to participate in the survey, whereas rom-alumni did not receive a reminder. a total of 34.2% of all sbp respondents (n = 38) participated after the reminder email, making it likely that rom responses would also have increased if they received a reminder to participate. table 1: age and years since graduation of study participants, per gender/program (modified after grooters et al. 2021) age in years years since graduation n mean sd n mean sd sbp 111 31.13 5.48 111 7.21 4.59 male 61 32.15 5.78 61 7.67 4.48 female 50 29.88 4.86 50 6.64 4.70 rom 131 29.84 3.60 130 5.95 3.37 male 64 29.61 3.79 64 5.38 3.24 female 62 29.09 3.27 61 6.43 3.39 other 4 31.80 5.07 4 7.00 4.40 table 1 shows descriptive demographic information for all participants, and for the sbp and rom-participants separately. in the sbp-group, male participants were significantly older than female participants (f1,109) = 4.87, p = .029). no other age differences between or within groups were found. on average, alumni graduated 6.5 years before survey participation. rom respondents participated 1.36 years significantly closer to their graduation than sbp respondents (f1,239) = 94.06, p = .016). hence, a slightly different timespan in career development is reported by rom and sbp-participants. this may have caused differences in how they retrieved details about their first job (bradburn et al., 1987) and current income and it needs to be taken into account while interpreting the results. grooters, s. et al. (2023). do alumni practise what you teach? impact of science master-tracks: preparation for academic careers versus preparation for societal-oriented careers. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 14(1), 119–121. 124 the disciplinary background of the students were comparable in both groups, and covered a wide range of disciplines. biology was the most presented discipline for both sbp, and romalumni, followed by biomedical sciences or medical pharmaceutical sciences (for further description see grooters et al., 2021b). in both groups there were participants who finished a phd or postdoc after their master’s program. there were more finished phd and postdoc tracks in the rom-group than the sbpgroup. in addition, there were participants in both groups who were at the time of filling out the surveys still involved in a phd or postdoc. these numbers were higher in the rom-group compared to the sbp-group. here, we perceive starting a phd-track after one’s master’s program as the start of one’s professional career, and not as an extension of one’s educational program. questionnaire the questionnaire contained standardized items as well as items designed by the authors of this paper. questionnaire design recommendations were used (cf. dijkstra et al., 2014) in constructing the questionnaire. in addition, the questionnaire was extensively pre-tested by means of cognitive interviewing (beatty & willis, 2007; collins, 2003). first, thirty bachelor students carried out two or more cognitive interviews as part of a course on questionnaire design. based on reports of these cognitive interviews, the questionnaire was revised. this improved version was pre-tested by means of cognitive interviewing again by one of the authors of this paper and a student-assistant. problematic questions were altered or omitted from the questionnaire. lastly, the final questionnaire was extensively discussed by all authors of this paper and finalized. more details and protocols are described in grooters et al. (2021b). the questionnaire used for this paper consisted of five different elements. first, demographic questions were included in the questionnaire (e.g., age, gender, academic background, graduation year). second, questions were asked on the time participants needed to search for a job after graduation (employment search time), whether their first employment after graduation was their current employment, hours per week working in their first and/or current employment, and the sector of their first and/or current employment (business, policy, education, research or another sector). third, in order to measure perceived learning skills gained right after graduation and currently, we derived items from the science student skills inventory, a tool specifically developed to measure science student’s learning outcomes (matthews & hodgson, 2012). we used all six items from the sssi: scientific content knowledge in your field(s) of study, communication skills (i.e., scientific presentations), writing skills (i.e., scientific writing), quantitative skills (i.e., mathematical & statistical reasoning), teamwork skills (i.e. working with others to accomplish a shared task), and ethical thinking (i.e. ethical responsibilities and approaches). in addition, we added items based on the learning outcomes of the sbp program that were not included in the sssi: practical research skills (i.e., lab work and modelling), academic reasoning (i.e., analytical and critical thinking), project-based working skills (to achieve a certain goal with limited resources), and leadership skills (i.e., guiding & managing a team). participants had to rate on a five-point scale their development on sssi and sbp learning outcomes items based on skills they felt they had developed during their entire master’s degree, and during their professional life until know (1= negative, and 5=positive about their development). fourth, we included items to measure participants’ career satisfaction for their current and/or first employment and career perspective for the future. participants had to give a grade (between 1=very bad and 10= very good) with regard to their general satisfaction, income, everyday work activities, status, function, recognition received professional network and career perspective. lastly, a question on participants income for first and/or current employment was grooters, s. et al. (2023). do alumni practise what you teach? impact of science master-tracks: preparation for academic careers versus preparation for societal-oriented careers. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 14(1), 119–121. 125 included in the questionnaire. participants were able to enter a rounded number for one of the four following options: 1) gross income (before taxes), monthly; 2) net income (after taxes), monthly; 3) gross income (before taxes), annually; 4) net income (after taxes), annually. since the income question included multiple options for filling in a salary, steps have been taken for calculating the income. first, the salaries were all converted to a 40-hour work week. for the conversion from gross to net, the gross monthly amount has been used and is deducted by the known taxes in the netherlands, in this case a fixed tax for unemployment according to the guidelines of the tax authorities (redactie salaris rendement, 2019), followed by income tax (belastingdienst, 2021). the final step was to calculate the general tax credit (belastingdienst, 2020a) and the labour tax credit (belastingdienst, 2020b). when salary was filled in per year, we took into account 8% holiday pay set by the dutch government (rijksoverheid, 2021). data collection, procedure and analysis we used survey software qualtrics for data collection. we asked respondents for informed consent before participation. if participants agreed to participate in the survey, they first were posed demographic questions. then they evaluated items from the sssi and added learning goals. current employment questions were asked after this in the following sequence: employment search time, sector, working hours, income, job satisfaction and career perspective. if the current employment was not the first employment, participants received the same questions in the same order for their first employment. the program spss was used to carry out statistical analyses. these analyses were parametric (anova’s) or non-parametric (welch & brown-forsythe test) depending on whether assumptions were met (e.g., equality of variances, normality). results start of career when we look at how quickly fse students found a job (figure 1), about half of the former students already had a job before or at graduation. for the sbp-group this is even slightly more. the initial difference in cumulative percentages between sbp and rom (23% vs 16%) disappeared immediately after graduation (52% vs 50%). almost 90% of the alumni from both groups had a job within six months. after one year, 3% of sbp-alumni were still without a job, compared to 8% of the rom-alumni. figure 1. self-reported employment search time after graduation from the rom (n = 127) and sbp (n = 106) programs 16% 50% 65% 87% 92% 23% 52% 58% 88% 97% 0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100% before graduation immediately after within a month within six months within one year pe rc en t r es po nd en ts employment search time rom sbp grooters, s. et al. (2023). do alumni practise what you teach? impact of science master-tracks: preparation for academic careers versus preparation for societal-oriented careers. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 14(1), 119–121. 126 there were several ways in which alumni obtained their first job, via: application, personal network or mediator such as talent scouts or employment agencies. remarkably, 31% of the sbp-alumni got a job offer at their work-placement (and of those 78% accepts this offer). most alumni started with an (almost) fulltime job, with an average of 35.6 hours a week for the sbpalumni and 37.4 for the rom-alumni (in the netherlands a full-time job is 35 or more hours per week (centraal bureau voor de statistiek (cbs), 2021)). almost all participants worked for an employer in their first job. for the sbp-alumni, this concerns 97% and for the rom-alumni 100%. when progressing in their career the percentage of entrepreneurs or self-employed persons rises slightly, within the sbp-group from 3% to 6%, and within the rom-group from 0% to 1%. career development the majority of the participants switched jobs after their first employment, either continuing in different positions or working for different employers. from the sbp-alumni 43% was still in their first employment at the time the survey was held. for the rom-participants, this was 39%. ways in which participants obtained their current job were again based on applications, network or mediators. in their current position, alumni that switched jobs were again on average working full time, with 37.0 hours per week for the sbp-alumni and 37.5 hours per week for the romalumni. acquiring a first employment in business or policy was more common for sbp-alumni than romalumni, and this trend was even more pronounced in self-reported current employment. by contrast, rom-alumni first employment was most often in research or education. in the current job, working in research decreased in both groups with an increase in educational jobs for romalumni specifically. in the rom-alumni the category other jobs is relatively large compared to sbp-alumni. further exploration showed that employments in healthcare accounted for 18% of the 23% in the category other for first job, and for 12% of the 16% for current job. alumni usually acquired employment that corresponded with the science discipline of their bachelor or master. for current employment, this difference increased in opposite directions for sbp-, and rom-alumni. for sbp-alumni, working in a matching discipline dropped slightly from 67% to 63% whereas for the rom-alumni a small increase from 81% to 84% can be observed. it should be noted that from the rom-alumni only 27% continued within research in the first employment and this percentage drops to 21% in their current employment. these percentages are lower in the sbp-group but almost halved from 14 to 8%. figure 2. self-reported job sector employed in immediately after graduation and current employment for sbp alumni (n = 57 & 99) and rom alumni (n = 77 & 127). 49% 57% 19% 26% 14% 16% 4% 2% 11% 9% 23% 31% 4% 1% 3% 4% 14% 8% 27% 21% 9% 9% 23% 16% 0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100% sbp first job sbp current job rom first job rom current job pe rc en t r es po nd en ts job sector business policy education ngo research other grooters, s. et al. (2023). do alumni practise what you teach? impact of science master-tracks: preparation for academic careers versus preparation for societal-oriented careers. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 14(1), 104–121 127 perceived skill development after graduation significance sck cs ws qs ts et prs ar pws ls repeated measure: within group *** * * no *** *** *** no *** *** interaction effect no no no no *** *** no no no *** current difference rom & sbp * no no no *** no *** no *** *** figure 3. alumni’s self-reported perceived skills immediately after graduation and professional life until now, on a 5-point likert-scale (1 = low-skilled – 5 = high-skilled), with sbp-group n = 109-111, and rom-group n = 129-131. with significance at *** p <.001 ** p <.01, and * p <.05. scientific content knowledge oral communica tion skills writing skills quantitative skills teamwork skills ethical thinking practical research skills academic reasoning projectbased working skills leadership skills sbp right after graduation 4.17 4.14 4 3.67 4.14 3.68 3.77 4.25 4.04 3.2 sbp professional life until now 3.59 4.18 3.82 3.6 4.36 3.92 2.25 4.37 4.35 3.75 rom right after graduation 4.42 3.86 4.03 3.75 3.35 3.03 4.03 4.32 3.65 2.21 rom professional life until now 3.82 4.09 3.89 3.78 4.06 3.83 3.76 4.31 4 3.46 0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 3 3.5 4 4.5 5 se lfre po rt ed p er ce iv ed s ki lls (1 = lo w -s ki lle d -5 = h ig hsk ill ed ) skill development after graduation sbp right after graduation sbp professional life until now rom right after graduation rom professional life until now grooters, s. et al. (2023). do alumni practise what you teach? impact of science master-tracks: preparation for academic careers versus preparation for societal-oriented careers. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 14(1), 104–135. 128 we compared the perceived level of skills right after graduation with the perceived level of skills in sbpand rom-alumni’s current profession (figure 3). a repeated measures anova was performed with between-group factor participant group (sbp/rom) and within-group factor the perceived level of skills (skills right after graduation/current skills). in addition, we carried out a manova to investigate the potential differences in the level of perceived skills in the current employment between the sbp, and rom-group. first, we investigated the sssi skills. perceived scientific content knowledge has decreased significantly for both groups (f1,239) = 93.28, p <.001. the current level was considered acceptable by both groups (i.e., the means are above the mid-point of the scale), with the rom-group rating their current scientific content knowledge in their field of study higher than sbp-alumni, (f1,235) = 6.06, p =0.015. robust tests of equality of means (welch & brown-forsythe test) confirm that there were significant differences despite inequality in homogeneity of variances (1,217.1) = 5.69, p = .018. for oral communication skills we found a small but significant improvement (f1,239) = 4.31, p = .039 for both groups. in current perceived oral skills there were no differences between groups. for writing skills we detected a significant improvement (f1,239) = 6.29, p = .013 for both groups. in current perceived writing skills we did not find differences between groups. quantitative skills seemed to have remained stable and did not differ between groups in the current employment. teamwork skills improved significantly (f1,239) = 54.53, p <.001, with an interaction effect (f1,239) = 15.31, p <.001 showing that the improvement in teamwork skills was only significant for the rom-group. for current teamwork skills, sbp-alumni perceived these to be higher compared to rom-alumni (f1,235) = 12.75, p <.001. ethical thinking also improved significantly (f1,239) = 62.91, p <.001, with an interaction effect (f1,239) = 16.12, p <.001 where perceived improvement was again only significant for the rom-group. we found no differences between groups for their perceived ethical thinking skills in the current employment. second, skills based on learning outcomes of the sbp program were investigated for both groups. strikingly, perceived practical research skills decreased significantly in both groups (f1,239) = 30.00, p <.001. current perceived practical research skills were significantly higher in the rom-group compared to the sbp-group (f1,235) = 17.75, p <.001. robust tests of equality of means (welch & brownforsythe test) confirm that there were significant differences despite of inequality in homogeneity of variances (1,215.89) = 17.31, p <.001. we did not find any differences for perceived academic reasoning skills. perceived project-based working skills increased significantly for both groups (f1,239)= 28.14, p =0.000. sbp-participants rated their current project-based working skills significantly higher than the rom-participants (f1,235) = 15.46, p <.001. leadership skills improved significantly (f1,239) = 151.48, p <.001, with an interaction effect, (f1,239) = 22.57, p <.001, showing that the improvement in perceived leadership skills was only significant for the rom-group. sbp-participants perceived their current leadership skills higher than rom-participants (f1,235) = 7.46, p <.001. robust tests of equality of means (welch & brown-forsythe test) confirm that there were significant differences despite of inequality in homogeneity of variances (1,238.24) = 6.86, p = .009. career satisfaction job satisfaction was graded with 1 (lowest possible) to 10 (highest possible) on several aspects. participants gave an overall grade, and graded income, daily activities, status, function, appreciation and professional network separately (figure 4). a repeated measures anova was carried out with participant group (sbp/rom) as between-participant factor and job satisfaction (first employment/ current employment) as within-participant factor. for all job satisfaction items, the grade for current employment was higher than for the first employment with no interaction effect for participant group (p <.002 for all items). subsequently a manova was carried out to investigate differences between the sbp and rom-participants on job satisfaction with regard to first employment. no significant differences were found. for current job satisfaction, again a manova was carried out. box’s test of equality of covariance matrices is significant (p <.001). therefore, all items were checked separately for levene’s test and grooters, s. et al. (2023). do alumni practise what you teach? impact of science master-tracks: preparation for academic careers versus preparation for societal-oriented careers. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 14(1), 104–135. 129 visually checked for equality in variances. none of levene’s tests were significant, implicating equality in variances. the groups did not differ significantly from each other in their overall grade. both alumni groups were also equally satisfied about their current function, their everyday work activities and professional network. with regard to current status, sbp-alumni were significantly more satisfied than rom-alumni, (f1,201) = 5.06, p = .026. sbp-alumni also perceived received recognition at work higher, (f1,201) = 13.73, p = .010. in addition, sbp-alumni were more satisfied with their income compared to rom-alumni, reaching a marginally significant difference (f1,201) = 3.00, p = .085. figure 4: means of sbp and rom alumni’s graded (1-10) job satisfaction with an overall grade, and grades on income, everyday work activities, status, function, recognition received and professional network. * = significant at p <.05, ** = marginally significant at p <.10. income table 3 shows means and standard deviations with regard to participants’ first employment income and current employment income after controlling for outliers (displayed for participant group and gender separately). because sbp-participants graduated 1.26 year earlier than fse participants on average, the relation between years graduated and income was explored for the groups. univariate analyses of variance were carried out with academic year graduated and participant group as independent variables and current income as dependent variable. there were no differences between the sbp, and rom-participants, or academic year graduated with regard to the income of the first employment. for current income, the anova showed main effects for participant group (f1,180) = 7.06, p = .007, and year graduated (f1,180) = 13.94, p <.001, and an interaction effect (f1,180) = 3.06, p = .001. while it seemed that sbp-participants received a significantly higher income than romparticipants, more data is necessary because there are no clear trends in income received when we zoom in on the main effect of year graduated or the interaction effect. that is, it was not the case that the longer participants were graduated, the higher the income, or that sbp received significantly more income than rom-participants within all specific graduation years. in addition, no gender effect was found for first and current income. grooters, s. et al. (2023). do alumni practise what you teach? impact of science master-tracks: preparation for academic careers versus preparation for societal-oriented careers. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 14(1), 104–135. 130 table 3: self-reported income in euros net per month of sbp and rom alumni, based on fulltime (40h) work week first employment current employment n m sd n m sd sbp 44 1996,86 411,45 74 2923,40 1080,28 rom 57 2001,39 384,76 101 2638,77 664,53 male 51 2006,06 424,68 97 2850,03 993,62 female 48 1991,16 367,50 81 2648,22 695,15 career perspective alumni were asked to reflect on how satisfied they were with their future career perspectives (table 4). sbp-alumni were marginally significant more satisfied with career perspective compared to romalumni (f1,201) = 3.74, p = .055. to the question whether alumni want to keep working in their current position 57 % of the sbp-alumni answered with yes, 14 % with no, and 29 % with maybe or i don’t know. from the rom-alumni a similar percentage answered with yes, 58%, 22% said no, and 21 % was still in doubt. table 4: perceived satisfaction with future career perspective for sbp and rom alumni, graded from 1-10 career perspective n min max m sd sbp 98 3.40 10.00 8.12 1.36 rom 119 1.80 10.00 7.79 1.51 discussion the impact of a societally oriented master profile and a research-oriented master profile on the career development of science students is examined in this paper. does the profile of science master education matter, with more or less emphasis on soft skills and on research skills respectively, for the first steps in a career? we examined a classical research-oriented master (rom) program and a program that has a societal-profile, the science business and policy program (sbp). alumni from both programs filled in a web-based survey regarding their perceptions on career progress, and thereby societal development. do alumni really practice what you teach? the first important conclusion is that both groups have good and fast career prospects, since alumni find a job quickly and are generally satisfied with their job. the alumni scored their satisfaction within their current job as higher than within their first job in terms of satisfaction, which indicates a positive development. general impression, position, work activities, professional network and career until now all improve with no difference between the groups. income, status and the appreciation and career perspective also score well for both groups, but sbp-participants give here significantly higher grades than the rom-participants. in the actual income we see no clear difference between groups. this corresponds to previous research of borooah (2009), in which is found that for job satisfaction, income is not the most important factor but internal aspects of a job, like responsibility, doing something useful and having a nice social environment seem to be most important. sbp students often have a kickstart in their career in the form of a job-offer at their work placement. combined with the career satisfaction of the sbp-alumni, a societal focussed education program therefore certainly does not seem to reduce opportunities on the labour market. the nature of the jobs is similar for both groups in terms of fulltime working hours and working for an grooters, s. et al. (2023). do alumni practise what you teach? impact of science master-tracks: preparation for academic careers versus preparation for societal-oriented careers. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 14(1), 104–135. 131 employer. entrepreneurship is rare to non-existent in both groups but training students as intrapreneur seems to fit their actual career path, since the majority continues in a job in a company or organisation. the results of this study are in line with blanka (2009) that focussing on intrapreneurial skills is needed for better career preparation. this also seems like a better way for universities to take responsibility for knowledge validation compared to investing in entrepreneurial skills like universities did often in the last decades (etzkowitz et al., 2000). when profiles are translated into career paths, sbp-graduates felt more prepared for a career outside academia (grooters et al., 2021a). this seems to be reflected in employment, where the majority (63%) finds a starting job in business and policy, and an even larger percentage (73%) had a job in a company or (non)governmental organisation in their following career. the rom-alumni on the other hand felt especially prepared for a career within academia. this does not seem to give any guarantees as only 27% start a career in research after graduation and this percentage lowers (21%) when progressing into further jobs. this finding matches the idea that it is simply not possible to facilitate all master graduates with a phd (enders, 2004; gemme & gingras, 2012;) and after the phd changes on pursuing an academic career are even smaller (waaijer, 2017). the percentage of rom-alumni that work in education is quite high and increases in the current job. this is remarkable since a specific profile for teaching is also provided. the results suggest that targeting specific preparation for a job is more successful when there is a focus on societal careers than on research careers. a consideration that alumni practise what you teach seems to be true for the sbp-alumni but less for the rom-alumni. thus, sbp-alumni have a more optimal fit between their profile and their career. this is perhaps also confirmed by the finding that the percentage of sbp-alumni that were still in their first job is higher than in the rom-group (even though the rom-group graduated more recently on average, which even strengthens this effect). an improvement in such a fit seems also desirable for other profiles. it would be fair to prepare students for the potential fall out of their career perspective. in case of a rom program this means informing rom students they have a high chance to enter a career in education. this is even more relevant since there is a special master profile for education. more in general, it should be clear it is an intrinsic property of academic programs to prepare students for different career routes, since academic education is used as preparation for many different work fields. this is actually seen in the careers of the alumni, since there are still sbp-alumni that continue in academia (doing phds for example) and rom-alumni that work in business or policy. thus, there is no exclusion of a certain sector by study choice, reflecting flexibility and all-roundness of both study programs. as a suggestion for further research, it would be interesting to pull in evidence from other generalist vs specialist program graduate outcomes to compare, and to discuss the concept of the importance of both broad skills development across master's programs and communicating possible career pathways to students. concerning skills needed for the career paths, both profiles seem to differ in how skills change over time according to alumni. rom-alumni perceive research skills like scientific content knowledge and practical research skills to be higher than sbp-alumni in their current employment. at the same time, these perceived skills decreased in both groups compared to right after their graduation. perceived academic writing skills also decreased in both groups, with no differences in current perceived writing skills. this is remarkable because one could expect people with an academic education to improve on these types of skills if they continue in a professional career on an academic level. this might suggest alumni are at their top right after graduation in terms of the former mentioned skills regardless of their profile. it could be that these skills are perceived to 'rust' if one does not use these skills in professional life. looking at the remarkably negative postgraduate skill development it seems a necessary and logical demand for universities to start and offer specific research skill training for those who continue in academia or want to keep up their research skills (for example offering refresher courses rewarded in micro-credentials (andersen et al., 2021). another explanation could be that these skills not actually worsened, but one’s perceptions about having these skills were higher right after graduation compared to their current perception. or in other words, alumni potentially needed to keep practicing these skills in order to feel they were on top of them. additionally, their perception grooters, s. et al. (2023). do alumni practise what you teach? impact of science master-tracks: preparation for academic careers versus preparation for societal-oriented careers. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 14(1), 104–135. 132 of what constitutes a 'research skill' may differ from what they are actually executing in their roles. both options are interesting points for further investigation. in the dynamics of soft skills, we found that that rom-participants perceived to have significantly improved their ethical thinking, teamwork and leadership skills from graduation on, but that sbpparticipants still perceive their current teamwork and leadership skills to be higher compared to the rom-group. both the rom-group and the sbp-group perceive to have improved on oral communication skills and project-based working skills, with again the sbp-group perceiving their project-based working skills to be significantly higher in their current employment. these results suggest that the sbp-group right after graduation perceived a number of soft skills (teamwork & leadership skills) already to be relatively high, as their ratings remained higher in their current job despite of the perceived growth of the rom-group. in addition, for almost all soft skills the sbp-group scored higher, with the exception of ethical thinking and oral communication skills. skills needed for a societal career differ from skills needed for a career within academia (borrelldamian et al., 2010). also, employers expect more soft skills besides research skills (green et al., 2009) which can influence the future career of the individual student, but also relevant for knowledge validation in general (de grande et al., 2014) or to more specific to a relevant industry sector (hammer et al., 2021). hence, sbp-alumni seem to offer a higher level in these soft skills. we suggest here that soft skills could be characterised as 'practice makes perfect' skills that get better during work experience. in order to be maximally prepared for a societal career it makes therefore sense to start as early as possible with soft skill training in the societal profile. for gaining soft skills it is known from literature that not only the development needs attention but also the awareness of the importance of these skills, so they can become more visible in the curriculum (kensington-miller et al., 2018). this way, the student skills can match the expectations of the workplace and can change with the changing professional context in which alumni constantly find themselves (oliver & de st. jorre 2018). two perceived more general skills, academic reasoning and quantitative skills follow a different dynamic and remain the same in time, for both groups. hence, more general skills that are learned during academic education might be really stable. in sum, the rom profile improved a number of research skills right after graduation, which decreased after their education. the sbp profile resulted in alumni already being proficient in soft skills right after graduation that were sometimes even improved further after training. the reported skills of sbpalumni seem to match the needs from the industry where non-academic skills are often lacking (borrell-damian, 2010). policy stipulates that european universities include transferable skills in their curriculum (european university association, 2007) since these are often missed (enders, 2004). in the sbp curriculum these skills are present, and alumni continue to improve on these after graduation. the group characteristics should be taken into account here; sbp-alumni seem better at sbp skills, but they have also been working in their profession for a longer time on average. since these skills seem to improve with gaining experience, you might expect the rom-group to score higher the longer they are working, making the gap smaller. perhaps this also works the other way around for the reduction of the research skills, perhaps those of the sbp are only worse now because they have been working for longer and therefore these skills have been decreasing for a longer period of time. the dynamics in postgraduate skill development might need a more central role in curriculum development for both profiles, since they seem crucial for career development. to evaluate the exact meaning of the difference in skills and the dynamics of this, further research is recommended. suggestions for further research are based on attitudes and appreciation of the work floor towards the transition of preparing more students for careers outside academia. the need for different skills (borell-damian, 2010) has been discussed, so finding out whether a societal profile offers the answer for the demand of employers in business and policy organisations from their point of view would be interesting. from the university perspective degrande et al. (2004) are suggesting a grooters, s. et al. (2023). do alumni practise what you teach? impact of science master-tracks: preparation for academic careers versus preparation for societal-oriented careers. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 14(1), 104–135. 133 need for change in attitude within the academic world towards non-academic careers. whether this suggestion has been followed would also be an interesting topic for further research. an even more specific question concerns how to get practices like sbp to be more generally implemented, so it will not be an alternative but a main route, as seems logical when looking at the final career path of most alumni. altogether, a societal profile of a science master leads to a different career path, one that can be better predicted compared to a research profile. the dynamics in postgraduate skill development are more positive for sbp-alumni compared to rom-alumni. the different skills that are used and required during a societal oriented career path seem to match the societal master’s profile, while the research profile seems to decrease in matching skills. no clear differences were found between groups in terms of income and employment searching time. job satisfaction seemed to grow over time for both the research profile and the societal profile, with sbp-alumni being even more satisfied in terms of current income, status, appreciation and career perspective. summarizing, based on the actual career perception of alumni, offering a societal science master seems a good idea and can contribute to bridging science and society and to establishing a broader university. references ali, m., ishamuddin m., osman, s., & hassan, u. 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(2021). extending micro-credentials to micro-apprenticeships for the fourth industrial revolution: enhancing vocational education and training in the post-pandemic’s ‘new normal’. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(1), 39–43. 39 the journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability issn: 1838-3815 (online) journal homepage: https://ojs.deakin.edu.au/index.php/jtlge/ provocation subject to editor review, provocations are intended to be short and showcase thought, leadership and expert commentary on the future of credentials for work in a disrupted world. extending micro-credentials to micro-apprenticeships for the fourth industrial revolution: enhancing vocational education and training in the post-pandemic’s ‘new normal’ pi-shen seet1 and janice jones2 corresponding author: pi-shen seet (p.seet@ecu.edu.au) 1school of business and law, edith cowan university, wa. orcid: 0000-0002-4737-9594 2college of business, government and law, flinders university, sa. orcid: 0000-0002-4737-9594 as noted in the foreword of this special issue, covid-19 has accelerated the fourth industrial revolution’s or industry 4.0’s disruption to the labour market (kift, 2021). beyond industry 4.0 (i4.0), the covid-19 pandemic has accelerated the adoption of digital technologies by enterprises, underscoring the need for workers to continuously upskill their digital competencies in order to remain relevant (heinonen & strandvik, 2021). besides digitisation, organisations have had to innovate and adopt new business models to adapt to the ‘new normal’ of surviving and growing beyond the covid-19 pandemic. in countries that largely relied on skilled migration as an important source of talent, the closure of international borders has restricted mobility of human capital resulting in insufficient skilled employees to meet the current and ever-increasing demand for skills (guadagno, 2020). while employers and industry groups have called for a return to opening borders to skilled migrants, seasonal workers and international students, the ongoing struggle of many countries to cope with new covid-19 variants suggests that international borders will largely remain closed among many countries in the world. when they do open in the future, they will be more restrictive than they used to be (seet & jones, 2021). although labour shortages are not new, the impact of this talent deficit has been compounded by covid-19-related snap state border closures, together with international border closures, which constrain domestic and international mobility, and limit employers’ access to skills (seet & jones, 2020b). to cope with the skills challenges in this new environment, and improve the efficiency of skills matching and development, we argue there is a need to develop and make better use of homegrown human capital, albeit in a more flexible and responsive manner. to this end, there exists an opportunity for the vocational education and training (vet) sector to evolve, by extending emerging developments in micro-credentials to micro-apprenticeships. this will enable businesses to https://ojs.deakin.edu.au/index.php/jtlge/ mailto:p.seet@ecu.edu.au seet, p-s., & jones, j. (2021). extending micro-credentials to micro-apprenticeships for the fourth industrial revolution: enhancing vocational education and training in the post-pandemic’s ‘new normal’. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(1), 39–43. 40 introduce new technologies that are underpinned by new skills, whilst enabling workers to upskill in an ongoing manner, recognising that training is a flexible and continuous process, not a ‘set and forget’ exercise. the impact of the pandemic on apprenticeships although the term ‘apprenticeship’ can be interpreted in a variety of ways, a formal apprenticeship is normally found to display the following characteristics (fuller & unwin, 2013; smith, 2010): it has a close link to specific occupations; it is part of a training regime established by, or with the approval of, governments; combines both offand on-the job training; employers are responsible for apprentice development; after the completion of an apprenticeship, the award of a qualification and/or licence and/or some other recognition that enables an occupation to be practised independently. as a result of lockdowns negatively affecting economic demand and employment, there has been a sharp decline in apprenticeships since the start of the covid-19 pandemic (goller & wolter, 2021). in australia, it has been estimated that new apprenticeships will decline by 30% in the 2 years between 2021 and 2023 (hurley, 2020). as such, many governments have focussed on supporting the vet sector during the pandemic (barabasch & keller, 2021). for example, the australian federal government introduced a supporting apprentices and trainees wage subsidy at the start of the covid-19 pandemic where eligible employers were able to claim 50% of an apprentice's gross wage (feltham & keats, 2021). the initial scheme was fully subscribed and had to be extended to meet the overwhelming demand. however, almost all these supported apprenticeships are in traditional industries such as construction-related trades. in addition, they follow the conventional training system whereby apprentices complete 1-2 years of training with the employer, graduate and are seen to be fully qualified, without any further recognition of the need for ongoing upskilling. this results in skills mismatches. employers point to a skills deficit as a barrier to innovation and business growth because the vet system does not provide a framework for qualified employees who have completed apprenticeships to continually upgrade their skills in line with new technologies and business models. what are micro-apprenticeships and why are they important? micro-apprenticeships are a specific form of micro-credentials. like most micro-credentials, microapprenticeships are mini qualifications in smaller blocks of learning and they can formalise soft and hard skills attained at work, such as teamwork, critical thinking, creativity and problem solving (johnson, 1997). however, micro-apprenticeships are distinct in that they are specifically related to an apprenticeship model of training. therefore, micro-apprenticeships are supposed to meet the requirements of apprenticeships as stated above (e.g. training responsibilities are primarily those of the employers instead of vet providers), albeit in a shorter and more flexible delivery mode. microapprenticeships, hence, have been claimed to allow for apprentices to be rapidly trained to develop their skills by meeting ongoing technology and market changes (hare, 2021). the former british prime minister, winston churchill said, “never waste a good crisis”. the pandemic can serve as a good opportunity for countries that are facing difficulties reforming their vet systems to update their skills and training systems to better prepare them for the changes anticipated as part of i4.0. while australian firms have tended to rely on sending staff offshore for training in germany and japan (two countries that are acknowledged to be ahead of the game) and bringing in experts from abroad to provide on-site training to augment skills and help fill skills gaps (seet et al., 2019), this is not likely to be a viable option in the near term, given ongoing border closures. seet, p-s., & jones, j. (2021). extending micro-credentials to micro-apprenticeships for the fourth industrial revolution: enhancing vocational education and training in the post-pandemic’s ‘new normal’. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(1), 39–43. 41 recognising this, the business council of australia has intensified its call for a more flexible vet training system that emphasises lifelong learning with innovations in micro-credentialing like microapprenticeships (hare, 2021). how to make micro-apprenticeships work our research for the national centre for vocational education research has shown that if australia is to capitalise on the opportunities in i4.0, it needs to focus on developing new skills in disruptive technologies (seet et al., 2018). given employers’ preference for a ‘top up’ qualification or module that builds on existing base qualifications, the opportunity exists for vet providers to develop new micro-apprenticeships. these micro-apprenticeships would incorporate work placements and course offerings tailored to participants and their employers so as to establish a more flexible skills and training system focussed on continuous upskilling that is responsive to the changes in i4.0 technologies and innovations (ey, 2021). unlike micro-internships that are often virtual in nature and allow for students to complete their work projects fully online (freeland, 2019), micro-apprenticeships will normally need high employer involvement and some on-the-job training often at specially developed facilities. this is especially so given the complexity of aligning the training needs of future employees with the rapid changes in i4.0 technologies and innovations. research indicates that the current vet workforce is perceived to fall short of the requisite i4.0 knowledge base (seet et al., 2018). this means that there needs to be increased formal and informal initiatives between actors in the i4.0 ecosystem like vet training providers, higher-education institutions, employer organisations, industry and governments (smith, 2019). to encourage dissemination and transfer of i4.0 knowledge, collaborations between developers and suppliers of i4.0 technology and vet will need to be encouraged and supported to experiment and test new models and methods. one potential model for wider adoption is that of swinburne university’s i4.0 focussed apprenticeship program (seet et al., 2018). trainees undertake part of their vet courses at swinburne’s ‘factory of the future’ facility on advanced modules, followed by short, focussed periods of practising their skills with employers (e.g. siemens and aigroup) (seet & jones, 2020a). another future model is the first nationally recognised qualification in automation, led by rio tinto, south metropolitan tafe and the western australian government (seet et al., 2019). rio tinto committed funds toward the upskilling of out-of-work apprentices affected by covid-19 for an accredited micro-credential course. the training is delivered in four-day blocks that leads to a ‘working effectively in an automated environment’ qualification which then opens up new apprenticeship opportunities for these displaced students at top-tier automation facilities (rio tinto, 2020). conclusion globalisation has facilitated the use of migration, particularly international migration, to fix skills mismatches and labour shortages in many countries (yeoh, 2020). the ongoing closure of borders due to the covid-19 pandemic provides a window of opportunity for a step-change in how countries that would like to transform outdated skills and training systems to incorporate more flexibility that emphasises lifelong learning via micro-credentials like micro-apprenticeships. in his expert review of the australian vet system, stephen joyce noted the potential for microcredentials to offer more flexible ways of learning and suggested that they will be increasingly relevant for industry as they can help in the delivery of in-time training to meet emerging and urgent skills needs (department of the prime minister and cabinet, 2019). in the context of vet, microcredentials are seen as short and targeted training products (department of education skills and employment, 2021) and have been touted as a means to help improve the efficiency of the apprenticeship system. seet, p-s., & jones, j. (2021). extending micro-credentials to micro-apprenticeships for the fourth industrial revolution: enhancing vocational education and training in the post-pandemic’s ‘new normal’. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(1), 39–43. 42 regular upskilling is recognised as essential to future proofing the i4.0 workforce, thus making micro-apprenticeships an increasingly appealing and accessible option for lifelong learning. microapprenticeships can help fill important skill gaps, such as working with big data, and contribute to workers’ capabilities to understand, leverage and realise the potential of technological advancements (fisher, 2019). however, for these changes to be sustainable, structural barriers (e.g., training packages) to the development of more flexible initiatives like micro-apprenticeships need to be overcome. through partnering with enterprises to provide upskilling opportunities, vet providers can not only help fill critical skill gaps in the workforce through micro-apprenticeships, but also capitalise on an untapped market of potential students. employees, in turn, benefit from an indemand skill set, and the ability to equip themselves with a relevant skill set as the world of work continues to evolve. references barabasch, a., & keller, a. 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(2021). relevance of selected social science degree programs on skills development and graduate employability in zambia. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(1), 131–147. 131 the journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability issn: 1838-3815 (online) journal homepage: https://ojs.deakin.edu.au/index.php/jtlge/ relevance of selected social science degree programs on skills development and graduate employability in zambia kapambwe mwelwa1, lazarus d.m. lebeloane2 and ailwei s. mawela3 corresponding author: kapambwe mwelwa (kmwelwa@unza.zm ) 1school of education, department of educational administration and policy studies, university of zambia, https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5878-3971 2college of education, department of science and technology university of south africa, pretoria, south africa, https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5498-0118 3college of education, department: curriculum and instructional studies university of south africa, pretoria, south africa, https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7043-8716 abstract a pragmatic approach was used to explore the extent to which four selected social science degree programs were relevant for the skill needs of the job market in zambia. both qualitative and quantitative data were collected from 162 participants using interviews and questionnaires. the spss version 24 and atlas. ti version 8 were used to analyse and interpret data within the framework of the capability approach. the findings reveal that the relevance of each of the four social science degree programs depend on how key stakeholders in higher education and the labour market perceive them and that graduate employability was affected by factors such as the need and importance of social sciences to the labour market; employer and student perceptions of employability skills in the degree programs; demand for the programs; graduate work readiness, and the availability of graduate job prospects. it could be concluded that although all four social science degree programs were important, their relevance to the needs of zambia’s labour market varied from program to program. keywords: social science degree programs, skills development, graduate employability, labour market, zambia introduction zambia is a landlocked country in southern africa with an estimated population of 18 million people (zambia statistical agency, 2019). the majority of the population lives in the rural parts of the country. agriculture, mining, construction, and manufacturing are the main economic stay of the country. in 2019, zambia had 60 registered universities, of which six were public and 54 were privately run. the higher education sector in zambia is guided by the policy objective of enhancing the quality and relevance of higher education provision and the career development support to all students (mohe, 2019). these objectives speak to zambia’s long-term vision of becoming a middle-income country by the year 2030 (grz, 2006) through enhanced human capital development. in 2019, over 95,000 students were enrolled in both public and private universities at the bachelor level (simukanga et al., 2020). there were more students enrolled in social science degree programs compared to those in stem programs. the 2014-2018 graduation trends show that on average there were 3500 graduates https://ojs.deakin.edu.au/index.php/jtlge/ mailto:kmwelwa@unza.zm https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5878-3971 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5498-0118 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7043-8716 mwelwa, k., lebeloane, l.d.m., & mawela, a.s. (2021). relevance of selected social science degree programs on skills development and graduate employability in zambia. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(1), 131–147. 132 from social science degree programs each year. most graduates from social science degree programs found employment opportunities in the private sector and a few in the public service. however, studies have revealed that most higher learning institutions in zambia were not equipping graduates with relevant skills for the labour market (moono & rankin, 2013; united nations development program, 2016). furthermore, the production of more university graduates in social sciences than those in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (stem) programs (ministry of education, 2017; simukanga et al., 2020) has been at variance with developmental priorities and the realities of the labour market and the nation in which stem skills are in short supply. (undp, 2016). the mismatch in skills contributed greatly to the increased number of unemployed graduates (moono & rankin, 2013). zambia’s graduate unemployment rate stood at 12.5% in 2019 (zambia statistical agency, 2019). youth unemployment also increased from 11.4% in 2018 to 17.9% in 2019 (zambia statistical agency, 2019). these statistics confirm the increasing unemployment rate of zambia’s youth and graduates. several measures were attempted (government of the republic of zambia, 2015) to realign the skills mismatch challenge between higher education graduates and the labour market expectations to overcome youth and graduate unemployment. this challenge, however, seems to be far from ending (bhorat et al., 2015) and is exacerbated by the weak partnerships between higher education institutions and the labour market in zambia (undp, 2016). while a lot has been written on how skills development could be used to promote graduate employability and productivity in the labour market (oppong & sachs, 2014; jackson, 2015), only a few empirical studies had been conducted in the zambian context (mulenga, 2015). most studies conducted on skills development focused on technical education, vocation and entrepreneurship training (tevet), and stem programs and not social sciences (simukungwe-moono, 2010; mwila, 2017). this is despite there being more social science graduates compared to other study areas. in response to this situation, this study reported in this paper, explored the extent to which social science degree programs in selected zambian universities were relevant to the skills needs in the nation’s labour market. following the aims of the study, there is a review of the related scholarly literature and an outline of the methodology and theoretical framework. the results of the study are then presented and discussed before the concluding remarks and implications of the study. aims of the study this study aimed to explore the extent to which the four social science degree programs from the selected universities were relevant to the skills needs of the labour market in zambia and thereby likely to promote graduate employability. specifically, the study aimed to: 1. ascertain the relevance of the four social science degree programs from the selected universities to the skill needs of the job market in zambia. 2. determine what constituted graduate employability in the four social science degree programs from the selected universities in zambia. the literature review which follows explores literature relevant to the study of skills development and graduate employability in social science degree programs. it provides insight into the discourse of what constitutes skills development and graduate employability. literature review conceptual understanding of social sciences, graduate employability, and employability skills development social sciences are study areas that deal with the study of human relations. in this paper social sciences refers to programs of study which may be arts, humanities, and indeed social science degree programs mwelwa, k., lebeloane, l.d.m., & mawela, a.s. (2021). relevance of selected social science degree programs on skills development and graduate employability in zambia. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(1), 131–147. 133 offered at the universities (anwaruddin, 2013). these programs include bachelor degrees in social work, development studies, public administration, political science, economics, sociology, and others. social sciences also include education-related degree programs such as the bachelor of education in social sciences and others. skills, on the other hand, refer to the possession of knowledge, attributes, and competencies by any graduate from a degree program to execute defined work opportunities to the satisfaction of the employer and themselves. these skills can either be technical (job-specific) or generic (soft) skills. generic skills, also known as employability skills are said to increase opportunities to be employable (cunningham & villasenõr, 2016). generic skills are valuable because they promote critical thinking, innovation, and knowledge generation (kinash, crane, & judd, 2016). employability skills can help one to analyse, think and understand complex issues to solve work-related obstacles and achieve predetermined goals. apart from the disciplinary knowledge, many emphasise the need for employability skills to be embedded in non-technical degree programs such as social sciences in the university curricular (cunningham & villasenõr, 2016). though they are not job-specific, generic (employability) skills are also professional skills that can render a graduate more efficacious in the application of disciplinary knowledge in any given work environment. there are several employability skills that graduates from any degree program must acquire and develop. some of the employability skills include effective communication, interpersonal skills, critical thinking, self-awareness, ability to use ict to analyse data, problem-solving skills, creativity, being enterprising, professionalism, and self-management to mention but a few (riebe & jackson, 2014). riebe and jackson, (2014) argue that graduates who possess the said skills tend to have the capacity to work and collaborate with other individuals without challenges. subsequently, being employable entails, a graduate being fit to take up a career and not necessarily a job guarantee (kinash et al., 2016). it is about the effective use of the acquired skills, attributes, knowledge, individual agency, and the prevailing labour conditions to create, maintain, and secure employment opportunities after they graduate from a university (damao, peprah, & brefo, 2021). the development of employability skills thus entails exposure of graduating students to the different education and training processes in universities to acquire and develop competencies and personal attributes necessary to engage in self or wage employment in the labour market. the relevance of social sciences to the labour sector skill needs many studies have been conducted to establish the relevance of social science degree programs to the skill needs of the labour market in the 21st century (osmani, weerakody, hindi, & eldabi, 2019). the relevance of any degree program can be established from its usefulness in the employment industry and other spheres of life. it is important for skills acquired during university studies to match the skill needs of the labour industry (igwe et al., 2020). any variance may lead to a skills mismatch, thereby rendering the acquired qualification irrelevant (rastrick, 2018). many social science degree programs, unlike natural sciences, do not have a specific relationship with people’s career pathways. they are thus referred to as ‘generalist’ programs (kinash et al., 2016). it is this uncertainty with what one would become upon graduation that makes potential employers from the labour industry doubt the capabilities of such graduates from social sciences. it is perceived that this makes graduate employability, in the context of these programs uncertain, especially in an economy where skills from stem programs were in greater demand than those from social sciences. more so, graduates from the so-called ‘generalist’ social science degree programs may experience challenges in demonstrating the acquired skills and what they are capable of accomplishing within an organisation compared to those with stem qualifications (clarke 2018b; rastrick, 2018:). it must, however, be noted that social science degree programs are fundamentally important to the understanding of society and social cohesion. labour market skill needs most organizations globally seem to be interested in the services of stem graduates compared to social science graduates (axelrod, 2017; yonezawa, 2017). several examples point to the decline in mwelwa, k., lebeloane, l.d.m., & mawela, a.s. (2021). relevance of selected social science degree programs on skills development and graduate employability in zambia. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(1), 131–147. 134 the influence of social science degree programs in some higher educational institutions. in some instances, the relevance of universities and faculties offering social science degree programs has been questioned and criticised to the point of closing down (anwaruddin, 2013). the indirect rationale for this development stems from the negative perspective regarding the relevance of social sciences towards economic transformation and graduate employability (elkhayat, 2018). today, university education is driven by the focus on market-oriented programs such as business, ict, and engineering. furthermore, investment in stem university programs is highly regarded as the only sure way through which the national economies can be transformed the world over (yonezawa, 2017; simukanga et al., 2020). given these circumstances, there is a need for a clear understanding of the kinds of skills graduates obtain from social science degree programs and to ascertain the extent to which such skills influence their employability in zambia within the framework of the capability approach. theoretical framework using the capability approach, the study explored the extent to which the social science degree programs were relevant in promoting skills development and graduate employability in zambia (menashy, 2014, p. 19). premised on the supposition that individuals must be afforded opportunities and freedoms for them to be empowered with skills, knowledge, and agency to enjoy the life they value, the capability approach was appropriately used to explore the extent to which each of the four social science degree programs empowered the graduating students with employability skills, freedoms, and the agency to acquire the employability status and identity to pursue opportunities they valued (jackson, 2016). some relevant concepts and characteristics of the human capital theory (akinyemi, 2013), and the screening hypothesis (james, warhurst, tholen, & commander, 2013) were also used as part of the theoretical framework in answering the question of the relevance of social science degree programs in the context of skills development and graduate employability in zambia. methodology and approach within the context of the pragmatic philosophical paradigm, the convergent parallel mixed-methods design was adopted for use in the paper (creswell & plano clark, 2007; creswell, 2014). the pragmatic paradigm was adopted as it allowed for both the subjectivity of the researchers’ reflection on the research problem as well as their objectivity in the collection and analysis of data (morgan, 2007; creswell, 2014). this removed the notion of incompatibility in the use of the mixed methods approach in the inquiry (teddlie & tashakkorri, 2009; legg & christopher, 2021) to practically and logically meet the objectives of the study. a total of 162 respondents participated in the study. of the participants, 77 were males and 85 females. the study participants included: eight key informants, 22 employers, 12 lecturers, and 120 graduating students. in terms of the levels of education, the non-student respondents had qualifications ranging from diploma certificates to doctoral degrees. the probability and nonprobability sampling techniques were used to select the study participants. all participants, with the exception of the students, were purposively selected in the study due to the lack of a complete sampling list to draw them randomly. 120 students were randomly selected for the study using simple random sampling techniques. the course lists for registered final year students in the social science degree programs constituted the sampling frame from which students were randomly selected to take part in the study. using the simple random sampling technique, 120 students were selected into the study sample using the sampling interval of five from an estimated population of 600 students pursuing the selected social science degree programs from the five universities. eight key informants, 22 employers, and 12 lecturers were all purposively selected. the key informants were selected from the ministry of higher education, higher education authority, ministry of labour and social security, zambia federation of employers, zambia congress of trade unions, and deans and heads of departments from the selected mwelwa, k., lebeloane, l.d.m., & mawela, a.s. (2021). relevance of selected social science degree programs on skills development and graduate employability in zambia. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(1), 131–147. 135 public and private universities. the 22 employers were drawn from government departments, quasigovernment institutions, non-governmental organisations, and other local and international business organisations and companies. purposive sampling was used to select 12 lecturers who taught on either the bachelor of social work, bachelor of development studies, bachelor of public administration, or bachelor of education (social science) from different universities to partake in the study. five universities participated in the study. two were public and three were private universities. the universities were located in three different provinces of zambia. the study used semi-structured questionnaires and semi-structured interview guides for data collection. the student questionnaire was pre-test piloted on students who were not part of the study. the results of the pilot test informed the revisions to the structure and clarity of questions. in using a self-administered semi-structured questionnaire, the students and employer had to rate their levels of satisfaction with the employability skills of final-year students pursuing social science degree programs on a likert scale of 1 to 5 (1. very dissatisfied, 2. dissatisfied, 3. neither, 4. satisfied, and 5. very satisfied) (refer to table 1.1). the methodology and questionnaire design were informed by previous studies conducted on skills development and graduate employability in different regions (riebe & jackson, 2014; gao, wang, & cui, 2014; finch, hamilton, riley, & zehner, 2013; flash eurobarometer, 2010). quantitative data from self-administered semi-structured questionnaires were analysed using the statistical package for social scientists (spss) version 22 to generate the descriptive statistics in the form of charts, tables, and graphs (bryman, 2008; onwuegbuzie & combs, 2011). bivariate and multivariate statistical tests and analyses were run to compare and test the significance of findings on different variables regarding the relevance of social science degree programs (field, 2013). qualitative data were analysed using atlas.ti version 8 software to generate common themes from the given responses. the analysed qualitative and quantitative data were interpreted concurrently and converged at the interpretation stage. quantitative data were subjected to reliability and validity tests (cohen, manion, & morrison, 2010). for instance, the questionnaires were also subjected to a reliability test using the alpha cronbach test in spss after data collection and were found reliable (tavakol & dennick, 2011). the constructs in the student, employer, and lecturer questionnaires revealed high alpha cronbach values. the alpha cronbach reliability test results for the constructs in the three questionnaires were .738 for the lecturer questionnaire; .899 for the employer questionnaire, and .899 for the student questionnaire. on the other hand, trustworthiness was used to confirm the authenticity and credibility of the collected qualitative data. trustworthiness (shenton, 2004) was employed to help the researchers survey the credibility and rigour of the study’s qualitative findings. it was ensured that credibility, dependability, transferability, and confirmability of the findings were achieved (bless, higson-smith, & sithole, 2013) to enhance the scientific rigour of qualitative findings. lastly, ethical issues relating to the goal of the study, confidentiality, anonymity, permission to research staff members of different institutions, the privacy of participants, and the use of collected data were considered and adhered to (bless et al., 2013). as proof of adherence to the ethical requirements, this paper emanated from the study conducted under the university of south africa ethical approval certificate number 2019/05/15/64027848/18/mc (unisa policy on research ethics, 2016). results considering the relevance of the four social science degree programs from the selected universities to the skill needs of the job market in zambia, two themes emerged from the data. the themes were identified as the most common responses that emerged from the analysis of the collected qualitative and quantitative data on the relevance of the programs. these were the need and importance of social sciences to industry, and the demand for the social science programs as presented below. mwelwa, k., lebeloane, l.d.m., & mawela, a.s. (2021). relevance of selected social science degree programs on skills development and graduate employability in zambia. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(1), 131–147. 136 the need and importance of social sciences to industry respondents expressed different views about the value of social work, development studies, public administration, and education (social science) degree programs. most key informants however submitted that social sciences degree programs were relevant to the current needs of the labour market and society. for example, when asked if social sciences were relevant, one respondent said: no, i don’t think social sciences are irrelevant, these are human sciences, they teach us human morality, human decency, and so forth, and so on. it is just the way the world has become, but i think to deny their intrinsic importance would be yielding to a very dangerous cynicism. it is just that the world is in a state of flux, it is very easy to cynically just say shut them down. (p#06: dean of faculty) however, when respondent p#04 was asked about the importance of producing more social scientists for the labour industry in comparison to those with stem qualifications, she took into consideration the magnitude of the zambian economy and described social sciences as only playing a supportive role to physical sciences on the labour market by stating that: but the only problem is it’s the balance. if our economy is big, believe me, even the ones that we are producing were not going to be enough. by economy i mean if our industry was big enough to absorb. the problem is we have no business. it’s like you are producing people who are not the core business…. the support, these are the support system because social scientists are the support system. the industry is driven by these pure science people…. (p#04: higher education department) demand for the social science degree programs findings showed that the demand for social science degree programs had not increased in the previous three years. that was endorsed by most respondents in whose universities social science degrees were offered. for example, one participant, in responding to the question on students’ input and output in social work, said: for social work from 2010, the number increased i think, the average number should be between 50 and 100, at some point we even had 150 when the government was sponsoring. because [we] realised that social work was on-demand, so even in terms of the quota allocation, social work was given attention, so we had between 120 to 150 [students] per academic year, but the numbers reduced from 2018 because of the [lack of] sponsorship from the government. (p#07: head of faculty department) a university employee responded to the question on student numbers in a social science degree program in this way: each year we get about, 30, 45, but the number has been going down because there has been a realisation that they don’t get jobs, you see. however, those who are, already employed find it easier. (p#05: dean of faculty) upon inquiring about the number of development studies students who graduated in the previous two years at one university, one respondent said: the range of graduates differs, but initially, when we started, the number has been changing or fluctuating due to the mushrooming of universities across the country. but on average we have graduated 150. (p#06: head of faculty department) generally, the key respondents were of the view that social science degree programs were important, albeit with fluctuations in the demand for the programs by prospective students. in determining what constituted graduate employability in the four social science degree programs from the selected universities in zambia, three themes emerged as key in promoting employability: mwelwa, k., lebeloane, l.d.m., & mawela, a.s. (2021). relevance of selected social science degree programs on skills development and graduate employability in zambia. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(1), 131–147. 137 employer and student perception of employability skills; graduate work readiness; and prospects of job availability. employer and student perceptions of employability skills it was also revealed from the study that the extent to which the students and various stakeholders in the labour industry perceived the employability skills developed from the social science degree programs had a bearing on the relevance of graduates to the employability discourse. it emerged that students were satisfied with the seven employability skills (with a mean score closer to 4.0) and very satisfied with their accountability skills (with a mean score of 4.5). on the other hand, employers were satisfied with social science graduates’ professionalism, problem-solving, and self-management skills. with a mean-score nearing 4.0. they were however closer to neutral when it came to their satisfaction with other skills such as graduates’ interpersonal skills, creativity, accountability, and the carrying out of tasks in well-defined settings as shown in table 1. table 1: student and employer perception of employability skills student employer employability skills mean std. deviation mean std. deviation professionalism 4.4 0.71 3.5 0.70 ability to perform tasks in a defined setting 4.4 0.68 3.3 0.76 critical thinking 4.3 0.65 3.4 0.65 problem solving 4.2 0.80 3.6 0.60 interpersonal skills 4.4 0.78 3.2 0.79 accountability 4.5 0.73 3.3 0.78 creativity and initiative skills 4.3 0.80 3.3 0.73 self-management 4.4 0.74 3.5 0.68 source: author, 2020 besides, the qualitative data showed that interdisciplinary skills, transferable skills, analytical skills, innovativeness, problem-solving skills, adaptability skills, and specialised disciplinary knowledge were central to a graduate’s employability. that was endorsed by one respondent who said: so generic skills for me need to be embedded and what we need to start doing is to think of striking a balance between disciplinary education which is extremely important and also skills education. you see, the thing is i think there’s been an evolution in terms of the purposes of education. we are no longer in that space where it's learning just for curiosity, as you mentioned, it's learning also for employability, learning also to be part of the solutions to some of the challenges we are having. (p#03: higher education regulatory agency) another respondent highlighted the importance of analytical, creativity, innovativeness, and entrepreneurial skills for graduates in social sciences to be employable by saying: there are several skills which social science students should possess. of course, being university graduates they are supposed to have excellent analytical skills. so apart from analytical skills, they also need to be highly innovative…. you know even interpersonal skills which are very key as they relate to a multicultural environment ... and then they also need to have some entrepreneurship skills because you know most of the courses in the social sciences were designed for someone to work in the public sector and the public sector as an employee. (p#08: labour department) upon inquiring further on the skills needed for graduates to be employable, another respondent said: mwelwa, k., lebeloane, l.d.m., & mawela, a.s. (2021). relevance of selected social science degree programs on skills development and graduate employability in zambia. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(1), 131–147. 138 …the need for interdisciplinarity is critical when you consider some of the things that you will face today that need interdisciplinary skills. (p#08: labour department) graduate work readiness the extent to which social sciences graduates were perceived to be work-ready with their first employer was considered critical in influencing their employability. cross-tabulations were thus done with a focus on students’ ages, gender, and the degrees they were enrolled for to determine their levels of work readiness as graduating students in the four social science degree programs (refer to table 2). a chi-square independence test was carried out to further determine the significance of the association between work readiness and age, students’ gender, and the programs of study. the test results indicated that 35+ years old students were 91% more likely to be work-ready compared to the 15-24 (77%) years old and the 25-34 (69%) years old. this association of variables was however insignificant (p>0.05). this could imply that there were other important discrete variables apart from age, which influenced graduating student’s work readiness in the target population. there was an insignificant association (p>0.05) between gender and program of study as well as the work readiness of final year university students in selected universities. this could imply that gender was not the main factor in determining work readiness for graduating students in the four social science degree programs in the target population. table 2: bivariate associations between selected background characteristics and work readiness characteristics work-readiness age no yes 15-24 23.2 76.8 25-34 30.8 69.2 35+ 9.1 90.9 p=0.315 gender male 24 76 female 26 74 p=0.502 program of study 100 bachelor of arts in public administration 14.3 85.7 bachelor of arts in development studies 15.4 84.6 bachelor of arts in social work 28.4 71.6 bachelor of education 33.3 66.7 p=0.488 significance level 0.05 source: author, 2020 furthermore, a multivariate logistic regression analysis was conducted to ascertain graduating students' work-readiness and selected background characteristics, namely, age, gender, marital status, and program of study (refer to table 3). it emerged that students aged 35+ years were 3 times more likely to be ready for work compared to those aged 15-24 years. students aged 25-34 were 36% less work-ready. findings further showed that female students were 28% less likely to be ready for work compared to their male counterparts. married students (28%) were more likely to be ready for work compared to unmarried. table 3 indicates that students studying development studies were more likely to be work-ready than those studying public administration, social work, and education. the results on multivariate logistic regression revealed that the selected characteristics (age, gender, mwelwa, k., lebeloane, l.d.m., & mawela, a.s. (2021). relevance of selected social science degree programs on skills development and graduate employability in zambia. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(1), 131–147. 139 and programs of study) of the student background were not significant predictors of their work readiness. in expressing views on the work-readiness of most graduates, employers indicated that most were not ready. upon inquiring whether those with social science degrees were work-ready at job entry-level, one said: there is a big problem with regards to quality and the competence of the graduates, right from the university level up to colleges. some gaps have been noted, …and these gaps do not only lie in the social sciences which are the subject matter but even in the physical sciences themselves…. (p#02: employers’ federation) the respondent further stated: … regardless of what field, regardless of what qualification, what profession, when they employ someone from university or college mostly, they have to retrain them for some time before they become productive. (p#02: employers’ federation) table 3: multivariate logistic regression between work-readiness of the student and selected background characteristics work readiness odds ratio p-value 95% confidence interval age 15-24 ref 25-34 0.64 0.38 0.24 1.74 35+ 3.04 0.36 0.20 33.50 sex male ref female 0.72 0.51 0.27 1.91 marital status single ref married 1.28 0.79 0.21 7.76 program of study bachelor of arts development studies ref bachelor of arts public administration 0.82 0.88 0.06 9.79 bachelor of education 0.29 0.26 0.03 2.48 bachelor of social work 0.50 0.26 0.15 1.69 source: author, 2020 availability of job prospects the availability of job prospects for social science degree graduates was found to be another important factor in determining the relevance of those degree programs in the labour market considering that most graduates were interested in seeking employment after graduating. findings indicated that more females (69%) than males (60%) wished to be employed after graduating. more males (31%) than females (13%) wished to be self-employed after graduating. the findings further indicated that more female students (19%) than males (8%) were willing to study further after graduating. these findings show a significant (p<0.05) relationship between gender and goal after graduation (p=0.029). it further emerged that majority of the students (83%) pursuing the bachelor of education (social science) degree had the goal of getting employed after graduation compared to those in other social science programs (refer to table 4). mwelwa, k., lebeloane, l.d.m., & mawela, a.s. (2021). relevance of selected social science degree programs on skills development and graduate employability in zambia. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(1), 131–147. 140 table 4: bivariate association between program of study and goal after completion program of study seek employment selfemployment pursue further studies bachelor of arts in development studies 70.8 8.3 20.8 bachelor of arts in public administration 42.9 14.3 42.9 bachelor of education 83.3 16.7 0 bachelor arts with social work 64.2 24.7 11.1 p=0.139 source: author, 2020 it emerged from the quantitative analysis that 25% of the students pursuing social work were going to become self-employed compared to those studying development studies (8%). besides, 43% of the students pursuing public administration desired to further their studies after completion of the initial degree. more so, the association between the degree and desired goal after completion was insignificant (p>0.05). mixed views were expressed by those interviewed from the labour market and universities on the relevance of social science degree programs in the labour market skill needs and job prospects. one respondent from a university said: all our graduates who have left our university, have immediately been deployed. so far, we have not heard of anyone who has graduated waiting for two years on looking for employment. and those who haven’t been deployed have immediately gone into upgrading their qualification to masters. … but also, the economy is not growing at the rate at which maybe graduates are being produced into the economy. so much as these are relevant, they are not absorbing them because it’s not growing. (p#05: dean of faculty) another respondent answered the same question in this way: for the bachelor of social work, you see that it is offered by different universities at the moment in zambia because it is something on demand. students are needed in various industry sectors. you find social workers, working in the mines, you find them in hospitals. so, you find they are needed by government in their ministry’s departments, un agencies, nongovernmental organisations, community based organisations, faith-based organisations and, some would just want to venture in business and the like. but the job prospects are there it is a program which is demand-driven. it is a generic program because we prepare them to fit into different sectors. (p#07: head of faculty department) in responding to the outlook of social science degree graduates’ job prospects, one respondent said: … there is that challenge but coming to social sciences, we have been producing quite a lot. but the reality of the day is that there are not many jobs out there. basically, as a country, we have not created enough jobs especially outside the public sector and this is telling by the numbers of graduates that are unemployed and so forth. the question is whether this points to a mismatch between education and skills out there. it is a question that we can’t answer outrightly because it's complex…. (p#03: higher education regulatory agency). discussion the results of this study are discussed around the themes that emerged from the empirical research. the first objective addressed the relevance of the four social science degree programs from the selected universities to the skill needs of the job market in zambia. the importance and need for social mwelwa, k., lebeloane, l.d.m., & mawela, a.s. (2021). relevance of selected social science degree programs on skills development and graduate employability in zambia. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(1), 131–147. 141 sciences and the demand for social science degree programs in selected universities emerged as key themes from the data. importance and need for social sciences it emerged from the study’s findings that most respondents perceived social sciences as relevant and needed by the labour market because they facilitate a better understanding of human societies and their interactions (goma, 1975, p. 8). the labour market (in)directly needs the culture, history, language, social interactions, and other behavioural patterns of people which can only be acquired in social science programs. despite their general importance, the study found that there were different perceptions regarding the relevance of social sciences in contributing to the skills needs of the labour market compared to stem programs. besides, some correspondents considered social sciences as playing a secondary role to the labour market skills needs (respondent p#04): that is the key skills sit in the hard sciences and not social sciences. this perception of social sciences could have emanated from those (yonezawa, 2017) who champion the debate on the knowledge divide between social sciences and physical sciences. arguing that, unlike physical sciences, social sciences are generalist disciplines that do not give graduates specific skills and a clearly defined pathway (kinash et al., 2016). this is except for fields such as law and economics that have clearly defined career pathways. the negative perception of social science degree programs may have emanated from the belief that the use of any social science degree program can be defined by its immediate need to the skill requirements of the labour market and that anything short of that, renders such a program irrelevant together with the obtained qualification (rastrick, 2018). the fact that stem programs give graduates job-specific and applicable skills which is not the case with most social science degree programs, has led to the negative perception of social sciences being considered less useful. as factors espoused by the capability approach, the negative perception of social sciences is one of the social conversion factors created by employers within the labour sector. however, while social sciences degree programs are regarded as not having immediate relevance to the skills needs of the labour market, one would argue that they are important in many aspects. more so their relevance should not be questioned collectively but as independent disciplines. the demand for social science degree programs in selected universities the demand for social science degree programs in selected universities was noted to be a determinant of their relevance to the needed skills in zambia’s labour market. it emerged from the interviews that on average between 30 and 150 students were enrolled during the 2019 academic year. that is, not many students were enrolling for the social science degree (refer to respondents p#07, p#06, and p#05). from the four-degree programs, more students were enrolled for the bachelor of social work degree which indicates its popularity and signifies the demand for the qualification compared to others in the labour market (singh, themusamy, & ramly, 2014). this argument further supports the basis upon which the dwindling numbers of students enrolling in social science degree programs could be premised. despite the declining numbers of students pursuing social science degree programs, the research on higher education in zambia indicates that over 60% of university students pursued social science degree programs (simukanga et al., 2020). although many universities in zambia offer social science degree programs, the number of students registered in those degrees has been declining in the recent past. one possible explanation for this decline has been due to the limited job prospects for graduates from social sciences on the labour market (finch, et al., 2013). moreover, the direct and indirect costs associated with pursuing any of the four social science programs on self-sponsorship, and not public student financing, may have been another inhibiting factor for those who may want to access such programs (mwelwa, 2014). this was the case following the zambian government’s shift in the student financing policy of 2018. it was biased and inclined to offer more student bursaries and loans to those who were enrolled for stem mwelwa, k., lebeloane, l.d.m., & mawela, a.s. (2021). relevance of selected social science degree programs on skills development and graduate employability in zambia. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(1), 131–147. 142 degrees in public universities (masaiti, mwelwa, & mwale, 2015) in line with the national skills development agenda to achieve the vision 2030 (grz, 2006), as espoused by the human capital theory. it could be concluded that the bachelor of social work graduates stood a better chance of being employed compared to those in the other three social science degrees. in the subsequent section what constituted graduate employability in the four social science degree programs from the selected universities in zambia is discussed in line with the second objective of this study. perception of employability skills in social science degree programs employability skills also known as generic skills, were found to be key in evaluating the relevance of the social science degree programs. their levels of satisfaction with the acquired employability skills from the four social science degree programs by students and employer respondents were used to determine the relevance of the degree programs. the results showed both the students and employers rated their levels of satisfaction with the acquired employability skills differently. the ratings of eight employability skills were based on the 5-point likert scale. the employability skills included professionalism, accountability, ability to perform tasks in defined settings, selfmanagement, critical thinking, creativity and initiative skills, interpersonal skills, and problem-solving skills. it emerged that students were more satisfied (mean score = 4.5) with accountability skills compared to the other seven. they were least satisfied with problem-solving skills from their programs (mean score=4.2) (refer to table 1.1). students were least satisfied with the employability skills they acquired from social science degree programs. to the employers, all social science graduates who were rated on all eight employability skills obtained a score that was below 4.0 on the 5-point likert scale. the employers, however, said they (graduates) were better equipped with problem-solving skills (mean score= 3.6) and professionalism skills (mean score=3.5) (refer to table 1). they were least satisfied with the graduate employees’ interpersonal skills (mean score = 3.2). the employability skills ratings by the students appear to be overrated compared to ratings by the employers on how they perceived their new graduate employees. the findings also show that employers were less satisfied with the accountability skills of their graduate employees. this is despite graduating students rating themselves highly on accountability. both the student and employer ratings are key to understanding the role of employability skills in the question of the relevance of social science degree programs on the labour market. however, unlike the employer ratings of their graduate employees, the student ratings may not matter much to influence the perception by employers on the employability prospects of graduating students. the variations also point to a lack of uniformity and structure in the way employability skills were assessed and evaluated by the different universities and labour industry organisations (hartman, 2014). for students, it could also mean a lack of a clear understanding of how such employability skills could be demonstrated once developed or acquired. for example, a poor score in interpersonal skills may mean that graduate employees experienced challenges in dealing and relating with new people in their newly found places of work. moreover, the low self-ratings on their levels of satisfaction with problem-solving skills could mean that most students were truly less confident with their abilities to use rational and logical reasoning to arrive at appropriate conclusions in academic tasks (riebe & jackson, 2014). it emerged from the qualitative findings that there is a need for graduates to possess employability skills such as communication, analytical, interpersonal, creative thinking, and information communication technology (ict) skills. that is in line with finch et al., (2013), gao, wang & cui, 2014) as well as jackson (2016) who respectively concur that graduates need to possess employability skills for them to stand a better chance of being employed. respondents were, however, uncertain on what constitutes the relevant mix of employability skills for one to be successful in the labour market. this is despite their being aware of the different sectors which may be unique in terms of employability skills varied from one employer to the other. most respondents agreed that the way social science programs were taught had implications for the employability skills the graduates acquired. that means mwelwa, k., lebeloane, l.d.m., & mawela, a.s. (2021). relevance of selected social science degree programs on skills development and graduate employability in zambia. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(1), 131–147. 143 universities must teach what and how the employers want their prospective employees need to know. this is in line with osmani et al., (2019, p. 1) who asserted that universities must empower students with relevant (self) employability skills to be analytical, critical, innovative, etc., as part of being workready. social science graduate work readiness the study noted that graduate work readiness was important for evaluating the relevance of social science degree programs for the skills needs in zambia’s labour market. thus, the work readiness of final year university students was investigated in the four social science degree programs by conducting two statistical analyses tests, namely, the bivariate association (table 2) and multivariate regression (table 3). a quantitative method was adopted to analyse the age, gender, and programs of study as background characteristics and with varied findings. the latter were further corroborated and supported by the qualitative findings to determine graduate work readiness from social science degree programs. statistical analysis indicated that age was to be a factor in determining the work readiness of some final year students (p=0.315) in the four social science degree programs (refer to tables 2 and 3). it was established that the 35+ years old students were more likely to be work-ready than those younger. most of the unmarried students were not work-ready when they started their first jobs. final year bachelor of development studies students were noted to be more work-ready compared to those in the other three programs. the statistical analysis showed that there was an association between work readiness, age, and marital status. however, background information was found to be a less predictor of the association of student work readiness. it could be that the final year bachelor of development studies students were more likely to be work-ready than others because they were married, older, and had the in-service component in their program (tables 2 and 3). that could imply that the program had more students previously exposed to prior training and work experience (gonzalez-roma, gamboa, & reiro, 2016). such exposure gave students the opportunity of being work-ready in comparison to others with no prior experience. it could be concluded, based on the preceding statistical analysis, that most final year students who were in the four programs were not work-ready. the interview findings corroborated the quantitative data that found students were not work-ready when they completed their qualifications. they were also not work-ready in their first-ever jobs and their productivity did not meet the expectations of their employers. the preceding discussion indicates the importance of work readiness which inter alia entails the ability for graduates to demonstrate essential competencies and attributes at the level of job entry (rowe & zegwaard, 2017). that means being not work-ready, in this context, refers to graduates who don’t possess the required skills at the time of securing a job (gonzalez-roma et al., 2016). although being work-ready or not is relative and depends on the prospective employers’ perception, it was possible that some graduates were not work-ready because they missed or were not exposed to quality work-integrated learning activities such as internships to acquire employability skills (singh, thambusamy, & ramly, 2014). this finding also adds to the unperceived existential mismatch between the university outcomes on skills development and the skills labour markets expect graduates to have in zambia (moono & rankin, 2013). availability of graduate job prospects the availability of graduate job prospects emerged from the findings as one of the key themes which influenced the employability of social science graduates from the four programs. findings from both the quantitative and qualitative data revealed that graduates from the four social science degree programs had different employability prospects. it is indisputable that the latter was used to determine graduate employability with relevant programs in the labour market. that was endorsed mwelwa, k., lebeloane, l.d.m., & mawela, a.s. (2021). relevance of selected social science degree programs on skills development and graduate employability in zambia. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(1), 131–147. 144 by the many social science graduates who preferred to be employed after completing their degrees (refer to table 4) compared to those who opted for either self-employment or to pursue further studies. this implied that the underlying motive for most of the students who participated in the study was to secure jobs. for example, most students pursued teaching degrees in social science so that they can be employed after graduation. their reasons could be due to limited job opportunities in either the public sector or self-employment areas. table 4 indicates that 25% of social work students stood higher employment chances in the private sector compared to those studying in other programs. this also entailed relevant knowledge and skills students acquired from the social work program in zambia’s both public and private sectors. most bachelor of public administration program (42.9%) students pursue further studies after graduation. that indicated their assumption for better employment opportunities with postgraduate degrees. the preceding findings further indicate variations in the availability of employment opportunities from the social science qualifications in the labour market. for example, bachelor of social work graduates had higher chances of employability compared to other social science graduates (refer to table 4). on the other hand, public administration, development studies, and education (social science) graduates had limited job opportunities. that may be because they do not match zambia’s labour market needs and are thus not a priority (mohe, 2019). besides, zambia’s labour market was saturated with social science graduates, unlike stem graduates. the question of limited job prospects for graduates from social science degree programs could further be explained in the context of the capability approach (pandolfini & poli, 2015). for instance, the negative value perception of qualifications obtained from any of the social science programs could be due to the social conversion factors as espoused by the capability approach. these factors may entail that potential employers could be questioning the quality of qualifications obtained from all four social science degree programs and the extent to which they limited the graduates’ capabilities and agency to pursue careers they chose (robeyns, 2005; clarke, 2018a). additionally, in the context of the screening hypothesis, (page, 2010) an impression could have been created that the qualifications from the social science degree programs were screened to be of less value or no immediate relevance and thereby exposing such graduates to limited job prospects (akinyemi, 2013). it could be concluded from the preceding discussion that job prospects of education, public administration, and development studies graduates were more limited than those of social work graduates. conclusion and implications it can be concluded that the discourse surrounding the relevance of the four social science degree programs to employability skills development is complex and multi-faceted. every social science degree program is unique and equips graduates with skills that are relevant in their ways and vary according to the needs of the labour market. although all social science programs are important, this article has established that the bachelor of social work seemed to be more relevant and appealing to the labour market skill needs than the other three programs. the skills acquired by the social work graduates were more in demand especially by the local and international organisations concerned with social empowerment programs in zambia. that put social work graduates at an advantage of higher job prospects than the other social science graduates. the relevance of the other three programs was diminished due to the low demand for them in the labour market. the relevance of each of the four social science degree programs depended on the prospective employer’s perception of their usefulness in their organizations. they decided on the qualification as well as the skills of the graduates they wanted. these facilitated graduates to either secure employment or employ themselves. summarily, the four social science degree programs were to some extent less effective in promoting skills development amongst graduating students. as such, they were generally not very relevant to the immediate skill needs in the labour market. this study also brings to the fore several implications. human capability theory was used to explore the extent to which the social science degree programs were relevant in promoting skills development mwelwa, k., lebeloane, l.d.m., & mawela, a.s. (2021). relevance of selected social science degree programs on skills development and graduate employability in zambia. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(1), 131–147. 145 and graduate employability in zambia. this is one of the few empirical studies conducted in the zambian context to illuminate how skills development and graduate employability could be promoted in social science degree programs offered by universities. the conclusion that promoting graduate employability in the four social science degree programs is both complex and multifaceted calls for a multi-stakeholder approach in which the academia, the labour industries, and policymakers must collaborate to enhance graduate employability outcomes. it is also implied that universities that offer social science degree programs must provide a clear articulation of the program knowledge and skills outcomes for all program courses on offer. in terms of practice, the methods of teaching in social science degree program courses must encompass and promote the acquisition of such competencies as clearly set out in the national qualification framework. capacity must be built in academia by equipping lecturers with the pedagogical knowledge and skills on how employability skills in social sciences can effectively be integrated into the curriculum, taught, developed, and evaluated without overemphasising the disciplinary knowledge. more so, seeing that employability opportunities are easy to come by for graduates from stem and business-related programs, universities may consider rethinking the interdisciplinary approach by strategically integrating some stem and business courses into social science degree programs, as a smart way of enhancing the acquisition of both the technical and generic (employability) skills by those who pursue social science degree programs. limitations and directions for future research the inability of the researchers to use a sample larger than 162 participants was one of the limitations of the study. the outbreak of covid-19 in zambia in march of the year 2020 led to the abrupt closure of all higher learning institutions. the closure coincided with and negatively affected the data collection exercise from university students both in terms of their availability and retention of already distributed questionnaires. the use of other non-contact online means of data collection hindered the researchers to reach the expected number of students due to poor and limited internet connectivity in most parts of the country. despite its size, the selected sample was representative, and researchers ensured that data were collected and analysed rigorously to ensure validity and reliability. based on the above-mentioned reasons, caution must, however, be exercised to avoid express generalisation of the results to all social science degree programs offered by universities in zambia. for future research, an investigation may be conducted on how student internships should be designed and implemented by universities and labour market organisations to promote the acquisition of employability skills in social science degree programs in zambia. references akinyemi, s. 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(2010). evaluation of the use of assessment centre methodology to enhance development planning, work placement outcomes and work readiness for postgraduate students – a pilot. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 1(1), 45–64. 45 evaluation of the use of assessment centre methodology to enhance development planning, work placement outcomes and work readiness for postgraduate students – a pilot sophie m. keele 1 , vanessa l. sturre 2 , kathryn von treuer 3 , & frances feenstra 4 sophie.keele@deakin.edu.au 1, 2 & 3 school of psychology, deakin university 4 people measures, south melbourne acknowledgements: we wish to thank nick carter for the provision of his expertise and knowledge in the development of the centre, cameron czerczyk who worked on this project as part of a work placement and saville and holdsworth limited (shl) for generously donating the occupational personality questionnaire (opq) for use in the project. abstract work placements as a form of work integrated learning (wil) are widely recognised for the positive impact they have on improving the employability and work readiness of students. assessment centres (acs) are typically used in corporate settings for recruitment, selection and more recently to provide developmental feedback to participants. the present project aimed to evaluate the application of ac methodology as a tool for measuring and subsequently enhancing professional competencies in a sample of postgraduate students in organisational psychology (n=15). a longitudinal design was utilised with numerous evaluation points from work placement stakeholders. this paper presents the first wave of findings. students undertook a range of activities, including an in-tray exercise, a role play, a written report and a leaderless group discussion. comprehensive feedback was provided to the students by organisational psychologists who also fulfil the role of placement co-ordinators. with the assistance of the placement co-ordinators, students prepared development plans relating to the competencies identified as requiring development. these development plans were to be addressed whilst on consecutive work placements. initial perceptions gathered from students with regards to their participation in this initiative were very encouraging. whilst based on a limited sample, the performance evaluations collected to date, as measured by behaviourally based ratings scales completed by the students themselves and their organisational supervisors, illustrate the positive effect of this methodology. the ongoing application of ac methodology as a process to enhance development planning, placement outcomes and work readiness for postgraduate students is discussed. keywords: assessment centres, development centres, work readiness, work integrated learning, work placements, graduate attributes, professional competencies. mailto:sophie.keele@deakin.edu.au keele, s.m., sturre, v.l., von treuer, k., and feenstra, f. (2010). evaluation of the use of assessment centre methodology to enhance development planning, work placement outcomes and work readiness for postgraduate students – a pilot. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 1(1), 45–64. 46 introduction work placements, fieldwork, industry-based learning, sandwich years, cooperative education, and internships are all methods universities use to equip students with knowledge of current workplace practices. work placements, as they are referred to in the current paper, have become an integral part of many higher degree courses, under the umbrella initiative of work integrated learning (wil) (smith, brooks, lichtenburg, mcilveen, torjul and tylor, 2009). wil methods typically involve some form of interplay between workplace experience and formal learning as a part of a course of study in higher education. these methods are widely acknowledged as a superior vehicle for developing generic or professional skills and improving the employability and work readiness of students (murakami, murray, sims and chedzey, 2009; patrick, peach, pocknee, webb, fletcher and pretto, 2009). work placements present themselves as an intensive, higher order form of wil in so far as the student becomes engaged as an employee in a work setting for a specified period. work placements may offer even more potential as a vehicle for developing generic or professional skills, employability and work readiness than more passive forms of wil which typically involve observations, shadowing or case study analysis. students can maximise their strengths, improve areas identified for development, and experience first hand some of the requirements of their chosen field within the confines of an authentic but well-monitored and rich learning environment. employers often argue that whilst graduates are knowledgeable in their own discipline, they lack the communication, collaboration and other more generic professional skills required to make them productive without additional on the job training (department of education, science and training [dest], 2007). work placements provide the opportunity to address and accelerate this process. students are often required to collaborate and communicate with colleagues as they complete work projects. they are also in a position to test their theoretical knowledge, putting it into action in an often fast-paced and complex working environment (bates, bates and bates, 2007; murakami, et al., 2009). work placements are recognised for their impact on learning and employability by a range of stakeholders, including industry, government, universities and students (bates, et al., 2007; coll, et al., 2009). in a recent study examining the preparation for new professionals, renn and jessup-anger (2008) found that students surveyed were virtually united in their agreement that practical experiences embedded in their course were relevant to a successful transition to life as a new professional. such agreement with regards to the important role work placements play when transitioning out of the academic setting and into a professional setting full-time is echoed throughout the literature (bates, et al., 2007; crebert, bates, bell, patrick and cragnolini, 2004; kadushin, 1992; lefevre, 2005). crebert, et al. (2004), in a study of graduates‟ perceptions relating to the relevant contributions made by the learning contexts of university, work placement and post-graduate employment to the development of their generic skills, found that graduates greatly valued the experience of learning in the workplace during placements. graduates and employers believed that industry involvement during higher education was beneficial as it exposed students to real problems and gave them experience with the pressures commonly encountered as part of working life (crebert, et al., 2004). not surprisingly, the number of work placements within undergraduate and postgraduate courses is proliferating (bates, et al., 2007). higher student numbers and a greater number of courses incorporating some form of work placement have led to dramatic increases in the number of students participating in work placements. keele, s.m., sturre, v.l., von treuer, k., and feenstra, f. (2010). evaluation of the use of assessment centre methodology to enhance development planning, work placement outcomes and work readiness for postgraduate students – a pilot. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 1(1), 45–64. 47 as noted by bates et al. (2007), universities are in a period of transition: work placement experience is receiving more emphasis in the higher education curriculum. this trend seems to be due to the increased demand for graduates who understand the role they play in shaping the organisations they enter and have the practical skills to contribute effectively in their roles (bates, et al., 2007). however, effective contribution in the workplace requires more than mere possession of the necessary technical skills. it means engaging with the organisation and its goals, understanding the dynamics of the workplace, and taking up a job with an informed knowledge of all of its requirements. effective contribution to the workplace also means applying a broad range of employability skills learned in many contexts and through a range of experiences (dest, 2007). work placements offer a key mechanism for learning and applying broad employability skills, such as those identified by the australian chamber of commerce and industry and the business council of australia in 2002. eight skills were identified as forming the employability skills framework: communication skills, teamwork, problem solving, self-management, planning and organising, technology, life-long learning and initiative and enterprise skills (dest, 2002). according to a report prepared for dest, the employability skills framework provided the initial starting point for discussion of employability skills in higher education in australia. however, it is also noted that this framework must be considered in relation to the graduate attributes articulated by universities, and more specifically the competency frameworks offered by individual professions. its analysis of graduate attributes from a number of australian universities shows that employability skills, as outlined in the employability skills framework, may reasonably be seen as a subset of graduate attributes (dest, 2007). therefore graduate attributes provide an appropriate starting point from which to further explore any future work on employability skills. each discipline may also overlay its own professional competencies to these graduate attributes. it is the professional competencies of organisational psychology that superimpose the graduate attributes in the present study. however, regardless of the level of analyses, work placements offer varied and typically extensive opportunities for students to develop proficiency within the employability skills framework as well as graduate attributes and more course specific competencies. further to the increased emphasis on placement experience in the university curriculum, the federal government of australia requested that universities become more accountable for the quality of such programs, requiring all stakeholders to address prescribed requirements (dest, 2005). these requirements include the formalisation of responsibilities of stakeholders involved in work placements and the development of a more standardised approach towards work placements (dest 2005). additionally, the assessment of graduate attributes has been the subject of some discussion across education sectors and government bodies (deewr, 2008). existing generic tools, such as the graduate skills assessment (gsa) (australian council of educational research [acer], 2005) and the employability skills profiler (esp) (australian chamber of commerce and industry [acci], 2007) have not been favoured by universities because the gsa is costly and considered too generic to be of value, and the esp is generally considered to be more appropriate to nonprofessional job seekers (dest, 2007). in an attempt to address the need to assess professional attributes, the application of ac methodology with a developmental focus was trialled in a sample of postgraduate students in industrial/organisational (i/o) psychology. in addition to the assessment of professional attributes, the application of this methodology also addressed some of the prescribed requirements outlined, with regards to standardising the approach universities and students undertake both prior to and during work placements. keele, s.m., sturre, v.l., von treuer, k., and feenstra, f. (2010). evaluation of the use of assessment centre methodology to enhance development planning, work placement outcomes and work readiness for postgraduate students – a pilot. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 1(1), 45–64. 48 acs have been widely utilised by organisations to identify and select appropriate job candidates for the past 50 years (howard, 1997; lievens, 2001). acs employ a variety of techniques designed to allow participants to exhibit skills and abilities considered essential for successful job performance (joiner, 1984). commonly, participants undertake several job simulations or exercises designed to measure the competencies relevant to a given job. exercises typically include role plays, in-tray exercises, leaderless group discussions, written reports and personality assessments. these are designed to measure competencies such as oral communication, written communication, problem solving and analysis, and interpersonal effectiveness. acs are found to yield higher criterion related validity than other selection instruments and are well-regarded as a robust assessment technique (howard, 1997; robertson and iles, 1988; turnage and muchinsky, 1984). more recently, single method selection tools, such as cognitive ability tests, personality assessment and structured interviews have been shown to provide more predictive power than previously thought, but when the objective of the assessment is diagnosis for individual development as was the case in the present research, ac methodology has advantages over tools that measure constructs which are not easily developable (e.g. cognitive ability) (howard, 1997). the utilisation of ac methodology within the higher education setting is not new; however its application has been limited. the current paper provides an exploration of the value of ac methodology as a developmental tool in the work placement milieu. the developmental focus infers that the information gleaned during the assessment is used to identify strengths and development needs which are subsequently addressed. this was the exact application of the methodology in the present design. as mentioned, a number of researchers have applied ac methodology to the higher education setting, but typically the methodology has not been applied with relation to work placements and has not adopted a developmental focus (see mullin, shaffer and grelle, 1991; riggio, mayes, and schleicher, 2003). one published study undertaken in the united states, which did in fact use ac methodology as a developmental tool in a sample of graduate students in applied psychology, is that of kottke and shultz (1997). six competencies were identified via job analyses, including written communication, oral communication, problem solving, organising, interpersonal, and organisational survival skills. four exercises, namely a leaderless group discussion, oral presentation, an in-tray task and a role play were designed to measure the competencies. written feedback was provided to students to use in career development planning. the present design aimed to elaborate on this innovative study and adapt it to an australian-based course in i/o psychology. ac methodology was used not only to assess a set of competencies prior to placements with a view to designing development plans to be actioned on placement, but also review and refine these plans after each subsequent placement. a personality assessment was also incorporated into the design and comprehensive one-on-one feedback was provided to participants. furthermore, the present design incorporated a recommendation from kottke and shultz (1997), namely, running the centre in a contiguous block. importantly, as noted by kottke and shultz (1997), whilst this research describes the application of ac methodology in the context of a masters degree in i/o psychology (miop), the methodology can be applied to a broad range of higher degree courses which include work placements as part of their curriculum. education and health related disciplines present themselves as amenable to the ac process, but others such as information technology and environmental sciences are equally appropriate. the methodology outlined in this paper with regard to identifying and subsequently keele, s.m., sturre, v.l., von treuer, k., and feenstra, f. (2010). evaluation of the use of assessment centre methodology to enhance development planning, work placement outcomes and work readiness for postgraduate students – a pilot. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 1(1), 45–64. 49 measuring and developing the relevant competencies is flexible and can be adapted to diverse requirements by modifying the competencies and exercises to reflect current and future needs of a profession (howard, 1997). ultimately, it is employers who assess a graduate‟s employability and suitability for work when graduates apply for paid employment, but the methodology described provides early intervention, enabling students from a range of disciplines to address development needs with input from both university and organisational stakeholders based on an established, standardised process. acs are probably best known for their use as a tool in the recruitment and selection of appropriate job candidates; however, over time their utility has become more expansive and, in line with the present design, many organisations use them as a developmental tool (engelbrecht and fischer, 1995; howard, 1997; iles, roberston and rout 1989; woodruffe, 2000). as organisations attempt to address the need to develop staff, the application of ac methodology as a developmental tool has proliferated. in the main, the centres tend to be well received by participants, who typically react positively to the feedback provided and its developmental use (engelbrecht and fischer, 1995; howard, 1997). boehm (1985) specifies a number of conditions that should be met to ensure that the ac provides developmental value. firstly, participants must be able to do something with the feedback they are provided. secondly, the feedback must provide detailed behavioural examples and if possible relate these examples to job demands. thirdly, the participants must be prepared to exert considerable effort and motivation to remedy areas identified as requiring further development, but must also be realistic in their expectations regarding possible change. based on the demands placed on students enrolled in the masters program of i/o psychology one can reasonably assume that they possess high levels of motivation, a willingness to learn and also a capacity to learn. the feedback sessions following the centre and the subsequent development plans were designed to be detailed and realistic, as well as task and competency specific. all conditions are therefore assumed to have been met. based on a nexus of the conditions outlined by boehm (1985), the literature promoting the use of ac methodology as a developmental tool (engelbrecht and fisher, 1995; howard, 1997; kottke and schultz, 1997; lorenzo, 1984; robertson and iles, 1988), and the vehicle provided by work placements to develop specific professional competencies, it was anticipated that participants would positively evaluate their experience of the centre known as the postgraduate development and assessment centre (pg-dac). positive evaluations were expected both after the feedback sessions, and after reviewing developmental plans subsequent to the first placement with regards to the contribution the process made in preparing for placements, providing a framework to address development needs and understanding the requirements of newly graduated organisational psychologists. furthermore, whilst based on a small sample, it was of interest to examine whether the pg-dac revealed sufficient levels of criterion-related validity, in terms of predicting the behaviourally anchored ratings completed by organisational supervisors at the completion of the first placement. in industry, acs are often undertaken with small samples, particularly in the selection context, based on the assumption that they provide robust, dependable results, but they are rarely examined statistically. the opportunity to examine the outcomes from a wellestablished process with a small sample could not be ignored. finally, it was also of interest to track students‟ self assessments and work placement supervisor assessments to detect whether improvements were made in an area specifically identified as a group development need. keele, s.m., sturre, v.l., von treuer, k., and feenstra, f. (2010). evaluation of the use of assessment centre methodology to enhance development planning, work placement outcomes and work readiness for postgraduate students – a pilot. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 1(1), 45–64. 50 method the following section describes the process of identifying the professional competencies relevant to graduate employment as an organisational psychologist and the exercises designed to measure these competencies. the study was approved by the human research ethics committee of deakin university. participants all students (n=17) enrolled in the first year of the miop were invited to participate and 15 accepted this invitation. the majority of participants were female (93%). materials and procedure competency identification the competencies were determined through job analysis and competency modelling. key stakeholders, industry bodies and the graduate attributes for deakin university, australia were consulted. interviews were conducted with work placement coordinators (2), academics involved in lecturing, supervising placements and managing the course (3), and recent course graduates/practising psychologists (3). the industry bodies included the australian psychological society and the college of organisational psychologists. these bodies provide a list of graduate attributes and competencies which were analysed to ensure that no critical behaviours were overlooked in the final specification of the professional competencies. interviews ran for approximately one hour and utilised the saville and holdsworth limited (shl) universal competency cards (shl group plc, 2004) to identify the behaviours important for a newly graduated organisational psychologist. the competency cards were used to standardise the behaviours, ensuring that all stakeholders had similar interpretations of behaviours. each card contains a list of behaviours that are relevant to a specific competency. stakeholders were required to place each card on a four point scale ranging from critical or essential to not relevant. if stakeholders identified even one behaviour associated with the competency as critical, the competency was categorised as critical. in other words, not all factors listed on a card needed to be critical for the competency to be labelled as critical. stakeholders were also required to provide workplace examples relating to the ratings and frequency of the behaviours. the professional competencies identified and the associated behavioural dimensions are presented in table 1. these competencies are typical of those often found describing graduate attributes and managerial skills (deakin, 2010; howard, 1997) masters of industrial/organisation psychology program the miop program at deakin university is completed over two-years full-time and incorporates three main components, namely coursework, research, and work placements. students are required to complete a total of 125 days of placement over two years in a minimum of three different organisations. the development and assessment centre was designed to be implemented prior to students undertaking work placements, with the specific aim of designing development plans to be actioned and monitored whilst on work placements. keele, s.m., sturre, v.l., von treuer, k., and feenstra, f. (2010). evaluation of the use of assessment centre methodology to enhance development planning, work placement outcomes and work readiness for postgraduate students – a pilot. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 1(1), 45–64. 51 table 1: professional competencies and behavioural dimensions competency behavioural dimensions oral communication speaks clearly and fluently (using appropriate language and grammar) expresses opinions, information and key points of an argument clearly when communicating with colleagues and clients portrays credibility when discussing relevant information articulates presentations with skill and confidence in all settings responds positively and quickly to the needs of the audience and to their reactions and feedback written communication avoids the unnecessary use of jargon or complicated language writes in a structured, logical way structures information to meet the needs and understanding of intended audience explains separate thoughts or subjects in separate paragraphs planning & organising sets clearly defined objectives plans activities and projects in advance and takes account of possible changing circumstances identifies and organises resources needed to accomplish tasks meets deadlines able to resolve time conflicts consistently confirms plans and objectives with relevant parties interpersonal effectiveness actively listens to all people, at all levels consults others and communicates proactively when working in multidisciplinary teams demonstrates an interest in and understanding of others understands team dynamics and can adapt to different roles within a team builds an effective network of contacts inside and outside the organisation relates to people at all levels deciding & initiating action able to manage conflict resulting from change makes specific recommendations in line with the organisations expectations, policies, procedures and intentions seeks opportunities for organisational improvement takes initiative and works under own direction when required makes decisions under pressure generates activity problem solving & analysis considers the practical issues related to implementing different solutions considers all options/stakeholders/points of influence in determining and solving problems makes decisions for the organisation using evidence based methods produces workable solutions that meet the demands of the situation demonstrates an understanding of how one issue may be part of a much larger system look for causes of problems as well as identifying problems themselves breaks information into component parts, patterns and relationships probes for further information or greater understanding of the problem. readily asks questions makes rational judgements from the available information and analysis organisational alignment & awareness demonstrates an understanding of organisations and how they operate works in a way to best advance business strategy within an organisation understands the mindset of organisations and business in terms of bottom line goals keele, s.m., sturre, v.l., von treuer, k., and feenstra, f. (2010). evaluation of the use of assessment centre methodology to enhance development planning, work placement outcomes and work readiness for postgraduate students – a pilot. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 1(1), 45–64. 52 exercise design the guidelines and ethical considerations for assessment center operations were consulted in the development of the exercises (international taskforce on assessment centre guidelines, 2009). four exercises were developed to measure the competencies outlined in table 1. a personality assessment, the occupational personality questionnaire (opq) (shl group, 2005), a measure of work preferences was also incorporated as an auxiliary tool for discussion in feedback sessions. table 2 provides an overview of each exercise. the exercises were intended to provide a realistic simulation of applied problems, such that taken together they became „a day in the life of an organisational psychologist.‟ table 2: description of assessment centre exercises exercise description in-tray task 1 planning & organising assuming the role of an absent senior organisational development consultant, participants were asked to identify and group together associated items from the in-tray, decide on topic headings and prioritise the topics as high, medium or low priority, relating to both importance and urgency. time given: 50 minutes. task 2 decision making participants were required to make decisions about two separate issues selected from the in-tray. time given: 15 minutes. task 3 written communication participants were required to write a brief synopsis of the justifications, results and implications of a leadership development program, based on the contents of the in-tray, for preparation of an article for a staff newsletter. time given: 25 minutes meeting & presentation role play an assessor plays the role of a member of the executive committee concerned about a contentious issue plaguing the executive. the participant was required to extract information from the executive in a meeting and subsequently present a plan to the executive to handle the issue of concern. time given: 15 minutes preparation for meeting, 30 minutes preparation for presentation. 15 minutes presentation time including questions. written report participants were required to prepare a report for the executive committee relating to an in-tray item. time given: 60 minutes. leaderless group discussion participants formed a focus group as representatives for the college of organisational psychology. the group was asked to identify key learning and development needs for the first three years of a professional career and discuss methods to address these. groups comprised up to 6 participants. no designated leader. the group was to arrive at a conclusion after discussion and produce a summary list of needs and delivery methods. time given: 5 minutes preparation and 40 minutes discussion. keele, s.m., sturre, v.l., von treuer, k., and feenstra, f. (2010). evaluation of the use of assessment centre methodology to enhance development planning, work placement outcomes and work readiness for postgraduate students – a pilot. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 1(1), 45–64. 53 the link between the competencies assessed and the exercises undertaken is presented in table 3. table 3: competency and assessment centre exercise links activities  competencies  in tray meeting & presentation role play written report leaderless group discussion oral communication ** * written communication * ** planning & organising ** * interpersonal effectiveness * ** deciding & initiating action * ** problem solving & analysis ** * organisational alignment & awareness * ** note: asterisks indicate that the competency is being assessed within the specified exercise; ** indicates strong evidence, or a weighting of 60%; * indicates somewhat weaker evidence and a weighting of 40%. assessors undertook two hours of training prior to conducting the pg-dac. the operational approach described by lievens (2001) in which all assessors do not rate all participants in every exercise was utilised. for each participant, one assessor was assigned to each exercise, ensuring that assessors did not measure the same competency twice (four assessors in total). limiting the number of assessors can impose methodological limitations such as decreasing reliability (howard, 1997); however, the aim was to develop a methodology that was resource effective and which could be applied in other higher education courses. therefore, a centre that that was operational in nature and more easily replicated was implemented. importantly, psychologists were used as assessors, which has been shown to improve criterion-related validities. when compared to managerial samples, psychologists have been found to show less difficulty in using ac constructs differentially (gaugler, rosenthal, thornton and bentson, 1987; woodruffe, 2000). furthermore, woodruffe (2000) reports that the ratio of assessees to assessors does not have a significant effect on predictive validity. it should also be noted that two of the psychologist assessors were the current placement co-ordinators in the postgraduate course. the involvement of the co-ordinators was thought to be critical as they would play an ongoing role in the students‟ development through work placements throughout the course. the opq (shl group, 2005) was administered electronically and was sent to participants one week prior to conducting the job simulation exercises. participants keele, s.m., sturre, v.l., von treuer, k., and feenstra, f. (2010). evaluation of the use of assessment centre methodology to enhance development planning, work placement outcomes and work readiness for postgraduate students – a pilot. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 1(1), 45–64. 54 took part in the job simulation exercises in one of three consecutive days. the in-tray was undertaken first, followed by an alternate schedule of either the meeting and presentation role play or the written report. these activities were subsequently rotated ensuring participants completed both exercises and any order effects were eliminated. the final activity undertaken was the leaderless group discussion. data integration was then undertaken by assessors, whereby competency scores were aggregated across exercises based on pooled information from assessors. placement co-ordinators subsequently conducted feedback sessions of approximately two hours with participants individually. these sessions consisted of an explanation of the competencies assessed with relation to the activities undertaken, a thorough debrief of the individual‟s performance combined with the results of their personality profiles, and an exploration of discovered strengths and areas for development. the discussion culminated in the design of plans to target the development of relevant competencies. plans were written on a template specifically for this purpose and one copy was kept by the placement co-ordinator, whilst a second was given to the student. with consideration of the feedback provided, students were asked to complete a self-assessment based on the competencies. this provided a baseline for further self-assessments collected at the end of each placement. surveys were also distributed to evaluate the ac process. a review of the developmental plan was undertaken at the completion of the first placement as well as a second survey assessing the impact of the ac process. organisational supervisors also provided assessments of the students‟ competencies, at the beginning and end of the work placement using a behaviourally-anchored rating scale. results an initial exploration of the data was undertaken prior to investigating the specific hypotheses. a common criticism of acs is that whilst they predict external criteria well, the evidence for the construct validity of the competencies is not so encouraging (lievens, 2001; thornton and gibbons, 2009). despite the small sample, an exploration of the data was undertaken to detect whether the pattern found in other studies could be identified. correlations within the competencies, but between the exercises were calculated as an indicator of construct validity (or monotrait-hetero method correlations). as captured by pearson coefficients, these were, 0.76** for oral communication, 0.34 for written communication, 0.25 for planning and organising, 0.52* for interpersonal effectiveness, 0.40 for deciding and initiating action, -0.04 for problem solving and analysis and 0.11 for organisational alignment and awareness, (whereby ** indicates significance at the 0.01 level and * at the 0.05 level). given the weak to moderate coefficients, particularly with regards to the latter two competencies, further analyses were warranted. as such, correlations within the exercises and between the competencies (monomethod-heterotrait correlations) were computed to examine the within exercise relationships, or the “exercise effect” (woodruffe, 2000). factor analytic techniques would be most appropriate and are planned following further implementation of the pg-dac, but given the current sample size were not tenable in this instance. a series of bivariate correlations are presented for the in-tray, meeting and presentation role play, written report and leaderless group discussion in tables 4, 5, 6 and 7 consecutively. keele, s.m., sturre, v.l., von treuer, k., and feenstra, f. (2010). evaluation of the use of assessment centre methodology to enhance development planning, work placement outcomes and work readiness for postgraduate students – a pilot. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 1(1), 45–64. 55 table 4: within exercise correlations for the in-tray in-traywritten communication in-tray – planning & organising in-tray – deciding & initiating action in-tray – problem solving & analysis in-traywritten communication in-tray – planning & organising 0.50 in-tray – deciding & initiating action 0.53* 0.76** in-tray – problem solving & analysis 0.59* 0.70** 0.85** ** correlation is significant at the 0.01 level, * correlation is significant at the 0.05 level. table 5: within exercise correlations for the meeting & presentation role play meeting & presentation role play – oral communication meeting & presentation role play interpersonal effectiveness meeting & presentation role play deciding & initiating action meeting & presentation role play organisational alignment & awareness meeting & presentation role play – oral communication meeting & presentation role play interpersonal effectiveness 0.69** meeting & presentation role play deciding & initiating action 0.73** 0.64* meeting & presentation role play organisational alignment & awareness 0.77** 0.63* 0.70** ** correlation is significant at the 0.01 level, * correlation is significant at the 0.05 level. keele, s.m., sturre, v.l., von treuer, k., and feenstra, f. (2010). evaluation of the use of assessment centre methodology to enhance development planning, work placement outcomes and work readiness for postgraduate students – a pilot. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 1(1), 45–64. 56 table 6: within exercise correlations for the written report written report – written communication written report – problem solving & analysis written report organisational alignment & awareness written report – written communication written report – problem solving & analysis 0.72** written report – organisational alignment & awareness 0.78** 0.86** ** correlation is significant at the 0.01 level, * correlation is significant at the 0.05 level. table 7: within exercise correlations for the leaderless group discussion leaderless group – oral communication leaderless group – planning & organising leaderless group interpersonal effectiveness leaderless group – oral communication leaderless group – planning & organising 0.64* leaderless group interpersonal effectiveness 0.79** 0.53* ** correlation is significant at the 0.01 level, * correlation is significant at the 0.05 level. upon reviewing the coefficients, it is apparent that the correlations from within the exercises and between the competencies typically share more of the variance than the correlations within the competencies and between the exercises. in other words, most of the hetero-trait monomethod correlations were higher than the monotraithetero method correlations. it would appear that even in this small sample exercise effects have impacted the data. a number of remedial strategies are suggested to remove this effect, with varying degrees of success (lance, 2008; woodruffe, 2000). these will be detailed in the discussion section. participant evaluation participants were surveyed shortly after the feedback sessions. follow-up surveys were undertaken subsequent to the first placement and reviewing development plans. the means and standard deviations from the questions are presented in table 8. keele, s.m., sturre, v.l., von treuer, k., and feenstra, f. (2010). evaluation of the use of assessment centre methodology to enhance development planning, work placement outcomes and work readiness for postgraduate students – a pilot. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 1(1), 45–64. 57 table 8: participant evaluation questions after feedback sessions mean standard deviation 1. overall response to being involved in pg-dac 4.23 0.60 2. please rate the relevance of the activities completed to your future work environment 4.54 0.52 3. how effective were the activities at providing evidence of the relevant competencies? 4.46 0.52 4. the pg-dac assisted me in identifying placement opportunities which are most suitable for me 3.69 0.85 5. the pg-dac helped me to identify specific areas which i need to focus attention on during my placements 4.46 0.52 questions subsequent to first placement and reviewing development plans 6. how effective do you feel the pg-dac process has been in helping you feel prepared for your first placement? 3.81 0.60 7. how effective do you feel the pg-dac process has been in providing an opportunity to address your development needs while on placement? 4.15 0.42 8. how effective do you feel the pg-dac process has been in providing an opportunity to maximise your strengths while on placement? 4.12 0.53 9. how effective do you feel the pg-dac process has been in contributing to your overall work readiness (i.e. to start with a new employer in a role as an organisational psychologist or similar role?) 3.90 0.81 note: for question 1, responses ranged from 1= extremely negative to 5 =extremely positive. for questions 2 and 3, responses ranged from 1 = not at all relevant to 5 = highly relevant. for questions 4 and 5, responses ranged from 1=not at all to 5=to a significant extent. for questions 6 to 9 responses ranged from 1 = not at all effective to 5 extremely effective. (n = 13 for all questions). as shown in table 8, the ratings across most questions were very favourable. participants generally felt that the pg-dac had been helpful in preparing for placements, providing opportunities to address placement needs, maximising the impact of placements and contributing to their readiness to practise as an organisational psychologist. consistent with the descriptive statistics presented, comments from students emphasised the overall value of participating in the centre. students were asked to comment on their overall response to the pg-dac, the activities and their overall relevance, and provide suggestions for improving the pgdac process. participants employed terms such as “rewarding”, “useful” or synonyms of such terms. interestingly, the majority of participants (61.5%) also found the experience challenging or intense. a couple of example comments are: “overall rewarding demanding day rewarding feedback session,” “experience very useful quite intense on the day very appreciative of the opportunity.” suggestions for improvements related to the need for further communication prior the centre and the independent nature of the content of the final activity, which was not linked to the earlier exercises. fatigue on the day itself was also mentioned. keele, s.m., sturre, v.l., von treuer, k., and feenstra, f. (2010). evaluation of the use of assessment centre methodology to enhance development planning, work placement outcomes and work readiness for postgraduate students – a pilot. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 1(1), 45–64. 58 criterion-related validity correlations were calculated using z-score transformations based on the weighted ratings of the competencies from assessors at the pg-dac and the behaviourallybased ratings from organisational supervisors at the beginning and end of the first placement. pearson correlations are presented in table 9. table 9: correlations between pg-dac scores and organisational supervisor ratings organisational supervisor z-score  pgdac z-score oc pgdac z-score wc pgdac z-score po pgdac z-score ie pgdac z-score di pgdac z-score psa pgdac z-score oaa beginning of first placement 0.22 0.33 0.48 0.48 0.46 -0.06 0.31 end of first placement 0.24 0.26 0.35 0.50 0.30 -0.21 0.15 note that abbreviations of the competencies have been used. oc–oral communication; w c–written communication; po–planning & organising; ie–interpersonal effectiveness; di–deciding & initiating action; psa– problem solving & analysis; oaa–organisational alignment & awareness. as shown in table 9, correlations indicate moderate to relatively high predictive validity across the competencies, apart from problem solving and analysis. the relationship with regards to problem solving and analysis suggests that the lower the score from assessors on the pg-dac, the better the rating the individual receives from organisational supervisors at the end of the placement, whilst the correlation at the beginning shows no relationship at all. explanations for this outcome will be explored in the final section of this paper. as one would expect, the majority of coefficients revealed a stronger relationship at the beginning of the placement rather than the end. development needs written communication was identified as a development need for a number of the participants (n= 9), hence this competency was examined across time points using paired t-tests to detect whether improvements were made according to both self assessments and organisational supervisors assessments. self assessments made prior to the first placement (m = 5.40, sd = 1.96) and at the end of the first placement (m = 6.90, sd = 1.29) showed a significant improvement over time, t (8) = 0-4.03, p = 0.00. similarly, organisational supervisor assessments showed a significant improvement over time, with the mean at the beginning of the placement, (m= 6.67, sd = 1.22) significantly lower than the mean that the end (m = 7.89, sd = 1.17), t (8) = 0.377, p = 0.01. some improvement would be expected on all competencies over time; however the pg-dac was instrumental in identifying specific areas as development needs requiring particular emphasis during work placements. discussion the present project aimed to evaluate the application of ac methodology as a tool for measuring and subsequently enhancing professional competencies in a sample of postgraduate students in organisational psychology. students completed a variety of job-relevant activities culminating in the design of comprehensive development plans keele, s.m., sturre, v.l., von treuer, k., and feenstra, f. (2010). evaluation of the use of assessment centre methodology to enhance development planning, work placement outcomes and work readiness for postgraduate students – a pilot. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 1(1), 45–64. 59 to be addressed during work placements. the results of this pilot investigation were very encouraging. similar to many other studies using ac methodology in a development context, the pg-dac received positive feedback from the participants involved (boehm, 1985; engelbrecht and fisher, 1995; howard, 1997; iles, robertson and rout, 1989; kottke and shultz, 1997; lorenzo, 1984). according to howard (1997), participants tend to find ac exercises difficult, but believe that they assess relevant competencies and are useful for their development. the present study supports this general finding. favourable feedback was received both prior and subsequent to the first work placement undertaken by students. in sum, students perceived the centre to be useful and effective in their pursuit of the competencies relevant to their employment as an organisational psychologist. suggestions were made in terms of re-designing the leaderless group discussion and improving the communication designed to inform students prior to the centre. the content of the leaderless group discussion was based on a scenario that was unrelated to the other activities; however, it will be re-designed to better integrate with the other activities. improvements are also planned for a more comprehensive communication strategy prior to the centre with the inclusion of additional communication mediums e.g. individual conversations with participants. in addition to the current feedback received from participants, it would be beneficial to follow up with participants after graduation to determine if they found the pg-dac beneficial in supporting them to develop appropriate strategies during their transition to work. this is intended. despite a small sample size, predictive validity from the pg-dac is in line with most other research in this area. acs have a long history of predicting external criteria well (gaugler, et al., 1987; robertson and iles, 1988; thornton & gibbons, 2009). more recent meta-analyses have found rather modest coefficients (hardison and sackett, 2004; hermelin, lievens and roberston, 2007) and the present study revealed a range of coefficients from modest to relatively high. the results are promising, but without a larger sample and further research it is not possible to make conclusive remarks. again, whilst the sample is limited, the pattern of results with regards to internal validity, and in particular the exercise effect, reflects that of prior research (thornton and gibbons, 2009; woodruffe, 2000). the logical expectation is that the correlations within the competencies and between the exercises would be greater than the correlations within the exercises and between the competencies; however, the opposite is commonly found (woodruffe, 2000) and this is true of the current data. remedies, typically in the form of improvements in assessor training including increasing the length of assessor training, limiting competencies, and listing key behaviours have been suggested (lievens, 2002; schleicher, day, mayes and riggio, 2002). these strategies have been found to reduce exercise effects (lievens, 2002; schleicher, et al., 2002); however, most of these were utilised in the present design. nevertheless, improvements are planned for assessor training. the competencies and how the exercises measure them will be explained more thoroughly to assessors to ensure a common definition and a better understanding of the differences between competencies. as noted by woodruffe (2000), if the competencies are not clearly separated in their definition, it is unlikely that there will be differentiation between them in the ratings. the key behaviours relating to the competencies will also be reviewed prior to further implementation of the pg-dac. this is likely to be particularly important for the competencies of problem solving and analysis and organisational alignment and awareness, which revealed low correlations within the competencies and between the exercises (monotrait keele, s.m., sturre, v.l., von treuer, k., and feenstra, f. (2010). evaluation of the use of assessment centre methodology to enhance development planning, work placement outcomes and work readiness for postgraduate students – a pilot. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 1(1), 45–64. 60 heteromethod). however, it is acknowledged that whilst remedial strategies lead to some improvement, they rarely succeed in producing a clear pattern of competency effects (thornton and gibbons, 2009). more recently, research suggests the treatment of exercise effects as measurement error is not warranted for acs (lance, 2008). lievens (2002) suggests that exercise effects represent real variation in performance across exercises, whilst lance (2008) concludes that candidate behaviour is situationally-specific, rather than cross-situationally consistent. indeed it may be the case that the exercises, particularly those within the competencies of problem solving and analysis and organisational alignment and awareness reflect quite different situations. on the face of it, a role play and written report which are used to measure organisational alignment and awareness appear dramatically different. nevertheless, improvements have been planned. finally, it would be of interest to examine data following future implementation using exploratory and confirmatory factor analytic techniques to detect whether an exercise factor does in fact exist. an unexpected outcome was found with regards to the competency of problem solving and analysis. this competency revealed poor correlations within the competency and between the exercises, as well as poor criterion-related validity. it may be that the understanding of this competency was not consistent across the pgdac exercises and the work placement. pg-dac assessors and organisational supervisors may not have had a consistent view of what this competency and its associated behaviours mean. whilst the in-tray and written report were used to assess this competency, it seems unlikely that organisational supervisors would incorporate written reports in their assessment of problem solving and analysis during a student placement. it seems more likely that they would consider the students‟ general approach to assigned tasks when assessing performance. the link between problem solving and analysis and written reports may need to be more explicitly stated. the planned review of the key behaviours associated with the competencies could improve this outcome. it is also worth noting that this competency may be more easily measured with a cognitive ability test rather than a set of behaviours. future examination of this competency following further implementation of the pg-dac is required to provide more light on this issue. as mentioned, the present pilot study found that participants generally indicated that the experience was effective in providing an opportunity to address development needs, maximise opportunities, and contributed to their overall work readiness. an improvement was detected with regards written communication. this competency was identified as a development need for a number of participants and analyses show an improvement in this competency for the relevant participants based on self assessments and the less subjective organisational assessments completed by organisational supervisors. whilst many factors may be contributing to this improvement, the pg-dac provided the mechanism to identify and measure the competencies and in particular the need to develop the competency of written communication, which appears to have been addressed in the context of the work placement. this points to the importance and effectiveness of work placements as a vehicle for developing attributes required by employers. as mentioned, work placements are widely acknowledged as a superior method for developing generic or professional skills and improving the employability and work readiness of students (patrick, et al., 2009; smith, et al., 2009). students participating in the development and assessment centre process are likely to have an advantage over others when it comes to addressing and accelerating the acquisition of desired skills. students receive critical feedback at an early stage of their careers and can take targeted keele, s.m., sturre, v.l., von treuer, k., and feenstra, f. (2010). evaluation of the use of assessment centre methodology to enhance development planning, work placement outcomes and work readiness for postgraduate students – a pilot. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 1(1), 45–64. 61 remedial action well before entering paid employment in their chosen field. in sum, the rigour and comprehensive techniques offered by the ac methodology enables students to focus on and improve areas identified for development as well as maximising strengths. assessing employability skills or graduate attributes has been the subject of some discussion within education sectors and government bodies. it is thought that organisational supervisors are in a unique position to assess and provide feedback on a student‟s employability skills (dest, 2007). the application of ac methodology is likely to bring more exacting standards to this process. by employing ac methodology and providing organisational supervisors with behaviourally-anchored rating scales on relevant competencies, they are likely to be in a better position to assess desired professional skills. as mentioned, existing generic assessment tools such as the gsa (acer, 2005) and the esp (acci, 2007) are not favourably perceived. ac methodology appears to address a need that is currently unmet, as users can modify the competencies to reflect the current and future needs of their graduates. it must be acknowledged that ac methods are resource intensive, but given that the expertise to design and implement them exists within most higher education settings, cost savings are likely. additionally, if the centres are designed to be operational as in the current design, costs can be further contained. unfortunately, this can impose important methodological limitations. lievens (2001) found that increasing the number of assessors scoring an exercise had a greater impact on the reliability of the centre than increasing the number of exercises. however, given the economic constraints facing most educational institutions, this is likely to become a trade-off with other more feasible strategies, such as using psychologists as assessors. interestingly, woodruffe (2000) recently reported that the ratio of assessors to assessees does not have a significant effect on predictive validity and if psychologists are used as assessors, the centre appears to not only be more predictive but also more construct valid than if psychologists are not used as assessors. a number of other researchers also support the use of psychologists as assessors (gaugler, et al., 1987; lievens, 2001; sagie and magnezy, 1997). it is important to note that the present design formed a pilot study and was undertaken with a limited sample. future implementation is planned with larger samples, enabling a more comprehensive analysis of the methodology. nevertheless, the process was successfully implemented with positive feedback and promising initial statistical findings albeit with a small predominantly female sample. clearly it cannot be said that the results will generalise to other disciplines within the higher education setting or even to a larger body of organisational psychology students, but the study provides an innovative approach and an imperative to trial it within other disciplines. the application of the methodology appears to provide a much needed strategy for not only assessing professional competencies in a range of higher education courses, but also providing a standardised way forward for universities with regards to the preparation, planning and ongoing development of professional competencies in the context of work placements. keele, s.m., sturre, v.l., von treuer, k., and feenstra, f. 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(2021). australian postgraduate student experiences and anticipated employability: a national study from the students’ perspective. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(2), 148––168. 148 the journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability issn: 1838-3815 (online) journal homepage: https://ojs.deakin.edu.au/index.php/jtlge/ australian postgraduate student experiences and anticipated employability: a national study from the students’ perspective elizabeth j. cook 1, linda crane2, shelley kinash3, amy bannatyne2, joseph crawford4, gary hamlin2, madelaine-marie judd5, jo-anne kelder4, helen partridge6 and sarah richardson7 corresponding author: elizabeth j. cook (e.cook@ecu.edu.au) 1strategic and governance services centre, edith cowan university, perth, australia 2faculty of health sciences and medicine, bond university, gold coast, australia 3advancement of learning and teaching, university of southern queensland, toowoomba, australia 4academic division, university of tasmania, australia 5student employability centre, the university of queensland, brisbane, australia 6deakin learning futures, deakin university, melbourne, australia 7australian council for educational research, united kingdom abstract postgraduate students are navigating a rapidly evolving landscape for their future careers. in this context, higher education providers are responsible for supporting and monitoring postgraduate (masters and doctoral) students’ development for both education and employability contexts. this empirical research provides a rich analysis of feedback breakfasts, focus groups and interviews with 319 postgraduate student participants from 26 universities. emergent themes highlight widespread lack of confidence in university-mediated student experiences, particularly in the context of employability, and pessimism regarding career outcomes. students expressed a view that higher education providers need to direct further attention and relevant supports toward postgraduate education. future career despondency was particularly prevalent among students with academic aspirations. the findings are discussed using the theoretical framework of eudemonia and flourishing as an approach to revitalising and improving both the process and outcomes of postgraduate education. the paper concludes with practical recommendations for universities to improve the postgraduate student experience in the context of employability. keywords: postgraduate, student experience, employability, graduate outcomes, careers introduction one of the recognised effects of the global pandemic is stock-taking, including in the education sector (al-taweel et al., 2020; torda, velan, & perkovic, 2020). economic downturn and labour market uncertainty are prompting people to reassess the balance between risk and benefit of participating in university study (churchill, 2020). this is exacerbated in the digital era with the uprise of alternatives to university for educational outcomes (kato, galán-muros, & weko, 2020). the context of postgraduate (as compared to undergraduate) study is particularly fraught, as the decision is not whether to take the initial step into tertiary education, but whether to extend the https://ojs.deakin.edu.au/index.php/jtlge/ mailto:e.cook@ecu.edu.au cook, e.j., crane, l., kinash, s., bannatyne, a., crawford, j., hamlin, g., judd, m-m., kelder, j-a., partridge, h., & richardson, s. (2021). australian postgraduate student experiences and anticipated employability: a national study from the students’ perspective. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(2), 148––168. 149 journey. from a labour market perspective, citizens are encouraged to pursue postgraduate study to stimulate and progress the global knowledge-economy, supplying nations with highly educated professionals (zhan, downey, & dyke, 2021). however, whether prospective postgraduate students make decisions based on socio-economic factors is largely unknown (towers & towers, 2020). the reasons students pursue postgraduate study appear to be clearer for degrees associated with established and aligned careers. for example, the majority of mba students appear to be motivated by the potential to broaden career options and increase earnings (moogan, 2020). in enterprise and entrepreneurship postgraduate education, the majority of students provide rationales associated with developing entrepreneurial capabilities for management-related jobs in established companies, or to prepare themselves for self-employment or start-up ventures (rae, woodier-harris, & matlay, 2013). however, it is not only occupation-specific postgraduate degrees that inspire prospective students to make decisions based on careers. studies across degree-types and disciplines reveal that students tend to be goal-focused in their deliberations, citing rationales such as dissatisfaction with the employment outcomes from undergraduate degrees and wanting to increase their attraction to future employers (towers & towers, 2020). education scholars have called for further research from the postgraduate student perspective (le roux, 2018). the research presented in this paper contributes perspectives about postgraduate student experiences, employability and careers through secondary analysis of data from a large sample of australian postgraduates from multiple universities (crane et al., 2016). the research questions that guided this analysis were: 1. when considering what matters in the student experience, to what extent do masters and doctoral students include the notion of employability? 2. to what extent do masters and doctoral students feel satisfied with the employability and career supports and services provided by their universities? 3. how confident do masters and doctoral students feel about their graduate career futures? a qualitative research methodology was adopted to respond to the need for a broad scan of livedexperiences and emergent issues from the students’ points of view, and to identify ways that universities may be able to improve the postgraduate student experience and employability. literature the higher education literature was examined to identify the meanings of key terms and concepts, namely employability and student experience, specifically in the context of doctoral and postgraduate students. employability employability has contested meaning, often situated in one of three orientations: process and policy; people and capabilities; or employment and performance (knight & yorke, 2004; young, kelder, & crawford, 2020). in relation to process, universities are expected to enact responsibility towards students through enabling career development opportunities (irwin, nordmann, & simms, 2019; jackson & bridgstock, 2021). kendal and waterhouse-watson (2020), for example, described the role of universities as providing personalised careers advice, including, but not limited to, the pursuit of academic careers. in respect to people and capabilities, employability refers to having capabilities, such as communication, critical thinking, leadership and problem-solving skills, which should be developed throughout postgraduate study in any discipline or degree-type (young et al., 2020). in relation to employment and performance metrics, employability is measured as a binary (i.e., employed versus unemployed or underemployed) with university qualifications ranked by virtue of the percentage of graduates employed within a time-limited period after graduation. cook, e.j., crane, l., kinash, s., bannatyne, a., crawford, j., hamlin, g., judd, m-m., kelder, j-a., partridge, h., & richardson, s. (2021). australian postgraduate student experiences and anticipated employability: a national study from the students’ perspective. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(2), 148––168. 150 these contested and overlapping definitions are acknowledged and they align with this study through a synthesis of all three orientations: employability is about institutionally driven activities and individual capabilities that culminate in heightened probability of being employed and selfmanaging future career trajectories. student experience postgraduate student experience can be described as the totality of students’ involvement with, and engagement in, their higher education, and the prioritisation of learning within their broader contextual environment (crane et al., 2016, p. 6). as indicated throughout this paper, the published literature is creating a clear and resonant message of postgraduate students’ inclusion of employability as a key facet of their student experience (e.g., keele, sturre, von treuer, & feenstra, 2010). there is a growing body of research into graduate employability and associated university-led career support regarding masters and doctoral student experiences and career outcomes, but seldom from the students’ points of view. recent studies have indicated that many aspects of the postgraduate journey are not meeting the needs of students and, furthermore, that masters and doctoral students are not immune to the problematic context of graduate employability (giles, ski, & vrdoljak, 2009; jackson & michelson, 2015; jones, torezani, & luca, 2012; keele, sturre, von treuer, & feenstra, 2010; crane et al., 2016). particularly since the global financial crisis, masters and doctoral graduates have struggled to secure, in a timely manner, long-term, discipline-related, full-time employment (giles, ski, & vrdoljak, 2009; mistry, white, & berardi, 2009; social research centre, 2016). while factors such as personal characteristics, learnedness, mind-expansion, scholarship and an overall broadening of one’s career options, play a role in motivating people to enrol in masters and doctoral programs (cleary, hunt, & jackson, 2011; herrera & nieto, 2016), students have commonly asked, how is this master’s [or other postgraduate degree] going to help get me a job? (mistry, white, & berardi, 2009, p. 143). this is particularly relevant given students’ reports that, overall, they feel a lack of agency to enact their desired career futures (beasy, emery, & crawford, 2021) or a need for greater return on their financial investment (richardson, 2015; tran et al., 2020). foote et al. (2012), who examined the tensions between academic rigour and corporate relevancy in masters geography education, concluded that more must be done to incorporate employability and ensure that postgraduates can connect their work to more general public debates [to] increase their engagement in relevant political, social and environmental issues (p. 62). in other words, foote et al.’s study reinforced the relevancy of eudemonia and flourishing as the theoretical framework for the current study. similarly, young, kelder and crawford’s (2020) review of 20 published papers on doctoral employability concluded: whatever the future for doctoral education, the focus must be candidate-centric, contextualised to their institution and future personal and professional prospects. the value in doing so is the generation of knowledge that enables societal development and sustains the perpetual development of scholarship over the next century. (p. 8) taking a candidate-centric perspective, young, kelder and crawford (2020) identified several issues. first, that postgraduate programs have not kept up-to-date and have not responded, through curriculum and pedagogy, to accommodate labour market changes intersecting with digital innovation. second, while there has been increasing emphasis on graduate attributes in undergraduate programs, this development has not occurred in postgraduate education. third, and related to the second point, transitions from study to work, and transferability of knowledge, skills, and attributes to industry, have not been well-managed by the sector. finally, universities need to cook, e.j., crane, l., kinash, s., bannatyne, a., crawford, j., hamlin, g., judd, m-m., kelder, j-a., partridge, h., & richardson, s. (2021). australian postgraduate student experiences and anticipated employability: a national study from the students’ perspective. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(2), 148––168. 151 better support postgraduates to explore diverse career options, including academic and nonacademic fields. empirical studies provide mixed conclusions on factors related to employability and careers, motivations for undertaking postgraduate study and perceptions of careers success post-graduation. these are summarised in table 1 (see page 152). theoretical orientation the theory underlying the research described in this paper is that of flourishing and eudemonia. the relevance of this theory is that it integrates postgraduates’ quests for knowledge and career ambitions. opposing the dichotomous belief that postgraduate students are motivated either through the process of university as knowledge expansion or through the product and outcome of career credentialing, this theory unites these university purposes. flourishing and eudemonia theory postulates that human happiness tends to be elevated by engagement in robust and productive work. the concept of flourishing is linked to the aristotelian notion of eudemonia, which is loosely translated as happiness. for aristotle, happiness was closely linked to intellectual inquiry. it is said that he believed … that the highest good and happiest life for human beings is a life devoted to intellectual inquiry or ‘contemplation’ as its highest aim (curren, 2010, p. 548). human flourishing is receiving renewed scholarly attention within the positive organisational scholarship discipline with results reaching beyond management disciplines (allison, waters, & kern, 2020; cameron & dutton, 2003; cameron & spreitzer, 2011; wolbert, de ruyter, & schinkel, 2015). within educational philosophy, the connection between eudemonia and flourishing is that the first is said to be an exemplar or prototype for the second (wolbert, de ruyter, & schinkel, 2015, p. 119). scholars in this intellectual tradition write that flourishing is the overarching aim of education (kristjánsson, 2017, p. 87), but it is also part of the educational process. in other words, education that engages, enthrals and inspires learners, results in them becoming more, doing more with their lives and thereby heightening their contributions as citizens. wright and pascoe’s (2015) detailed analysis of five actions within this philosophy include to connect, be active, take notice, keep learning and give (p. 297). applying these actions to postgraduate study and career outcomes, the overall thrust of the argument is that a quality student experience incorporates these collaborative activities to develop students’ capacities for these actions upon graduation. cook, e.j., crane, l., kinash, s., bannatyne, a., crawford, j., hamlin, g., judd, m-m., kelder, j-a., partridge, h., & richardson, s. (2021). australian postgraduate student experiences and anticipated employability: a national study from the students’ perspective. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(2), 148––168. 152 table 1: empirical studies on phd and masters graduate employability and career outcomes study aim location sample design study conclusions bessudnov, guardiancich, & marimon (2015) career outcomes of doctoral education united states and europe 79 research fellows and 76 doctoral applicants student applications and survey data doctoral education has a positive effect on life satisfaction for graduates, and their publication activities. bos et al. (2017) reflection of an internship scheme united kingdom 4 graduated postgraduates collective autoethnography postgraduate internship schemes can enable advancement of diverse knowledges, writing skills, and increase employment prospects. beasy, crawford, young, & kelder (2021) age and gender perceptions of employability australia 222 current phd candidates self-administered survey that phd candidates had different perceptions of their preparedness for employability, with initiatives of employability skewed towards the younger and often male candidates. edwards (2009) examine labour market impressions australia 120+ people involved in science training, employment, and research interviews the labour market presents uncertainty for those interviewed, with a view that collaborative research studies will enable success. giles, ski, & vrdoljak (2009) career outcomes and perceptions of employability australia 123 case studies and 1,206 stem masters and phd students case studies and surveyed participants described limited career success and employability preparedness in australia. one third of the participants relocated to work in universities overseas on, mostly, short-term sessional (adjunct or casual) contracts. haapakorpi (2017) doctoral careers. employer motives. finland 1,183 phd holders, 26 employers student selfadministered survey, employer interviews generally, the doctorate holders found employment in the academy or in the public sector and only small proportion in private sector companies or as entrepreneurs. occupational profile of phd holders: research, management and expert work, profile varied cook, e.j., crane, l., kinash, s., bannatyne, a., crawford, j., hamlin, g., judd, m-m., kelder, j-a., partridge, h., & richardson, s. (2021). australian postgraduate student experiences and anticipated employability: a national study from the students’ perspective. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(2), 148––168. 153 study aim location sample design study conclusions between sectors. three issues: relationship of labour markets and education, personnel policy of organisations outside the academy and academic reputation strategy of universities and companies and other non-academic organisations. harman (2004) examine and assess crcs integrated model of research training. compare experience of phd programs. australia 651 phd students in crc or traditional science-based programs self-administered survey integrative doctoral programs aim to develop skills in researchers transferable to a range of different employment contexts. ho, kember, & hong (2012) factors and motivation hong kong 21 part-time coursework masters students interviewed there are six interactive motivating factors for phd completion. four related to employability and careers (qualifications, professional competence, career shift and professional networks) and the other two factors centred on intrinsic motivations for postgraduate study (interest and perpetual habituation). jackson & tomlinson (2020) career planning, student employability perceptions australia, united kingdom 433 undergraduate and postgraduate students survey student perceptions are important in their sense of employability and career planning those reporting positive perceptions of the current labour market were less engaged with proactive career behaviours. students perceptions of employability, sense of career control and reported career proactivity positively determined their engagement in career planning. leonard, becker, & coate (2004) motivation united kingdom 162 doctoral graduates self-administered survey most participants were motivated to undertake a doctorate for educational, emotional, and intellectual growth reasons rather than for cook, e.j., crane, l., kinash, s., bannatyne, a., crawford, j., hamlin, g., judd, m-m., kelder, j-a., partridge, h., & richardson, s. (2021). australian postgraduate student experiences and anticipated employability: a national study from the students’ perspective. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(2), 148––168. 154 study aim location sample design study conclusions vocational (career-related) reasons. manathunga, pitt, & critchley (2012) graduate preparation and employment outcomes industryready phd graduates australia 1,068 phd graduates including 327 crc and 741 non-crc graduates (response rates of 35 percent and 26 percent respectively) survey cooperative research centre phd training provides greater exposure to industry or business meetings and professional interactions than conventional university phd programs and a higher percentage graduates are employed outside the university sector. key stakeholder information is needed about knowledge and skills required to ensure effective preparation for a variety of employment destinations or career redirections. mowbray & halse (2010) phd students’ perspective on employability skills as part of phd process australia 20 final year phd candidates in depth semistructured interviews / inductive and deductive procedures of grounded theory (strauss and corbin, 1998). frames the purpose of the phd as the “acquisition of an interrelated suite of intellectual virtues” (p. 662). extends beyond the limited economic agendas of employability skills. neumann & tan (2011) doctoral employment destinations australia nationally, number of doctoral respondents ranged from 1707–3063 graduates a year (45–60% of australia’s doctoral graduates). employment profiles of doctoral graduates from two self-administered survey (national graduate destination survey). comparison of national, institutional and disciplinary employment profiles australian doctoral graduate employment: one quarter in government sector, one-half in the education sector (of which 44.4% are in higher education). only one-quarter of all doctoral graduates are initially employed in academic positions on completion of their phd. cook, e.j., crane, l., kinash, s., bannatyne, a., crawford, j., hamlin, g., judd, m-m., kelder, j-a., partridge, h., & richardson, s. (2021). australian postgraduate student experiences and anticipated employability: a national study from the students’ perspective. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(2), 148––168. 155 study aim location sample design study conclusions universities, compared with the national profile. passaretta, trivellato, & triventi (2019) explore changing phd’s occupational prospects after academic reforms italy 2 cohorts phd graduates (2004, 2008) self-administered survey decreasing employment in academia; increasing chance of a fixed-term contract, employment abroad and working outside academia in researchrelated occupations. academic reforms affected soft more than hard academic disciplines opportunity to work in academia. pederson (2014) assist policy decisionmaking (number of phds to meet expected needs) european union careers of doctorate holders survey (2009) on phd labour market outcome european commission survey need better (national) data to understand mobilisation patterns. phds change employers within higher education institutions more than other sectors but transition between the other sectors limited. phd holders may be leaving academia due to unfulfilled expectations or involuntarily because insufficient positions available. pitt & mewburn (2016) critical analysis of academic job descriptions australia 178 job advertisements textual analysis australian academic hiring practices are inconsistent and lack transparency and equity.academic “a multi-talented, always ready and available worker … the ‘academic super-hero’" (99). need better understanding of the nature and purpose of academic work including in preparing our higher degree by research students for this arena. cook, e.j., crane, l., kinash, s., bannatyne, a., crawford, j., hamlin, g., judd, m-m., kelder, j-a., partridge, h., & richardson, s. (2021). australian postgraduate student experiences and anticipated employability: a national study from the students’ perspective. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(2), 148–168. 156 methodology a qualitative research methodology was used because the purpose of this study was to explore and understand the postgraduate student experience. multiple data collection methods (i.e., semistructured feedback opportunities via breakfast meetings, focus groups and interviews) assured the validity and trustworthiness of the findings and provided ample opportunities to hear and interpret many robust and complex stories of postgraduate students’ experiences, hopes and dreams (alvesson & sköldberg, 2000; van manen, 1997). this research was conducted in accordance with ethical standards obtained through a private university in australia (bond university, ro1917). participants a sample of convenience approach was used to include diverse student voices (kelly, lesh, & baek, 2008) from across coursework and research postgraduate degrees and professionally and nonprofessionally focused courses in all australian states and territories. postgraduates were invited to participate in the study via: (1) targeted research team contact with students; (2) invitations through senior administrators; (3) emails to postgraduate associations; (4) posts on social media; and (5) outreach via research team networks and professional associations. throughout 2015 and early 2016, a total of 319 postgraduate students participated in their choice of the three data collection methods (table 2). student participants were enrolled in masters (38%) and doctoral (52%) programs1 across a broad range of disciplines in research (56%), coursework (27%) and mixed study modes (7%)2. there was an average of 40 and range of 14 to 101 student participants per australian state or territory from 26 australian universities. participants at the feedback breakfasts and focus groups were not separated by enrolment type, level or discipline, meaning that masters and phd, research and coursework students participated together in the research. this facilitated rich discussions between students who expressed a diversity of experiences and perceptions that did not fit into neat categories aligned with enrolment type. table 2: number of research participants by method and australian state or territory collection method qld wa tas vic act sa nt nsw total feedback breakfasts 69 (2) 34 32 31 29 28 — — 223 focus groups 30 (2) 2 2 — — — 15 (2) 9 58 interviews 2 5 5 5 5 5 6 5 38 total 101 41 39 36 34 33 21 14 319 the average age and age-range of the participants was 35 years and 21 to 60 years respectively, and 69 per cent identified as female. notably, these figures correspond with the latest national data of 1 10% of participating students identified as neither masters nor doctoral students, stating that they were in a program of transition between the two or from their undergraduate program. 2 the percentage of students in research-based, course-based and mixed mode (combined) does not add-up to 100% as some of the students did not select a category on the distributed demographic worksheet. cook, e.j., crane, l., kinash, s., bannatyne, a., crawford, j., hamlin, g., judd, m-m., kelder, j-a., partridge, h., & richardson, s. (2021). australian postgraduate student experiences and anticipated employability: a national study from the students’ perspective. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(2), 148–168. 157 student demographics (department of education, skills and employment, 2020). overall, 59 per cent of the participants were engaged in full-time study. data collection data collection involved three types of engagement – feedback breakfasts, focus groups and interviews – and was conducted on-campus at ten universities, ensuring all eight australian states and territories were covered. seven feedback breakfasts were held, each with an average of 32 students seated approximately six students per table. broad questions were designed to provide participants the opportunity to discuss and depict the breadth of their student experience, including what they valued most and least and for suggestions to improve the university experience (see appendix pp. 167–168). the primary facilitation strategy was the construction of word-clouds, involving students using coloured markers on poster paper to generate visual representations of their agreed group responses to the questions posed, for example, what was done well and not done well at their universities. as part of thematic analysis and coding, the word-clouds produced by each table were collated into mega word-clouds across all tables, then across all breakfasts, then independently thematically analysed and, finally, thematically confirmed by multiple researchers. there were seven focus groups averaging eight students per group. the facilitator followed a semistructured focus group guide, which asked general questions about the student experience. for example, a sample question was: ‘when i say the words postgraduate student experience what comes to mind? in other words what does this term mean to you?’ a probing question, in the context of employability and careers, was: ‘do you receive adequate support for your career development?’ the facilitator ensured that all focus group participants were invited to engage and contribute. in addition, 38 one-hour individual semi-structured student interviews were conducted to probe greater details about the individual experiences and perspectives of additional students, using the same question guide. details of the prompts and questions used are provided in supplementary material. data analysis documents from the feedback breakfasts, focus groups and interviews were inductively coded into themes, focusing on experiential patterns and perspectives. thematic analysis was done separately by two researchers, and then reconciled and re-coded by a third (creswell & creswell, 2018; marshall & rossman, 2016; shaddock, 2014). to enable a reflexive dialogue between researchers (braun & clarke, 2006), and thematic confirmation, the researchers coded, grouped and regrouped themes iteratively. findings and discussion this section commences with discussion of the theoretical framework of eudemonia and flourishing as applied to postgraduate student experience and employability, and then responds to the research questions, comparing the findings to those included in the literature review. postgraduate students in this study expressed views that they were expecting intellectually challenging educational experiences that would prepare them to contribute to the world as graduates, including through work. they appeared to concur with bullough jr. and pinnegar’s (2009) statement that … happiness follows when work is found intrinsically rewarding, morally upstanding, purposeful, appropriately challenging, and fully supportive of the learning and development of the people involved (p. 246). thus, rather than perceiving a dichotomy between the quest for knowledge cook, e.j., crane, l., kinash, s., bannatyne, a., crawford, j., hamlin, g., judd, m-m., kelder, j-a., partridge, h., & richardson, s. (2021). australian postgraduate student experiences and anticipated employability: a national study from the students’ perspective. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(2), 148–168. 158 and the securement of employment (wright & pascoe, 2015), the participating postgraduates wanted work to be a fulfilling component of their lives and contributions and reconciled the purposes of university study as the production and contribution of knowledge and of achieving career outcomes. their postgraduate studies were viewed as the pathway through which they would achieve fulfilling work. thus, this paper presents empirical research that reveals the complexities of diverse postgraduate student perspectives and ambitions relating to future careers. cohesive thinking about the process and outcomes of the student experience and employability pervaded the inputs provided by the australian postgraduate student participants. the overall message, from the postgraduate students, was that they expected their experience to be different from and further advanced than their undergraduate studies. overall, they expressed disappointment that this was generally not the case. in regard to an integrated view of knowledge and careers, a resonant theme was that the postgraduates expected their study to feel like they had joined a scholar’s academy. they did not expect their postgraduate student experience to be a clearing-house or a transition between undergraduate study and an empowered career. instead, they were honoured by their acceptance, their enrolment in the academy, and considered their postgraduate experience to be a phase in their careers. they expected to be treated like scholars and valued for their accumulated and developing knowledge. they anticipated flourishing and eudemonia, which would synergistically open-up career opportunities. however, as depicted in figure 1, these expectations were largely unfulfilled. figure 1 was created in response to the question – what is it like to be a postgraduate student? it is a mega word-cloud of the postgraduate experience – produced by combining the individual wordclouds drawn by student groups across all engagement breakfasts. the relative size of words shown are representative of how many groups, across the feedback breakfasts, included a particular word in their word-clouds and how big they made each word. for example, the word networking appeared large on numerous word-clouds and, hence, amalgamates to the largest word in the mega word-cloud shown below. figure 1: mega word-cloud of feedback breakfast group depictions of the overall postgraduate student experience many highlighted words can be clustered into the themes of flourishing and eudemonia. for example, the words challenging and networking express a desire to be compelled to grow, develop and build connections. discordance in their experience is emphasised by the prominence of the word isolating, which can happen when an experience does not support flourishing through networking. the words fun, stress and uncertainty emphasise that the postgraduate student experience is an emotive one, pushing students out of their comfort zone. in other words, to flourishing beyond what one would experience without postgraduate study. cook, e.j., crane, l., kinash, s., bannatyne, a., crawford, j., hamlin, g., judd, m-m., kelder, j-a., partridge, h., & richardson, s. (2021). australian postgraduate student experiences and anticipated employability: a national study from the students’ perspective. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(2), 148–168. 159 1. when considering what matters in the student experience, to what extent do masters and doctoral students include the notion of employability? participating students conceptualised employability, careers, and related services and supports, as key and fundamental to their overall student experience. when specific probes were provided, students discussed the interaction of process and outcomes. for example, they indicated that the postgraduate student experience would need to be ‘overhauled’ if postgraduates are to achieve desired success, including careers, upon graduation. in the context of flourishing and eudemonia, the postgraduate students did not see a binary between being students and being graduates, or between vocations and meaning. in other words, purpose should be synergistic and promoted through all phases and environments, preand post-graduation. students highlighted the importance of career development within their specific fields of interest, particularly given that some had enrolled in postgraduate studies having been told by the workforce out there that [i am] unemployable. some students said that they felt pressured to self-direct towards academic careers because they were told that they were overqualified for alternate career pathways and other industries. the postgraduate students’ recommendations were to provide specific career development that takes you from your degree into academia and provide advice for females wanting to make this transition [into academia]. students felt that they were not supported with targeted advice for their desired career outcomes. these results align with the research findings of ho, kember and kong (2012), in that four of the six motivating factors for study were related to employability. they reflect a shift since leonard, becker and coate’s (2004) study in which the uk students were motivated by educational, emotional and intellectual growth as opposed to employability and careers. 2. to what extent do masters and doctoral students feel satisfied with the employability and career supports and services provided by their universities? the feedback breakfasts prompted frequent commentary about the design of the breakfast experience being in stark contrast to their usual postgraduate experience. the conversational nature of the breakfasts gave participants an opportunity for new cross-disciplinary peer-to-peer interaction, and a sense of belonging (as scholars), which they valued. they also commented that the breakfast settings (e.g., university faculty clubs) made them feel respected and valued. one representative student’s comment was: this is the first time i have actually experienced what i thought the whole postgraduate experience would be – would feel like. at university, no one has taken the time to introduce me to anyone else. i don’t get the chance to build networks. i don’t even know what other students in my same department are studying, never mind people in other departments or other universities. today, i met lots of people i will continue to collaborate with (including from other universities), including after we graduate. this is what it should be like overall, if we’re to be successful and if we’re to be the next generation moving the world forward. remarks such as the above align with postgraduate students’ desires to flourish within and beyond the student experience. eudemonia, a desire to have global impact as postgraduate students, was also emphasised. participants commented that their student experience was often a barrier, rather than a catalyst, towards becoming leaders and change agents. students mentioned their preconceived expectations conflated their enrolment with a ‘scholar’s club’ where they would be invited to consult, present, advise and network. in other words, they were expecting to be treated as scholars while postgraduate students, similar to the model of commonwealth governmentsponsored graduate positions (australian government, n.d.). instead, people who had become cook, e.j., crane, l., kinash, s., bannatyne, a., crawford, j., hamlin, g., judd, m-m., kelder, j-a., partridge, h., & richardson, s. (2021). australian postgraduate student experiences and anticipated employability: a national study from the students’ perspective. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(2), 148–168. 160 students during, or after holding, staff positions expressed sentiments that they had lost status and privilege as students. some said that, for this reason, they withheld their student status from others, continuing to say they were staff, without revealing that they were also students. when asked to reflect on what was and was not going well in their university experience, students were more vocal about what was not going well. the only positive comment raised consistently at all breakfasts and across multiple tables, in relation to employability development, was practical careerrelated fieldtrips and/or field research. additionally, salient negative themes emerged at every breakfast including: (1) lack of career-related professional development of staff and students; (2) insufficient practical application of curriculum; (3) few opportunities for paid tutoring in study area; (4) no effort to accommodate and map relevant paid student work (other than tutoring) into formal studies; and (5) no formalised networking with student peers, as professionals, through created opportunities for peer engagement. themes that had conflicting positive and negative comments included: (1) career counselling planning and pathway support; (2) development of transferable skills and curricular development; (3) embedding extra-curricular activities into student experiences as cocurriculum; and (4) inviting professionals and industry experts into the learning experience. a predominant theme, emerging at all seven focus groups, was direct comparison with their experiences of undergraduate employability services and supports. masters and doctoral students commented that they felt well-supported (overall) in their undergraduate degrees in respect to employability development, including via embedded curriculum support for peer-to-peer collaboration and explained need for specific skill development in the workplace. interpreted within the theoretical framework of flourishing and eudemonia, the students had expected their postgraduate experience to be more than what is designed for undergraduates. that is, to be cocreating and contributing at a higher level (reciprocally acknowledging and further developing themselves within a sentiment of flourishing), leading towards future careers that would be eudemonic, as opposed to dissonant. while the need for universities to improve employability and careers-related supports was a strong emergent theme, consistent with durham, jordan, naccarella and russell (2020), postgraduates also emphasised a view that their needs and desirable strategies were different to those of undergraduates. for example, students at each of the focus groups said they felt they had mastered concrete career management skills, such as resume writing and answering interview questions, during and/or after their undergraduate degrees. however, what they needed now, were skills and instrumental supports further up the career ladder, such as guidance for how to apply for promotions in the workplace once they had their postgraduate credentials. students with aspirations as future academics (with masters or doctoral degrees) felt they needed mentoring on how to secure continuing academic positions, as opposed to casual contracts. they also felt they needed guidance as to what kinds of publications (e.g., conference papers versus journal articles) would strengthen their future academic portfolios. a dominant idea expressed by students was that course-based assignments should be designed to derive a publication. related to assignments, students emphasised that deadlines and supports (such as through the library) seemed to cater for full-time undergraduate students (monday to friday, 9am to 5pm), as opposed to parttime and/or mature aged students. the postgraduates emotively expressed how they balanced work and study, often with dependents, and identified that more accommodating university scheduling would support their career development. they emphasised the importance of research scholarships, grants and/or fellowships as instrumental to their specific career development and student experience needs (and as opposed to those of undergraduates) through providing opportunities to apprentice, work-shadow and develop career-related skills. networking was another substantial emergent theme across the focus groups. students at one focus group had an extended discussion about ‘connections’, for example: cook, e.j., crane, l., kinash, s., bannatyne, a., crawford, j., hamlin, g., judd, m-m., kelder, j-a., partridge, h., & richardson, s. (2021). australian postgraduate student experiences and anticipated employability: a national study from the students’ perspective. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(2), 148–168. 161 you start to panic a little bit. i am starting to get to that stage now when even a few classmates are getting job offers already and you are [like], ‘i don’t even know anyone yet’. across the focus groups, students suggested that current masters and doctoral students would benefit from formalised connections with alumni from their discipline, similar to evidence from dollinger, arkoudis and marangell (2019). a representative comment was: i think what i need is … recent graduates who studied with the similar subject, similar discipline or specialisation as me, and have successfully hunted good jobs and then come back to the university campus to share with us. across the one-to-one interviews, the most salient theme was negative or neutral feelings about how well they felt their universities were addressing their individual employability and careers support needs. examples of satisfaction and positive reflections on postgraduate employability and career development experiences were minor themes. the reasons that interviewed students provided for such sentiments were consistent with those articulated by postgraduates at the breakfasts and focus groups. interviewed students who commented specifically on their university’s employability and careers services and supports tended to express dissatisfaction for what they perceived as services specifically designed for undergraduates and used, without adaptation or scaffolding, in their masters and doctoral programs. phd students aspiring to academic careers felt particularly unsupported for this career trajectory. these results align with the findings of foote et al. (2012) who concluded that universities need to enhance the incorporation of skills, as well as higher-level thinking and leadership, in education. 3. how confident do masters and doctoral students feel about their graduate career futures? there was a strong theme of pessimism across the individually interviewed postgraduates in regard to launching careers after graduation; optimism was rarely expressed. similar sentiments were shared by postgraduates at the engagement breakfasts and focus groups. aspirations and frustrations regarding academic careers were a resonant emergent theme across the combined dataset. participants commented that they had observed media reports about a shift away from academic career aspirations. in other words, these reports said that contemporary phd students had preferences for non-academic careers. however, many of the participating doctoral students said this was an over-simplification, emphasising that they had applied for phds primarily to pursue aspirations to join the academe, but were reconsidering their career goals during their studies. salient reasons for changing career trajectories were that they constantly heard academics (including their own supervisors and professors) complaining about their jobs, universities and/or bleak academic career entry prospects. an illustrative quote was: you look at them and they’ve all got bags under their eyes and they all look as if they are on the verge of a nervous breakdown at any time. this is hideous. i don’t want to live like that. within the theoretic framing of flourishing and eudemonia, the overall finding regarding career hopes and aspirations was that many of the postgraduate participants had changed their minds about academic careers because of what they observed. they were of the view that academics were not flourishing or experiencing academic careers in ways that reflected eudemonia. postgraduates were clear that this was their career expectation coming into higher education as students and this observation made them question their futures as academic staff. students commonly expressed perceptions about the casualisation of the academic workforce, particularly highlighted by students who balanced academic roles with phd study, for example: cook, e.j., crane, l., kinash, s., bannatyne, a., crawford, j., hamlin, g., judd, m-m., kelder, j-a., partridge, h., & richardson, s. (2021). australian postgraduate student experiences and anticipated employability: a national study from the students’ perspective. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(2), 148–168. 162 i would go anywhere where there’s a permanent position. however, i’ve been told by the workforce that i’m unemployable. so, i’ve spent 10 years perfecting a cv that’s suited to academia, which essentially, i’m told that i can’t even get a job answering phones with. some participants were university lecturers prior to their phds in an attempt to break-into continuing positions, while others had begun teaching after commencing their phds to graduate with practical career-relevant skills and experience. participants in both streams complained about working semester-after-semester without any indication that they were earning their stripes and would be rewarded with a bonafide academic career. phd students emphasised that they felt takenadvantage-of and treated like cheap labourers without equitable benefits, such as those afforded to continuing academic staff, similar to ‘inevitable’ power imbalances articulated by miles et al. (2021). some mentioned feeling complicit in this power-imbalance (i.e., hegemony) and articulated requirements for related work experience. these students felt forced to accept sub-standard student employment conditions to be potentially employable upon graduation. an indicative quote described university transitional careers support (for aspiring academics) as the metaphoric equivalent of being pushed off a cliff. the postgraduate student continued: i’ve had to make my own opportunities. there essentially was no career development that takes you from your degree into academia. another asked how universities can expect to succeed in fostering graduate employability for disparate industries when they had not yet figured out how to prepare, educate, transition and support their own future workforce. in summary, the masters and doctoral students who participated in this research did not feel that they were receiving the employability and career supports they needed and expressed widespread pessimism about their future careers. participants with academic aspirations were particularly despondent about their university careers supports and pessimistic about their chances of achieving a rewarding and stable academic career that would enable flourishing and eudemonia. these results are consistent with the findings of giles, ski and vrdoljak (2009), whereby one-third of the participating australian graduates felt compelled to move overseas to pursue rewarding academic careers. further research is warranted to address the extent to which this may be a unique problem in the australian context, given that 90 percent of the uk graduates in one study reported successful graduate employment (leonard, becker, & coate, 2004). wright and pascoe’s (2015) actions (i.e., to connect, be active, take notice, keep learning and give) exemplify the sentiments expressed by the postgraduate participants in our research. in reflecting on their studies, the participants seemed to want a relational postgraduate student experience that would enable them to network with fellow students and beyond the university walls. they wanted to be engaged in a fulfilling process of continual intellectual inquiry (i.e., flourishing) with their expertise acknowledged and drawn-upon and they wanted to contribute within and beyond their university (i.e., eudemonia). synthesising these findings, we suggest that wright and pascoe’s actions may provide a useful lens for universities to improve the ways that they prepare postgraduates for impactful career futures. recommendations and further research four practice recommendations were derived from this analysis and contribute details in relation to careers and employability, which add to the original recommendations of the primary research (see, section action recommendations for executive leaders of higher education, crane et al., 2016). first, it is recommended that universities design integrated opportunities for robust scholarly interaction between postgraduate students, such as participants experienced in the feedback breakfasts. applying the theory of flourishing and eudemonia, these experiences as students, would cook, e.j., crane, l., kinash, s., bannatyne, a., crawford, j., hamlin, g., judd, m-m., kelder, j-a., partridge, h., & richardson, s. (2021). australian postgraduate student experiences and anticipated employability: a national study from the students’ perspective. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(2), 148–168. 163 develop postgraduates’ positioning as leaders and collaborators upon graduation. second, it is recommended that universities design and enact intentional employability strategies, in the context of postgraduate education. in the experience of the participating students, grafting postgraduates onto undergraduate strategies is ineffective. third, it is recommended that universities take a personalised approach to postgraduate employability, giving students access to success coaches who can give them targeted and contextualised advice along their journey towards their graduate careers. fourth, and finally, it is recommended that universities recognise postgraduates as their emerging workforce through mentoring, championing and creating opportunities to transition into early career academics. this study was designed to explore australian postgraduate student perspectives on their experience. a design strength, in relation to the sample, was the large number and broad range of student perspectives considered. limitations include unequal sample sizes across the states and territories, unequal representation across the study types and that perspectives of online students were not explicitly sought. the analysis would have been strengthened by explicitly setting structural research themes prior to data collection to facilitate thematic alignment and triangulation across the sources, thereby increasing the power of the overall results. moreover, differences could not be effectively codified by demographic, geographic or programmatic factors; noting there is published evidence of demographic differences among doctoral candidates in relation to graduate employability (beasy, crawford, young, & kelder, 2021). further research could test students’ assertions that their experiences would not cluster by type, level or discipline of study. despite these limitations, this study provided a unique opportunity for the postgraduate student experience to be probed (and permitted to emerge), as opposed to restricting the focus to specific topics, such as employability and career development supports. the researchers asked students what matters in their student experience and two prevalent themes were employability and careers. a reasonable implication to draw is that, of their own volition, participating students raised matters that were important to them, providing deep depictions of their situated experiences. now that this matter has been raised by students’ themselves, future research might specifically address and deeply probe postgraduate perceptions within these contextual frames. conclusion this study of 319 postgraduate students across 26 universities indicated that these students considered employability and careers to be expected elements of their postgraduate student experience. the results revealed widespread australian postgraduate student dissatisfaction with the employability and careers development support they were receiving and associated scepticism about their graduate employability. the significant contribution of this paper is a call to action to the higher education sector to improve employability and career development supports for masters and doctoral students in the ways described, and through a theoretical framework of eudemonia and flourishing. this is particularly pertinent in the context of the covid-19 pandemic, which has devastated employment prospects and severely impacted the higher education sector. acknowledgements this research is indebted to over 300 students, who so candidly and generously shared their stories, experiences and perceptions. the authors wish to acknowledge harry rolf. as the president of council of australian postgraduate associations at the time this research was conducted, harry was instrumental in recruiting student participants, sharing knowledge of the research, and analysing and interpreting the results. this work was supported by the australian government office for learning and teaching under grant sp1404599. cook, e.j., crane, l., kinash, s., bannatyne, a., crawford, j., hamlin, g., judd, m-m., kelder, j-a., partridge, h., & richardson, s. 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(2021). australian postgraduate student experiences and anticipated employability: a national study from the students’ perspective. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(2), 148–168. 167 appendix1 engagement breakfast table prompts activity 1 what do the words student experience mean to you?  construct a group ‘wordle’, plus individual comments on the dropbox cards if you wish. activity 2 what do you see as being the key functional and operational components of your experience? (e.g., lectures, assessments, student associations).  construct a group ‘wordle’. activity 3 think about how aspects of what you value are being addressed at your institution.  of these, which are being well done and which are being not so well done activity 4 part a – discuss what is valuable about an on-campus experience.  how does this differ to an off-campus experience? part b – discuss how a sense of community can be enhanced for off-campus students.  create a list to highlight the key issues from your discussions in activity 4a & 4b activity 5 each participant should offer one or two strategies and/or recommendations to improve the student experience.  create a ‘wordle’ highlighting the most important of these after discussing the ideas. activity 6 please remember to use the dropbox cards to tell us anything else about postgraduate student experience that you think will helpful. thank you! 1(source: crane et al., 2016) cook, e.j., crane, l., kinash, s., bannatyne, a., crawford, j., hamlin, g., judd, m-m., kelder, j-a., partridge, h., & richardson, s. (2021). australian postgraduate student experiences and anticipated employability: a national study from the students’ perspective. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(2), 148–168. 168 olt commissioned postgraduate student experience interview questions student version 1. tell me about your university and your postgraduate degree. prompts: coursework, research, online / f2f why did you choose this university? this degree? what are the strengths of and needed improvements to your postgraduate degree program? 2. tell me about your university's a. application process b. enrolment process c. student supports (have you used any and if so, what was the experience like for you?) d. study assistance supports (have you used any and if so, what was the experience like for you?) e. it environment f. online resources and interaction g. assessment? do you consider any of these to be particularly flexible? innovative? overall, how do you rate student services at your university? (on a scale of 1-5 with 5 being high) 3. this research project is in response to a call from the australian government office for learning and teaching about the postgraduate student experience. when i say the words "postgraduate student experience" what comes to mind? in other words what does this term mean to you? 4. could you please draw me a picture of your/the postgraduate student experience (through your university). perhaps you would like to show the spaces/places where you engage/learn/interact. or 'a day in your life' as a postgraduate student. or what it's like to be a postgraduate student / what matters to you about this experience. 5. do you think that there are things that make you unique as a postgraduate student? if so, what particular needs does this create? does your university address / meet these needs? how? 6. using your drawing as reference, to what extent is your depicted experience about learning and to what extent about other things? e.g. clubs, sports, societies, social events. tell me about the balance. 7. what do you value most about that experience? what is most important to you? non negotiable? prompts: wifi, online resources, library, campus life 8. in that experience, what is the relationship between online and on-campus? what is the balance between the time you spend on line and on campus? does this affect your feeling of "belonging"? what does the university do about this? 9. what are your plans for after graduation? do you think your university has adequately prepared you for / supported you in these plans? need for improvement? additional supports? 10. is there anything else you would like to say about your postgraduate student experience? 1631 seevaratnam final seevaratnam, v. et al. (2023). design thinking-learning and lifelong learning for employability in the 21st century. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 14(1), 167–186. 167 the journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability issn: 1838-3815 (online) journal homepage: https://ojs.deakin.edu.au/index.php/jtlge/ design thinking-learning and lifelong learning for employability in the 21st century vijayakumari seevaratnam 1, deanne gannaway 2, jason lodge 3 corresponding author: deanne gannaway (d.gannaway@uq.edu.au) 1 school of education, faculty of humanities and social sciences, the university of queensland 2 institute for teaching and learning innovation, the university of queensland 3 school of education, faculty of humanities and social sciences, the university of queensland abstract surviving and thriving in this 21st century volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous (vuca) world caused by rapid digitalisation and changing work landscape, requires agile organisations with agile employees who are adaptable, resilient, and actively engaged in lifelong learning. a blended workforce encompassing full-time and 'gig' employees, working in tandem with smart machines, calls for an innovative and collaborative workforce capable of critical thinking and creative problem solving. this paper aims to highlight the potential of design thinking approaches to foster lifelong learning and graduate employability in a vuca environment. the paper outlines an empirical study investigating the multiple benefits of incorporating design thinking process attributes in higher education. it argues that such processes can result in the development of 21st century skills and mindset and graduate capability themes that promote lifelong learning skills. incorporating such strategies offers the potential to narrow the competency gap between workforce and work and enhance the employability and career development of graduates. the paper offers a framework for lifelong learning in a vuca environment that outlines the powerful traits that arise as payoffs from engaging in and practising design thinking. this framework can serve as a preliminary guide for higher education educators, learning organisations and individuals to inculcate and enhance lifelong learning. keywords vuca, design thinking, higher education, lifelong learning, graduate employability, graduate capability themes, framework for lifelong learning introduction as compared to a decade ago, graduate unemployment and underemployment are on the rise (international labour organization, 2020; the foundation for young australians, 2020). at the other end of the spectrum, employers are having difficulty finding suitable candidates to fill vacancies (hutchens, 2021; manpower group, 2018). higher education has arguably not kept pace with the rapidly evolving digitalisation (leblanc, 2018; orr et al., 2020). consequently, there exists a disconnect between preparing the workforce and work (the foundation for young australians, 2018; zaber et al., 2019). further, the rapidly changing digital landscape means that 21st century employees can expect to change jobs and continue learning throughout their employment (richards & dede, 2020; the foundation for young australians, 2020). seevaratnam, v. et al. (2023). design thinking-learning and lifelong learning for employability in the 21st century. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 14(1), 167–186. 168 higher education institutions are increasingly challenged to prepare graduates not only for a better employment opportunity but also to remain employable in a dynamic 21st century volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous (vuca) environment. this preparation often takes place through opportunities to develop employability capabilities, where employability is defined as 'institutionally driven activities and individual capabilities that culminate in heightened probability of being employed and self-managing future career trajectories' (cook et al., 2021). to remain employable, graduates need to be equipped with lifelong learning skills and ability to self-manage their career development (mckenzie et al., 2021), where lifelong learning is defined as learning across the life span in formal settings of schools, colleges, universities and adult educational institutions as well as informal learning at home, at work and the wider community and anything in between or non-formal learning (organisation for economic cooperation and development, 2001). graduate employment and employability in a vuca world in the last decade, the 21st century vuca environment has progressively driven organisations to adopt a lean strategy, diminishing the full-time secure employment landscape while encouraging a rise in flexible 'gig' jobs and platform economy supporting self-employment and entrepreneurship (vallas & schor, 2020). rapid digitalisation and an eventual balance between task redundancies due to automation and creation of new tasks is predicted (acemoglu & restrepo, 2018) leading to the advent of a blended workforce of machines and human to optimize work (nardo et. al., 2020). in such a setting, human capabilities that are superior to machines such as creativity, personal empowerment, empathy and ability to reflect in conditions of complexity and uncertainty would be in demand (bass, 2018). this argument supports the findings of a study that examined over 250,000 online job advertisements for post college applicants to establish four 21st century skill sets prioritised by employers: oral communication, written communication, collaboration, and problem solving (rios et al., 2020). to survive competition in an uncertain marketplace, organisations have to remain lean and agile, relying on emerging technologies to ensure efficiencies and effectiveness. this has led to machines replacing manual labour and impacting the nature of employment reducing the number of workers required to do the same amount of work, changing skill sets and requiring a workforce that is more knowledge intensive and capable of higher order thinking (nardo et al., 2020; world economic forum, 2022). learning agility or the ability of organizations and individuals to learn, unlearn and relearn quickly to keep up and stay ahead is key to survival (bundtzen & hinrichs, 2021). an approach that may offer individuals and organisations strategies to build these capacities is design thinking. design thinking in a vuca environment as a constructivist, multidisciplinary, collaborative, and creative problem-solving approach, design thinking is viewed by some to have potential to equipping future employees with both the discipline knowledge and skills as well as 21st century transferable skills (pande & bharathi, 2020; panke, 2019; wright & wrigley, 2019). the design thinking process as introduced by david kelley at the hasso plattner institute of design at stanford university, commonly referred to as the ‘d.school’, comprise 5 non-linear and reiterative modes i.e., empathy, problem definition, ideation, prototyping and testing. in the design thinking approach, empathy for the user encourages reflective framing and reframing of complex problems leading to multiple alternative and extraordinary solution considerations. the resulting creative and innovative ideas are then prototyped and user-tested for incremental reiteration and recreation of solutions that best fit the user. therefore, reiteration is an essential aspect of prototyping and testing while collaboration and reflection are encouraged across the modes. practising these actions assist to meet the requirements of rapidly changing consumer demands in a vuca environment (cousins, 2018). indeed, the repeated incremental reiterations can potentially encourage employees to acquire self-efficacy and mastery, embrace challenges, take risk without fear seevaratnam, v. et al. (2023). design thinking-learning and lifelong learning for employability in the 21st century. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 14(1), 167–186. 169 of failure, and persevere with effort to overcome adversity (jobst et al., 2012; the stanford d.school, n.d.). the multidisciplinary collaborative approach in design thinking lends to diverse perspectives leading to multiple creative solutions (reiter-palmon & leone, 2019) and innovations (von thienen et al., 2017). organisations that adopted design thinking practices have been shown to deliver a 10-year return of greater than 200% of the us stock market three years in a row (rae, 2016). design thinking strategies have been found to lead to enhanced innovation outcomes through producing higher quality solutions, reducing risk and cost of failure, improving likelihood of implementation, improving organisational adaptability and creating local capability sets (liedtka, 2018). the real-life complex problems that drive the design thinking process has potential to trigger curiosity (jordan et al., 2014), an important disposition for exploration of knowledge or learning (wade & kidd, 2019) and lifelong learning (fulcher, 2008). curiosity in turn could foster organisational agility, learning culture and operational effectiveness (horstmeyer, 2019), the very capabilities demanded by a vuca environment. incorporation of design thinking in higher education curriculum has the potential to not only enhance immediate learning but also better prepare graduates for future work and career development in a vuca environment. the disciplines of design, architecture, business, and engineering have experimented with design thinking, resulting in beneficial acquisitions of knowledge, skills, and mindsets (coorey & caldwell rinnert, 2019; mclaughlin et al., 2022; panke, 2019; wright & wrigley, 2019). as an authentic, creative problem solving, collaborative and reflective learning process, design thinking has potential to fulfil both the epistemology and ontology of learning (tschepe, 2018), instil transferable skills while encouraging deep rather than surface learning through the contextualization of learning to real-life problems, driving learning and knowledge construction through learning by doing. for example, a set of instructional elements for marc (more authentic, reflective and collaborative learning) has been shown to benefit the process of de-contextualization and recontextualization in experiential learning (radovic et al., 2021). however, higher education has been slow to adopt the design thinking approach at a wider institutional level. this is in part because application of design thinking in diverse disciplines has been under researched and lacks empirical evidence to support further adoption (mclaughlin et al., 2022; melles, 2020; wright & wrigley, 2019). another hurdle is the difficulty to implement an ideal design thinking process. for example, practitioners need to possess a beginner’s mindset (be open minded, non-judgemental and risk-averse), empathy is often biased by individual’s perceptions and experiences, prototyping and reiteration demands visual thinking and time and collaboration in diverse multidisciplinary teams is challenging (carlgren et al., 2016; panke, 2019). nevertheless, the essence of design thinking human centredness has the potential to incite intrinsic motivation (pavey et al., 2012), where intrinsic motivation is defined as the 'inherent tendency to seek out novelty and challenges, to extent and exercise one’s capacities, to explore and to learn' (ryan & deci, 2000). taken further, intrinsic motivation could possibly inculcate characteristics of lifelong learning such as a growth mindset or belief that capability can be developed throughout life, curiosity, grit, mastery and self-efficacy, (bollington, 2015; dweck, 2017). considered all together, the features outlined above suggest that the design thinking approach offers the opportunity for higher education learners to inculcate lifelong learning characteristics required for thriving in the 21st century vuca environment. the alignment of these characteristics is further explored in table 1, which maps the characteristics of lifelong learning synthesised by bollington (2015) and established by others (see candy et al., 1994; lawson et al., 2006; mwaikokesya et al., 2014) with the process attributes of design thinking (the stanford d.school, n.d.; tschepe, 2018). seevaratnam, v. et al. (2023). design thinking-learning and lifelong learning for employability in the 21st century. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 14(1), 167–186. 170 table 1: alignment of design thinking process attributes with characteristcs of lifelong learning process attributes of design thinking (adapted from: the stanford d.school, n.d.; tschepe, 2018) characteristics of lifelong learning (adapted from: bollington, 2015) empathy • focus on the user o demands user-centredness that fosters intrinsic motivation o enhances the ability to embrace ambiguity and adaptability • being curious to explore new ideas and avenues for learning • belief that capability can be developed and improved throughout the life span • self -motivated or possess intrinsic motivation to learn • being creative with ideas and solutions problem definition • wicked or complex real-life problems o triggers curiosity o requires multidisciplinary knowledge application • framing and reframing of a problem allows for co-evaluation of problem and solution from multiple perspective ideation • brainstorming in diverse teams enables generation of as many solutions from diverse perspectives • emphasis on open minded (non-judgemental) idea generation enhances ability to accept multiple views • application of thinking strategies (inductive, deductive, and abductive) enhances ideas and solution derivation prototyping • prototyping offers visual and tangible object to think, experiment, learn from and critique • prototypes provide clarity & common understanding among team members • reiterated learning is essential to build efficacy and mastery • hard work and continuous effort are necessary to succeed • perseverance through failure is essential to achieve testing • end user testing on prototypes assist to uncover latent needs to reiterate and provide the best solution for the user reiteration • continuous reiterations (creation, engagement & experimentation) build mastery & self-efficacy, creative confidence, and perseverance (patience to embrace failure). • reiterations enhance the ability to think about one’s own thought processes, adapt, strategize, monitor, and reflect reflection • reflection is a vital component of collaboration-feedbackevaluation-reflection-reiteration loop, a process that is similar to self-regulation of learning • continuous reflection, enables incremental improvements • important to accept feedback to learn and improve • need to collaborate and learn from others • need for self-regulated learning to monitor, reflect, evaluate, and improve collaboration • learning happens through collaboration and communication in multidisciplinary teams • self and others constructive questioning and feedback enhances reflection and reflexivity note: all descriptors are adapted directly from the literatures cited in the table. seevaratnam, v. et al. (2023). design thinking-learning and lifelong learning for employability in the 21st century. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 14(1), 167–186. 171 this paper aims to explore the value of a constructivist approach such as design thinking on graduate employability in a vuca environment. design thinking as a creative problem solving approach has been shown to increase the speed and efficiency of absorptive capacity and organisational learning leading to faster decision making and innovation to survive competition in an uncertain marketplace (cousins, 2018). drawing on the results of an empirical study that examined the impacts of design thinking on student learning, this paper explores how design thinking process attributes have the potential to inculcate lifelong learning characteristics in higher education learners. this study the empirical study, part of a master of philosophy (mphil) research project (seevaratnam, 2022), used a multi-method qualitative methodology (creswell, 2020) and the planned-enacted-experienced curriculum model (matthews et al., 2013) to explore how the process attributes of design thinking that were planned and enacted by educators are experienced by learners in higher education courses. this study further examined how these experienced attributes and the consequent learning outcomes could be aligned to the characteristics of lifelong learning. the research questions that guided the study were: 1. how are design thinking attributes planned and enacted by educators? 2. how do design thinking attributes influence the learning outcomes experienced by the learners? 3. how do design thinking attributes and learning outcomes align with the characteristics of lifelong learning? the study examined two postgraduate courses (or units of study within an academic program) during one semester or 12 weeks at an australian research-intensive university, which incorporated process attributes of design thinking: introduction to web design and principles of entrepreneurship, henceforth respectively referred to as web design and entrepreneurship. participants in this study were recruited online and voluntarily from the teaching team (lecturers and tutors) and students enrolled in the courses. a total of 13% (n=18/140) learners from web design and 34% (n=19/56) of learners from entrepreneurship participated in the study. in the entrepreneurship course, the educator was interviewed as were 4 volunteer students while the educator, 4 tutors and 7 student volunteers were interviewed in the web design course. figure 1 illustrates the four phases of the study, the inter-relationship between the phases and the four qualitative methods (course document review, classroom observation, individual interviews of students and educators, and students’ assessments review) used in this study. seevaratnam, v. et al. (2023). design thinking-learning and lifelong learning for employability in the 21st century. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 14(1), 167–186. 172 figure 1: the inter-relationship between the planned-enacted-experienced curriculum and the data collection methods employed seevaratnam, v. et al. (2023). design thinking-learning and lifelong learning for employability in the 21st century. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 14(1), 167–186. 173 in the first three project phases, data were collected from the three different stages of curriculum: the planned, enacted, and experienced. a number of data collection methods were employed together to enable convergence and corroboration of findings, avoid bias and enhance trustworthiness (creswell, 2020). participant observation, archival document review and in-depth interviewing were employed to provide rich description of participants, conversations, and reflections through understanding behaviour from the subject’s own point of view. data were collected in the context of active teaching and learning, capturing learning processes rather than simply outcomes. a final project phase integrated the data obtained in the first three phases and considered findings in the light of contemporary educational research. human research ethics approval was obtained (document approval no: 2019002297) from the institutional humanities and social sciences/low and negligible risk sub committee. a common synthesis tool was developed to standardise data collected to enable systematic comparison across the curriculum and courses a course document review framework. the framework comprised the process attributes and sub-attributes of the design thinking approach being examined, including descriptors, distilled from literature (kelley & kelley, 2012; lindberg et al., 2010; the stanford d.school, n.d.). in phase 1 and 2, deductive (top down) content analysis was used to analyse the planned and enacted curriculum (creswell, 2020; hsieh & shannon, 2005). text and images in the electronic course profile; teaching materials; assessment tasks; learner and educator activities and conversations recorded during classroom observations were captured in the framework. data were inspected for keywords and phrases either explicit or inferred, related and aligned to the design thinking process attributes and mapped onto the framework as whether attribute is present or absent. in phase 3, experienced curriculum was analysed using inductive (bottom up) content analysis (creswell, 2020; hsieh & shannon, 2005). students’ assessment submissions and interview transcripts (learners’ and teaching teams) were scrutinized to identify ideas related to the different process attributes of design thinking, using the descriptors in the framework as guide. common ideas were then grouped together into themes and mapped onto the same course document review framework as to whether the attribute was present or absent. in the final phase 4, the data from the top down and bottom up approaches were examined to determine the alignment of the experienced curriculum by the learner to the planned and enacted curriculum by the educator. examples of evidence were noted to support the interpretation of data. finally, attributes of design thinking and learning outcomes were inspected against the characteristics of lifelong learning and contemporary educational research. to enhance validity, all data was collected and interpreted by the mphil student, independent of the educators and learners and where possible evidence was anonymised by a third party. findings and discussion examination of design thinking process attributes in the curriculum of the two courses (web design and entrepreneurship) using the planned-enacted-experienced curriculum model highlighted learning outcomes (skills and mindset attributes) and potential payoff traits that were aligned to the characteristics of lifelong learning. in this study, payoff traits are referred to outcome characteristics of implementing the process attributes of design thinking in higher education curriculum. further inspection of the findings led to three emergent graduate capability themes which together with the associated attributes and payoff traits guided the conceptualization of a framework for lifelong learning in a vuca environment. the planned-enacted-experienced curriculum findings from the close examination of the planned, enacted, and experienced curriculum and mapping indicated that the process attributes of design thinking incorporated in both courses were seevaratnam, v. et al. (2023). design thinking-learning and lifelong learning for employability in the 21st century. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 14(1), 167–186. 174 aligned to the graduate attributes and accordingly enacted by the educators and experienced by the learners. in both courses, learning was driven by a closer to real-life problem (considered closer to real-life since solutions were not required to be implemented in real-life) in the form of a project. the open ended tasks to create a client-centred website for tourist in an unusual location with unusual activities in the web design course and a new business venture for any existing real-life problem in the entrepreneurship course provided learners in each course an authentic experience with the opportunity for imagination and creativity. the hands-on process of creating the website and business venture from scratch, emulating industry practices and abiding by industry standards and best practices encouraged the development of both industry relevant discipline specific knowledge and skills (epistemology) and transferable skills (ontology). table 2 illustrates how each of the process attributes of design thinking examined contributed to leaning outcomes (skills and mindset attributes) experienced by the learners and related to three emergent graduate capability themes. these attributes together with payoff traits identified were also found to be aligned to the characteristics of lifelong learning. for example, the process attribute ‘empathy’ for the end user had potential for intrinsic motivation (pavey et al, 2012) while serving as an integral factor in collaboration (zaki, 2019). problem definition provided learners’ a platform for consideration from multiple perspectives potentiating curiosity (jordan et al., 2014) and a growth mindset (dweck, 2017). collaborative ideation led to exercising of different thinking strategies and encouraging creativity, innovation and creative problem solving. during the prototyping mode of the design thinking process, the development and use of tangible personas and prototypes to think, experiment, obtain feedback, reflect, and reiterate enhanced learner’s creativity and empathy for the user. in this study, critiquing/testing peer’s prototypes facilitated learner’s acquisition of evaluative judgement skills (tai et al., 2018) and ability to seek, provide and receive feedback towards better teamworking. the repeated reiteration post feedback enabled learners to persevere empowering grit (duckworth et al., 2007), mastery and self-efficacy (bandura, 2018) and creative confidence (kelley & kelley, 2012). further, the collaboration-feedback-reflection-evaluation-reiteration loop being similar to monitoring/feedback-evaluation-reflection-improvement cycles of self-regulated learning (zimmermann, 1990) was a potential characteristic for lifelong learning. reflection was encouraged throughout the design thinking process (pre, in and post process) facilitating self-awareness and metalearning (radovic et al., 2021). central to design thinking was the interdependence and independence through collaboration in diverse multicultural and multidisciplinary teams enabling enhanced performance, communication, ethics, and cultural awareness. these learning outcomes match the characteristics of lifelong learning such as curiosity, growth mindset, creativity, and intrinsic motivation as essentials to enhance learning, reiteration, and hard work to build mastery and selfefficacy and perseverance to learn through failures. also sharing and learning from others through collaboration while being self-regulated to monitor, evaluate, reflect, and improve one’s own learning (see table 2). seevaratnam, v. et al. (2023). design thinking-learning and lifelong learning for employability in the 21st century. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 14(1), 167–186. 175 table 2: contribution of the attributes of design thinking to characteristics of lifelong learning planned and enacted (process attributes) learning outcomes experienced (skills and mindset attributes) graduate capability themes payoff traits for lifelong learning characteristics of lifelong learning empathy intrinsic motivation teamworking creative problem solving growth mindset curiosity intrinsic motivation creativity • being curious to explore new ideas and avenues for learning • belief that capability can be developed and improved throughout the life span (growth mindset) • self -motivated or possess intrinsic motivation to learn (willing to take risk to learn and improve) • being creative with ideas and solution problem definition multiple perspectives growth mindset curiosity ideation thinking strategies (inductive, deductive, and abductive) creativity innovation creative problem solving teamworking prototyping empathy creativity reiteration for mastery, selfefficacy & grit self-efficacy mastery grit • reiterated learning is essential to build mastery and selfefficacy • hard work and continuous effort are necessary to succeed • perseverance through failure is essential to achieve testing feedback to & from others evaluative judgement teamworking reiteration perseverance/grit mastery self-efficacy creative confidence collaborationfeedback-reflectionevaluationreiteration loop reflection meta-learning (internalization and transference) self-awareness collaboration & reflection for improvement selfregulated learning • need to collaborate and learn from others (interdependence) • importance to accept feedback and learn to improve (independence) • need for selfregulated learning to monitor, reflect, evaluate, and improve collaboration independence interdependence communication ethics cultural awareness design thinking process attributes, graduate capability themes and lifelong learning characteristics during classroom observations, three graduate capability themes namely creative problem solving, reiteration to build grit, mastery and self-efficacy and collaboration and reflection for improvement were evidenced in practise. these three themes, comprising the eight design thinking process attributes studied had the potential to instil in learners, lifelong learning characteristics (see figure 2). seevaratnam, v. et al. (2023). design thinking-learning and lifelong learning for employability in the 21st century. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 14(1), 167–186. 176 figure 2: design thinking process attributes, graduate capability themes and lifelong learning characteristic s seevaratnam, v. et al. (2023). design thinking-learning and lifelong learning for employability in the 21st century. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 14(1), 167–186. 177 theme 1: creative problem solving in theme 1, the exploration of complex real-life problems has the potential to trigger curiosity (jordan et al., 2014) while empathy for the user could incite intrinsic motivation (pavey et al., 2012). defining the complex problem involves the consideration of multiple perspectives that has the potential to encourage a growth mindset (dweck, 2017). arising from framing and reframing of the problem in different context is the enhanced ideation for best fit solutions. open-minded and non-judgemental ideation and thinking strategies used in turn potentially leads to creative, out of the ordinary solutions that could be prototyped and tested, serving as a link to theme 2. theme 1 comprise the first three steps in the design thinking process which is empathy, problem definition and ideation and leads to identification of the problem and derivation of multiple empathetic solutions via free and non-judgemental ideation. in web design, theme 1 related to the selection of the themed resort with unusual activities in an unusual location. in entrepreneurship, this theme was related to the activities towards business pitch 1 where learners identified a current reallife problem and proposed an innovative business model canvas for a new venture. learners in both courses valued empathy or user-centredness, gaining the realization that the user’s perspective may be different from their own and that the product needs to satisfy the users’ needs and not their own as illustrated in the following interview response: ‘like being able to understand that what you think is great is not always, how do you say this, like interpreted the same way, you know, to your users, the people that you're presenting to’ (learner 1). the learners also realised that an ideal solution may not also best meet the needs of users: '…in business, you can design anything and everything and the best of the best. but if the end user, the consumer cannot use it, or struggle to use it, then there's no value adding in it’ (learner 2). most participants in this study were driven by intrinsic motivation or internal rewards like enjoyment or want as evidenced in students’ design reports in web design and reflections in entrepreneurship. for example, a learner, who has not been disciplined in studies, made particular effort in the web design because the learner enjoyed the course: ‘… i've always not been disciplined. […] i've been more disciplined than i would have expected. so yeah. i really enjoyed the course and that's probably why i've been better than i usually would be’ (learner 3). another in the entrepreneurship course reflected on his curiosity to find out more: ‘when learning about these tools and frameworks, my curious mind led me to researching external information about business models, the value proposition and how to gather customer insight’ (learner 4). evident in both courses was the constant emphasis on user centredness by the educator that led to the learners’ wanting to create the best solution that satisfies the user. this coupled with the opportunity provided to the learners to design and develop a real-life product/solution from scratch based on their own ideas availed potential to trigger curiosity, growth mindset, creativity, and intrinsic motivations. theme 2: reiteration to build grit, mastery and self-efficacy the second theme of reiteration to build grit, mastery and self-efficacy is borne of a repetitive cycle in the design thinking approach; used to make incremental improvements to ensure optimum usercentred solutions to problems. this theme aligns to the latter two steps in the design thinking process, prototyping, and testing together with reiteration. repeated iterations require effort and hard work as well as ability to embrace challenges and failure to learn from mistakes that enhances perseverance (dweck & leggett, 1988). in the long term, the repetitive nature enables mastery and confers confidence or self-efficacy (bandura, 1994). the user-centred, reiterative cycles potentially build creative confidence (kelley & kelley, 2012) and grit (lauff et al., 2018). reiterations serve as a link back to empathy in theme 1. seevaratnam, v. et al. (2023). design thinking-learning and lifelong learning for employability in the 21st century. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 14(1), 167–186. 178 theme 2 enables the possible solution(s) in theme 1 to be prototyped and tested with the user leading to reiteration(s) that optimize the solution to best fit the user needs. in web design, theme 2 was related to the in-progress design and development of the idea generated in theme 1 into a clientcentred website. prototypes and users’ tests were developed and conducted regularly with peers as simulated users to reiterate and make incremental improvements to optimize user needs, engagement, and experience. in the entrepreneurship course, theme 2 was related to business pitch 2 where the business model canvas created in pitch 1 was further developed, assumptions tested, and reiterations made to optimize the business feasibility. in the web design course, regular cycles of prototype user testing, reflection, evaluations, and reiterations had potential to enhance mastery and self-efficacy. these self-development opportunities were expressed by learners in interview responses, for example: i'm particularly on the prototype testing and user testing, i think it is very useful. because i know how to do now, i know how to do prototyping and how to conduct the prototype test. like i have the questions first, and then we need to see how they're going with the prototype and to think what the next steps will be, like what kind of improvement, so i think that's useful. (learner 5) in the entrepreneurship course, perseverance was dominant as learners realized that in real-life, to make mistake, fail and learn is acceptable and normal. a learner reflected as follows: ‘i think that understanding the real life cases helped us to understand that maybe we could even be working in a project that doesn't solve any real need … helping us to be able to face failure.’ (learner 6) in both courses, the main payoff traits arising from the repeated reiterations and failures or learning from mistakes in theme 2 are mastery, self-efficacy and perseverance or grit. theme 3: collaboration and reflection for improvement collaborations are an avenue for feedback, reflection, evaluation, and reiteration and therefore improvements. reflection of an experience rather than the experience itself is known to enhance internalization and deep learning (radovic et al., 2021). collaboration encourages interdependence while reflection and reflexivity promote independence (dall'alba & barnacle, 2007). the third theme of collaboration and reflection for improvement focus on the belief that diverse perspectives through collaboration creates better solutions (interdependence) and feedback, evaluation and reflection enhance self-improvement (independence). the collaboration-feedback-reflection-evaluation loop is similar to the monitoring-evaluation-reflection-improvement loop in self-regulated learning (zimmermann, 1990), the practise of the former could potentially enhance the latter. further, collaboration in diverse teams enhances ideation (reiter-palmon & leone, 2019) and serves as a link back to theme 1. overall, theme 3 that links to ideation in theme 1 via collaboration and to reiterations in theme 2 via evaluation-reflection is an overarching theme that overlaps with themes 1 and 2. throughout the projects in web design and entrepreneurship, the feedback-reflection-evaluation loop that resulted in reiteration for incremental improvements was practised collaboratively with feedback sought/received/provided from peers and others. learners found the feedback and iterative loop as beneficial to learning and improvement of their project progress, for example as reflected by one learner in the web design course. my learning strategy has been changed to the pivoting process that we need to 'test,' 'learn,' and 'improve.' after we develop something, we need to test those things with users or target customers to find what can be improved. after testing, we need to review customer feedback and learn what could be changed to fulfil the customer need. after learning, we need to adapt the website in order to improve the user experience. (learner 7) the three graduate capability themes in design thinking can be employed independently based on need or together to reap maximum benefits. overall, the main potential payoff traits to learners as a consequence of practising the themes are, curiosity, creativity, intrinsic motivation, growth mindset, seevaratnam, v. et al. (2023). design thinking-learning and lifelong learning for employability in the 21st century. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 14(1), 167–186. 179 grit, mastery, self-efficacy, and self-regulation. these payoff traits were instrumental in the conceptualization of a framework for lifelong learning in a vuca environment. graduate capability themes and lifelong learning as illustrated in table 1, the process attributes of the design thinking approach studied are aligned with the characteristics of lifelong learning, arguably essential to be practised in the 21st century workplace. these characteristics were mapped to the themes in design thinking as illustrated in figure 2. empathy or human centredness in theme 1 has the potential to incite intrinsic motivation, the basis for self-motivated learning. the exploration of wicked problems in problem definition could spur curiosity to search for new ideas and activities for learning. also, curiosity could trigger self-direction to learn and improve, the potentials to inculcate a growth mindset for learning throughout the lifespan. further, the collaborative non-judgemental ideation process could encourage creativity for unique and out of the ordinary ideas and solutions, sparking innovations essential for the 21st century. theme 2 embodies reiterated learning through the repeated prototyping, testing, and incremental improvements to build mastery and self-efficacy as well as promote hard work and continuous effort that is necessary to succeed. in the long term, the ability to embrace failure and learn from mistakes potentially develops grit and enhances determination to achieve. the importance of interdependence, independence and self-regulation for learning and improvement is exemplified in theme 3. the ability to accept constructive feedback to self-learn or independence as well as collaborate with diverse others to learn from or interdependence are both valuable for improvement. in addition, the ability to self-regulate one’s own learning through the feedbackreflection-evaluation-improvement loop has potential for control and optimization of learning. for example, preliminary studies have shown that undergraduate music students using self-directed practice diaries to plan, monitor and reflect on their musical practise resulted in a more focused learning to optimize performance (osborne et al., 2021). framework for lifelong learning in a vuca environment the learning outcomes (skill and mindset attributes) and payoff traits arising from learners engaging with and practising design thinking process attributes in the courses studied and its extrapolation to a proposed lifelong learning cycle (curiosity-mastery-self-efficacy-intrinsic motivation) led to the conceptualisation of the framework for lifelong learning in a vuca environment (figure 3). seevaratnam, v. et al. (2023). design thinking-learning and lifelong learning for employability in the 21st century. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 14(1), 167–186. 180 figure 3: a framework for lifelong learning in a vuca environment seevaratnam, v. et al. (2023). design thinking-learning and lifelong learning for employability in the 21st century. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 14(1), 167–186. 181 epistemic curiosity to close knowledge gaps has been shown to spur learning and memory (berlyne, 1954; brod & breitwieser, 2019). curiosity or the desire to learn and discover could provide the 21st century learner and workforce, the ability to adapt and self-initiate to explore new frontiers. dr stefan oschmann, the ceo of merck kgaa, germany iterated that 'curiosity fuels business development and enables companies like ours to maintain our competitive edge,' confirming the benefit of curious employees to an organisation (merck kgaa, 2016; p3). the merck kgaa report outlines the four dimensions of curiosity as inquisitiveness, creativity in problem solving, openness to other ideas and disruption tolerance or risk taking to overcome fear of mistakes/failure (merck kgaa, 2016). practising the design thinking approach has the potential to elicit curiosity. in theme 1, consideration of multiple perspectives during problem definition could arouse inquisitiveness while non-judgemental ideation encourages open-mindedness and creativity. in addition, in theme 2, the user-centred, repetitive reiterative cycles build creative confidence (creative problem solving and disruption tolerance) and perseverance/grit and in turn serves as a link back to empathy. empathy for the user has the potential to incite intrinsic motivation (pavey et al., 2012). this non reward based internal motivation is arguably the preponderance to learning across the lifespan (ryan & deci, 2017). however, the learner’s mindset is considered instrumental in learning and mastery achievement. according to dweck’s growth mindset theory, an individual’s basic qualities (intelligence, talent, abilities etc) can be enhanced through effort and is not fixed at birth (dweck, 2017). in theme 1 problem definition from multiple perspectives and open, non-judgemental ideation encourages exploration of knowledge and application of different thinking strategies which has the potential to inculcate a growth mindset. instilling a growth mindset in learners could potentially enhance their selfregulation (mrazek et al., 2018) and intrinsic motivation (ng, 2018). further, the characteristics of a growth mindset include enjoyment in learning, ability to embrace challenges as well as persevere to strive harder in the face of obstacles and failure (dweck, 2017; dweck & leggett, 1988). individuals with a growth mindset who portray effort and resilience would be better placed to succeed in the 21st century volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous environment. self-regulated learning or the ability to self-monitor, reflect, evaluate and improve one’s own learning has potential for mastery (zimmermann, 1990). the synergy of growth mindset arising from theme 1 and self-regulated learning from theme 3 contributes to mastery or competence, the knowledge & skills to act effectively. the repeated cycles of reiteration or practise in theme 2 further adds to mastery. in turn, the mastery of knowledge and skills through learning and practise endows an individual with self-efficacy. according to bandura’s social cognitive theory, self-efficacy, defined as people’s judgement of their capability to perform a specific task is influenced by personal, behavioural and environmental factors (bandura, 1994). in theme 2, the repetitive human-centered reiterative cycles of doing have the potential to instil self-efficacy. in individuals with high self-efficacy, mastery and autonomy (a greater sense volition or purposive striving) are said to incite intrinsic or self-motivation. self determination theory states that selfmotivation and mental health is enhanced when the three innate psychological needs i.e. competence, autonomy and relatedness are satisfied (ryan & deci, 2000). the design thinking approach employs authentic human-centred real-life problems to drive learning, thereby providing relatedness, together with mastery through reiteration and autonomy related to open ideation and creative problem solving has potential to fuel intrinsic motivation. this intrinsic motivation could trigger further curiosity and learning when exposed to new situations. thus, repeating the proposed lifelong learning cycle (curiosity-mastery-self-efficacy-intrinsic motivation). the conceptualised framework for lifelong learning in a vuca environment illustrated in figure 3 demonstrates how practising design thinking process attributes in a higher education setting can indeed build the types of lifelong learning capabilities so desperately needed in a vuca environment. this framework could be incorporated in higher education course or program curriculum to instil in learners’ the characteristics of lifelong learning with potential to enhance graduate employability. the framework could also be adapted by organisations and individuals to cultivate lifelong learning skills. in this study, a few essential implementation aspects were noted in engaging learners to practice the seevaratnam, v. et al. (2023). design thinking-learning and lifelong learning for employability in the 21st century. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 14(1), 167–186. 182 design thinking process attributes and enabling them to experience the said learning outcomes. in particular were authentic real life or closer to real life problems to drive learning, opportunities for collaboration to share with as well as learn from others to creatively solve problems and reiteration for incremental improvements to embrace risk and failure. for example, one educator foresees the benefits of reiteration and therefore design thinking in all disciplines and in uncertain environments such as the 21st century, as he mentioned: ….so, do i know stuff? no. could i find that out? yes. so, let's learn with learning the design thinking way. so, let's do it, fail. failure is not a bad thing. it is an opportunity to learn, i learned that this doesn't work in this setting. i'm going to try something else. oh, that didn't work. but it worked a bit better than last time. oh, let's do it. again. the intention is as you get better, as you gather more knowledge, you learn more. so, design thinking has a fundamental place, i would say in all disciplines and certainly in navigating uncertainty … (educator). conclusion exploring curriculum in practise using the planned, enacted, and experienced curriculum model has proven useful to examine the incorporation of design thinking attributes in higher education courses. the learning outcomes from engaging with and practising the design thinking process attributes studied has potential to inculcate knowledge and skills including lifelong learning skills necessary for graduate employability. the attributes, learning outcomes and payoff traits identified and conceptualised in the light of educational theories and literature serve as a framework for lifelong learning in a vuca environment. the agility to learn can narrow the dynamic skills gap due to rapid digitalisation in the 21st century, improve the disconnection between workforce and work, enhance employment and support career development of graduates. therefore, incorporating design thinking into higher education courses as generic learning in all disciplines could have the potential to develop in learners’ capacity to engage in a vuca environment. the reproducibility of these findings needs to be explored by examining more courses and for a longer duration in varied disciplines and institutions. further research could focus on the validation and implementation of the framework for lifelong learning in a vuca environment at educational institutions and organisations or as a selfdevelopment tool to inculcate lifelong learning. acknowledgement this research was supported by an australian government research training program scholarship for mphil studies. the authors would like to acknowledge the kind participation and support of course coordinators, mr matt luscombe and dr russell manfield and student participants who were instrumental in the success of this study. declaration of interest the authors confirm that there is no conflict of interest. seevaratnam, v. et al. 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(2021). opportunities to identify and develop people skills: what university students need early in their degree journey. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(2), 348-365. 348 the journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability issn: 1838-3815 (online) journal homepage: https://ojs.deakin.edu.au/index.php/jtlge/ opportunities to identify and develop people skills: what university students need early in their degree journey ros sambell1, lesley andrew1, amanda devine1, jill darby1, shelley beatty1 and stephanie godrich1 corresponding author: ros sambell (r.sambell@ecu.edu.au) 1school of medical and health sciences, edith cowan university abstract employability skills can be categorised as ‘people’ or ‘soft skills’ and ‘technical’ or ‘industry specific’ skills. australian employers are increasingly seeking to employ university graduates with well-developed people skills. evidence from industry suggests these skills, in particular communication skills are lacking in today’s graduates. the aim of this study was to raise student awareness of the importance of people skills, assess their perception of personal competence across a range of these skills and support them to develop plans that will help them strengthen these skills in preparation for graduation. an online survey was emailed to 222 first year undergraduate students; 99 were completed. analysis of quantitative data revealed students perceived themselves to be highly competent across a range of people skills. however, qualitative data found students also identified people skills that they needed to develop further. the study findings suggest that first-year students may have inflated and unrealistic perceptions of their people skills and highlights the importance of the introduction of these employability skills early in the curriculum. recommendations from this study include the introduction of curriculum activities in the first year of their degree that raise student awareness of industry expectations of people skills upon graduation. the implementation of a people skills self-assessment tool for these students is also recommended as a benchmarking activity. use of this tool can motivate students to engage with university support and industry opportunities that further strengthen these important skills. keywords employability, soft skills, people skills, university, selfassessment, first year, student, career planning introduction definitions and discipline-specific frameworks vary in the way they describe student employability skills (griffin & coelhoso, 2019; römgens et al., 2020). this includes the use of the terms ‘people skills’ and ‘soft skills’ to describe a student’s personal attributes, which are separate to, but complement ‘hard skills’, or the technical requirements for a job (suneela, 2014). although the term ‘soft skills’ is commonly used in the student employability literature (gruzdev et al., 2018; succi & canovi, 2020), concerns among industry and academic leaders that the term is a misnomer that sambell, r., andrew, l., devine, a., darby, j. beatty, s. and godrich, s. (2021). opportunities to identify and develop people skills: what university students need early in their degree journey. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(2), 348-365. 349 undermines the importance of these skills and the ease in which they are acquired merits the use of the alternative term ‘people skills’ (levinson, 2020). for the purpose of this article, student employability skills are regarded as a combination of discipline-related technical skills, including data analysis and clinical, and people skills, including emotional intelligence and leadership (pennington & stanford, 2019). australian employers of university graduates are increasingly recognising and prioritising the importance of people skills over technical skills (pennington & stanford, 2019). a crucial strength of people skills is their transferability between industries and occupations (directorate-general for employment social affairs and inclusion (european commission), 2011). in the health sector important people skills include communication, information communication and technology, work psychology, teamwork, interpersonal skills, critical thinking and problem solving, self-management, planning and organising, conceptual and analytical skills, global citizenship, and professional ethical practice (deloitte access economics, 2017; sisodia & agarwal, 2017). communication skills, including positive relationships within the workplace and with clients, is considered an essential people skill (deloitte access economics, 2017). within the broad scope of communication, sit oral and written skills, the ability to respond to non-verbal cues and active listening (sisodia & agarwal, 2017). information communication and technology (ict) skills are also considered critical, especially microsoft office, email and the internet (sisodia & agarwal, 2017); educators cannot assume that students have these skills (sánchez-caballé et al., 2020). an increased demand for digital literacy in cloud based tools including social media and collaborative based tools is also evident (al-samarraie & saeed, 2018), as is the expectation of data set management skills (department of jobs and small business, 2019). essential communication skills in the health sector are informed by its diverse nature and its propensity to expose its employees to a myriad of cultures and life situations. this complex and dynamic environment calls for high levels of professionalism, the ability to self-regulate work-life balance, and strong ethical foundations. employees need to demonstrate cultural awareness, punctuality, conflict management, loyalty and integrity towards the organisation and their colleagues (sisodia & agarwal, 2017). health sector employers are also looking for well-developed skills in teamwork, critical thinking, problem solving, self-management, planning and organising, conceptual and analytical, and interpersonal skills (abbasi farhad et al., 2018). the growing importance of ‘people skills’ is highlighted in the deloitte report ‘soft skills for business success’ (deloitte access economics, 2017), which has forecasted that by 2030, two-thirds of all jobs will be people-skill intensive, with these occupations expected to grow at 2.5 times the rate of other occupations (deloitte access economics, 2017). this is supported by pennington and stanford (2019), who suggest these skills are the most valuable to a workforce as they build resilience to the dynamic and fluid nature of employment, technology, and workplace relationships. in the everchanging work environment, an ability to transfer people skills to new situations increasingly underpins graduate employability. according to hill et al. (2020), activities that identify these transferable people skills in the classroom setting supported the student’s understanding of their relevance and value to future career progression. evidence from graduate-entry level employers in australia suggests these skills are lacking in some graduates, with communication skills a significant area of concern (deloitte access economics, 2017). the australian productivity commission (productivity commission, n.d.), has gone so far as to link declining national employment outcomes with this deficit in people skills, and with higher education’s current preoccupation with research. the commission recommends universities increase their efforts to promote employability skill development with their students through targeted high-quality teaching. the key people skills that require development include critical thinking, decision making, conflict resolution and meta-cognition (the willingness and ability to selfreflect) (jackson & chapman, 2012). sambell, r., andrew, l., devine, a., darby, j. beatty, s. and godrich, s. (2021). opportunities to identify and develop people skills: what university students need early in their degree journey. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(2), 348-365. 350 the purpose of this study was to raise first year student awareness of the importance of people skills and to assess their own level of competence across these skills. in highlighting the importance of ‘people skills’ early in the career journey, and signposting students to relevant university support services, the initiative aimed to facilitate students to seek and participate in activities that could further develop these skills and hence increase their employability readiness at graduation. methods invited participants in this study were first year undergraduate students (n=222) at a western australian university, enrolled in one of three units taught across the school of medical and health science and the school of science. the study was approved by the university human research ethics committee (hrec), #21965. data collection instrument the data collection instrument in this study was an online version of a paper-based tool, ‘the employability skills cluster matrix self-assessment tool’ [escm-sat], which had been used and evaluated with third year university students (sambell et al., 2020). it was developed from core principles referenced in industry literature and evident in four well recognised tools including, employability skills self-assessment tool (rti international, 2015), the new work mindset (the foundation for young australians (fya), 2017), core skills development framework (department of industry innovation climate change science research and tertiary education [diicsrte] et al., 2013), and career development learning and employability (watts, 2006). the tool was adapted for use with a first-year tertiary student cohort and named ‘escmfirst’. consultation with teaching and learning content experts confirmed the relevance of this adapted tool’s use to measure employability skills and associated clusters with first year tertiary students (sambell et al., 2020). this tool was initially developed to collect quantitative survey and open-ended responses and to guide self-directed learning across a diverse range of employability skills. no such tool was previously available (sambell et al., 2020). the escmfirst was piloted with first-year students, and minor adjustments made prior to use in this study. adjustments were made based on feedback from students and from content experts within the university. this primarily concerned the detail in some of the sub elements of a tool which were deemed unnecessary for first year students. the main cluster elements were retained, and the sub elements simplified. an accompanying training module for students was developed to support student engagement with this tool. this module included instructional videos provided online or embedded in classroom discussions, to support the completion of the online survey via qualtrics in week 2-3 of a 13-week semester (qualtrics, 2013). sambell, r., andrew, l., devine, a., darby, j. beatty, s. and godrich, s. (2021). opportunities to identify and develop people skills: what university students need early in their degree journey. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(2), 348-365. 351 figure 1: process for data collection figure 1 outlines the process of data collection, signposting of students to self-directed development opportunities and data analysis. the survey contained questions relating to student demographics and questions that asked students to score themselves on 15 elements within five core clusters. the five core skill clusters were communication; interpersonal; career management; self-management; and academic (figure 2). these core cluster areas were adapted from four key documents in previous research by sambell et al. (2020) which were based on key industry documents and well recognised employability principles (department of industry innovation climate change science research and tertiary education [diicsrte] et al., 2013; rti international, 2015; the foundation for young australians (fya), 2017; watts, 2006). within these cluster areas students rated themselves against these 15 elements using a likert scale, 1 (low proficiency) to 5 (high proficiency). scores for each element were summed to provide a cluster area score and an overall total escmfirst score out of a possible 75. an email trigger allowed the sum of each score to be sent to students, with recommendations of university resources that could support further development of each cluster area. sambell, r., andrew, l., devine, a., darby, j. beatty, s. and godrich, s. (2021). opportunities to identify and develop people skills: what university students need early in their degree journey. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(2), 348-365. 352 this instrument also asked students to provide a text response that identified strategies and actions that could support skills that required further development. figure 2: employability skills cluster matrix (escm) clusters skills clusters and elements the communication skills cluster was described as the ability to source and share information through meaningful interactions. students rated four elements: written, oral, listening, and digital literacy communication skills, and provided text responses of strategies to improve their own communication skills. the interpersonal skills cluster was described as effective interaction with other people, both individually and in groups, and included a self-rating of three elements: emotional intelligence, teamwork, and leadership. students provided text responses of strategies to improve their interpersonal skills. the career management skills cluster was described as the ability to research employment opportunities, and to identify, record, reflect upon an articulate the personal attributes, knowledge and qualifications required secure suitable employment. self-ranking of two elements: 1. understanding and developing self, and exploring life, and 2. learning and work, was undertaken. students also provided text responses of strategies to improve their career management skills. the self-management skills cluster was described as the ability to take responsibility and maintain motivation to keep on task, evaluate personal performance and set goals for personal achievements. students ranked three elements: planning and organising, initiative, and adaptability, and provided text responses of strategies to improve their self-management skills. employability skills cluster matrix communication skills interpersonal skills career management skills selfmanagement skills academic skills sambell, r., andrew, l., devine, a., darby, j. beatty, s. and godrich, s. (2021). opportunities to identify and develop people skills: what university students need early in their degree journey. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(2), 348-365. 353 the academic skills cluster was described as ways to become a more effective learner and succeed in academic pursuits and future career aspirations. three elements: research, analytical, and problem-solving skills were ranked, and students provided text responses of strategies to improve their academic skills. these clusters bring together key components of previously published employability skills measurement tools and provide the opportunity for student self-reflection (sambell et al., 2020). data collection electronic consent was required to initiate the online survey. a staff guide, student ‘frequently asked questions’ document, and video were created to guide survey completion and an understanding of the escmfirst tool. the survey link was sent through the qualtrics email distribution channel of the three first year units in which the students were enrolled. the survey was distributed prior to the commencement of any student work experience/internship. each survey had an email trigger that ensured students received an email summary of their responses, and information on skill development support within the university. students were also prompted to download their responses in pdf format and retain this for future reference. quantitative data analysis student self-assessed proficiency scores for each element were summed to provide a cluster area score and an overall total escmfirst score, with a possible maximum score of 75. linear regression was initially used to generate age and gender adjusted scores for each element, cluster area, and the total score. due to their non-parametric nature, these adjusted scores were then compared by unit using the kruskal-wallis test (mcdonald, 2014). analysis of open-ended text responses text responses were organised according to cluster area, and imported into nvivo 12 (qsr international pty ltd, 2018), in microsoft excel format. themes were developed within each cluster area from the process of open coding of text responses, followed by the process of code consolidation as appropriate. the process involved the repeated revisiting of the original text data to ensure codes offered authentic representation. one researcher completed the initial coding of data, with consensus of emerging themes reached in collaboration with the other researchers. findings of the 222 first-year students contacted, 99 completed the online escmfirst survey. the student mean age was 23 ±7 years, 71% were female. student self-assessment of clusters table 1 reports the median and iqr for each of the 15 elements embedded in the five cluster areas (each element could score a maximum of 5), the cluster area scores, and total escmfirst score for each unit. the median total escmfirst score was 60 (iqr 10) points from a possible 75 points (table 1); scores ranged from 41 to 74. most students scored themselves towards the high end of the likert scale (1 to 5) across each element, with all median cluster area scores at 80% or above. the total score, cluster and element scores did not differ after adjustment for age or gender. there was no statistical significance in student scores across the three units of study where p = <0.5, (table 1.) therefore unit findings data were aggregated. sambell, r., andrew, l., devine, a., darby, j. beatty, s. and godrich, s. (2021). opportunities to identify and develop people skills: what university students need early in their degree journey. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(2), 348-365. 354 table 1: employability skills matrix: total score, cluster area, and element scores for first year students overall and across three different level 1 units. construct overall (n=99) median± iqr unit 1 (n=49) median± iqr unit 2 (n=15) median± iqr unit 3 (n=35) median± iqr kruskal-wallis h significance total score (75) 60 10 59 12 62 13 61 9 0.827 communication skills (20) 16 3 16 3 16 2 16 2 0.886 written 4 1 4 1 4 0 4 0 0.659 oral 4 2 4 2 4 1 4 1 0.838 listening 5 1 5 1 4 1 5 1 0.942 digital literacy 4 1 4 1 4 2 4 1 0.919 interpersonal skills (15) 12 3 12 2 12 4 13 2 0.979 emotional intelligence 4 1 4 2 4 2 4 1 0.075 teamwork 4 1 4 1 4 1 5 1 0.941 leadership 4 1 4 1.5 4 1 4 1 0.951 career management (10) 8 2 8 2 8 2 8 2 0.992 understanding and developing self 4 1 4 2 4 1 4 1 0.392 exploring life, learning and work 4 2 4 2 4 2 4 0 0.974 self-management skills (15) 12 3 12 3 12 3 13 2 0.987 planning and organising 4 1 4 1 4 1 4 1 0.205 initiative 4 1 4 1 5 1 4 1 0.361 adaptability 4 2 4 2 4 1 4 1 0.154 academic skills (15) 12 3 12 3.5 12 2 12 3 0.999 research 4 1 4 1 4 2 4 1 0.491 analytical 4 1 4 2 4 2 4 1 0.649 problem solving 4 1 4 1 4 1 4 1 0.988 sambell, r., andrew, l., devine, a., darby, j. beatty, s. and godrich, s. (2021). opportunities to identify and develop people skills: what university students need early in their degree journey. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(2), 348-365. 355 open ended text responses open text questions within the survey were used to explore the strategies students felt would improve their people skills within each cluster. a summary of these findings is provided under each cluster in the following paragraphs, illustrated with student quotes. communication skills cluster overall, students articulated that they aspired to enhance a variety of communication skills, including digital, oral, and written. most students saw workshop attendance as a suitable strategy to build these skills. improving written skills students indicated they would read a variety of books, not limited to their academic textbooks, to increase their understanding of sentence structure. students also mentioned they would research writing styles online. to upskill in academic writing, referencing vocabulary expansion, students suggested they would participate in university workshops and would seek feedback from academic staff in class and in assessment work: i could improve my skills by attending workshops that are specific to writing and formatting. this would improve my writing because it would be presented in a better fashion (student 44). enhancing oral communication skills students described how they could improve their oral communication skills through participation in group discussions, voicing ideas in class, developing their confidence, and having ... enough courage to state (their) opinion (student 12). students reported they would enrol in units that required them to present their work to other students and staff. they also proposed self-directed researching of effective communication methods and attending oral communication skill development workshops. improving listening skills it was common for students to report that their listening skills were adequate and did not require improvement. where the need for improvement was identified, greater attention in class was regarded as an important strategy. students also suggested they participate more in class, answer more questions, and contribute more to group debates: i could take time to hear ideas and opinions from others and combine them with mine to find the best beneficial result for the group (student 45). improving digital literacy students reflected on their need to undertake professional development to increase their digital literacy and proficiency. strategies mentioned to improve digital literacy included increased exposure to a variety of programs and software. workshops, courses, and joining online clubs were also suggested, and guidance and support from university sources was considered valuable: asking my friends, asking my lecturer, visit the website and research sites provided by my university or universally trusted and known (student 48). students also aspired to increase their skills in sourcing and interpreting data through repeated practice. interpersonal skills cluster students’ perceptions of their own interpersonal skills were mixed. they provided a range of suggestions were made to develop leadership skills, emotional intelligence, and teamwork skills. sambell, r., andrew, l., devine, a., darby, j. beatty, s. and godrich, s. (2021). opportunities to identify and develop people skills: what university students need early in their degree journey. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(2), 348-365. 356 improving leadership skills some students perceived they had strong team leadership attributes: i like to think that i've learned all that i can about leadership by being a team leader in my workplace … i'm a fairly good leader in my experience (student 6). others reported they lacked the confidence or experience in leadership, especially the skills required to lead teams: i've always been more of a follower than a leader, however, i would like to develop my ability to take action and initiative in certain situations (student 85). suggestions to improve leadership skills included joining clubs, participating in university events, volunteering, developing more patience, being proactive and showing initiative. improving emotional intelligence carefully listening to peers’ contributions and considering others’ point of view were student suggestions to enhance their own emotional intelligence. several commented that building a connection and relationships with colleagues and peers would be a useful approach, while others thought reading more about the subject could improve their emotional intelligence. one student suggested: i could observe how i react to people and by examining how my actions can affect others (student 92). as with listening skills, many students believed they already possessed a high level of emotional intelligence and therefore did not need to invest in self-improvement in this area. enhancing teamwork skills students used phrases such as “being confident”, “trust in others to get jobs done” and “keeping an open mindset” to describe how their teamwork skills could be improved. students also described more altruistic approaches: by listening to others, giving your opinion and helping each other, even if it’s not necessarily your responsibility (student 3). again, the idea of ongoing practice to develop these skills was commonly cited. career management skills cluster this cluster assessed the student’s ability to initiate research into employment options and prompted their reflection on their career goals and ways to achieve them. understanding and developing self students stated that they planned to request constructive feedback from others and make greater efforts to focus on their own strengths and weaknesses. specific strategies included seeking guidance from a university careers counsellor or sourcing a mentor. self-directed plans included keeping a reflective diary or attending a retreat. one student suggested: do things by yourself, things that are out of your comfort zone to get to know yourself more (student 10). exploring life, learning and work some students aspired to improve their time management skills by developing practical strategies that could help them organise and prioritise their time. respondents also suggested breaking down goals into manageable chunks, setting short and long-term goals, attending workshops, and gaining work experience. several students were uncertain or undecided about their future career: sambell, r., andrew, l., devine, a., darby, j. beatty, s. and godrich, s. (2021). opportunities to identify and develop people skills: what university students need early in their degree journey. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(2), 348-365. 357 [i need to] figure out how i would like my career to progress (student 78). while some were confident in their own skills, direction, and experience, many still needed support in goal setting: i need to develop a plan of my goals and where i see my career taking me, however it is hard to think about [it] so soon into learning (student 1). of all the clusters, career management appeared the most difficult for students to conceptualise and reflect upon. this is not surprising in this study of first year students, who are navigating multiple aspects of university life and who have limited real-world exposure to career opportunities associated with their field of study. self-management skills cluster the elements within this cluster gathered insight into the student’s perception of the self-directed activities they possessed, and those they needed to pursue further, to enhance their employability. planning and organising the essence of students’ responses related to improving self-organisation, working more effectively, and improved time management. specific strategies frequently mentioned included learning from others who role-modelled strong self-management skills, listing goals and making a schedule of their tasks. some students reported they had little trouble creating plans, but had difficulty acting on them, with one student aspiring to: follow through with plans more effectively/adhering more strictly to plans that i have set (student 24). initiative gaining confidence was the most common reference under this element, with one student commenting they needed to “push” themselves by placing themselves in new situations and seeking help from experts, such as counsellors. others reported confidence in their ability to take initiative: i'm confident in my ability to think outside-of-the-box and know when and where taking action is necessary (student 15). adaptability students described how new situations and uncertainty could be stressful and lead to poor functioning: once i get flustered things tend to breakdown (student 19). students’ suggestions to improve their adaptability to change included intentionally placing themselves in situations where they could build resilience. some students perceived a need to be more open-minded to change and find ways to reduce their stress levels in new situations. academic skills cluster students come to university with varied exposure and experience to research, analytical, and problem solving skills, which are all considered vital academic skills (munn, 2016). this cluster explored first-year student participants’ perceptions of their academic skills, and their reflections on ways to improve. research skills the need to improve data gathering skills across a wider range of sources, as well as data interpretation skills were commonly mentioned. similar to other cluster areas, some students suggested undertaking more individual skill-building strategies such as to read up on how to sambell, r., andrew, l., devine, a., darby, j. beatty, s. and godrich, s. (2021). opportunities to identify and develop people skills: what university students need early in their degree journey. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(2), 348-365. 358 understand data and gather information (student 5), while others endeavoured to consult with university support services such as library and academic workshops. students were clear about the importance of this area of skill development: i need to have clear direction and help with this skill as i am a mature age student and am unfamiliar with research on an academic level (student 44). analytical skills online videos and texts were considered valuable resources to support analytical skills. workshops, mentors, and peers were also important. the importance of repeated practice was also discussed: by practicing [sic] more in relation to scientific research and data and understanding [distinguishing] "bad" science from the trustworthy data and research (student 3). students frequently referred to “breaking down” information as a strategy to improve how to better understand data in their own terms. problem-solving skills as with many of the previous findings, methods to improve problem solving skills ranged from individual approaches such as studying, to seeking expert sources of support. students aspired to improve their own problem-solving skills through logical thinking exercises and taking the time to consider new ways to solve presenting problems. practice and collaboration with others were commonly perceived as methods to develop problem-solving skills: i could practice [sic] and have other people give me their opinions and ideas on the topic to give me perspective and open my mind to thought processes i might not have thought about (student 27) several students referred to being more creative, or visualising problems through mind maps. table 2 highlights the five clusters and their elements. it summarises students’ ideas around what skills they needed to achieve, and how to do this through self-directed work or external support. table 2: elements and strategies. cluster and elements strategies communication skills written participate in university workshops read more widely research writing techniques online oral participate in class group discussion choose units with oral presentations complete online and university workshops listening contribute to class debate answer questions in class pay more attention to others in class digital literacy increase familiarity with a range of software complete workshops and online courses seek university expert support practice sourcing evidence interpersonal skills emotional intelligence build connections with peers research the topic of emotional intelligence consider others’ points of view sambell, r., andrew, l., devine, a., darby, j. beatty, s. and godrich, s. (2021). opportunities to identify and develop people skills: what university students need early in their degree journey. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(2), 348-365. 359 teamwork be confident in teams trust team mates to perform be open-minded leadership practice taking initiative and lead in class join social groups and university clubs volunteer career management understanding ad developing self seek constructive feedback focus on personal strengths and weaknesses seek career advisor support keep a reflective diary participate in activities outside comfort zone exploring life, learning and work develop time-management set personal goals gain industry experience self-management skills planning and organising learn from role models schedule tasks act on plans initiative gain confidence push self to take initiative adaptability try out unfamiliar situations manage stress levels be more open-minded to change academic skills research improve data gathering and interpreting consult with library services participate in academic workshop analytical learn to break down information seek online support repeated practice support from peers, mentors, and workshops problem solving complete logical thinking exercises think in new ways collaborate with others practice discussion and recommendations there is strong evidence that the future employment market will prioritise well-developed people skills as an employee prerequisite (garcía-pérez et al., 2021; the foundation for young australians (fya), 2016; world economic forum, 2020) with the demonstration of discipline specific skills no longer sufficient to secure employment (jassal & clark, 2016). this initiative highlighted the importance of people skills early in the career journey, and signposted students to relevant university support services. in doing so, this initiative aimed to prompt and facilitate students to seek and participate in activities that could further develop these skills, and hence increase their employability at graduation. sambell, r., andrew, l., devine, a., darby, j. beatty, s. and godrich, s. (2021). opportunities to identify and develop people skills: what university students need early in their degree journey. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(2), 348-365. 360 student confidence and implications industry reports suggest that today’s graduates enter the marketplace with underdeveloped people skills, and little has changed in the last decade (deloitte access economics, 2017; jackson & chapman, 2012; productivity commission, n.d.). in contrast, the first-year undergraduates in this study had a high level of confidence across every assessed skills cluster. although confidence can be a key prerequisite to student engagement in their learning (bandura, 1995), it is important to ask is this confidence a true reflection of the students’ abilities, or a situation of confidence over competence? this finding reflects a previous study, in this case with australian business undergraduate students, who were described as displaying ‘inflated’ self-ratings of competence in three categories of people skills (jackson, 2012). in this study, the phenomenon was attributed in part to the high proportion of ‘y generation’ students (born between 1982 and 2005) in their sample, referring to the literature that suggests these students have an unrealistic level of confidence and demonstrated a level of arrogance in their expectations of their employers and employment on graduation (see gawrycka et al. (2020)). in the present study, most students could be categorised as y-generation. the potential for overconfidence is a particular concern with these students who are preparing to enter the health workforce where their decisions can have a significant impact on the health and safety of others in their care. evidence suggests the overconfident individual is less likely to reflect, seek personal development or demonstrate willingness to change (mceachan et al., 2016; montaño & kasprzyk, 2015). such reflection and humility is an essential attribute of the safe practitioner (hayes et al., 2018). the findings of the present study suggest this confidence is an issue that requires the priority attention of university tutors. to this end, andrade (2019) argues that research on student employability skills self-assessment includes ongoing evaluation across the degree journey, so that ongoing meaningful self-reflection on changing perspectives and personal development can be captured and utilised. also of relevance is the work of ibarra-sáiz et al. (2020) who reviewed the causal relationship between self-regulation and peer assessment, concluding peer-feedback was a key element to improving a student’s competence. the high student self-assessment in the study may be explained by the fact that undergraduate students early in their degree have had limited opportunity to benchmark their own employability skill perceptions against the expectations of industry (bruce & hamp-lyons, 2015; mattern et al., 2015; mcnair et al., 2016; wilson et al., 2016). in simple terms, students don’t know what they don’t know. international students, who are less likely to have had any experience in the australian workforce before they begin their university degree may have especially unrealistic perceptions of their abilities (green et al., 2020; terpstra-tong & ahmad, 2018). this idea is further supported by research previously conducted by the authors, that found third year students were more inclined to rank themselves lower on employability skill elements, inferring they had developed an awareness of employability skills expectations during their degree and therefore had a more realistic perception of their own skills (sambell et al., 2020). the identification of this potential ‘over-confidence’ is important early in the student’s university career so that action can begin to address it. this study adds to the body of evidence that proposes some form of accessible industry engagement is paramount to the future employability of undergraduate students (andrew, 2020; bruce & hamp-lyons, 2015; mattern et al., 2015; mcnair et al., 2016; wilson et al., 2016). a realistic picture of the workplace and early career roles and duties can be introduced into the curriculum through virtual and face-to-face immersion in workplace scenarios and conversations with potential employers. scott et al. (2019) however, argue that the effectiveness of such strategies depends on their contextualisation to the student discipline and intended career pathway. gribble (2015) recommends field trips to industry sites and guest lecturers to emphasise the importance of people skills. ongoing collaboration between industry, the sambell, r., andrew, l., devine, a., darby, j. beatty, s. and godrich, s. (2021). opportunities to identify and develop people skills: what university students need early in their degree journey. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(2), 348-365. 361 university, its academics and students to determine contemporary, emerging and predicted future workforce skills requirements is also important (ishengoma & vaaland, 2016). activities that develop the student’s understanding of the expected level of competence of these skills and their transferability into different contexts are also needed (gill, 2018). previous research has indicated a poor level of first and second year student engagement in employability skill development activities (tymon, 2013). this may be mitigated by the activity described in this study, where students are enlightened of the topic and its significance early in their university journey. opportunities for the development of student people-skills although the students’ overall confidence in their own skill set was high, some reported the need for further development, notably planning career goals, time management and self-organisation, taking initiative, being more open minded and research skills. it was promising to note that the participants could identify a wide range of relevant self-development strategies that could enhance their skills within each of the five clusters. some level of naivety or uncertainty of appropriate strategies was also evident, for example, students often cited ‘practise’ as a catch-all remedy for skill development. reliance on individual self-development alone may be insufficient for some, additional support is needed. some student groups, such as first generation (hirudayaraj, 2011) and international students who tend to be less familiar with the expectations of industry and have fewer social support networks (andrew, 2020; green et al., 2020; terpstra-tong & ahmad, 2018), may need explicit guidance and support from their tutors, careers advisors and peers. the framework for assuring quality in work integrated learning by the australian collaborative education network limited (acen) provides a comprehensive overview of key principles to guide elements of wil within and across the curriculum (campbell, 2019). of equal importance is a strong curriculum that scaffolds people skills across core or mandatory units, in learning activities and assessments, especially where a dedicated work integrated learning (wil) unit is absent or difficult for some students to access projects, simulations and fieldwork, and other work oriented learning can be used (australia universities, 2019; harris-reeves & mahoney, 2017). harris-reeves and mahoney (2017) have suggested that as little as ten hours of shadowing could enhance perceptions of employability and increase student retention rates, as it strengthens a student connection with their study and possible employment pathways. limitations and proposals for future research this cross-sectional study of first year undergraduates revealed student perceptions and awareness of their own people skills and the way they could address personal deficits by self-directed efforts and university services. to provide a more comprehensive understanding of the efficacy of this process, it would be useful to revisit students across their degree to ascertain if an exercise in awareness raising influenced their actions and how this manifested. it would also be useful to ‘revisit’ the same students later in their degree to reassess their level of confidence in their people skills and how this has altered over time. the study did not demonstrate the students’ intent to access these resources nor to engage in activities they identified as relevant to their personal development. for example, students stated they could enrol in units where they were expected to present to class to build associated communication skills, what we do not know is if they did this. furthermore, in some areas, student stated what they could do to improve certain people skills, such as ‘be more confident’, but were unclear how they would achieve this. qualitative studies that explored these areas more deeply in focus group or interview settings would offer a deeper and more informative picture. sambell, r., andrew, l., devine, a., darby, j. beatty, s. and godrich, s. (2021). opportunities to identify and develop people skills: what university students need early in their degree journey. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(2), 348-365. 362 the study’s findings could also be enriched by future multi-site studies and by a longitudinal approach that employs an ongoing assessment of student perceptions of employability skills, as well as the strategies these students employed in further self-development. conclusion the demonstration of people skills expected by industry is increasingly important to the successful employment of university graduates in today’s highly competitive job market. this outcome depends on student awareness of these expectations and their efforts to develop these skills across their degree. although this area has been investigated by different researchers in different disciplines over specific timeframes, we have yet to see a change in the findings in the difference between students’ self-perception of their people skills and their actual level of attainment in this area. this study highlights the need for early intervention in higher education curriculum that fosters students’ ability to reflect realistically on their people skills, facilitate their engagement in curricular activities, and signpost individual self-development opportunities. references abbasi farhad, k., ali, a., & bibi, n. 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(2020). the future of jobs report 2020. switzerland. https://www3.weforum.org/docs/wef_future_of_jobs_2020.pdf redefining graduate employability and work-integrated learning: proposals for effective higher education in disrupted economies beverley oliver b.oliver@deakin.edu.au deakin university abstract employability features more prominently on the agenda of higher education institutions when the economy falters or changes: the majority of students, and their families, expect a degree to deliver a career pathway as well as an education. this paper explores some of the trends and predictions in the rapidly changing world of work and proposes a re-worked definition of employability (based on yorke’s widely-accepted definition from 2006): that employability means that students and graduates can discern, acquire, adapt and continually enhance the skills, understandings and personal attributes that make them more likely to find and create meaningful paid and unpaid work that benefits themselves, the workforce, the community and the economy. likewise, work-integrated learning requires sharper definition than an ‘umbrella term’. this paper proposes that work-integrated learning includes a range of learning tasks that either resemble those expected of working graduates in their early careers, or are proximal to the workplaces or spaces, physical or digital, where professional work occurs. determining the appropriate spread of tasks across a degree is best done by mapping assessments, ensuring there are more high level tasks in the latter years so that students are prompted to focus on the skills, understandings and personal attributes that make them more likely to find and create meaningful paid and unpaid work that benefits themselves, the workforce, the community and the economy. keywords: graduate employability, work-integrated learning, graduate employment, disruption, higher education introduction: the changing nature of work and employment in the twenty-first century the early twenty-first century has seen the emergence of massively disrupted economies and business models, often spurred by technological innovations (deloitte, 2012; christensen, 2013). this is predicted to increasingly displace existing jobs. analysis from the united kingdom predicts that up to 54 per cent of finance and insurance jobs could be displaced in the next twenty years (frey & osborne, 2015). similarly, there is a view that the european labour market is likely to see substantial disruption and change, with increased polarisation and more demand for high skilled employees through a continued shift from manufacturing to services (dolphin 2015). the 2015 ceda report claims that australia is on the cusp of a new but very different industrial revolution (committee for economic development of australia, 2015): technology is going to dramatically reshape our workforce in coming years and the nation’s ability to rapidly adapt to technological change, and even more importantly, innovate, will be paramount for job creation and our future economic success (p.6). more specifically, the report predicts that almost five million jobs face a high oliver, b. (2015). redefining graduate employability and work-integrated learning: proposals for effective higher education in disrupted economies. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 6 (1), 56-65. 56 mailto:b.oliver@deakin.edu.au probability of being replaced in the next decade or two while a further 18.4 per cent of the workforce has a medium probability of having their roles eliminated (p.6) because computers will reshape the labour market in two key ways: they will directly substitute for labour, disrupt the way work is conducted, expand competition and reduce the costs to consumers – but they will also reduce the income of workers; and jobs with low levels of social interaction, creativity, mobility and dexterity are particularly vulnerable (p.6). some suggest that the safeguard is that everyone should learn to code a computer, while others suggest that we need more nuanced literacies as either digital citizens who use the internet, process simple word documents and find information online; digital workers who can use more sophisticated tools directly related to a particular occupation; or digital makers who can build digital technology (uk digital skills taskforce, 2014). others focus more on creativity as a safeguard against computerisability insisting that arts should be included in key skills (steam instead of stem: science, technology, engineering, arts and mathematics) skills and more to the need for steam (bakhshi, frey, & osborne, 2015; bakhshi & windsor, 2015) or emphasise entrepreneurial, scientific and emotional skills (dolphin, 2015). whatever the future holds, there are signs that patterns of work are already changing with more people choosing self-employment, short term and part-time work. phillips claims that there has been a 45 per cent increase in self-employment in europe in the past decade, with similar trends elsewhere, increasingly among older, high skill professionals (phillips, 2015). there has been a continuous rise in part-time work (fewer than 35 hours per week) in australia since the 1970s, reaching over 30 per cent of all employment in 2014. while this might be attributable to several factors including economic downturn, only a minority take part-time work because they cannot obtain full-time work: lewis cites evidence from the australian bureau of statistics suggesting that almost 70 per cent are happy with the parttime hours they work (females 75%; males 50%), and only 30 per cent of those males wish to work full-time (lewis, 2015). work choices are also likely to be strongly influenced by the rise of crowdsourcing and the sharing economy. brabham (2013) defines crowdsourcing as an online, distributed problem-solving and production model that leverages the collective intelligence of online communities to serve specific organizational goals (p. xix) and delineates four categories: knowledge discovery and management; broadcast search; peervetted creative production; and distributed-human intelligence tasking all of which can provide opportunities for volunteering and for paid employment. many terms describe the sharing economy: ‘collaborative consumption’, ‘commercial sharing systems’, ‘coproduction’, ‘co-creation’, ‘prosumption’ and ‘access-based consumption’. entities as diverse as uber, airbnb, zipcar, wikipedia, youtube, flickr, facebook, freecycle and twitter participate in the sharing economy through temporary internet-enabled access to nonownership models of utilising consumer goods and services (belk, 2014). comprehensive and longitudinal studies are yet to emerge on the effects of these phenomena on graduate employment patterns, but anecdotes abound: charlton recounts his experience of interviewing his uber driver, and reflects on the excess of graduates (often debt-laden), the scarcity of graduate jobs, and the opportunities provided for ‘gigs rather than careers’ for short-term, casual and sporadic employment (often for more than one employer at a time) through the sharing economy (charlton 2015). recent reports suggest the trend will continue: in 2015, australians reported increased time spent watching television and video online (17.2 hours a week) and 14-25 year olds view more streamed content (31%) than traditional broadcast (26%) in modern connected families that have, on average, two television sets, two laptops, two tablets and two smartphones (and after just over two years in the market, fitness bands are already owned by 13% of households). many such devices are used to access social media: in 2015, 80 per cent of survey respondents used social media, up from 65 per cent in 2012 (59% on a daily basis; 23% more than three times per day) (alcorn, buchanan, smith, & gregory, 2015). it is difficult to disentangle volunteering from social media and the sharing economy – social media enables contribution for no oliver, b. (2015). redefining graduate employability and work-integrated learning: proposals for effective higher education in disrupted economies. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 6 (1), 56-65. 57 monetary gain (wilson, 2000). in twitter, for example, participants can be social activists, or share new research, artefacts, witticisms and solutions, or ask questions for no agreed or immediate monetary gain. therefore, while work patterns are changing, lifestyle behaviours associated with media and sharing blur the lines even further between life and work. in disrupted economies, what is graduate employment? in the disrupted economy, employment no longer necessarily means winning or keeping for the long term a traditional, full-time position in a company, organisation, small business or institution. even so, universities frequently promise through their recruitment to prepare ‘work ready’ graduates. for many years, governments have regularly measured and reported the capacity of higher education providers to produce graduates for labour markets – or more precisely, graduates’ abilities to secure full-time and part-time employment, or commence further study. in australia, the graduate destination survey (gds) is the principal national dataset that reports the outcomes of australian resident bachelor degree graduates, focusing on employment status, further study status, job search methods and broad type of work. national data in 2014 showed a deterioration in the short-term employment prospects of new graduates compared with 2013 (response rate was 59.3%). of those either in, or seeking full-time employment: • about 66 per cent were in full-time employment, • about 20 per cent had part-time or casual work and continued to seek full-time employment, and • about 12 per cent were not working and still seeking full-time employment (graduate careers australia, 2014). experts suggest that the short-term graduate labour market has been deteriorating for some years and is unlikely to reverse; at the same time, student intake and course completions are increasing. graduates often take more time to get jobs; however, their longer term prospects are relatively positive (norton & cherastidtham, 2014). even though these data are alarming for many, it remains to be seen how national reporting will cope with shifting employment patterns if students and graduates increasingly favour part-time or self-employment, freelancing in simultaneous contacts, before they enrol in higher education, during their course, and beyond graduation: graduates enter and leave australia, change careers from the one they originally trained for, exit the labour force temporarily or permanently, and work varying numbers of hours per week (p. 67). although economists and governments are likely to continue (as they should) to measure and report the amount of paid work undertaken by citizens, higher education providers educate their prospective and current students, their staff and industry alliances, and governing bodies, to understand the changing nature of work, and to consider employment more broadly. in disrupted economies, what is graduate employability? this paper proposes that ‘being employed’ in the twenty-first century increasingly means not just ‘working full-time or part-time’ but ‘finding and creating meaningful paid and unpaid work that benefits employees themselves, the workforce, the community and the economy’. this paper also contends that employment and employability, although often conflated, are separate concepts. essentially, employment is about being employed, and employability is about being employable, regardless of the prevailing economic circumstances. like the term ‘employment’, some rethinking is required in terms of how to define ‘employability’ in the disrupted economy. oliver, b. (2015). redefining graduate employability and work-integrated learning: proposals for effective higher education in disrupted economies. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 6 (1), 56-65. 58 definitions and models abound on just what graduate employability is and how it might be conceived (yorke, 2004; little, 2006; pool & sewell, 2007). it is both complex and contested (uk commission for employment and skills, 2009; hinchliffe & jolly, 2011; sin & neave, 2014; smith, fern, & russell, 2014). some describe it as a blend of understanding, skilful practices, efficacy beliefs (or legitimate self-confidence) and reflectiveness (or metacognition) (little, 2006). stephenson’s concept of capability is more encompassing: employability is best described as the ‘capability’ of becoming an effective operator in the world (whether in an employment or other social setting): capable people have confidence in their ability to take effective and appropriate action, explain what they are seeking to achieve, live and work effectively with others, and continue to learn from their experiences, both as individuals and in association with others, in a diverse and changing society (stephenson, 1998). most agree that employability has little to do with labour markets and employment, or by extension, with judging institutional performance. rather, employability is about enabled graduates. knight and yorke summarise five common descriptions of employability, ranging from getting a graduate job to the outcome of skilful career planning and interview technique. their usem approach to employability suggests that employability is a combination of: • understanding of subject discipline(s); • skilful practices in context (the capacity to apply understanding judiciously); • efficacy beliefs, students’ self-theories and personal qualities – the extent to which students feel that they might ‘be able to make a difference’; and • metacognition, encompassing self-awareness regarding the student’s learning; the capacity to reflect on, in and for action; and self-regulation (knight & yorke, 2006).
 it is generally agreed that employability derives from complex learning, and is a concept of wider range than those of ‘core’ and ‘key’ skills, the transferability of which is often assumed (yorke, 2006). harvey clearly asserts that employability is not a product but a process of learning, and that achievement is complex, interconnected, and not a simple matter of ticking off achievement by graduation. much of the learning, he claims, occurs in the professional context, well after graduation: at root, employability is about learning, not least learning how to learn. employability is not a product but a process of learning for life. it is not about training for a job; rather it is about empowering learners as critical reflective citizens (harvey, 2003). building on this body of literature and general thrust, perhaps the most widelyaccepted definition of employability (yorke, 2006) contends that: employability means that students acquire the skills, understandings and personal attributes that make them more likely to secure employment and be successful in their chosen occupations to the benefit of themselves, the workforce, the community and the economy (p.8). in the light of the challenges associated with the disrupted economy, briefly described above, this paper proposes that it might be timely to adapt yorke's 2006 definition as follows (four proposed adaptations are underlined, and the rationale for each adaption follows): employability means that students and graduates can discern, acquire, adapt and continually enhance the skills, understandings and personal attributes that make them more likely to find and create meaningful paid and unpaid work that benefits themselves, the workforce, the community and the economy. rationale for each adaptation: 1. students and graduates: the inclusion of graduates is intended to signify that those who engage in higher education are often already working – either in casual and temporary positions, or in established careers. postgraduate and undergraduate oliver, b. (2015). redefining graduate employability and work-integrated learning: proposals for effective higher education in disrupted economies. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 6 (1), 56-65. 59 intakes in many universities are a mix of school leavers, and younger and older mature age students, many of whom come to university courses with extensive professional experience, and many part-time students presumably continue to hold professional positions while they study. full-time students often maintain high levels of employment while they study. 2. discern, acquire, adapt and continually enhance: yorke’s use of ‘acquire’ could suggest a one-off achievement or it might imply acquisition of ‘skills, understandings and personal attributes’ that students do not have on entry into higher education. the inclusion of other verbs (‘discern’, ‘adapt’ and ‘continually enhance’) is intended to signify that emphases may shift as the disrupted economy continues to evolve, emphasising the need for lifelong learning. 3. find and create meaningful paid and unpaid work: yorke’s use of the verb secure might perhaps bear reconsideration in a world where employment seems less secure, but more importantly, the proposed changes emphasise the option to not just find work, but to create work for self and others. ‘meaningful’ work is intended to signify the type of work a graduate or higher education student would hope to find or create, and the inclusion of ‘paid or unpaid’ acknowledges the changing landscape of work and participation in the sharing economy. this is also the intention behind the removal of ‘chosen occupations’, suggesting that meaningful work is not necessarily tied to standard positions in established fields and professions. it also takes less account of graduates of generic degrees who may work in various fields, or occupations that are likely to disappear. if employment and employability are changing, what is work-integrated learning? graduate employment, employability and work-integrated learning (usually abbreviated as wil) often keep close company in higher education discourse. while the first two are often conflated, they have been variously defined over the years. this paper argues that workintegrated learning is an ill-defined concept in the australian higher education sector, and this makes judging progress, quality and effectiveness extremely difficult. this paper proposes a definition of work-integrated learning which aims to resolve this issue. but first, some background: the 2008 national wil project aimed to capture an emerging picture of wil across australia and identify ways of improving associated student learning experiences (patrick et al., 2008) without defining wil, settling instead for work-integrated learning as an umbrella term used for a range of approaches and strategies that integrate theory with the practice of work within a purposefully designed curriculum (p.9) and listing terms in common use at that time (including, for example, practicum, professional practice, internship, workplace learning, industry-based learning, project-based learning, cooperative education, fieldwork education, service learning, real world learning, university engaged learning, experiential learning, clinical placements, work experience, clinical practice, doctoral supervision with industry partners, and work-based learning). the 2008 list of terms exemplified a level of confusion and competing ideas. in 2010, the term ‘work integrated learning experience’ is defined as time students spend learning in the workplace as part of the work integrated learning component of their formal programme of study. also referred to as placement (cooper, orrell, & bowden, 2010, p. xiii). the 2011 good practice report (orrell, 2011) acknowledges that work-integrated learning is a chameleon term with a problem of definition (p. 5) and in that report it is delineated as the intentional integration of theory and practice knowledge, and a wil program provides the means to enable this integration and may, or may not, include a placement in a workplace, or a community or civic arena (emphasis added, p.1). the 2014 statement of intent (acen, 2014) reiterates wil as: oliver, b. (2015). redefining graduate employability and work-integrated learning: proposals for effective higher education in disrupted economies. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 6 (1), 56-65. 60 an umbrella term for a range of approaches and strategies that integrate theory with the practice of work within a purposefully designed curriculum, and goes on to add: as a community we already understand the crucial value of wil often described as internships, placements or practicums (p.2). exactly who belongs to ‘the community’ is unclear, but a 2014 report (phillipskpa, 2014) identifies the problem with language and the business community: of the 264 responses from australian businesses, almost half indicated they were not familiar with the term ‘workintegrated learning’. the march 2015 national strategy on work integrated learning in university education acknowledges the problem: referring to the ‘umbrella term’, one of the strategy’s first actions is to agree a common language and interpretation of wil (what it is and is not) which is readily understood by all participants (1.1.c). the definition proposed in this paper attempts to contribute to that undertaking. in the previous examples, there appear to be some underpinning assumptions. for example, ‘work’ occurs in ‘workplaces’ that are different from university learning environments, physical or digital, even though there has been an increase in hot-desking and teleworking, and research suggests that mobile devices have made working at home and on transport more pervasive. more concerning is that work-integrated learning is code for a placement, an internship, or some sort of experience in a physical workplace. providing such an experience for every undergraduate student in australia would be an impossible task – particularly in clinical settings, but also when very large cohorts of international and domestic students in courses such as accounting might outnumber the local firms and companies who might have the time and resources to supervise them. such a focus also ignores the learning opportunities afforded by assessments that are based on simulations and role-play, both physical and digital, which have been found to be highly effective – and in some cases, even more effective than internships and placements. current usage also assumes that high value will always be gained by physical presence in a workplace (and by extension, a workplace that aligns with the student’s intended profession). if employability, as proposed in this paper, means that students and graduates can discern, acquire, adapt and continually enhance the skills, understandings and personal attributes that make them more likely to find and create meaningful paid and unpaid work, then experience in a traditional workplace might not necessarily mirror the student’s likely destination in the evolving world of work. in an era when self-employed and entrepreneurial people can invent a solution of interest and acquisition by large digital behemoths, appropriate ‘placement’ might include encouraging students to create their own ‘startup’ company, rather than experience a traditional workplace. in addition, simply being in a workplace where one observes or does menial tasks, is unlikely to make a significant difference to employability. the definition of work-integrated learning proposed in this paper recognises that effective learning for employability can occur: • within or beyond the formal curriculum; • in work that is related or unrelated to one’s course; • in actual or simulated experiences; • in physical or digital workplaces and spaces; and/or • in paid or unpaid employment. two constant and underpinning principles for effectiveness of assessed tasks that relate to employability are: authenticity (how closely a task resembles professional level challenges) oliver, b. (2015). redefining graduate employability and work-integrated learning: proposals for effective higher education in disrupted economies. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 6 (1), 56-65. 61 and proximity (how closely the context resembles a professional environment). the proposed definition reads: work integrated learning occurs at various levels across a range of tasks that are authentic (the task resembles those required in professional life) or proximal (the setting resembles professional contexts). as shown in figure 1, tasks can be mapped along two axes (degrees of authenticity and proximity) to show: 1. high level wil (top right quadrant) – students engage in tasks closely resembling those required in professional life, in settings that are or very close to a real professional context 2. moderate level wil (top left quadrant) – students engage in tasks closely resembling those required in professional life, but only in simulated professional contexts 3. low level wil (bottom right quadrant) – students are in or very close to a real professional context, but their tasks do not closely resemble those required in professional life 4. not wil (bottom left quadrant) – students engage in tasks that do not resemble tasks required in professional life, and in settings that do resemble professional contexts. clearly, tasks cannot be mapped with a high level of accuracy, because in every case ‘it depends’ on exactly what the student is asked to do, hence the shades of red to give a broad indication of levels of work-integrated learning (with the white zone intended to capture tasks that are not work-integrated learning). the example tasks are intended as just that, with the rider that further detail would be required to be really sure of the level of workintegrated learning associated with such a task. figure 1: levels of work-integrated learning according to degrees of authenticity and proximity oliver, b. (2015). redefining graduate employability and work-integrated learning: proposals for effective higher education in disrupted economies. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 6 (1), 56-65. 62 at first glance, it might be tempting to presume that the collective experiences in a course (degree or program) should cluster in the top right quadrant (high level wil). but this would depend on the course context – namely, discipline, the likely professional destination, and the resourcing and availability of placements. the most optimal spread of experiences and tasks is probably best judged by those most familiar with the course, its learning outcomes and the likely professional destinations of its graduates. realistically, a balance across all zones is likely to be best, including the bottom left quadrant, where much current assessment practice is likely to cluster. these experiences would not be categorised as work-integrated learning according to the definition proposed here. this goes some way towards one of the aims of the national strategy to agree a common language and interpretation of wil – including what it is and equally importantly, what it is not (emphasis added). conclusion governments and communities have high expectations of universities as providers of graduates who are employable, and employed – but the world of work is changing rapidly. this paper explores some of the trends and predictions in those changes and offers a reworked definition of what it means to be employable. refining yorke’s 2006 definition, this paper proposes that employability means that students and graduates can discern, acquire, adapt and continually enhance the skills, understandings and personal attributes that make them more likely to find and create meaningful paid and unpaid work that benefits themselves, the workforce, the community and the economy. work-integrated learning is often offered as the solution to employability and employment – and the sector acknowledges it requires definition beyond an ‘umbrella term’. this paper proposes that work-integrated learning, is a means to an end (employability) rather than an end in itself. the definition proposed in this paper posits that work-integrated learning includes a range of learning task that resemble tasks expected of employed graduates in their early careers, or proximal to the workplaces or spaces, physical or digital, where professional work occurs. the range of tasks considered work-integrated learning may be high (closely resembling tasks required in professional life, in settings that closely resemble professional contexts); moderate (closely resembling tasks required in professional life, but in simulated professional contexts); or low (tasks take place in real professional contexts but are not as requiring as those required in professional life). determining the appropriate spread of tasks across a degree is best done by mapping assessments – ideally, those tasks considered to be moderate or high are best placed in all years of a degree programme, and probably with an increasing level. high level tasks in the final year or semesters is most likely to prompt the student to focus on the evidence that they are developing the skills, understandings and personal attributes that make them more likely to find and create meaningful paid and unpaid work that benefits themselves, the workforce, the community and the economy. oliver, b. 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(2015). redefining graduate employability and work-integrated learning: proposals for effective higher education in disrupted economies. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 6 (1), 56-65. 65 three perspectives on a collaborative, whole-of-program process to support curriculum change sara hammer1, janet mcdonald1, melissa forbes1 sara.hammer@usq.edu.au; janet.mcdonald@usq.edu.au; melissa.forbes@usq.edu.au 1university of southern queensland abstract this qualitative case study reports on an emerging four-stage process of support for curriculum change using reflective data which highlights three perspectives: that of the academic developer, the head of program, and the discipline leader. the aim of the change process was to enhance employment outcomes of creative arts students by aligning the program curriculum with disciplinary threshold learning outcomes. successful features and areas for further attention are identified. the findings indicate that key features of the support process, such as its collaborative, situated, action-learning approach, have resulted in positive outcomes for participants. these include opportunities for reflective practice, peer and in situ learning as well as the development of participant engagement and leadership as part of the curriculum change process. furthermore the process mirrored actions and emphasised concepts related to the employability of graduates of the program under review. keywords: academic development, curriculum change, collaboration, employability, situated, threshold learning outcomes introduction universities in australia and elsewhere must increasingly account for the learning outcomes of their graduates as evidenced by the recent focus on employability skills, graduate attributes and disciplinary threshold learning outcomes (tlos). a key driver of this increased accountability is stakeholder expectations and feedback. employers and other stakeholders such as government agencies continue to place pressure on universities to develop in their graduates specific attributes or employability skills. yet there is little acknowledgement of the complexity of renewing program curricula to better develop specified learning outcomes (green, hammer & star, 2009). engaging in this type of curriculum renewal process is complex because it requires specialised, functional knowledge to be learned by discipline academics, as well as significant capability in interpersonal and leadership skills. not only does program-wide curriculum change represent a significant time impost on already busy academics, it may also require normative or cultural change: this is because adopting a whole-of-program view may result in changed perspectives or ways of working amongst participants. this paper outlines a qualitative case study that explores an emergent curriculum change process developed in an australian university. the focus of this process is on aligning a creative arts program curriculum with disciplinary tlos, thereby enhancing the employment prospects of graduates. to address the challenges inherent in curriculum change a collaborative, situated, action-learning process was developed, which aimed to leverage the hammer, s., mcdonald, j. & forbes, m. (2014). three perspectives on a collaborative, whole-of-program process to support curriculum change. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 5(1), 47–62. 47 mailto:sara.hammer@usq.edu.au mailto:janet.mcdonald@usq.edu.au mailto:melissa.forbes@usq.edu.au specialist knowledge of an academic developer, as well as the discipline knowledge of the curriculum ‘owners’. the background to this case study is followed by a review of the relevant literature and a broad outline of a four-stage curriculum change support process. this is followed by an evaluation of the effectiveness of the support process from three different perspectives including the academic developer, the head of program, and the discipline leader. analysis of reflective data from each perspective highlighted agreement about the positive aspects of the support process such as the reflection and review activity, and the collaborative, situated, action-learning approach used by the academic developer. it also highlighted positive individual and interpersonal factors that emerged as a result of the process, such as staff engagement, the emergence of leaders and mentors from amongst creative arts academics and a renewed focus on curriculum alignment as fundamental to the development of graduate outcomes. finally, reflective data focused on unfinished business related to the evaluation stage of the process, and some aspects of the curriculum change process that require more work, including: greater recognition of challenges faced by those assuming leadership roles; more purposeful support for the implementation stage of the process; and tighter integration of the curriculum change support process with institutional procedures, such as accreditation and re-accreditation. background key terms used in this paper require definition due to different naming conventions. in this paper ‘program’ is used to define a wider program of study, such as a bachelor of business, while the term ‘degree’ refers to a major within a program of study and a ‘course’ is a single subject or unit within a degree. the institution in this case study uses the term ‘course objectives’, (also referred to as learning outcomes) to describe desired forms of student learning at the course level. these terms will be used interchangeably at times during this paper, whilst acknowledging that they can also be seen as distinct from each other (biggs, 2003). three perspectives are represented in this paper: the academic developer; the head of program, and the discipline leader. academic developers are responsible for enhancing academic performance in learning and teaching within a higher education institution with the overarching goal being to improve student learning. they may contribute to staff development, curriculum development and to relevant institutional policy and procedure development (chang, wahr, de pew, gray, jansz-senn & radloff, 2004, p.2). from this perspective, the paper examines a professional development and support process, which is deliberately designed to align with a ‘discipline specific’ orientation and its related graduate outcomes (land, 2001) by organising ‘situated learning’ episodes that leverage a disciplinary ‘learning’ or ‘professional community’ dynamic (land, 2001, p.6; sergiovanni, 1998; boud & brew, 2013). the roles of the head of program and discipline leader are to lead and facilitate a curriculum change process as part of an institutional, program re-accreditation procedure. from this perspective, aligning the creative arts curriculum with creative and performing arts tlos enhances the student experience by sharpening the focus on developing specific learning outcomes that will contribute positively to graduate employability. however, this alignment process can also be used as a ‘trigger’ for more holistic curriculum enhancement aimed at offering a better quality program that will develop capable graduates and attract more students. model of curriculum development an outcomes-based or ‘backwards design’ approach to curriculum development at the program level is well-established as an effective model (biggs, 2003; hubball & burt, 2004, hammer, s., mcdonald, j. & forbes, m. (2014). three perspectives on a collaborative, whole-of-program process to support curriculum change. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 5(1), 47–62. 48 p.52; wiggins & mctighe, 2005). beginning with outcomes enables a purposeful approach to curriculum design that is focused on the desired results. an outcomes-focused approach to program design is also well aligned with the educational theory of constructivism, which begins from the premise that students construct knowledge and understanding through relevant learning activities. from this perspective learning and teaching activities should provide students with the opportunity to demonstrate the desired learning outcomes (biggs, 2003). by logical extension, such desired outcomes should be identified prior to the development of these learning and teaching activities. this view of curriculum design challenges both the curriculum as ‘content’ paradigm, and the development of a program that is unreflectively derived from, the methods, books, and activities with which we are most comfortable (wiggins & mctighe, 2005, p.14). wiggins and mctighe identify three stages in what they refer to as ‘backwards design’: 1. identify desired results. 2. determine acceptable evidence. 3. plan learning experiences and instruction (p. 18). in the case explored here, an outcomes-based approach to curriculum design was deemed appropriate given the goal of aligning the curriculum with the creative and performing arts tlos. however, as the process focused on the re-design of an existing curriculum the process might be more accurately represented as: 1. identify desired results. 2. ascertain whether there is any evidence of their current development, including learning and teaching activities and support. 3. re-design aspects of the curriculum that do not achieve desired results. curriculum outcomes and employability an outcomes-focus for curriculum design is also a logical model to adopt where desirable outcomes, such as the employability of graduates, are a goal of the change process. the creative and performing arts tlos were chosen precisely because of their agreement with desirable graduate outcomes identified by program stakeholders, such as employers and graduates. relevant design concepts and principles a key design concept in outcomes-based curriculum development is ‘curriculum alignment’: that is, assessment, teaching and learning activities must align with intended course and program outcomes. in this instance, ensuring internal consistency or ‘constructive alignment’ (biggs, 2003) of the curriculum within each course is an important prerequisite for the achievement of intended program-level outcomes, ensuring that learner activity and achievement are embedded within the curriculum design. a further critical consideration when designing an outcomes-based curriculum is that of transparency in assessment. there is a need to ensure that teacher and learner expectations of learner performance are clear, and that assessment tasks are valid (biggs, 2003; sadler, 2005). in particular, the development of explicit assessment criteria and grade standards, as shown in table 1 below, enables stakeholders, including reviewers, to ascertain whether an assessment task is valid and whether stated learning outcomes, including tlos, are developed. furthermore they clarify for students the knowledge, skills and understandings expected of them. hammer, s., mcdonald, j. & forbes, m. (2014). three perspectives on a collaborative, whole-of-program process to support curriculum change. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 5(1), 47–62. 49 table 1: sample assessment criteria and grade descriptors learning outcome pass level descriptor for evaluation component in assessment research and critically evaluate political and economic theory evaluation of at least one position on an essay topic in the light of research undertaken evaluation may not be fully justified by the research comparing assessment criteria and standards against stated course outcomes also enables the reviewer to identify instances of the ‘hidden curriculum’: forms of learning that are tacitly intended or assessed but are not made explicit to students (biggs, 2003). finally curriculum developers can use these explicit assessment criteria to relate the curriculum to institutional graduate attributes or capabilities. good practice in curriculum mapping and alignment although curriculum mapping originated in american secondary schools, more recently it has been adopted by higher education practitioners. plaza, draugalis, slack, skrepnek and sauer, (2007) define curriculum mapping as a consideration of when, how and what is taught; as well as the assessment measures utilized to explain achievement of expected student learning outcomes (p.1). in the australian context, curriculum mapping has been most strongly associated with the graduate attributes agenda (spencer, riddle & knewstubb, 2012). noteworthy published examples outline a range of approaches to curriculum mapping (oliver, jones, ferns & tucker, 2007; plaza et al., 2007; spencer et al., 2012; sumsion & goodfellow, 2004). in one example, sumsion and goodfellow (2004) designed a ‘checklist’, including a range of development indicators, based on their university’s generic skills and distributed it to all teachers for completion. academic developers then consulted with each teacher, and asked them to provide a rationale for particular skill indicators they had checked. their findings highlighted the issue of differing staff interpretations, philosophies, and positions on what could or should be assessed, and the need to generate shared understanding around the desired forms of learning (sumsion & goodfellow, 2004). this study also emphasises the requirement to support staff in unpacking outcome statements and developing a disciplinewide consensus around their meaning. this is echoed by hubball and burt (2004) who argue that implementing change to university curricula requires, amongst other things, an inclusive approach to design, supported by outside specialists and relevant professional development. oliver, jones, ferns and tucker (2007) outline a systematic, five-phase, curriculum mapping support model, nested within a comprehensive program review process. the aim was to deliver an authentic experience for students that sequentially developed graduate attributes. a curriculum map of the existing program was produced by an academic development team and used, along with other evidence such as stakeholder feedback, to determine required changes for a given program. subsequent to a group feedback session each course teacher used the information to reflect on and revise components of their curriculum design as required. while this process targets the program team, the focus of the work by oliver et al. (2007) is pedagogical and procedural and does not explicitly address participant experiences, or the significance of collaboration or leadership. leadership and change management are key factors in facilitating institutional change. as scott, coates and anderson (2008, p.xiv) argue: hammer, s., mcdonald, j. & forbes, m. (2014). three perspectives on a collaborative, whole-of-program process to support curriculum change. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 5(1), 47–62. 50 desired change is not an event but a complex learning and unlearning process for all concerned. it is a learning process because if something new has to be implemented those who are to deliver it… have to do something new. to do something new requires them to learn a ‘gap’ in their expertise. such learning for change does not just happen – it must be directly assisted and deftly led. adopting a strategic whole-of-program (or indeed sectoral) perspective may require significant changes in awareness, attitudes and practice on the part of those involved in curriculum change (hubball and burt, 2004). examples of the ideas and concepts that are potentially unlearned and learned as part of a whole-of-curriculum change process in the current context are listed below: table 2: unlearned and learned concepts unlearned learned single course perspective of the curriculum • course outcomes, activities and assessment as expressions of courselevel teacher intention • assessment enables students to demonstrate course outcomes • curriculum change as an individual activity. whole-of-program view of the curriculum • course outcomes, activities and assessment as expressions of teacher, program, discipline and sector intention • assessment enables students to develop program-level outcomes • curriculum change as a collaborative activity. the design of the curriculum change process reported in this paper was intended to both leverage and foster leadership and collaboration to make this unlearning and learning process less difficult. method kolb’s experiential learning theory and the cycle of concrete experience, reflective observation, abstract conceptualisation and active experimentation aligns well with the curriculum change process outlined in this paper (kolb, boyatzis & mainemelis, 1999). however, as critics, desmond and jowitt (2012) point out, experiential learning tends to be interpersonal rather than solely individual and participants’ experiences are situated in their particular disciplinary and institutional context. written reflections from three different participant role perspectives were used to evaluate each stage of the process and to draw some preliminary conclusions about what has worked, what needs more work overall and how effective the process was in terms sustaining the focus on graduate outcomes. the three perspectives of the academic developer, the program head and the discipline leader were chosen for the following reasons: • they are broadly representative of the range of participants directly involved in the facilitation of the curriculum change process. • their different levels of operation enabled reflection on the process, including the emergence of leadership and collaboration, from different angles. to enhance the ‘dependability’ of the reflective data it was collected and analysed according to the following procedure (jasper, 2005, p. 256). each participant individually wrote a reflection focusing on each stage of the support process including what worked well and what needed further attention. reflections were structured as responses to open-ended questions about the usefulness of the support process and what, if anything was learned. the reflections were collected and analysed thematically, identifying key themes and hammer, s., mcdonald, j. & forbes, m. (2014). three perspectives on a collaborative, whole-of-program process to support curriculum change. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 5(1), 47–62. 51 concepts and whether there was agreement or points of difference between the varying roles, perspectives, experiences and interpretations throughout the process. to validate the analysis the results were returned to the participants for confirmation and further comment. finally, connections were made between themes or concepts emerging from the data and relevant concepts, theories and studies from related fields such as education or change management that may offer wider, secondary support or interpretation of the experiences. the curriculum support process the support process that was developed used a collaborative, situated, action-learning method, nested within a two-year, structured, inclusive degree re-accreditation process. the approach taken marries outside ‘specialist’ support from an academic developer with the expertise of the discipline community to stage purposeful, facilitated, collaborative peer-topeer activities, followed by group and one-on-one support as required. to drive this approach a broad-brush, project management methodology was used. this was facilitated by the academic developer, after consultation with creative arts colleagues to develop a project plan including aims, activities, a schedule and deliverables. consciously staging collaborative sessions such as discipline meetings, planning and design activities, and tailored professional development as a means of achieving project aims addresses three issues highlighted in the academic development literature. the first is a requirement to develop a shared understanding amongst academic participants about the meaning of particular program-level outcomes, and how they might be developed (sumsion & goodfellow, 2004). the second is the requirement for specialised support for curriculum renewal (hubball & burt, 2004) and in this case renewal with a focus on accreditation and graduate outcomes. the third is to align academic development activities with good practice (boud & brew, 2013) by tailoring them to disciplinary and professional requirements and locating them within required processes for implementing curriculum changes. the curriculum change process adopted was made up of four discrete stages based on a project-management-type cycle analogous to a ‘plan-do-check-act’ sequence. it included scoping and review, design and development, implementation and evaluation. these stages can be associated with a wider process model, such as the ‘integrated curriculum development model’ proposed by hubball and burt (2004), as represented in the diagram below. table 3: integrated curriculum development model (hubball & burt, 2004) integrated curriculum development model support stages 1. develop awareness end of year program retreat contact lite team coordinator 2. initiation scoping and review 3. mobilisation design and development 4. action-plan 5. practice implementation evaluation hammer, s., mcdonald, j. & forbes, m. (2014). three perspectives on a collaborative, whole-of-program process to support curriculum change. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 5(1), 47–62. 52 pre-support stage: feedback from program stakeholders on graduate employability the first, pre-support, stage of the program review and re-accreditation process included the solicitation of written feedback from stakeholders, including creative arts graduates, practitioners and employers. the common consensus amongst stakeholder group respondents was that proposed changes would enhance a program with an already strong focus on graduate employability within the sector. each group respondent emphasised the value of a program that focused on the development of graduates’ capacity to perform at a professional entry standard by being able to: • demonstrate adaptability and function in diverse contexts. • demonstrate flexibility and inter-disciplinary skills and knowledge, including use of technology. • develop independence and resilience, including the ability to be ‘self-starters’. • develop leadership skills and collaborate effectively with other artists. • critically engage with their practice. these capacities are echoed in the creative and performing arts threshold learning outcome (tlo) statements (australian learning & teaching council, 2010). this made aligning the program with disciplinary tlos a logical focus for re-accrediting creative arts degrees. stage 1: end of year retreat developing awareness took the form of an end-of-year retreat for academics in the creative arts program. the issue of re-accreditation for the program was discussed, along with the parallel requirement to ensure that disciplinary tlos were developed. an outcome of this retreat was that the head of program contacted the academic developer to request support for the process of mapping the existing curriculum and working to align it with the tlos. stage 2: scoping and review at this stage of the process the academic developer met with discipline leader(s) and other stakeholders, such as the head of school and learning and teaching coordinator, to clarify project aims and agree upon possible activities to support discipline members in meeting them. aims incorporated the pragmatics of curriculum design principles, such as subsequent changes to course and program documentation. a set of support deliverables was agreed upon. this included curriculum maps, design and co-facilitation (with the school lead) of tailored professional development and/or planning and design retreats. a needs analysis based on stakeholder feedback had been developed by the program team as part of the official institutional re-accreditation process. the academic developer conducted a desktop review of the program in consultation with disciplinary colleagues by mapping key elements of the curriculum through the lens of disciplinary tlos. feedback addressed issues such as: the alignment of course objectives with assessment, teaching and learning activities and materials (biggs, 2003); the alignment of course curricula with desired program outcomes and professional expectations; assessment of the appropriateness of learning standards for each course, based on its position in the program; and the overall alignment of degree or program with desired outcomes, such as tlos. in the final step of this stage, the academic developer met with discipline leader(s) to discuss findings and agree upon a plan of dissemination to the wider discipline group. stage 3: design and development at the beginning of this stage, the academic developer met with each discipline group who discussed and reflected upon findings of the desktop audit and identified potential hammer, s., mcdonald, j. & forbes, m. (2014). three perspectives on a collaborative, whole-of-program process to support curriculum change. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 5(1), 47–62. 53 professional development needs for an upcoming program-level retreat. these meetings also functioned as a review of mapping results since discipline colleagues were able to correct any misrepresentations or misunderstandings. file copies of the review were then sent to each discipline member. following this, the academic developer and the head of program organised a planning and design retreat. these events offer a combination of dissemination, planning and professional development activities of between half a day and two days in duration that are co-facilitated by an academic developer and a faculty leader. sessions are usually structured as follows: 1. facilitators disseminate program outcome review findings, including common, program-wide themes, gaps and course level issues. 2. the review is unpacked for participants, including underpinning learning and teaching principles, such as curriculum alignment, who are invited to critically engage with the process. 3. this is followed by an activity that guides participants through different stages of implementing curriculum change, starting with the redesign of course objectives. these two sessions serve as de facto professional development for participants. 4. the final stage of the planning and design retreat consists of discussion and actionplanning of both course and broader degree level strategies to address alignment gaps and introduce new assessments or units as required. 5. further support required of learning and teaching or other support staff is also noted for actioning. follow-up support might include some other form of tailored professional development, such as short-hands-on workshops of two hours or less designed to address a specific aspect of curriculum change or development. stage 4: implementation during the implementation stage, academic participants worked individually or in discipline groups to implement agreed-upon actions according to a schedule that was developed in planning and design stages. progress was monitored by the program head, and work within disciplines was coordinated by heads of discipline, or appointed discipline leaders. as part of this stage there was follow-up review of individual components of course and program design by the academic developer, including course objectives, assessment, or assessment criteria and rubrics. follow-up review was conducted both on an individual and a group basis as required. stage 5: evaluation in the final incomplete stage, the curriculum change project will be evaluated based on the following dimensions: 1. an anonymous survey to evaluate the effectiveness of support provided by the academic developer and other support team members. 2. evaluation of the project by assessing attainment of stated project aims and deliverables. 3. assessment of its impact on participant practice, six months and one year beyond the end of the project through random sampling of curriculum artefacts such as course specifications, assessment and assessment guides, and learning and teaching activities. 4. assessment of the impact of changes to the curriculum on the student experience based on relevant good practice principles such as transparency of teacher expectations about what is to be learned (biggs, 2003; sadler, 2005), and relevance to graduate outcomes. hammer, s., mcdonald, j. & forbes, m. (2014). three perspectives on a collaborative, whole-of-program process to support curriculum change. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 5(1), 47–62. 54 findings: reflecting on the process the first cluster of themes emerging from reflective data includes positive features of the curriculum change process such as: a disinterested third party view of the curriculum; a cycle of reflection and review; and the collaborative, situated action-learning approach designed by the academic developer to support the change process. a final theme in this cluster related to identified areas for improvement. reflection and review the provision of an external or ‘disinterested’ review of the creative arts curriculum as part of the scoping and review stage was valued by school respondents. the discipline leader’s perspective was reflected in the following comment; the mapping [process] did, however, reveal the importance of having these documents ‘stand alone’ for the eyes of the external reviewer…eg., was it obvious on the face of the course documents how the course was assessed and how this assessment aligned with course and program objectives? this was affirmed by the reflection of the academic developer who referred to the mapping process as a disinterested survey of the curriculum that becomes a de facto ‘test’ of curriculum transparency. however, the head of program identified the iterative cycle of review and reflection connected to the scoping and review stage of the curriculum change support process as a positive feature: staff had ‘hunches’ on courses that were not performing because they had never genuinely been aligned with original goals for the program…these hunches came to the surface as the diagnostics applied by the academic developer delivered a disinterested review linked directly to the overall objectives of renewal. collaborative, situated, action-learning there was also broad agreement about the positive impact of the collaborative, situated, action-learning approach adopted by the academic developer. for example, the head of program commented: because a rapport between the academic developer and staff had already been established…staff perceived the feedback as advice (rather than correction or punishment) to be applied using their own hunches as the bedrock from where the changes needed to occur. for the discipline leader, collaboration was also a key factor in the success of the curriculum change process: in my view, collaboration is the key to dynamic, robust, transparent, and innovative curriculum design, development and alignment. this collaboration must take place both between the ad and the discipline reps, and also between discipline staff. this was key to the success of the entire process…this attitude really helped to manage the change that was occurring in a way which kept everyone focussed on the task at hand, rather than stressing about the fact that ‘things were changing’. in other words, the change was managed extremely well and i feel the collaborative approach was key here. the ‘in-situ’ context of the curriculum change support process was flagged as an explicitly positive feature by school respondents and tacitly by the academic developer. from the discipline leader’s perspective: hammer, s., mcdonald, j. & forbes, m. (2014). three perspectives on a collaborative, whole-of-program process to support curriculum change. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 5(1), 47–62. 55 each discipline area received tailored and individual advice [based on the curriculum mapping]. this was a time saver for academic staff, as they didn’t need to be concerned with advice that wasn’t relevant to them. the head of program noted that support provided accounted for participants’ disciplinary and individual situations: most importantly [for this stage] is the desire by the academic developer to design a process that was not only “fit for purpose” but fit for the varying personalities and discipline specifics in creative arts – [this] was highly effective. the attention to specific context is evident but less explicit in the reflection of the academic developer: my role is to…design learning and action-planning activities for participants to achieve their specified goals and provide specialised advice or information as required. finally, the incorporation of professional development into the support process, so it became a form of action learning, was acknowledged by the discipline leader: this certainly acted as de facto professional development for me. i consider myself to be a very junior academic, one who has no formal training in higher education learning and teaching. many of the concepts that i had encountered purely through my involvement in teaching courses were made much clearer and explicit to me as a result of this process. this view was affirmed by the academic developer’s reflection about the support process, which referred to the provision of hands-on, tailored professional development. areas for improvement the final theme in this cluster related to suggested improvements in the curriculum change process as identified by the academic developer. the first suggested improvement was for support of the implementation phase: …providing collaborative support as part of this process has made me aware of the possible need to have a range of suggested activities or methods for implementing agreed upon changes. the second suggested improvement cited by the academic developer related to the need for a whole-of-institution approach to program design and redevelopment: accreditation and re-accreditation have certain consultation, marketing and basic curricular requirements but the alignment between this largely administrative process and a whole-of-curriculum design/change process is not explicit. this suggests a need for closer integration between this and the curriculum review and design processes supported by learning and teaching services such as the one in this case. the second cluster of themes emerging from the reflection data relate to individual and interpersonal factors that had a positive impact on the process, such as engagement, leadership, and peer mentoring amongst discipline participants. engagement, leadership and peer mentoring according to the head of program, one effect of the change process was staff buy-in and engagement: hammer, s., mcdonald, j. & forbes, m. (2014). three perspectives on a collaborative, whole-of-program process to support curriculum change. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 5(1), 47–62. 56 staff genuinely bought into the program renewal/reaccreditation tasks as directly related to the attraction and retaining of quality students into the program, and this has meant that staff have begun to discuss and action deeper layers of commitment. another positive effect cited by the head of program was the emergence of informal leaders and mentors amongst discipline colleagues within creative arts: in this [close geographical] context, leaders emerge from among staff who might not have otherwise offered their insight…the leaders actioned ideas and proactively brought colleagues together to ask questions and further ‘future thinking’ on the curriculum and how it shapes students for honours, masters and phd studies. from the perspective of the discipline leader, informal leadership was not without its challenges: it was challenging to find myself essentially in a leadership role for the discipline (and having to institute change) without any official recognition of that leadership. i needed to learn ‘on the fly’ how to negotiate from this somewhat nebulous position. at times, this diverted energy away from the main task at hand. despite the challenges inherent in her own leadership position, the discipline leader valued learning from her peers as part of the curriculum change process: it has also been a chance for [my theatre colleague] to act as informal mentor to me in terms of learning and teaching (he would probably be surprised to hear me characterise it as such, but it’s true!) from the reflective data, it is clear that staff engagement, leadership and mentoring at the program and discipline level generated positive outcomes as well as challenges that, on balance, contributed to the success of the curriculum change process. unfinished business emerging from the data is the importance of embedding program evaluation processes at the curriculum design or, as in this case, redesign stage. through consideration of accreditation documentation in developing program evaluation strategies, the interrogation of data from all stakeholders, including students and recent graduate and the establishment of benchmarking activities, curriculum developers will not only ensure ongoing quality appraisal, but also contribute to the cumulative achievement of graduate outcomes leading to enhanced graduate employability. the head of program commented: a key aspect of the reaccreditation process at our institution is the specific detail on how a program will be evaluated throughout the course of its approved period of offer (five years). so one way of ensuring the evaluation is completed for the learning and teaching support [side] is that it is indeed embedded in the reaccreditation documentation. .. the inclusion of data from students who can extrapolate on their experiences, as well as data from course monitoring reports and reviews… will triangulate the perspectives of how effective the changes are and what needs to be tweaked for future offers…. other strategies will involve requesting external bench-markers from similar institutions to visit and review our program on an annual basis. while there was also broad agreement about evaluation requirements, it was also noted that some contributions to the curriculum review process are less visible than others. for example the academic developer commented: hammer, s., mcdonald, j. & forbes, m. (2014). three perspectives on a collaborative, whole-of-program process to support curriculum change. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 5(1), 47–62. 57 academic developers] are often ‘silent partners’ who may have influence or input. however, this often is not discernable to students and can also be difficult to ‘unpick’ from the warp and weft of ongoing learning and teaching enhancement cycles practiced by many teachers in higher education. reflection about this upcoming stage of the curriculum change process highlighted a common perception of the need to incorporate evaluation into ‘business as usual’ processes and, in particular, the requirement to establish some form of external moderation or benchmarking process to assess the holistic quality of the program (stake, 2004). discussion there was broad agreement by participants on the successful features of the curriculum change support process examined in this paper, and research in the field also evidences their efficacy. for example, combining a third party review with a process of group reflection for individual disciplines was a successful element of the curriculum change support process identified by respondents. one possible reason is that this stage arguably acted as a de facto peer review of the curriculum. this has been shown to be an effective means of improving teaching practice (harris, farrell, bell, devlin & james, 2008) through a process of review and reflection. the key difference in this case is the existence of a discipline peer group and external reviewer rather than a dyad of reviewer and reviewed. similarly, the curriculum change process offered multiple opportunities for peer learning and interaction including the implementation phase, where corridor conversations and spontaneous working groups enabled participants to learn from each other. boud’s (1999) documentation of two case studies from his own institution affirms the value of peer learning in groups where, amongst other things, development is seen as an intrinsic part of academic work (p.7). indeed, another successful feature of the curriculum change support process identified by respondents was the opportunity provided for learning in situ (boud & brew, 2013; prebble, hargreaves, leech, naidoo, suddaby & zepke , 2004). this is expressed here by the discipline leader: this entire process also provided focussed opportunities for reflection on learning and teaching practice. these opportunities can be few and far between for busy academics. it also provided insight into the reflections of others which was very valuable…this opens up learning and teaching to scrutiny and transparency, and allows as to adopt a scholarly approach to learning and teaching (boyer, 1990) rather than a reactive, survivalist, or ‘business as usual’ approach. lave and wenger (1991) echo this idea when they argue that learning occurs best for individuals when it occurs within the culture and context of their everyday environment and practice. aspects of the support process that were reported as requiring tightening included the provision of further support for the implementation phase, and the need for a whole-ofinstitution approach to support for quality program enhancement and assurance. whilst the idea of targeting academic development support at the program level was mandated by the institution in this case, there was no thought of how this support would be integrated with relevant institutional procedures to ensure a consistent program quality. as a result, solicitation of academic developer input into program development and redevelopment is voluntary and largely ad hoc. this is significant if one considers that program accreditation is hammer, s., mcdonald, j. & forbes, m. (2014). three perspectives on a collaborative, whole-of-program process to support curriculum change. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 5(1), 47–62. 58 a major element of institutional quality assurance systems in higher education (bernhardt, 2012). staff engagement, leadership and peer mentoring were also successful outcomes that emerged as part of the process. the value of leadership at all levels of the university for leveraging positive change has been explored in detail by scott et al. (2008). in particular, peer mentoring for quality enhancement in the workplace is affirmed by the work of sergiovanni (1998) and his concept of the ‘professional community’, and wenger’s (2004) concept of a ‘community of practice’, where a group of people who share a concern interact regularly to learn how to do it better. discussion of leadership and peer-mentoring outcomes suggest that the process examined here was successful as a vehicle for cultural change (hubball & burt, 2004) notwithstanding that there are facets of the process that require further attention and improvement. for example, the discipline leader’s reflection on her role in the process highlights the need to more carefully consider intra-disciplinary and interpersonal dynamics and how these may impact on desired change: buy-in from all staff at the disciplinary level is absolutely necessary for the collaborative approach to work to its fullest potential. in addition to the potential lack of intra-disciplinary engagement, there was a perception that her status relative to her colleagues may also have had an impact. this experience highlights the unavoidable interpersonal and political nature of any planned change to professional practice. boud and middleton (2003) suggest that negotiating the political is a form of learning in itself (p.198). nevertheless it adds to the inherent complexity of change processes and places demands on leaders of change to demonstrate particular leadership skills (scott et al., 2008). key ideas raised in connection with the evaluation stage included the implementation of a quality-improvement cycle and the issue of impact, particularly as it relates to the effectiveness of academic development work. kirkpatrick (1998) proposes four levels of evaluation, including satisfaction, learning, application and impact. however, according to gray and radloff (2006), academic development work is most often evaluated according to participant satisfaction and learning. they argue that a key question that must be addressed is whether and to what extent student learning has been enhanced as a result of the work of academic development (p.87). in this case a key evaluation question will be more specifically related to the impact of the curriculum development on student learning through teaching and learning activities and environments which foster the development of graduate outcomes. employability outcomes this curriculum change support process has, so far, successfully engaged creative arts academics in achieving transparency of teacher expectations and whole-of-curriculum alignment with desired program outcomes. this focus will provide direction for and greater assurance that employability outcomes will be realised for graduates. it will also ensure that their development is made explicit and transparent for students. this level of transparency will enable students to develop a vocabulary with which they can highlight the demonstration of employability skills to potential employers (allen consulting group, 2010). conclusion the aim of this curriculum change support process was to focus staff effort on aligning the creative arts program with disciplinary tlos. this was to ensure that a key focus of the hammer, s., mcdonald, j. & forbes, m. (2014). three perspectives on a collaborative, whole-of-program process to support curriculum change. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 5(1), 47–62. 59 curriculum, the development of employability skills, was not undermined by a lack of clear focus on the development of key capabilities, or by their remaining a tacit component of a hidden curriculum. the support process has succeeded, to date, in achieving this aim by developing academic capacity in good-practice program and course design. this has been achieved through support activities including situated professional development, and by ensuring genuine ownership of the change process, deeper engagement and reflection by colleagues about their teaching practice, and the development of a shared understanding and clearer, more outcomes-focused, whole-of-program view amongst participants. these outcomes were the result of creating a collaborative space for discipline colleagues that has fostered different levels of leadership, intra and interdisciplinary collaboration, and peer learning. assuring the development of employability skills by learners will require the implementation of evaluation processes and business-as-usual practices to assess the impact of curriculum changes on student outcomes. better integration of design and development processes, as evidenced in this study, with institutional accreditation and re-accreditation procedures will ensure better alignment of course and program curricula with specific, desired program learning outcomes, such as employability skills. hammer, s., mcdonald, j. & forbes, m. 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(2005). understanding by design: professional development workbook. alexandria va: association for supervision and curriculum development. hammer, s., mcdonald, j. & forbes, m. (2014). three perspectives on a collaborative, whole-of-program process to support curriculum change. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 5(1), 47–62. 62 http://www.eac2007.qut.edu.au/proceedings_ebook.pdf http://www.educationcounts.govt.nz/publications/tertiary_education/5519 http://www0.health.nsw.gov.au/resources/quality/knowledgemgt/pdf/doughnut.pdf abstract 1487_formatting (hart)r1_1 hart, j.l. and bone, e.k. (2022). authenticity ahead of interdisciplinarity – a scoping review of student experiences in interdisciplinary science projects. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 13(1), 109-126 109 the journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability issn: 1838-3815 (online) journal homepage: https://ojs.deakin.edu.au/index.php/jtlge/ authenticity ahead of interdisciplinarity – a scoping review of student experiences in interdisciplinary science projects joanne l. hart1 and elisa k. bone2 corresponding author: joanne hart (joanne.hart@sydney.edu.au) 1 school of medicine, university of sydney, australia 2 melbourne centre for the study of higher education, the university of melbourne, australia abstract interdisciplinary projects are reported to facilitate the development of both disciplinary and generic skills. they vary in their design and implementation, but the effectiveness of different project models has not been studied. the aim of this study was to determine student satisfaction, engagement with learning and development of employability skills across interdisciplinary projects with different delivery models. this scoping review appraises interdisciplinary projects implemented in science-based undergraduate degree programs. projects with varying models of delivery, interdisciplinarity, authenticity and external partner involvement were examined, and the reported student learning and satisfaction ratings compared. descriptive statistics and cross tabulation using fisher’s exact test were used to analyse the data. the interdisciplinary project model had little effect on engagement with learning, but student satisfaction improved if the project task was rated as authentic (p<0.05). improved learning was reported in about half of the projects reviewed. improved employability was reported in projects where students used discipline-based skills to provide a consultancy (p<0.05), and those where an external partner was involved (p<0.05). the interdisciplinary project model did not affect disciplinary or employability skill development, apart from interdisciplinary competence, which was significantly improved in a truly interdisciplinary project (p<0.01). interpersonal skill development was significantly improved where projects had integrated rather than sequential tasks (p<0.05). overall, interdisciplinary projects that were authentic and/or involved an external partner generated better student satisfaction and real-world experience. these results inform the future design of interdisciplinary project-based learning tasks and encourage involvement of external partners in project design and delivery. keywords employability, project-based learning, interdisciplinary competence, curriculum design introduction graduate employability is an important outcome of any degree, and in australia graduates of general science and maths degrees have relatively low rates of full-time employment upon graduation (61%) (australian government, 2021). indeed, less than 18% of science graduates in 2018 were employed in a field related to their degree (palmer et al., 2018) and more recent data show hart, j.l. and bone, e.k. (2022). authenticity ahead of interdisciplinarity – a scoping review of student experiences in interdisciplinary science projects. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 13(1), 109-126 110 that around half of all science graduates felt their skills weren’t sufficiently utilised in their current role, and nearly half (41%) continued in further full-time education (australian government, 2021). employability in stem (science, technology, engineering and maths) disciplines requires more than discipline-based knowledge, given that workplace settings typically require graduates to show skills in problem-solving, collaboration and communication, and employers value, and actively seek, these transferable skills in graduates (mcgunagle & zizka, 2020). thus, it remains critical for science graduates to develop skills beyond disciplinary knowledge to improve their employability immediately after graduation. across higher education it is increasingly common to see project-based learning developed and implemented (guo et al., 2020), both through local curriculum case studies as well as through broader strategic developments at the institutional level. a significant driver for universities to implement project-based learning is the opportunity to develop generic employability skills alongside the application of discipline knowledge. project-based learning is related to inquiry-based learning, and actively engages students in the process of investigating a problem (aditomo et al., 2013). driven by a question or problem, project-related activities result in a product or artefact that addresses that question or problem (blumenfeld et al., 1991), often in the form of a written report. projects may be part of a capstone unit of study, where students integrate and employ the disciplinary content they learnt during their study program, or they can be broader and more interdisciplinary, with a focus on developing generic skills (helle et al., 2006). these projects often require students to develop and practice their research skills in finding, collating, and disseminating information, as well as their critical thinking and problem-solving skills, to develop solutions to complex problems in a process of sustained inquiry. completing project-based learning in teams can also develop and hone students’ skills in project planning and management, collaboration, and teamwork (acar & tuncdogan, 2019; alvarez-bell et al., 2017; lewis et al., 2019). interdisciplinary project-based learning is used as a further advance on project-based learning, requiring interaction between students from a variety of discipline backgrounds and, ideally, merging ideas and perspectives on critical problems. research questions used in interdisciplinary project-based learning are authentic, relating to real-world and complex problems. this can improve students’ motivation to engage with the task, since they are able to situate their work within both their personal experiences, and the context of contemporary research in the discipline (blumenfeld et al., 1991; spronken-smith & walker, 2010; zafra-gómez et al., 2015). moreover, contemporary problems need interdisciplinary solutions, so interdisciplinary project-based learning is used to develop both discipline and employability skills. despite these predictions of the wide-ranging benefits of this type of learning, however, there is a paucity of firm evidence on the efficacy and reliability of interdisciplinary project-based learning in delivering the promised outcomes: increased development of broad, transferable skills that may enhance students’ future employability. nor is there robust evidence that this type of learning activity is useful for improving learning, engagement, or overall satisfaction amongst the student body. the aim of this study was to determine and compare student overall satisfaction, engagement with learning and development of employability skills with different delivery models of interdisciplinary student projects delivered in undergraduate science-based degrees. this study is a scoping review that appraises the effectiveness of interdisciplinary project-based learning and compares models for its delivery. findings will assist in informing the future development and implementation of interdisciplinary project-based learning to facilitate the development of more skilled and employable science graduates. methods this study is a scoping review of the literature on interdisciplinary projects offered in science-based undergraduate degree programs. outcomes sought were reports of improvements in overall hart, j.l. and bone, e.k. (2022). authenticity ahead of interdisciplinarity – a scoping review of student experiences in interdisciplinary science projects. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 13(1), 109-126 111 satisfaction, engagement with learning, and employability skill development where interdisciplinary project-based learning was delivered. literature search strategy for this review, a+ education, ebsco education, eric and proquest databases were searched using the terms: science (or math*, biology, chemistry, physics, psychology, geology) and project-based learning (or student projects, capstone projects, projects) and interdisciplinary (or multidisciplinary, cross disciplinary, trans-disciplinary) and undergraduate (or higher education, post-secondary, college). a prisma diagram (page et al., 2021) showing the record identification, screening eligibility and inclusion process is shown in figure 1. the search was restricted to peerreviewed journal articles published in english from 2010 to 2021. figure 1. prisma flow diagram showing the record identification, screening, eligibility, and inclusion of studies for the analysis. the literature search was carried out independently by each co-author and a consensus reached on the inclusion list. included articles described an undergraduate project-based learning task, which involved students enrolled in a science-based degree program (including science, engineering, biomedical science and computer science) from various sub-disciplines, or a project-based learning experience with the addition of a specific interdisciplinary task. included articles reported on student satisfaction outcomes from the project task; those that did not include a measure of student satisfaction, whether quantitative or qualitative were excluded. contemporary student satisfaction outcomes mirror customer satisfaction ratings (clemes et al., 2008) and include teaching quality and effectiveness leading to improved engagement, learning, and employability. studies reporting on records identified from: databases (n = 946 ) other sources ( n = 18 ) sc re en in g in cl ud ed el ig ib ili ty id en tif ic at io n records removed before screening: duplicate records removed (n = 169 ) records screened (n = 795) records excluded (n = 619) records assessed for eligibility (n = 176) records excluded (n = 123) • not undergraduate science degree • not enough detail on required outcomes • not interdisciplinary project • describes class design/teaching resource • not project-based learning studies included in the analysis (n = 53 ) hart, j.l. and bone, e.k. (2022). authenticity ahead of interdisciplinarity – a scoping review of student experiences in interdisciplinary science projects. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 13(1), 109-126 112 improvements in any of: overall satisfaction; engagement; employability; learning (depth or breadth); interpersonal skills, or a real-world experience of the work, were included. following exclusion of duplicates, many further records were excluded as they did not provide enough detail of the outcomes sought in this review. there were many descriptive case studies that explained a novel, interesting course but did not evaluate the student outcomes adequately. some records were excluded as their student projects were not ‘interdisciplinary’ according to our definitions, usually because they did not enrol students from multiple disciplines into the project. data were extracted by both authors independently and cross-checked for consistency. background data collected from the records included country of study, study methodology, type of degree program and year level, the disciplines involved in the project, cross-faculty partners, the length of project, student group sizes and assessment task type. project category definitions projects were assigned categories in four domains: interdisciplinarity breadth; interdisciplinary depth; authenticity of the project task, and mode of delivery of the project. these categories are defined below. interdisciplinarity information on the type of interdisciplinary project work was collected by categorising each described project by interdisciplinary width and depth (jantsch, 1970). interdisciplinary width is determined by the mix of student disciplines involved in the project. it was considered in three categories (hart, 2019): ● narrow: within a single discipline, or combining closely related disciplines (e.g., biochemistry and molecular biology). ● medium: within the same faculty (e.g., biology and mathematics). ● wide: cross-faculty (e.g., chemistry and law). interdisciplinary depth was determined by the project task, not by student discipline background (hart, 2019). projects were assigned to one of two categories: ● sequential tasks: where tasks are completed separately by each disciplinary student group, with one discipline group handing over project tasks to another sequentially. this results in each disciplinary group essentially doing their own discipline work and little integration of discipline skills. ● integrated tasks: where the student teams were required to work together and integrate their disciplinary skills and knowledge to undertake the project. project authenticity project authenticity was considered by assessing the project tasks as either contrived, where they were manufactured by the academic staff, or authentic, where students undertook a project with tasks and standards typically found in the world of work (villarroel et al., 2018), generating genuine and usable outcomes one would expect from a real-life project. in practice, this category included authentic problems proposed by clients from industry, government or community groups and other entities at the university (beier et al., 2019) or authentic, open-ended, client-based projects (rees lewis et al., 2019). hart, j.l. and bone, e.k. (2022). authenticity ahead of interdisciplinarity – a scoping review of student experiences in interdisciplinary science projects. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 13(1), 109-126 113 mode of project delivery project delivery modes were defined across four categories: ● multi-disciplinary: projects combined students from multiple, but within faculty disciplines (e.g., multiple science disciplines). ● cross-faculty; projects combined students from multiple disciplines from more than one faculty (e.g., science and business or humanities). ● consultancies: where students acted as discipline-based consultants. consultancy-style projects could be cross-disciplinary, client-based projects. this is also known as authentic client-based or client-oriented project-based learning in the literature (mason, 2008; shanahan et al., 2019). ● external partnerships: projects involving an external partner (e.g., industry, government, or community group). this was not mutually exclusive from the other project modes as any of the other modes may have had an external partner. definitions of the student satisfaction outcomes assessed from each included article, data on project interdisciplinarity, authenticity, and mode of delivery were extracted, along with student satisfaction measures. student satisfaction outcomes extracted included overall satisfaction, where students or academic staff reported an improvement in satisfaction, engagement with learning or employability skills development due to completing the interdisciplinary project-based learning tasks. the students’ perception of the real-world nature of the tasks was also recorded. an online form was used as a template to extract the data to a spreadsheet. data were extracted by two assessors, cross checked, then agreed by consultation and consensus. publication quality assessment publication quality assessment was made for each included paper, by two assessors independently and cross-checked for consistency. this was based upon a method for critically appraising qualitative studies (long & godfrey, 2004) and involved assigning a rating of 1 (poor) to 5 (excellent) on the following 12 items: details of phenomenon studied; theoretical context; details and appropriateness of setting: sample selection; clarity of outcome criteria; ethics, data collection; data analysis; data presentation; potential researcher bias; policy and practice implications, and details of limitations. data analysis the data collected were heterogeneous and a standard meta-analysis was not feasible. descriptive statistics were used to summarise the data. not all included articles reported on all satisfaction measures; therefore, o data are shown as the proportion of studies reporting an improved outcome within each group (e.g., project mode, interdisciplinarity, presence of an external partner and authenticity). data were analysed by cross-tabulation and by using fisher’s exact test to compare results for each outcome item across project groups. a value of p<0.05 was accepted as statistically significant. all data analysis was conducted using spss version 28. results background information on the included studies a list of the included data can be found in supplementary data 1. the included studies came from a variety of geographic regions, the majority (74%) from north america (see supplementary data 1). all studies included undergraduate bachelor of science (59%) and bachelor of engineering degrees (22%), or variations (e.g., bachelor of computer science (12%) or earth, environmental or hart, j.l. and bone, e.k. (2022). authenticity ahead of interdisciplinarity – a scoping review of student experiences in interdisciplinary science projects. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 13(1), 109-126 114 agricultural science (8%)). many studies did not state the student year level involved in the projects (24%), although studies that assessed interdisciplinary projects in each of the four undergraduate years were included and some studies examined mixed year levels (27%). most projects ran for a semester (65%), some as intensive units between semesters or over summer (18%), some ran over multiple years (10%), others varied in duration from one week to many months (8%). student project group sizes varied and were not always reported (33%). three to five students per group (39%) was the most common group size, with a minimum group size of two students and a maximum of 20 students per group. some studies reported that faculty members or senior student mentors were also part of the groups. the science disciplines involved in project units were broad, with engineering disciplines making up most studies (23%), followed by computer science and information technology (12%), mathematics and statistics (12%) and biology (11%). a variety of scientific disciplines made up the remainder of included studies (see supplementary data 2). projects running across faculties involved a range of faculty partners, with humanities disciplines the most common collaborator (47%) followed by business (24%). (see supplementary data 3). about half (47%) had no listed cross-faculty partner, and one did not state who their cross-faculty partner was. the data included were heterogeneous regarding the study type and the mode of project unit offering. most of the reports were descriptive case studies (82%), with some intentional project evaluation studies (14%) and education research papers (4%). five of the 53 studies (10%) included a specifically designed intervention. each included paper was subjected to a quality assessment (long & godfrey, 2004), which was rated as fair to good over the 12 domains (mean 31.9, sd 8.8, range 12–50, possible maximum of 60; supplementary data 4). distribution of projects across domains projects were assigned categories within the four domains of: 1. interdisciplinary breadth; 2. interdisciplinary depth; 3. authenticity of the project task, and 4. mode of delivery of the project task. external partners were involved in projects across all the other domains. the distribution of the projects by these domains and categories is listed in table 1. table 1: distribution of the projects by rating of interdisciplinary width and depth, authenticity, and mode of delivery domain sub-group n (%) n (%) with external partner interdisciplinary width narrow (involves only sub-disciplines) 13(25) 6(11) medium (within faculty) 15(28) 1(2) wide (cross-faculty) 25(47) 7(13) interdisciplinary depth sequential tasks 17(32) 4(8) integrated tasks 36(68) 10(19) authenticity contrived 4(8) 0(0) authentic 49(92) 14(26) mode of delivery multidisciplinary, cross-faculty project 24(45) 5(9) multidisciplinary project 24(45) 4(8) consultancy type project 5(9) 4(8) hart, j.l. and bone, e.k. (2022). authenticity ahead of interdisciplinarity – a scoping review of student experiences in interdisciplinary science projects. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 13(1), 109-126 115 employability skills developed by interdisciplinary projects a range of employability skills were reported to be developed by the interdisciplinary project offerings examined in this study, in line with previous reports (guo et al., 2020; hart, 2019). additional skills reported to be developed by interdisciplinary projects included career planning, reflective practice, research skills, entrepreneurship, social responsibility, and civic engagement. table 2: employability skills reported to be developed across studies selected for analysis skill n % disciplinary expertise 41 77 communication skills 45 85 teamwork 46 87 interdisciplinary competence 32 60 critical thinking and problem solving 31 58 interpersonal competence 14 26 information and digital literacy 9 17 leadership and management skills 8 16 lifelong learning 4 8 work ethic or motivation 9 18 inventiveness or creativity 11 22 there was little effect of project delivery mode on the reported improvement in skills development, except for interdisciplinary competence, which was not reported in any of the consultancy-type projects (χ2=9.4, p<0.01, figure 2d). there was no effect of project delivery mode on development of interpersonal skills (figure 2f). however, there was an effect of interdisciplinary depth as articles reported a significantly higher improvement in interpersonal skills where projects had integrated tasks (62%) rather than sequential tasks (29%, χ2=4.7, p<0.05) and where projects were authentic (100%) compared to contrived projects (0%, χ2=4.5, p<0.05). hart, j.l. and bone, e.k. (2022). authenticity ahead of interdisciplinarity – a scoping review of student experiences in interdisciplinary science projects. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 13(1), 109-126 116 figure 2. employability skill development reported by project delivery mode (**p<0.01, fisher’s exact test). improved overall student satisfaction overall student satisfaction was reported to be improved by the project-based learning in 51% of the articles included. there was no significant effect of project delivery mode on overall satisfaction improvements, though consultancy-style projects were more likely to report improved satisfaction (83%, figure 3a). there was no effect of interdisciplinary depth (sequential vs integrated project tasks) on the reporting of improved overall satisfaction. hart, j.l. and bone, e.k. (2022). authenticity ahead of interdisciplinarity – a scoping review of student experiences in interdisciplinary science projects. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 13(1), 109-126 117 improved engagement with learning student engagement was reported to be improved by project-based learning in 53% of the articles included. there was no effect of project delivery mode or interdisciplinarity on the reporting of improved engagement. improved learning of skills was reported in 45% of the articles included, and in 69% of the articles where projects involved an external partner. regarding skills development, disciplinary skill gains were reported with all types of projects (78–100%, figure 2a). student skills in interdisciplinary competence were reported to be developed significantly more often when the project offering was cross-faculty or multidisciplinary (p<0.01, figure 2d). improved employability only 29% of the articles reported a perceived increase in employability due to the project. this was significantly higher with the consultancy-type projects (67%, p<0.05, figure 3b). students reported that projects involving external partners significantly improved employability (p<0.05, fisher’s exact test). effect of project mode of delivery just under half the projects (45%) were delivered in multidisciplinary mode, and the other half had cross-faculty partners. notably, the inclusion of a cross-faculty partner had little effect on reported student discipline or employability skill development (figure 2) or any of the satisfaction, engagement with learning, or employability outcomes (figure 3). consultancy-type projects were involved in only 10% of the included projects and were confined to maths and engineering majors. all had real clients (anderson et al., 2011; bramhall & short, 2014; diamond et al., 2011; sanft & ziegler-graham, 2018), except for one where there were client scenarios (cline et al., 2020). whilst the number of studies that involved consultancy-type projects was lower, these were associated with higher overall satisfaction and perceived employability gains (figure 3). further, all consultancytype projects were perceived to be more likely to deliver a real-world experience. however, consultancy-type projects did not report the development of interdisciplinary competence skills. hart, j.l. and bone, e.k. (2022). authenticity ahead of interdisciplinarity – a scoping review of student experiences in interdisciplinary science projects. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 13(1), 109-126 118 figure 3. student satisfaction outcomes reported by project delivery mode (*p<0.05, fisher’s exact test). hart, j.l. and bone, e.k. (2022). authenticity ahead of interdisciplinarity – a scoping review of student experiences in interdisciplinary science projects. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 13(1), 109-126 119 involvement of external partners one quarter (26%) of the projects included in the review had an external partner. these varied from industry partners (anderson et al., 2011; bramhall & short, 2014; cheng et al., 2013; corno & de russis, 2017; heikkinen & isomottonen, 2015; pellegrini & jansen, 2013; sanft & ziegler-graham, 2018; vicente et al., 2018), community partners (clark et al., 2013; dunbar et al., 2013; hun bok et al., 2017; warr pedersen et al., 2017), academic partners (anderson et al., 2011; duncan et al., 2010; warr pedersen et al., 2017) and partners in entrepreneurship (anderson et al., 2011). students reported that projects involving external partners improved their overall satisfaction and delivered a real-world experience (figure 4), as well as significantly improved their perceived employability (p<0.05, fisher’s exact test). project authenticity most articles included reported projects that were authentic, with only four being classified as having contrived project tasks (ben youssef & berry, 2012; everingham et al., 2013; sangster et al., 2016; talafian h, 2019). around half (55%) of the articles reviewed reported that students perceived the project tasks as providing a real-world experience, which increased to 100% in consultancy-type projects. projects delivering authentic project work reported higher overall satisfaction and sense of real-world experience (figure 4). figure 4 reports of improvements in overall satisfaction (a, c;, reports of real-world experience (b, d) where projects included an external partner (a, b); or were rated as authentic (c, d) (*p<0.05, fisher’s exact test). no external partner + external partner 0 20 40 60 80 100 r ep or te d im pr ov em en t ( % ) overall satisfactiona b contrived authentic 0 20 40 60 80 100 r ep or te d im pr ov em en t ( % ) overall satisfaction * no external partner + external partner 0 20 40 60 80 100 r ep or te d im pr ov em en t ( % ) real world experience * contrived authentic 0 20 40 60 80 100 r ep o rt ed im p ro ve m en t (% ) real world experiencec d hart, j.l. and bone, e.k. (2022). authenticity ahead of interdisciplinarity – a scoping review of student experiences in interdisciplinary science projects. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 13(1), 109-126 120 discussion the broad findings of this study show that interdisciplinary projects that are authentic and involve an external partner generate better overall student satisfaction and development of employability skills. further, this effect is independent of the type of interdisciplinarity used in the project design. the review shows that interdisciplinary projects are widely used, especially across engineering and computer science degrees. in science degrees, maths and statistics disciplines dominate with less interdisciplinary projects offered involving life sciences. the most common cross-faculty partners were from the humanities and business faculties. the idea that we need interdisciplinary approaches to solve ‘wicked’ problems has encouraged the widespread development of interdisciplinary project work and many tertiary institutions have incorporated interdisciplinary project-based learning as part of their offering. in addition, this type of learning is thought to promote development of generic, employability skills and aid the application of discipline knowledge (cross & congreve, 2021; kłeczek et al., 2020). however, the actual effectiveness of interdisciplinary project-based learning to fulfil these aims is not well-known. this study shows that interdisciplinary width or depth had little effect on reports of overall student satisfaction, engagement with learning, or development of employability skills. this implies that the nature of the interdisciplinarity is not critical, but that other factors are more important to consider when developing project-based learning. effective delivery modes project delivery mode was significant where the projects were consultancy-style offerings. consultancy-type projects were involved in only 10% of the included projects and were confined to maths and engineering majors. whilst the number of studies that involved consultancy-type projects was lower, these were associated with higher overall satisfaction, perceived employability, and realworld experience. conversely, these projects were least associated with development of interdisciplinary competence skills. this is not surprising as the focus for these projects is to use the discipline-based skills in a work environment and other employability skills (e.g., communication skills) would be needed over interdisciplinary competence. similarly, student skills in interdisciplinary competence were found to be significantly better developed when the project offering was cross-faculty or multidisciplinary, since the mix of disciplines involved in the project would highlight this. the two factors that were associated with improvements in overall student satisfaction, engagement with learning or development of employability skills were the perceived authenticity of the project work and the inclusion of external partners. authenticity most projects (92%) reviewed were rated as authentic project work, with only four delivering contrived project scenarios (ben youssef & berry, 2012; everingham et al., 2013; sangster et al., 2016; talafian h, 2019), which limited the viability of further analyses. authentic projects include tasks and performance standards found in the real world, and authentic assessment of these tasks has been shown to have a positive impact on abilities related to employability (villarroel et al., 2018). there are several aspects of authenticity that are applicable to project-based learning tasks. students may see projects tasks as authentic if they involve personally meaningful work, and this personal connection can increase their intrinsic motivation to complete the task and invest extra effort (warr & west, 2020). however, this review did not find an association between engagement in learning and projects rated as authentic. indeed, there were no variables that improved engagement with learning, which may relate to how these aspects were reported in the included literature. a second aspect of authenticity in learning relates to the real world context of the problem being studied and the impacts on the broader community (shaffer & resnick, 1999). here we see a connection as the review data do indicate that including an external partner or embarking on an authentic rated project is associated with a real-world experience. a final aspect of authentic hart, j.l. and bone, e.k. (2022). authenticity ahead of interdisciplinarity – a scoping review of student experiences in interdisciplinary science projects. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 13(1), 109-126 121 learning is that which provides opportunities for students to work in their disciplines (shaffer & resnick, 1999) and data from this review showing increased satisfaction with consultancy-type projects in the included literature concur with the prediction that this type of learning is beneficial to students. about a quarter of the projects included had an external partner. these varied from industry partners (anderson et al., 2011; bramhall & short, 2014; cheng et al., 2013; corno & de russis, 2017; heikkinen & isomottonen, 2015; pellegrini & jansen, 2013; sanft & ziegler-graham, 2018; vicente et al., 2018), community partners (clark et al., 2013; dexter, 2021; dunbar et al., 2013; hun bok et al., 2017; warr pedersen et al., 2017), academic partners (anderson et al., 2011; duncan et al., 2010; warr pedersen et al., 2017) and partners in entrepreneurship (anderson et al., 2011). this review showed the involvement of an external partner in projects significantly improved the perceived gains in employability skills by students. previous studies have shown that inclusion of an external partner has been shown to improve the project experience for students, by enabling work on real world problems and exposure to the work environment, including pathways to employment (hayes & cejnar, 2020; kricsfalusy et al., 2018; marcketti & karpova, 2014). additionally, the external partners gain resources towards solving a problem and to contribute to the education of the future workforce (gruenther et al., 2009; zanko et al., 2011). furthermore, it is worth noting that the type of external partner was not important for the gains reported, and external partners should be sourced from a range of options including research, industry, community, and government. developing interdisciplinary project-based learning one difficulty faced by those seeking to develop interdisciplinary project-based learning in their curriculum is the implicit differences in disciplinary approaches to knowledge, learning and pedagogy. these difference in epistemologies and signature pedagogies complicate both the process of designing, developing, and implementing interdisciplinary projects (amador & miles, 2016; bacon et al., 2011) and the facilitation of effective teamwork across groups of students with diverse academic backgrounds (bacon et al., 2011; godemann, 2008). sustainable facilitation of interdisciplinary project-based learning across the science curricula will require consideration of these cross-disciplinary differences in approach and support for the increased investment in time, resources and capacity building required of such learning models. further development and research on the best ways to achieve these outcomes is needed; indeed, the current findings that the interdisciplinary aspects of these project offerings are not important may be due to a lack of teaching and learning insight into the pedagogical differences across disciplines, hindering the implementation of a true interdisciplinary experience. the adoption of interdisciplinary projects within the science higher education curriculum, and their effective implementation may be challenging in several ways, some of which were articulated in papers examined as part of this review. for example, course and subject design is often heavily influenced by external bodies, and requirements for alignment of students’ learning objectives to accreditation standards may restrict opportunities for project models that cross disciplines, schools, or faculties (ben youssef & berry, 2012). effective facilitation of project-based learning is more common, and thus potentially more readily achievable, with smaller student cohorts (helle et al., 2006), such that implementing these types of curricula in large classes can be difficult in terms of the logistics, administration, staffing, and technical support required (adair & jaeger, 2014; bennie et al., 2018). this remains a significant challenge to the integration of project-based learning early in the higher education curriculum, when cohorts are commonly large. however, some studies also reported that the benefits of implementing interdisciplinary projects were worth the substantial time investment (amador & miles, 2016) and provided opportunities to build shared understanding and rapport amongst both faculty and students (anderson et al., 2011). for institutions that prioritise their ability to develop well-rounded graduates with good employment outcomes it may, hart, j.l. and bone, e.k. (2022). authenticity ahead of interdisciplinarity – a scoping review of student experiences in interdisciplinary science projects. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 13(1), 109-126 122 therefore, be worth investing in strategic initiatives to develop authentic, project-based learning opportunities across the curriculum. limitations in line with findings of previous project-based learning reviews, the primary data in this field are limited to narrative course descriptions and anecdotal evaluations (guo et al., 2020; hart, 2019; helle et al., 2006). most projects are designed with a research framework and align with a projectbased learning description (blumenfeld et al., 1991), but the literature consists largely of course descriptions rather than educational research. evaluations described were often anecdotal with little hard evidence to substantiate the claims, and the pedagogical framework was poorly articulated in many cases (guo et al., 2020; hart, 2019; helle et al., 2006). the heterogenous nature of the articles included in the review, which examined a diverse range of course-specific goals and article-specific foci, made the assessment complicated. in most cases the implementation of the course was described well, though practice implications and challenges encountered were not always reported, nor solutions to them advised. most articles reported perceived gains in learning or skills rather than objectively assessing them. this is difficult for some outcomes assessed; for example, objective tests for ‘employability’ don’t exist and longitudinal studies would be needed to establish the effect of undergraduate project-based learning tasks on graduate employability. of the quality domains appraised, the ethics and potential researcher bias rated least robust. the included studies would require human research ethics committee review in australia (nhmrc, 2018) but most case studies did not mention having ethics committee review. this may mean the studies included were not rigorous in their approach to conflict of interest, or coercion where academic staff are using their own students as research subjects. data collection, analysis and presentation were also rated below average, and this reflects the case study style of the included data (see supplementary data 4). this study is a scoping review of outcomes from heterogeneous data sources, and many outcomes are based upon perceptions rather than hard evidence, thus they is subjective and susceptible to bias. to reduce bias, two reviewers were used, there were clear inclusion and exclusion criteria and a structured data extraction form, to enforce clear extraction of the information to construct the dataset. not all reports on interdisciplinary project work included focussed on all student satisfaction outcomes reported in this study, though they all contained at least one of the measures, as per the inclusion criteria. thus, this study can only report on what the primary studies report. another area that needs to be noted is publication bias, as negative studies are unlikely to be published and not all academic staff are motivated enough to publish positive findings from their practice, so the studies included here are likely published by a dedicated sub-set of academics. future directions the use of project-based learning as a means of developing employability skills is widespread, but there are few studies that evaluate these offerings effectively or interrogate whether interdisciplinarity itself is important in these projects, or being appropriately implemented. there has been little investigation of best practice for the mode of delivery of project-based learning, especially in science degree programs. carefully designed evaluations from the perspective of all stakeholders; the students, academic staff, employer groups and external partner groups are required to further investigate the efficacy of project-based learning for developing employability skills. objective measures of employability skills need to be developed and implemented to assist this. the role of teaching quality and effectiveness leading to improved engagement, learning and overall satisfaction also needs to be studied. longitudinal studies are required to investigate the impact of an undergraduate project-based learning experiences on future employability. hart, j.l. and bone, e.k. (2022). authenticity ahead of interdisciplinarity – a scoping review of student experiences in interdisciplinary science projects. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 13(1), 109-126 123 conclusions this review shows that interdisciplinary projects are widely used to promote development of employability skills. many projects involved disciplines within the same faculty, and the most common cross-faculty partners were from the humanities and business faculties. the interdisciplinary nature of project offerings had little effect on reports of improvements in any of the employability skills, except for interdisciplinary competence, which was the same regardless of interdisciplinary width, but absent in discipline-based consultancy projects. similarly, the interdisciplinarity of project offerings had no effect on satisfaction outcomes. this study indicates that focussing on developing authentic project-based learning experiences, and involving an external partner (industry, educational, community, government), is well-received by students and contributes significantly to their satisfaction and perceived employability. the findings of this study should inform the practice of development and implementation of interdisciplinary project-based learning. consideration of the goals of interdisciplinary project-based learning related to promoting development of more skilled and employable graduates needs to be undertaken, as well as further robust research into the effectiveness of interdisciplinary project-based learning. references acar, o. a., & tuncdogan, a. 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(2011). professional learning in the business curriculum: engaging industry, academics and students. asian social science, 7(4), 61-68. https://doi.org/http://dx.doi.org/10.5539/ass.v7n4p61 1498 julien (formatting) final julien, b.l. et al. (2023). a career research module promotes career exploration and understanding of the labour market and transferable skills. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 14(1), 31-52. 31 the journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability issn: 1838-3815 (online) journal homepage: https://ojs.deakin.edu.au/index.php/jtlge/ a career research module promotes career exploration and understanding of the labour market and transferable skills brianna l. julien1, louise lexis1, jarrod church1 corresponding author: brianna julien (b.julien@latrobe.edu.au) 1 department of physiology anatomy and microbiology, school of life sciences, la trobe university, melbourne, victoria, australia abstract students, the public, and government expect university graduates to find meaningful employment and contribute to the economic and social prosperity of society. universities have a responsibility to support students to develop their career management skills. an assessed career research module was embedded into a second-year human physiology subject taken by students in health-science related undergraduate stem degrees. students conducted research on the logistics of entering their preferred career, the australian labour market for this career, and the transferable skills and personal attributes required. they communicated their learnings in a video and completed reflection activities comprised of likert-scale and open-ended questions. the aims of this study were to determine students’: 1) ability to research the logistics of entering their preferred career and the labour market; 2) perceptions of the most important skills and attributes for their preferred career, and development of these; 3) perceptions of module activities and career planning, and perceived career management skills. to address the aims of the study, 265 student videos and reflection activities were analysed. results indicate that the module supported students in gaining career management skills that were a focus of the curriculum. most students identified their current university course as the main way they were developing important skills and attributes, with their course, volunteering and further study the main ways they planned to continue skill and attribute development. in conclusion, a career research module is an effective career development tool for students in a range of undergraduate courses. keywords employability, stem education, health education, career development learning, higher education, career exploration introduction students, the public, and government expect university graduates to find meaningful employment and to contribute to economic and social prosperity. the world of work has changed significantly due to megatrends including technological innovation, globalisation, and ageing populations (oecd, 2019). the covid-19 pandemic has caused an economic downturn which will increase the difficulty young people face when transitioning into employment, potentially damaging the perceived relationships between educational success and labour market outcomes and increasing the need for effective career guidance (mann et al., 2020). successful navigation of the changing employment landscape will julien, b.l. et al. (2023). a career research module promotes career exploration and understanding of the labour market and transferable skills. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 14(1), 31-52. 32 require well-developed employability skills, including career management skills (bridgstock, 2009). students cannot be expected to develop these skills alone – the australian government’s national priorities and industry linkage fund (2020b) makes clear the expectation that universities will work with industry to produce job ready graduates with transferable skills, discipline-specific skills and knowledge, and the ability to find and maintain work throughout their careers. becoming a job ready graduate requires awareness of the worlds-of-work so students can align their interests and energies toward appropriate career choices (mcilveen et al., 2011). a scoping review by murray et al. (2020) of employability initiatives incorporated into undergraduate degree courses found work-based placements were most common and project-based industry collaboration had the highest student and employer satisfaction. these initiatives expose students to real-world scenarios and support professional network development; they are also labour intensive to administer and sustain and it is challenging to source placements for courses that lead to a wide range of jobs. other successful, and potentially more scalable, initiatives identified were practice-based elearning, mentoring programs, and building graduate attributes through integrated curriculum, though these lack the tangible connection to the real world provided by placements and industry collaborations. evidence shows that many young people are confused about what they need to do to achieve their career goals, particularly students from disadvantaged backgrounds (oecd, 2019). research has cast doubt on the accuracy of students’ expectations and knowledge about their education-employment pathways, even once these pathways have been embarked upon (hemsley-brown, 2011). evidence suggests that many students have a limited or inaccurate conception of their available career choices (lock & kelly, 2020). within non-specialist degrees, many students assume that upon graduation they will be able to be employed in the profession for which the degree is named, sometimes ignorant of the fact that such employment can require postgraduate qualifications with competitive entry (amiet et al., 2021; sethi et al., 2018). lack of clarity surrounding career paths can have a detrimental effect on student engagement and performance, and there is ample evidence to suggest that if students can develop a sense of certainty about their career path, they will be more engaged in their studies and achieve better outcomes (bridgstock, 2009; graunke & woosley, 2005). the diverse range of career paths available to science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (stem) graduates introduces additional complexity for students, and for academic and professional staff providing career support to students. frameworks identified to support stem students to explore, enter, and persist in stem careers all include the important step of increasing overall knowledge of the stem career landscape (rottinghaus et al., 2018). accurate understanding of labour market conditions may help students make suitable decisions about their future education but evidence suggests that young people have little understanding of labour market demands (oecd, 2017). universities can help students to prepare for the difficult labour markets they will face by supporting them to develop, or deploy, greater agency in managing the transition from education to employment (baluku et al., 2021). baluku et al. (2021) emphasise the importance of facilitating the growth of students’ psychological capital during their university studies, that is, ‘the resources that depict a positive mindset that is necessary to succeed in career-related activities’ (p. 57). development of psychological capital has positive short-term impact on engagement in study (and may translate into better grades) as well as long-term benefits in career satisfaction and preparation for the transition to work (baluku et al., 2021). career management skills are also fundamental to employability because they allow people to ‘proactively navigate the world of work and successfully manage the career building process’ (bridgstock, 2009, p. 35). bridgstock, a leading employability scholar, argues that career management skills should be explicitly taught, with learning activities incorporated as assessable components of the higher education curricula (bridgstock, 2009; bridgstock et al., 2019; jorre de st jorre & oliver, 2018; oliver & jorre de st jorre, 2018). career management requires career building and self-management skills. career building skills include the ability to find and use information about labour markets, locate, and apply for work and learning opportunities, and create professional relationships (bridgstock, 2009). career self-management has been found to be a more important predictor of employment status and quality than perceptions of knowledge and skills, and confidence in job search processes (brown et al., 2021; rothwell et al., 2008; julien, b.l. et al. (2023). a career research module promotes career exploration and understanding of the labour market and transferable skills. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 14(1), 31-52. 33 rothwell et al., 2009). it is therefore not surprising that employability experts argue that we need to teach and assess the ability of students to recognise, self-assess, communicate, and evidence their attainment of graduate attributes important to their career goals (jorre de st jorre & oliver, 2018). students’ lack of awareness of skills developed during study, or an inability to articulate these skills (a so-called ‘awareness gap’), may contribute to the skills gap perceived by some employers who believe that university graduates are not ready for work (markovitz, 2017). engagement with one’s career development process was found to be essential for students to feel satisfied with their career progress and self-determinedly prepare for their career life beyond school context (baluku et al., 2021). consistent with the recommendations of employability scholars, metaanalyses found that various career-related outcome measures were higher for those who had received career intervention than those who had not (ryan, 1999; whiston et al., 2017). completion of a career development subject during a degree resulted in students becoming more certain about an occupational choice, satisfied with their current occupational choice, confident about the process of making a career choice (miller et al., 2018), and also graduating with more credits and higher cumulative gpas (hansen et al., 2017). brown et al. (2003) undertook a meta-analysis of the literature on interventions designed to support students in making career choices and found career development activities that introduced students to sources of occupational information and provided in-class time to use these resources had positive effects on career choice outcomes. in these studies, students could gather occupational information in class through visits to career libraries, guest speakers, or computer modules. educators have reported positive outcomes of teaching career management skills in course-wide stem curricula that improve students’ awareness of their career opportunities and prepares them for entering their future careers, for medical (olive et al., 2016), biomedical (choate et al., 2019), psychology (prehar & ignelzi, 2012), and health science (brown et al., 2019) students. these students have diverse careers available to them and reported lack of awareness of their options. prehar and ignelzi (2012) describe an interactive workshop delivered to introduce psychology undergraduate students to the four stages of career development: self-assessment, career exploration, gaining experience, and implementing a plan. students found that learning about the range of career options available and the importance of gaining experience (and how to do so) was most valuable. students reported planning to gain professional experience and meet with a career adviser in response to the session. medical students were satisfied with the career exploration subject in which they engaged in large-group discussions, alumni and residency program director panels, and individual career counselling, to support decision making relating to the specialties they intended to pursue as residents (olive et al., 2016). biomedical students who completed a professional development program had enhanced self-ratings of their career awareness and knowledge and felt the program engaged them with their career development and made them aware of diverse career options (choate et al., 2019). biomedical student engagement with the institution’s career services increased, and their awareness of potential careers broadened. brown et al. (2019) describe an assessed career exploration activity in which third-year health science students investigated the logistics of entering their preferred career and delivered an oral presentation. although most students reported that the activity helped with their career planning, it was lacking exploration of the industry of interest and a focus on development of the transferable skills important for the students’ preferred career. the authors of the study suggested that while the career intervention activity was worthwhile, third-year was too late for the activity, and it should instead be introduced earlier in the degree (brown et al., 2019). the assessed nature of the biomedical and medical programs resulted in high levels of student engagement (89%) (choate et al., 2019) and 100% (olive et al., 2016) and students appreciated that the modules were assessed (choate et al., 2019). the medical program described by olive et al. (2016) was introduced to replace an optional career planning program that had low student participation rates and saw students report overall dissatisfaction with career planning support. this is consistent with others who have observed low levels of engagement with optional or extra-curricular employability initiatives (e.g., jackson & edgar, 2019), and the recommendation from employability julien, b.l. et al. (2023). a career research module promotes career exploration and understanding of the labour market and transferable skills. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 14(1), 31-52. 34 experts that teaching career management skills should be incorporated as assessable components of the curricula (bridgstock, 2009; bridgstock et al., 2019; jorre de st jorre & oliver, 2018). in the present study, we build upon the work of previously published research. we developed, implemented, and evaluated an assessed employability module embedded into a physiology core subject taught to second year students enrolled in health-science related courses. the module learning activities encouraged students to develop their career management skills by investigating the logistics of entering their chosen career, determining the transferable skills and personal attributes that would be most important, and how they had, and planned to, develop these. the objectives of the study were to determine: 1. students’ ability to research the logistics of entering their preferred career and the labour market. 2. the transferable skills and personal attributes students perceived as most important for their preferred career, how students had been developing them, and how they planned to further develop these. 3. students’ perceptions of the module activities and career planning, and perceived career management skills. career research module the career research module was embedded into a first-semester second-year human physiology core subject delivered over 12 weeks and contributed 10% of the final grade. the module comprised two components: a video presentation worth 60% of the module, and reflection activities completed in a pebblepad eportfolio worth 40% of the module (figure 1). a link to the student guide, which includes the marking rubric, can be found in appendix 1. figure 1: chronological overview of student activities in the module choose focus •choose a career to investigate •determine whether entry to career is through: (1) further study, or (2) application for a job upon graduation from current course research career •investigate what a professional does in their chosen career •investigate the australian labour market for chosen career research next steps •determine what is required to: (1) apply for further study, and what the course will involve, or (2) apply for the job, what the job will involve video •record 5 minute video to present findings of research reflection in eportfolio •reflect on transferable skills and personal attributes important for preferred career •reflect on module activities and career planning, and perceived career management skills julien, b.l. et al. (2023). a career research module promotes career exploration and understanding of the labour market and transferable skills. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 14(1), 31-52. 35 video students were required to research the logistics of entering their preferred career and present their findings in a 5-minute narrated powerpoint video. students could present on a future course of study or a job they were interested in applying for. the videos included an overview of what a professional does in the chosen career, a summary of the australian labour market for the profession, and the logistics of applying for the course or job (table 1). to help students learn about the labour market for their preferred career, they were directed to the australian jobs publication (department of education, skills, and employment, 2020a), a document that provided data about different careers, including median weekly pay, hours worked per week, predicted future employment growth, age and gender profile of work force, the number of people employed in the career, the unemployment rate for that career, and educational attainment of professionals. table 1: logistics of applying for a course or job applying to study applying for a job course details: title, level of study, name and location of institution, qualification upon graduation, description of the course (duration, full/part time, limits on places offered, how the course is taught, overview of course content) job details: title, where advertised, name and location of company, description of services provided by the company entry requirements: education, gpa/wam, skills, experience skills and experience required: education, gpa/wam, skills, experience application process: direct to institution or through vtac (or equivalent), deadlines, additional requirements (e.g., references, interview) application process: how to submit application, deadlines, additional requirements (e.g., cover letter, resume, references, interview) using the rubric (appendix 1), videos were assessed for the quality of visual aids (15%), language and speech (15%), overview of what a professional does in their chosen career (15%), summary of the australian labour market for the profession (15%), and the logistics of applying for a course/job (40%). reflection activities after students submitted their videos, they completed two reflection activities in an eportfolio (pebblepad) – the first was a reflection on the transferable skills and personal attributes important for their preferred career, and the second was a reflection on perceptions of module activities and career planning, and perceived career management skills. the rubric for assessment of the reflection is in the student guide (see appendix 1). reflection on transferable skills and personal attributes important for preferred career using the institution’s career ready advantage capability framework (la trobe university, 2018; figure 2) students wrote a 400-word reflection on the transferable skills and personal attributes important for their preferred career. the career ready advantage capability framework (2018) was developed in consultation with industry and introduced to highlight for students the skills and attributes sought by employers. the skills and attributes included in the framework (table 3) are consistent with those most mentioned as being achieved by graduates across australian higher education providers (oliver & jorre de st jorre, 2018). students were instructed to provide a comprehensive explanation of the career ready transferable skills and personal attributes important for their preferred career (200 words), as well as a comprehensive explanation of how they had been developing the transferable skills and personal attributes through study, work and/or other activities, and future plans for development (200 words). the reflection was worth 38% of the module assessment with equal weighting given to each component of the reflection. julien, b.l. et al. (2023). a career research module promotes career exploration and understanding of the labour market and transferable skills. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 14(1), 31-52. 36 figure 2: career ready advantage capability framework (la trobe university, 2018) table 3: transferable skills (and their sub-sets) and personal attributes in the career ready advantage capability framework (la trobe university, 2018) transferable skills definition communication and literacy: § communicating and influencing § digital literacy § cultural intelligence and global mindset skills to confidently engage, build relationships, and work effectively with diverse groups of people. personal and professional: § adaptability and self-management § ethical and social responsibility § leadership and teamwork skills that will support you to be a leader and contribute to a team in an adaptable and ethical way. inquiry and analysis: § critical thinking and problem solving § research and evidence-based inquiry § creativity and innovation skills that will enable you to interpret data, and use evidence, and create innovative solutions to challenging situations. personal attributes definition passion motivated and passionate about your work resilience able to bounce back after failure and adapt as you face challenges curiosity curious to learn empathy able to see things from the perspective of others julien, b.l. et al. (2023). a career research module promotes career exploration and understanding of the labour market and transferable skills. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 14(1), 31-52. 37 reflection on module activities, students’ employability skills and career planning students completed a reflection activity comprised of closed-ended (likert-scale) and open-ended questions that focused on student perceptions of the module activities, and their employability skills and career planning. closed-ended questions focused on 1) the degree to which students found the module activities helpful for promoting learning about study and career options, what a professional does in a preferred career, the labour market, and transferable skills and personal attributes; and 2) students’ self-rating of their knowledge and employability skills that were a focus of the module. the open-ended questions, focused on career planning, were: 1) what aspects of the my career module have been most helpful for your career planning? 2) please suggest any practical changes that you believe could help support your career planning. students were given full marks (2% of module marks) if they attempted the closed-ended questions. methods participants two hundred sixty-five students participated in the study. all students were enrolled in a firstsemester second year human physiology core subject that housed the career module. students were enrolled in specialist (leads solely to a specific career outcome), non-specialist (broad field of study with considerable choice), and mixed (similar structure to specialist degrees but do not lead to a specific career outcome) degrees (lock & kelly, 2020). the largest cohort was enrolled in the non-specialist bachelor of health sciences (n=114; subsequently referred to as health sciences), followed by bachelor of biomedicine (n=94; mixed degree; biomedicine), combined bachelor of applied science/master of dietetic practice (n=25; specialist degree; dietetics), bachelor of human nutrition (n=23; mixed degree; human nutrition), and bachelor of science and bachelor of biological science (n=9; non-specialist degrees; science). to provide context for the study, the preferred career paths of the participants are presented. most students wished to pursue careers in health and community service (89.4%), followed by science (6.0%), multiple jobs (2.6%), various other careers (1.1%), or education and training (0.8%). the preferred careers by course cohort are shown in figure 3. all dietetics students intended to become dieticians (one after further study), with some reporting interest in specialisations such as sport or research dietetics. dietician was the most popular career for human nutrition students (74%), followed by nutritionist (13%). medical practitioner was the most popular career for science (44%) and biomedicine (53%) students. most health science students were interested in careers in allied health (74% total), predominately physiotherapy (40%). study design and data analysis this study used a mixed methods concurrent triangulation design, in which a researcher collects and analyses quantitative (numeric) and qualitative (text) data concurrently, to attempt to confirm, crossvalidate or corroborate findings within a single study resulting in well-validated and substantiated findings (creswell et al., 2003). to address the objectives of the study, student videos and reflection activities were analysed. analysis of videos using the assessment rubric (table 2), quantitative analysis was conducted on videos to determine how well students addressed the summary of the australian labour market for the profession, and the logistics of applying for a course or job. julien, b.l. et al. (2023). a career research module promotes career exploration and understanding of the labour market and transferable skills. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 14(1), 31-52. 38 figure 3: preferred careers of students, showing number of students categorised by career choice and course enrolment. analysis of students’ written reflections on skills and attributes important for preferred career qualitative analysis was conducted on students’ 400-word reflections. deductive content analysis (vaismoradi & snelgrove, 2019) was used to analyse the transferable skills and personal attributes students reported as most important for their preferred career. students were asked to choose skills and attributes from the career ready advantage capability framework (la trobe university, 2018); therefore, it was logical to conduct deductive analysis, with the framework categories used to create a structured analysis matrix. data was coded according to the three transferable skills and their subsets, and the four personal attributes (table 3). frequency of responses within the categories are presented quantitatively to show how often they were mentioned. comparison of the transferable skills and personal attributes for the different course cohorts was conducted through one-way analysis of variance tests; the level of statistical significance was set at p<0.05. inductive content analysis (vaismoradi & snelgrove, 2019) was used to analyse how students had been developing their transferable skills and personal attributes, and their approaches for further development. frequency of responses within the themes identified are presented quantitatively to show how often they were mentioned. analysis of students’ reflections on module activities and career planning, and perceived career management skills quantitative and qualitative analysis were conducted on student reflections on module activities and career planning, and perceived career management skills that were a focus of the module. quantitative analysis was conducted on the closed-ended questions (5-point likert-scales) which addressed: 1) student perceptions of the degree of helpfulness (strongly disagree, disagree, neutral, agree, strongly agree) of the module activities for learning about study and employment options, what a professional does in a preferred career, the labour market, and skills and attributes required; and 2) julien, b.l. et al. (2023). a career research module promotes career exploration and understanding of the labour market and transferable skills. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 14(1), 31-52. 39 students’ self-ratings (very poor, poor, fair, good, excellent) of their knowledge and career management skills that were a focus of the module. descriptive statistical analysis was conducted on the quantitative data to show each component of the likert-scale as a percentage. comparison of the ratings for the different course cohorts was conducted through one-way analysis of variance tests; the level of statistical significance was set at p<0.05. inductive content analysis (vaismoradi & snelgrove, 2019) was conducted on the open-ended questions focused on the impact of the module on career planning: 1) what aspects of the my career module have been most helpful for your career planning?; and 2) please suggest any practical changes that you believe could help support your career planning. frequency of responses within the themes identified are presented quantitatively to show how often they were mentioned. ethics approval the study was conducted with approval of the institution’s human research ethics committee (hec18127). students were sent a communication via the learning management system inviting them to participate in the study. if students did not wish to participate (did not agree to have their videos and reflections analysed after formal grades for the subject were released) they had the option of quickly and anonymously opting out of the study by sending a brief email to a co-investigator who had no contact with the students. no students opted out of the study. results analysis of videos analysis of videos showed that overall, students did an excellent job of researching and presenting on the logistics of entering their preferred career (m = 93.4%, sd= 11.2) and the labour market (m = 90.3%, sd= 15.4). analysis of written reflections on transferable skills and personal attributes important for preferred career students (n = 265) were asked to identify the transferable skills and personal attributes most important for their preferred career from the career ready advantage framework. students could identify multiple skills (table 4) and multiple approaches (tables 5 and 6). shading indicates relative frequency of mention by students, with green indicating most and red indicating least. student perceptions of the most important transferable skills and personal attributes for their preferred career there were no statistically significant differences in responses between course cohorts (p>0.05), therefore results are presented for the entire group. students most commonly reported communication and literacy as an important transferable skill for their preferred career. the most commonly identified sub-category was leadership and teamwork followed by critical thinking and problem solving. the sub-categories that were least frequently mentioned include communicating and influencing, digital literacy, ethical and social responsibility, research and evidence based inquiry, and creation and innovation. overall, empathy was the personal attribute most reported as important and curiosity was least often reported as important (table 4). julien, b.l. et al. (2023). a career research module promotes career exploration and understanding of the labour market and transferable skills. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 14(1), 31-52. 40 table 4. transferable skills and personal attributes identified as most important for students’ preferred career (% of students). transferable skills % students communication & literacy 79 communicating & influencing 6 digital literacy 5 cultural intelligence & global mindset 29 personal & professional 43 adaptability & self-management 29 ethical & social responsibility 20 leadership & teamwork 51 inquiry & analysis 47 critical thinking & problem solving 40 research & evidence based inquiry 20 creation and innovation 14 personal attributes empathy 49 passion 45 resilience 32 curiosity 25 student approaches to developing transferable skills and personal attributes students most commonly reported that their current university studies were the main way they were developing transferable skills and personal attributes (table 5). paid work unrelated to their future career goals and activities that connected students to others were also commonly identified. table 5. means of developing the transferable skills and personal attributes important for students’ preferred careers (% of students). % students current university studies 66 paid work 38 connecting with people 29 volunteer work 13 paid work in related field 9 academic reading 7 engaging with professionals 7 online research into career 6 professional learning about careers 5 reflective practice 4 practical experience outside of studies (e.g., internship) 2 julien, b.l. et al. (2023). a career research module promotes career exploration and understanding of the labour market and transferable skills. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 14(1), 31-52. 41 students’ future plans for developing transferable skills and personal attributes the most commonly reported approaches students planned to use to further develop transferable skills and personal attributes were students’ current university studies, volunteer work, further study, internships or work placements, and paid work in a field related to their preferred career (table 6). table 6. approaches students planned to use to further develop their transferable skills and personal attributes (% of students). % students current university studies 27 volunteer work 26 further study 24 practical experience outside of studies (e.g., internship) 20 paid work in related field 17 connecting with people 16 engaging with professionals 13 paid work 12 academic reading 5 reflective practice 5 professional learning about careers 5 analysis of student reflections on module activities and career planning, and perceived career management skills there were no significant differences in student ratings for any likert scale question between course cohorts (p>0.05), therefore results are presented for the entire group. overall, student perceptions of the module were positive, with most students agreeing (92%) that they had gained knowledge and developed skills that would be useful to them in the future. helpfulness of module activities for learning about career options, what a professional does in a preferred career, the labour market and important skills and attributes most students (75%) agreed that the module helped them learn more about study/employment options after graduation. the vast majority of students thought the module helped them learn about what a professional does in a preferred career, about the labour market, and about the skills and attributes that employers seek and are important for a preferred career (figure 4). helpfulness of module activities for promoting reflection on development of transferable skills and personal attributes, and formulating a plan for future development most students (85%) agreed that the module helped them to reflect on their development of transferable skills and personal attributes important for their preferred career. similarly, a majority of students (76%) agreed that the module helped them to formulate a plan for future development of the transferable skills and personal attributes important for their preferred career. julien, b.l. et al. (2023). a career research module promotes career exploration and understanding of the labour market and transferable skills. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 14(1), 31-52. 42 figure 4: student perceptions of the helpfulness of the module for learning about a profession, the labour market, and important transferable skills and personal attributes (n=262). student perceptions of the module and its impact on career planning most helpful aspects of the module for career planning two-hundred students provided open-ended responses to the question ‘what aspects of the my career module have been most helpful for your career planning?’ most comments cited the opportunity to research their preferred career, including what a professional does in the career, opportunities for employment, and the pathways from their degree. students appreciated learning more about transferable skills and personal attributes – their own and those expected by employers. finding out the details of the steps required to enter their preferred career and about the labour market was also seen as helpful. table 7 shows the themes identified and the percentage of students who mentioned the theme. representative quotes are also provided. julien, b.l. et al. (2023). a career research module promotes career exploration and understanding of the labour market and transferable skills. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 14(1), 31-52. 43 table 7: themes identified from student responses (n=200) researching preferred career, including options, opportunities, and pathways (41%) • researching for a specific job i would be interested in pursuing after graduation rather than working towards the generalised idea of a nutritionist has been helpful in making me think more in-depth about the particular role i want to play in the field of nutrition, and the kind of people i would like to help specifically. (nutrition student no. 4) • by showing me the potential study options after my degree, allows me to see that i have more than one option to branch into; providing comfort and relief. (science student no. 2) learning about transferable skills and personal attributes (31%) • although at first, i thought that the my career module would do nothing to further my understanding of what my dream profession required, it did. having to research and think about the transferable skills and personal attributes, allowed to gain further insight into what is needed. (biomedicine student no. 52) learning about logistical details for pursuing preferred career (28%) • considering in detail what further study i need to undertake and the prerequisites. i have made adjustments to my study plan as a result. (health sciences student no. 57) • researching the application process in detail, including deadlines and certain websites to use. this was an area i hadn't yet researched for my future. (biomedicine student no. 72) researching the australian labour market (26%) • helped me to understand the major growth trends in jobs. this ultimately influenced the outcome of my job decision. hence forth choosing my career in the health care/ scientific sector as an epidemiologist ~top employment industries (biomedicine student no. 74). • i was completely unaware about the statistics and number of people employed every year before researching for the my career module. i feel like it been really helpful in understanding the current situation for health professionals and the different ratios and expected increase in employment (health sciences student no. 72). planning for the future, including choosing a career to pursue (20%) • to be honest i really didn't know much at all about my future studies and career before completing this assignment. although i already thought that i had a very clear vision of where i want to be and how i want to get there this module has made it that much clearer which is a great thing (nutrition student no. 15). • the oral presentation that required me to say out loud or present out loud my plans for the future made it feel like i was cementing my goal for the future and provided me with the confidence to pursue my dream profession (biomedicine student no. 45). results indicate that the module was useful for students enrolled in non-specialist, mixed, and specialist degrees alike. for example, a dietetics student commented that the module ‘has also broadened my knowledge about the different locations dietitians can pursue other than clinical settings such as hospital care.’ (dietetics student no. 14). students found all the main elements of the module helpful to their learning, and thought they had gained detailed practical knowledge of further study options, they noted that ‘having to delve deeper really opened my eyes as to what the course entailed and what i would be doing throughout it.’ (biomedicine student no. 1). conducting research helped some students to make decisions about their career plans and was motivational: helped me to decide on a pathway, as previous to this module, i was still contemplating where i wanted to go with my degree. now that i have a plan i feel more able and ready to achieve my dream career. (biomedicine student no. 13) julien, b.l. et al. (2023). a career research module promotes career exploration and understanding of the labour market and transferable skills. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 14(1), 31-52. 44 students valued learning more about the labour market and in some cases, this helped them make decisions or relieved anxiety, as demonstrated by the following quote: ‘looking at the job market was also a huge boon and relief seeing the state of my dream career.’ suggestions to better help students’ career planning one-hundred and sixty-five students provided open-ended responses to the question ‘suggest any practical changes that could help support your career planning.’ most comments related to wanting more guidance on completing the module and career planning in general. approximately one-fifth of responses related to practical changes students could make to improve their own career planning. the remaining students suggested no change or provision of opportunities within their course to engage with industry, alumni, and peers. the percentage of students who mentioned the theme and representative quotes are provided in table 8. table 8. themes identified from student responses (n=165) more guidance on module, career planning (30%) • further explanation on the australian labour market because it is still slightly unclear. • more videos or presentation on the attributes and skills required so that myself and other students can inherit a more complex understanding of how to master these skills. personal development (22%) • by volunteering in different areas of this industry i will be able to pinpoint and determine where i could work within this field, also gain some real life understanding how a day in the life of a nutritionalist [sic] will look, along with the tasks and day to day activities i will perform • further develop my communication and leadership skills through practical methods such as volunteering and working. no change (19%) • i can't really think of any, i think this module was probably the most useful task out of any that i have done this year. they should make all students do this in year 12 before they enter into courses that they don't know about. engagement with industry, alumni, peers (18%) • i believe if universities assisted with some work experience in a variety of health professions for students doing broad degrees such as health science, would assist them in making a better choice when choosing there [sic] career. • access to alumni from the dream profession who could provide tips or guide me through the process of achieving their dream profession. the main suggestion for improvement was for more guidance and input from staff on their career exploration activities, specifically on finding and interpreting information on pathways and the labour market. several students suggested they should have been required to research multiple jobs and not just one, seeming not to recognise that they had developed the skills to do this in their own time. students were eager for opportunities within their courses to gain industry experience through internships and placements and to connect more with industry, alumni, and peers to learn about study, jobs and work, as exemplified by the following quote: ‘my career planning could be supported by an opportunity to speak with someone from my dream profession to learn about their experiences and hear their advice about the profession itself and their journey into it.’ (health sciences student no. 2). these suggestions align with four of the connectedness pedagogies in bridgstock’s connectedness learning model: student partnerships, industry teaching, alumni engagement, and work integrated learning (bridgstock & tippett, 2019). further, the national priorities and industry linkage fund (npilf; department of education, 2020b) allocates funding to australian universities to support julien, b.l. et al. (2023). a career research module promotes career exploration and understanding of the labour market and transferable skills. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 14(1), 31-52. 45 innovative and diverse collaborations with industry to produce job-ready graduates. the fund aims to increase internships, practicums, and innovative approaches to working-integrated learning, and build partnerships between universities and industry in teaching and learning and research. there is a chance to leverage student interest, and this funding, to increase the awareness of current opportunities for our students to build connections and gain practical experience. students' perceptions of their career management skills upon completion of the module, most students rated their knowledge of what a professional does in their preferred career as good or excellent (figure 5). fewer students rated their knowledge of the state of the australian labour market for the profession as good or excellent (figure 5). a large majority of students thought they had a good or excellent ability to research a course or job of interest (figure 5). students were very confident in their ratings of their transferable skills and personal attributes, with most students rating them as good or excellent (figure 5). figure 5. students’ self-ratings of their career management skills (n=262). discussion the findings of this study showed that students gained knowledge related to their preferred career including the labour market, and the transferable skills and personal attributes that employers seek. students developed research and reflection skills useful for their future career development. most students identified their current university course as the main way they were developing important skills and attributes, with their course, volunteering and further study the main ways they planned to continue skill and attribute development. julien, b.l. et al. (2023). a career research module promotes career exploration and understanding of the labour market and transferable skills. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 14(1), 31-52. 46 research on logistics of entering preferred career and the australian labour market analysis of videos showed that most students were able to identify the steps they needed to take to apply for further study or a job and locate information about the australian labour market, and this was consistent with their perceived abilities. many students reported conducting this research to be the most useful aspect of the module. most students thought they had learnt about the labour market but still rated their knowledge of the labour market lower than any of the other skills or knowledge. ryan (1999) found that activities designed to help people to understand or build support for their career choice and plans was one of the five components of career interventions critical for success in supporting development of career choice outcomes (i.e., decidedness, choice certainty, choice satisfaction, and indecision, career decision-making, self-efficacy beliefs, career maturity, congruence, and vocational identity). baluku et al. (2021) suggest that students can experience enhanced future career fulfillment through understanding that their training background is relevant to the labour market, which can, in turn, provide employment opportunities. appraisal of external factors such as labour market conditions and demand of the discipline area helps students to develop their perceived employability (rothwell et al., 2008) which contributes to intrinsic career satisfaction. the metaanalysis undertaken by brown et al. (2003) on interventions designed to support students in making career choices found career development activities that introduced students to sources of occupational information with provision of in-class time to use these resources had positive effects on career choice outcomes. in these studies, students could gather occupational information in class through visits to career libraries, guest speakers, or computer modules. students in the present study indicated that they would like more guidance from staff to find and interpret information about pathways and the labour market. while class time is not available for the activities described by brown et al. (2021), the authors plan to enhance the curriculum scaffold relating to this aspect of the module and embed additional resources that guide student engagement with resources. most students in the present study intended to pursue careers that required further study. this was not surprising as many students were enrolled in non-specialist or mixed degrees and interested in careers in medical and allied health professions which require specialist training. qualitative content analysis indicated that many students thought the module helped them make more detailed plans around entry to their course of choice, with some specifically mentioning how the module prompted them to alter their study plan. transferable skills and personal attributes consistent with recommendations of employability experts (jorre de st jorre & oliver, 2018; oliver, 2013), the module described in the present study explicitly focused on the transferable skills and personal attributes that contribute to student employability. student confidence and understanding of graduate learning outcomes was found to be greater when the attributes were talked about and put into context by a teacher or part of an assessment (jorre de st jorre & oliver, 2018). the present study found that after completing this module and engaging with the institution’s career ready advantage capability framework (la trobe university, 2018), most students felt they had learned more about the transferable skills and personal attributes sought by employers and required in their preferred career. students frequently reported that one of the most helpful aspects of the module was the opportunity to learn more about these transferable skills and personal attributes. further, most students rated their current attainment of transferable skills and personal attributes as excellent or good. explicitly enabling students to realise their competencies is essential for transition to work activities such as job search and obtaining employment (baluku et al., 2021), and appraisal of one’s own academic performance and skills helps students to develop their perceived employability (rothwell et al., 2008) and, therefore, intrinsic career satisfaction. our findings are consistent with those of jorre de st jorre and oliver (2018) who found that incorporation of graduate capabilities into assessment tasks increased ‘students’ understanding and confidence in their capabilities’ and therefore, their preparation for employment was improved. julien, b.l. et al. (2023). a career research module promotes career exploration and understanding of the labour market and transferable skills. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 14(1), 31-52. 47 most important transferable skills and personal attributes in 2019, 75% of australian employers reported placing as much importance on personal qualities as technical skills (national skills commission, 2019). in the present study, the most commonly reported transferable skill important for students’ preferred careers was communication and literacy, with personal and professional and inquiry and analysis cited less frequently. however, analysis of the subcategories for personal and professional, shows that leadership and teamwork was commonly mentioned. similarly, analysis of the sub-categories for inquiry and analysis shows that critical thinking and problem solving was also frequently mentioned. taken together, the findings indicate that all skill categories were deemed important by students, although there was variation on the importance placed across sub-categories. the skills students identified as important are consistent with what employers and industry, globally, report seeking (business council of australia, 2018; department of education, 2020b; department of employment, 2018; drummond & kachuck rosenbluth, 2015; georgetown university center on education and the workforce, 2020; hart research associates, 2013; national association of colleges and employers, 2016). most students wanted to pursue careers in health and community service, which aligns with the transferable skills they most cited as being important. also aligned was the ranking of empathy as the most important personal attribute, with empathy in medical practitioners associated with improved clinical outcomes (del canale et al., 2012; hojat et al., 2011). passion was frequently mentioned as important and has been linked with prevention of burnout and secondary traumatic stress in health care workers (moreno-jiménez et al., 2020). few students mentioned digital literacy as important, despite the importance placed on it by employers (department of employment, 2018; drummond & kachuck rosenbluth, 2015). digital literacy was one of the top four skills in demand for junior or entry positions, with demand up 212% between 2012 and 2015 (foundation for young australians, 2017), and one in three australian businesses brought in new technology due to covid-19 (national skills commission, 2020). there has been a rise in provision of telehealth services (delivery of health care services where distance is a critical factor) using information and communication technologies (monaghesh & hajizadeh, 2020). telehealth is likely to play an increased role in the future delivery of healthcare (fisk et al., 2020), with experts recommending that professional bodies consider including telehealth competencies in their training of health care professionals (thomas et al., 2020). similarly, other transferable skills and personal attributes that are likely to be important were not recognised by students in the present study, therefore, there exists scope to further contextualise these skills for students (jorre de st jorre & oliver, 2018). the career research module was designed to be complemented by an informational interview (lexis et al., 2021) module which allows students to learn more about the day-to-day activities of a professional in their preferred career. on completion of both modules, students may have a more holistic understanding of the skills that will be important for their careers. development of transferable skills and personal attributes in the module described in the present study, students used an eportfolio to reflect on transferable skills and personal attributes with most students identifying their current university studies as being their main means of developing these thus far. ryan (1999) found that one of five components of career interventions critical for success was requiring people to write their goals, plans and occupational analyses into a workbook or log. student reflection on transferable skills and personal attributes, in the context of their preferred career, personalises their learning and makes them more aware of the connections between their discipline studies, work-integrated learning, and their career goals (mcilveen et al., 2011). most, but not all, students identified the relations between their university studies and development of skills and attributes. a possible explanation lies in the lack of shared understanding of graduate outcomes and their importance by academic staff in higher education (barrie et al., 2014). academics who are not able to see for themselves how the subjects they coordinate/teach contribute to development of graduate outcomes will not be able to make this link clear to students (jorre de st jorre & oliver, 2018). supporting academic staff to improve their julien, b.l. et al. (2023). a career research module promotes career exploration and understanding of the labour market and transferable skills. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 14(1), 31-52. 48 understanding of the interplay between course learning outcomes, subject learning outcomes, graduate outcomes, and employability skills, and their contribution beyond teaching disciplinespecific knowledge and skills, will improve curricula and collaboration between staff (jorre de st jorre & oliver, 2018; oliver, 2013; uchiyama & radin, 2009). employability skills are developed by accumulating knowledge and skills from a variety of life experiences, not only academic studies (jorre de st jorre & oliver, 2018). consistent with this, students in the present study identified that they developed their transferable skills and personal attributes through paid work; activities that connected them with others such as community engagement, playing sports, clubs, socialising, and networking; and volunteer work. extracurricular activities (mckeown & lindorff, 2011), paid work (muldoon, 2009), and student community engagement including volunteer work (bourner & millican, 2011) have been found to improve student employability skill development. students intended to use their current university studies, volunteer work, placements/internships, and further study to continue development of transferable skills and personal attributes. students reported that one of the most helpful aspects of the module was how it helped them to plan for the future. this is consistent with findings of spokane and rarick (1998) who reported that goal setting was one of the four most helpful outcomes of individual career counselling. brown et al. (2003) suggested that people would be most likely to adhere to their career goals if they also document where and when they will act on their plans. this aspect of the module may be improved in future by asking students to think about the timelines for their development goals. limitations and future research a limitation of the current study is that students’ self-ratings were only conducted on completion of the module. it would have been preferable to have students conduct the self-ratings preand postmodule to better determine the impact of the module on student perceptions of their knowledge and career management skills. the lack of pre-assessment data in this study did not allow for a direct comparison of student sentiment before and after completing the module. future iterations may benefit from a preassessment reflection as well as a post-assessment reflection to measure the effectiveness of this task in improving career management skills. following up on the progress made by students following this module (e.g., in third year) would provide insight into the long-term impact of this module on students’ career management skills. summary as we grapple with the impact of the covid-19 pandemic, more than ever, universities have a role to play in preparing students to transition into the world of work. the challenges faced by young jobseekers, with less experience and smaller networks, will be exacerbated by the downturn in the global economy. embedding tasks that support students to develop their career management skills, specifically in researching and understanding their career options and the labour market, will give them an edge. students in non-specialist, mixed and specialist courses found this module helped them to develop their career management skills but sought more support from staff. the authors suggest that all university courses would benefit from embedding such a task in the early stages of students’ undergraduate careers. julien, b.l. et al. 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(2023). a career research module promotes career exploration and understanding of the labour market and transferable skills. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 14(1), 31-52. 52 vaismoradi, m., & snelgrove, s. (2019). theme in qualitative content analysis and thematic analysis. forum qualitative sozialforschung/forum: qualitative social research, 20(3). https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.17169/fqs-20.3.3376 whiston, s. c., li, y., mitts, n. g., & wright, l. (2017). effectiveness of career choice interventions: a metaanalytic replication and extension. journal of vocational behavior, 100, 175-184. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jvb.2017.03.010 appendix 1 my career: career research & presentation student guide: https://doi.org/10.26181/618071886a54d nagarajan, s. & edwards, j. (2014). is the graduates attribute approach sufficient to develop work ready graduates? journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 5(1) 12 is the graduate attributes approach sufficient to develop work ready graduates? srivalli nagarajan 1 , jenny edwards 2 srivalli.nagarajan@sydney.edu.au; jenny.edwards@uts.edu.au 1 the university of sydney, 2 university of technology, sydney abstract many universities have graduate attributes, sometimes referred to as generic skills, soft skills or work ready skills. this paper reports a study of the professional work experiences of recent australian information technology (it) graduates who identified that communication, time management, teamwork, working with people, working across cultures, project management and business skills were some of the major professional skills required for their work. a discussion of the study and its findings raises questions about the adequacy of the graduate attributes approach in the development of professional skills such as the ability of to work across cultures and on multiple projects which are major requirements of graduates in many it (and other) workplaces. the study reveals the it graduates’ perspectives on the challenges they faced at work, the typical professional skills requirements of their practice and how they acquired or developed them, the elements of their university study which had relevance to the required workplace professional skills and how well their studies prepared them to meet the professional needs of their practice. keywords: it or ict education, graduate attributes, graduate employability, work ready graduates, work ready skills, graduate work experiences. introduction graduate attributes are defined by the australian technology network (bowden, hart, king, trigwell & watts, 2000) as: ……… the qualities, skills and understandings a university community agrees its students would desirably develop during their time at the institution and consequently shape the contribution they are able to make to their profession and as a citizen. sometimes referred to as generic skills, transferable skills, core skills, soft skills, graduate capabilities, work-ready skills and key skills, graduate attributes are no longer seen as being independent of discipline knowledge because they interact with discipline knowledge. they are a specialised and differentiated form of understanding generic abilities, which are developed to meet the needs of a specific discipline or field of knowledge (barrie, 2004). according to james et al. (2004) graduate attribute development takes place mostly within disciplines. kamvounias and thompson (2008) agree, reporting that the term ‘generic’ is sometimes misinterpreted as independent of the field of study, implying development in a separate unit of study. they refer to this as a ‘bolted on’ approach. all australian universities identify the graduate attributes to be attained by their students. often, particular courses have their own attributes in addition, or as an alternative to the university’s generic graduate attributes (experiences of one of the authors as a government mailto:srivalli.nagarajan@sydney.edu.au mailto:jenny.edwards@uts.edu.au nagarajan, s. & edwards, j. (2014). is the graduates attribute approach sufficient to develop work ready graduates? journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 5(1) 13 and discipline accreditor). for example, a generic graduate attribute for communication skills may be expressed in an engineering course, as a requirement for graduates to exercise effective communication to arrive at design and problem solutions while working as a team. the desire to provide a coherent approach to the embedding of graduate attributes into courses of study led to some australian universities introducing a graduate attributes framework as a policy led initiative for the design and accreditation of courses (boud & solomon, 2006). at times there are high or perhaps unrealistic expectations of universities to guarantee that their students possess the desirable skills identified in the graduate attributes espoused by institutions (hager & holland, 2006; lowden, hall, elliot & lewin, 2011; seitel, 2011). a more reasonable guarantee might be that graduates will be provided with as many opportunities as possible to acquire and develop these generic skills during their study program. however, the fact that university courses differ in length, coverage of content, focus within subjects, etc., complicates the task of developing an overall approach to the development of a set of generic attributes for graduates, if this is indeed desirable. similarly, academics, usually appointed for their expertise in their discipline and research achievements, will have a varying commitment to and success in the application of the concept of generic attributes to their discipline. in 2009, partially as a response to the bradley review of higher education (bradley, noonan, nugent & scales, 2008), the australian government commissioned the australian learning and teaching council (altc) to work with discipline communities on the learning and teaching academic standards project. the aim of the resulting altc’s discipline scholars 2010 program was to enhance student learning and learning outcomes by working closely with the nationwide discipline specific bodies (altc, 2010a). the discipline scholars developed five threshold learning outcome areas for engineering and ict graduates after consultation with the industry, academics, students, engineers australia (ea) and the australian computer society (acs) (altc, 2010b). also taken into account was the current accreditation process of ea and the acs (altc, 2010c). the five threshold learning outcome areas are: needs, context and systems; problem solving and design; abstraction and modelling; coordination and communication, and self-management (wright, hadgraft, & cameron, 2010). these are similar to many of the major professional skill categories identified in this study (see table 2). accreditation bodies have made a significant contribution to the discourse on graduate attributes. for example, the acs is responsible for australian information technology (it) course accreditation in australia and, although optional, most institutions seek it. accreditation requires a certain depth and breadth of knowledge in key areas. more importantly, it mandates the learning of generic skills such as project management, ethics and written and oral communication (acs, 2013). universities are required to submit a detailed mapping of graduate attributes to assessment and learning outcomes. while the spotlight remains on the development of graduate attributes, whether or not universities are successful in achieving this remains uncertain. this paper seeks to address the question of how it graduates perceive the effectiveness of their undergraduate it study program in developing the graduate attributes required for their professional workplace. the next section reviews the relevant literature and is followed by an outline of the methodology and the findings of the study. subsequently there is a discussion of the role of graduate attributes in australian universities, the relationship between graduate attributes and employability skills, why graduate attributes should not be an add-on to existing courses and the need to have graduate attributes embedded in discipline-specific subjects. finally, there is a consideration of an area of professional skill that does not appear to be addressed adequately by existing graduate attributes for it graduates. nagarajan, s. & edwards, j. (2014). is the graduates attribute approach sufficient to develop work ready graduates? journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 5(1) 14 development of graduate attributes during university studies although skills and attributes are often used interchangeably they have different meanings. skills are typically practical such as communication, time management and teamwork. graduate attributes are usually broader than skills and include qualities such as loyalty, commitment, honesty and integrity. such qualities, which have been found to be highly desirable by employers (crebert, bates, bell, patrick & cragnolini, 2004a) are usually considered to be attributes rather than skills. similarly, there is a great deal of variation in the ways in which academics not only interpret or define graduate attributes, but also in how committed they are to particular approaches to developing graduate attributes or indeed to whether they should be taught at all (barrie, 2004). boud and solomon (2006) suggest that graduate attributes will work only if those to whom they are exposed are willing players in the process and are in a position to appreciate the qualities developed. despite the disparate views, most australian universities mandate that academics include graduate attributes in their curriculum documentation (see, for example, deakin university, 2013). kamvounias and thompson (2008) state that graduate attributes can be conceptualised at different institutional levels such as university, faculty, school, department, program of study and particular subjects. such a conceptualisation does present challenges for curriculum development. one approach to managing the varying levels is the use of overarching graduate attributes that are then broken down to specifics that can be implemented at lower levels. subsequently, these graduate attributes are translated by the faculty into a set of more specific learning goals relevant to the degrees. the successful development of graduate attributes may then be facilitated by aligning learning design, learning outcomes, teaching and learning activities, and assessment criteria and tasks with the graduate attributes. the further challenge for academics then becomes the tracking and assessment of the development of graduate attributes. in some cases this might result in a tick-box mapping exercise where, in reality, the learning goals are matched with graduate attributes. in other instances graduate attributes are mapped to learning outcomes and assessment tasks, but not necessarily mapped to the assessment criteria (kamvounias & thompson, 2008). however, mapping graduate attributes does not ensure that they are taught explicitly, if not made explicit, the students may focus on obtaining the required marks or grades and remain unaware of, or disinterested in, the graduate attributes which may have been implicit in assessment tasks and criteria. worldwide, employers demand that the graduates they hire should ‘fit’ and add value to the business in the short-term and long-term (nankervis, compton & baird, 2005). many employers assume that graduates have the required academic skills (yorke, 2006). yorke discusses the preparation of graduates for work as a two-layered approach. job-readiness is the first layer of a student’s preparation for the workforce and it is linked to professional knowledge. employability is the second layer of student preparation and involves the ability and willingness of graduates to think beyond knowledge. the employer perspectives are reflected by this layer. when difficulties or challenges arise at work, graduates need to be able to combine the most appropriate knowledge for the situation, i.e. both job-specific skills and generic skills, to develop an ability to read the situation and determine a suitable strategy. scott and yates (2002) describe this as professional capability. they discuss whether individual graduates can be ‘emotionally intelligent’ (graduates with higher order personal and interpersonal skills who can problem solve, think creatively, communicate, negotiate and find solutions rather than know them) and whether or not, universities have contributed to the initiation or fostering of such skills. they conclude that while technical enterprise is a necessary capability, it is certainly not sufficient to produce a successful graduate. nagarajan, s. & edwards, j. (2014). is the graduates attribute approach sufficient to develop work ready graduates? journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 5(1) 15 james, lefoe & hadi (2004) argue that the development of graduate attributes is a shared responsibility of teachers and students. furthermore, graduate attributes should not just be viewed as a compliance issue, but instead used as a medium for good teaching practice and the development of a community of practice. they discuss knowledge, purpose and graduate attributes where knowledge includes cognitive understanding (disciplinary) and affective knowledge (values and attitudes, such as commitment capability etc.). james et al. (2004) also propose some ways to illuminate graduate attributes in teaching such as sharing teaching strategies across different faculties through online web-based platforms. an extension of this is the notion of developing communities of practice within a university to collaborate on graduate attributes and teaching strategies (wenger, mcdermott & snyder, 2002). such communities of practice would encourage sharing by academics of strategies used in teaching to develop graduate attributes resulting in the dissemination of good practice to achieve graduate attributes. some of the practical challenges to overcome are the complexity of course structures and the flow-on effect that curriculum changes can have on other university systems. for example, barrie (2004) states that universities often find it difficult to embed and assess graduate attributes and that these are not really tested until students enter the workforce. to date, graduate attributes do not appear to be a well-advertised concept among graduates. universities and departments need to do more to make their graduates aware of the attributes they should acquire as a result of undertaking a particular degree. explicit connections between learning, assessments and graduates attributes are required for graduates to appreciate and be aware of their development of graduate attributes (thompson, treleaven, kamvounias, beem & hill, 2008). critical to the achievement of this is stakeholder feedback. feedback from employers may assist in the development of workreadiness through applications of knowledge and skills to authentic work situations. similarly, student surveys will provide valuable feedback on learning experiences, while student engagement may be reflected in information relating to retention rates. in addition to responding to stakeholders, universities are under pressure by moves in education and labour market policy to produce employable graduates (bridgstock, 2009) and this has increased the focus on graduate attributes and their relationship to employability skills. that is, graduates increasingly need the ability to navigate the world of work and self manage the career building process (bridgestock, 2009). similarly, harvey (2001) defines employability skills as those that pertain to an individual’s capacity to obtain and maintain work and contribute to economic productivity. the employability skills framework (dest, 2002) developed by the australian chamber of commerce and industry (acci) and the business council of australia (bca) use the following definition of employability skills: skills required not only to gain employment but also to progress within an enterprise so as to achieve one's potential and contribute successfully to enterprise strategic directions eight employability skills and broad personal attributes across all industry sectors are identified in the framework. they are: 1. communication; 2. teamwork; 3. problem-solving; 4. self-management; 5. planning and organizing; 6. technology; 7. lifelong learning; and 8. initiative and enterprise. nagarajan, s. & edwards, j. (2014). is the graduates attribute approach sufficient to develop work ready graduates? journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 5(1) 16 employability skills and work readiness have also been used interchangeably. in relation to it, litchfield and nettleton (2008) gathered definitions for work readiness as defined by professional societies such as the acs and the department of education, science and technology (dest) now known as department of industry. a common list of key graduate attribute descriptors was found. they were global perspectives, communications capacity, ability to work well in teams, ability to apply knowledge, creative problem solving and critical thinking skills, professionalism and ethics, and the ability to apply knowledge. despite these efforts to define employability skills, there is no systematic framework in higher education to embed these skills within the curriculum. the sector is reliant on graduate attributes as a vehicle to deliver these employability skills during the course of study (oliver, jones, ferns, & tucker, 2007a). while there is general agreement that it is desirable to ensure alignment in curricula by embedding and assessing learning outcomes derived from institutional graduate attributes (biggs, 2003), in practice this is not always achieved. indeed, at some universities graduate attributes remain at the level of intended or desired outcomes for students. barrie and prosser (2003) observe that graduate attributes have their roots in the contested territory of questions as to the nature of knowledge and nature of a university. etzkowitz and leydesdorff (2000), view graduate attributes not as a representation of displacement of one approach to knowledge production by another, but rather a change in priority for the types of knowledge sought. the debate about whether universities see themselves as major players preparing graduates for work is not over. this study contributes to this debate through an investigation of graduates’ perceptions of how relevant their university studies were to the professional workplace. the next section describes the study and presents some findings that demonstrate that it graduates were not sufficiently prepared in some professional areas (for example, working across cultures). we ask: what purpose do graduate attributes serve in the light of such findings? does the graduate attribute approach work? is the graduate attributes approach sufficient to develop work ready graduates, especially in it? methodology to understand the professional skill requirements of it workplaces and to understand the preparation of university it graduates for work, the professional work experiences of twenty four local and international graduates with it bachelor's degrees from new south wales, australia were analysed. they were recent graduates, i.e. from the last three years and had studied as full-time students. they had all been employed at the time of the study in a paid it professional position for 0.5-3 years. the graduates could have completed work experience as a formal part of their university course, but graduates who did not study as full-time students were excluded as they may have been working during university study and could have developed some workplace skills from these jobs. participants came from a broad spectrum of cultural and ethnic backgrounds, worked for small, medium and large sized companies that were either multinational or local and were employed across a variety of it roles. table 1 shows the profile of the participants. table 1: profile of study participants participant location/ data collection participant background it work experience responsibilities/work areas 1 sydney nsw (interviewed) bachelor of science degree in it from a sydney university < three years web design, marketing and coordination of web based campaigns, sales of it services and products and solutions nagarajan, s. & edwards, j. (2014). is the graduates attribute approach sufficient to develop work ready graduates? journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 5(1) 17 2 sydney nsw (interviewed) bachelor degree in it from a sydney university < three years professional services to telecommunication companies, technical and strategic solutions, advisory role, training 3 sydney nsw (interviewed) bachelor degree in software engineering from a sydney university < three years business analysis, client management, training in a consulting firm 4 sydney nsw (interviewed) bachelor degree in it from a sydney university < three years software development, systems integration, network management, business reporting, support marketing of it services and solutions 5 sydney nsw (interviewed) bachelor degree in it from a sydney university < three years in a two year graduate program. currently doing it auditing of internal company systems, previously in business analysis, architecture, design, programming and testing roles 6 sydney nsw (interviewed) bachelor degree in it from a sydney university < three years network administration, hardware replacement, team member in a networking company 7 sydney nsw (interviewed) bachelor degree in it from a sydney university > three years applications development, programming roles during the first three years of it work 8 act (interviewed) bachelor degree in it from a regional nsw university < three years systems development, database administration, systems testing 9 sydney nsw (interviewed) bachelor degree in it from a sydney university < one year it support, troubleshooting, network management role in an academic institution 10 sydney nsw (interviewed) bachelor degree in it from a sydney university < three years team leader for software development team, project management, testing, support, defect management 11 sydney nsw (interviewed) bachelor degree in it from a sydney university < three years business rules, system navigation and flow, legal & regulatory requirements, customer experience requirements, and controls 12 nsw (surveyed online) bachelor degree in it related discipline nsw 1 year customer support role 13 nsw (surveyed online) bachelor degree in it related discipline nsw 3 years security compliance functions 14 vic (surveyed online) bachelor degree in it related discipline from vic 1 year programming and database administration 15 nsw (surveyed online) bachelor degree in it related discipline nsw 2 years network administration and management 16 nsw (surveyed bachelor degree in it related 2 years business analysis and project management nagarajan, s. & edwards, j. (2014). is the graduates attribute approach sufficient to develop work ready graduates? journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 5(1) 18 online) discipline nsw 17 nsw (surveyed online) bachelor degree in it related discipline nsw 1 year database administration, report generation it audit 18 nsw (surveyed online) bachelor degree in it related discipline nsw 1 year it / network security ensuring phishing sites targeting are disabled, reverse engineering malware, predicting future malware threats and improving online collaborative environment for large decentralised team 19 nsw (surveyed online) bachelor degree in it nsw 2 years project manager, business analyst and developer for 4 small automation projects 20 nsw (surveyed online) bachelor degree in it related discipline nsw 2 years database administrator, system administrator and general support. 21 nsw (surveyed online) bachelor degree in it or related discipline nsw 2 years business analysis risk mitigation, requirements determination, business process redesign, facilitate interviews/meetings. 22 nsw (surveyed online) bachelor degree in it related discipline 2 years it project manager, develop computer solutions for business processes, assist in the development of strategies that demonstrate best practice, change management and communication, liaise with users to assist with business and system related issues, project manage the implementation of applications, overall it project testing, implementation and maintenance 23 nsw (surveyed online) bachelor degree in it related discipline nsw 1 year website design and development 24 nsw (surveyed online) bachelor degree in it related discipline nsw 2 years quality assurance, software testing, team leader the focus of the study was on the professional skills and work experiences of recent australian it graduates, an area which requires investigation and greater clarity of understanding. it explored what graduates actually do in their professional practice and the challenges they face in workplaces. it endeavoured to understand the role and responsibilities of universities, employers and professional associations in the professional skills development of it graduates. these issues required an approach that generated a rich conceptual description of the professional skills and work experiences of it graduates. thus, an approach using ideas from grounded theory such as constant comparison, theoretical sampling, open coding, axial coding, selective coding and theoretical saturation was employed. interviews and qualitative online surveys were the research methods used. data collection and analysis data collection and data analysis occurred concurrently. as the interviews were completed, they were transcribed. each transcript was then read carefully and the phrases were chunked. subsequently, phrases of each interview were taken and each piece of ‘chunked data’ was coded with a code name (open coding). the data from one interview were constantly compared with the other interviews and the same codes were used in all the transcriptions when there were similarities identified. once concepts (codes) were identified they were grouped to form sub-categories. in axial coding, the codes were reviewed again (for relationship between sub-categories) and grouped into minor categories. as interview and survey data were subjected to further constant comparison it was necessary to create nagarajan, s. & edwards, j. (2014). is the graduates attribute approach sufficient to develop work ready graduates? journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 5(1) 19 new categories and merge some existing categories resulting in major categories. further grouping of major categories resulted in the emergence of five themes. theme 1 professional skills it graduates believe are required for their work theme 2 sources of professional skills for it graduates theme 3 most useful aspects of university studies that it graduates believe contributed towards their professional skills development theme 4 challenges faced by it graduates at workplaces theme 5 graduate perceptions of differences between university and the workplace in the application of professional skills. only themes 1 and 2 will be discussed in this paper. study findings table 2 provides a detailed view of the different professional skills it graduates believe are required for their work. there are eight major categories: communication, time management, teamwork, working with people, working across cultures, project management, business and personal skills. there are multiple and complex relationships across the categories of the eight professional skills. communication is the dominant skill category that is related to all other categories. the study showed that some skills are applied differently in different work contexts across different organisations and the professional skill requirements also vary from one employer to another, although the nature of work may be the same. these findings have implications for university courses and their commitment to preparing work ready graduates. table 2: major categories for professional skills it graduates believe are required for their work major category details of sub categories of skills communication skills use of language in communication with clients/peers/superiors communication style (formal versus informal) communication mode (verbal, written, e-mail, online, face-to-face meetings) documenting communication structure of messages, choice of language in business and technical communication ability to communicate bad news-tactical communication communication with senior colleagues and people from different cultures communication in an international work environment with people from different cultures meeting facilitation, feedback communication communication to solve problems, communication to sell ideas timeliness of communication time management skills schedule management (projects, resources) with different project duration time management in an international work environment with people from different time zones use of technology, tools and techniques to manage time multitasking ability, timely delegation/escalation of issues handling different workloads (under, normal, over, crisis) timeliness of work delivery, handling pressure and time management for self and for the team teamwork skills team dynamics, nature of teams (formal, informal) and team player team size and composition, international team, handling feedback to and from team team monitoring and motivation use of technology, tools and techniques for team interaction nagarajan, s. & edwards, j. (2014). is the graduates attribute approach sufficient to develop work ready graduates? journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 5(1) 20 handling team conflicts and negotiation pre meeting planning and management, conducting meetings, post meeting tasks working with people managing expectations of manager, forecast stakeholder reaction managing client expectations, managing team expectations, work–life balance building trust, professional relationship with clients being aware of hierarchical work relationships use of appropriate conflict management strategies to resolve problems at work ability to work with competent and incompetent peers assisting managers with recruitment of staff ability to care for customers and build good relationships understanding customers from different cultural backgrounds and customer relationship management, use of appropriate customer service strategies working across cultures ability to work with people from different work culture (business, it, international and interstate sites) ability to work with international people from different work culture cultural communication style (choice of correct writing style) being aware of language issues and local customs when working on international sites language barriers project management change management, quality assurance, research and information management, infrastructure management, scope management, resources management, cost and time management work delegation, job competency (analysis, research, logical, economical) managing risk issues in work processes, managing product related risks compliance and work accountability, following company procedures while handling problems use or development of appropriate problem solving strategies business skills understanding management style and work procedures, product knowledge business knowledge, business analysis, business representation ability to promote products, ideas and services understanding the importance of marketing and stakeholder relationships understanding team dynamics, performance appraisal skills information gathering skills, information processing skills personal attributes adapting to dynamic work requirements, ability to assess one’s strengths and weakness emotional intelligence, ability to confidently conduct oneself, passion/enthusiasm for the job work ethic, experiential learning, ability to develop new skills the graduates in the study believe that they developed the professional skills they needed for work from many sources, just one of which was university study, as shown in figure 1. furthermore, it was revealed that some aspects of university it studies are more useful and relevant for it workplaces than others. work placement and project work are the aspects of university study that all it graduates found most useful in the workforce. the majority of the challenges that the graduates face are in the category working with people. issues such as age differences, gender domination, managing expectations, lack of recognition, lack of support, insufficient induction, mentoring, professional relationships and professional development are particular challenges in this category and are distributed across the professional skill areas identified in this study. graduates use a combination of strategies to cope with these challenges. they believe that some professional skills such as standards of work submission are applied differently in work contexts than those developed at university. time management strategies were learned from both university studies as well as on the job, but other skills were developed outside university. some skills, for example, working with international clients in different time zones and from different cultures could be nagarajan, s. & edwards, j. (2014). is the graduates attribute approach sufficient to develop work ready graduates? journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 5(1) 21 sufficiently developed only when graduates have commenced employment. such findings have implications for universities’ claims that they are preparing work ready graduates and raise questions about the achievement of graduate attributes stated in the university curriculum. figure 1: relationships between sources of professional skills and professional skills before discussing these findings, a brief overview of the question of why graduate attributes should not be an add-on to existing courses and the need to have graduate attributes embedded in subjects is provided as a context to the findings. generic graduate attributes should not be an add-on to existing courses while the importance of the soft skills in any workplace is emphasized by some studies, in it it is essential not to separate these generic skills from the technical nature of it work. in the real world, graduates report that they face situations where they need to integrate their professional skills and technical skills. litchfield and nettleton (2008), as a part of their work ready project at the university of technology sydney (uts), recommend sharing across faculties tasks designed to assist the acquisition of generic work skills. this is appropriate as long as those tasks are then contextualised to a profession so students appreciate their relevance (frawley & litchfield, 2009). many professional undergraduate degrees have a capstone course in the final year. this usually involves project work on a real world problem with a focus on the interaction of theory and practice. the aim of such projects is to give students exposure to the industry and can include real workplace assessors and possibly real or simulated interviews with clients and supervisors. the assessment of these projects should take into consideration not personal (e.g. hobbies and pastimes) teamwork skills working with people project management working across cultures business skills personal attributes time management skills academic (e.g. university it degrees, other short courses) work experience (e.g. previous careers, previous work experience it/non-it) social (e.g. friends/social network, overseas travel, extra-curricular) communication skills nagarajan, s. & edwards, j. (2014). is the graduates attribute approach sufficient to develop work ready graduates? journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 5(1) 22 only assessment of the technical content based on the project deliverables, but also assessment of the development and use of professional skills such as communication skills, time management, teamwork, project management, business skills and self-reflection abilities. it is desirable that project problems are designed to be open, ambiguous and broad with students from different cultures and languages interacting with real workplace supervisors and university supervisors. students should be asked to present their work at industry meetings to gather feedback. rossin and hyland (2003) studied two project work groups from the information systems departments in two uk universities. in each case, students acted as consultants to clients and tutors assumed an advisory role to facilitate the project work. they found that the advantages of group work-based learning included: students training each other, both in technology and non-technical areas (the cascading effect of skills and knowledge was strong); conducting peer assessment; undertaking individual self-assessment (personal diaries) and the submission of group-based work deliverables for assessment. such capstone projects have great potential to develop contextualised professional skills for it graduates. while the advantages of group work-based learning are clear, issues do arise if lecturers do not understand the transfer of generic skills between contexts and are not familiar with learning theory. hence, students may be disadvantaged because of the approaches to teaching and learning used in classrooms (crebert et al., 2004a; 2004b). bridges (1993) describes ‘transferring skills’ as higher order skills that enable a person to select, adapt, adjust and apply his or her skills to different situations across different social contexts and across different cognitive domains. the development of such skills within a classroom setting requires specifically constructed tasks within the teaching and learning program. the differing understandings and interpretations of generic graduate attributes present an obstacle to the consistent implementation of a graduate attributes framework across faculties. a further challenge for all universities is how to encourage student selfdevelopment and assessment for lifelong learning and reflective practice. this seems to be an area of deficiency in many graduates and development of this attribute through existing teaching, learning and assessment practices is often lacking. major study finding: cultural awareness and ability to work with cultures is a skill which is needed in it but is often absent from graduate attributes ability to work with people from different cultures graduates’ work frequently requires them to communicate with a variety of people from different departmental groups with different cultures within their own organization, both locally and overseas. in addition, multinational and often global teams or clients are involved in it projects. consequently, cultural complexity arises due to the different cultures which may have different values and beliefs. graduates have to take extreme care in composing all communication to deliver their message in a simple, clear, professional and timely manner. in this context, cultural awareness and communication are strongly related skills. graduates need to be aware of the nature of the group with whom they are talking. communicating with technical teams is different from communicating with business teams. these two groups have varied professional culture and language requirements. even within the same professional group, the use of technical language can be complicated, especially if the peers are from different overseas offices. graduates need to be conscious of the recipient ‘culture’. gender differences can sometimes introduce yet another form of culture. when a graduate is working on a project that uses different language systems or translations it is essential for graduates to acknowledge the complexities involved in developing a satisfactory product for the clients. one graduate described her experience with an nagarajan, s. & edwards, j. (2014). is the graduates attribute approach sufficient to develop work ready graduates? journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 5(1) 23 international client as stressful, tedious and frustrating because of language and cultural differences that arose during the interactions between their australian office, overseas offices and the client’s overseas office. we had an e-book campaign……….this e-book had to get translated into let me see, simplified chinese, traditional chinese, korean and then it was sent over to europe to get translated into russian, spanish and a couple of others….however, because we had a really lengthy backwards and forwards with the client …. it was an international campaign and i can understand that. …..they were immensely particular about everything…. manager who was working with me must have recorded in excess of 100 emails with said client about this project, which is insane. awareness of cultural barriers while working on international sites it is important for graduates to be aware of loca l customs, values and beliefs, for example having knowledge of local politics, holiday periods and food habits. one graduate was surprised when the customer made them wait until after a certain time because he did not like to be disturbed during certain times of the day. some people make you wait so they can finish their lunch before you can start work. that’s happened to me….when someone we sent out, an engineer on site, and the customer said, you’ve got to wait i’ve got to finish my lunch. so we had to just wait there…. so the timing and knowing the local customs there on top of the language issues as well…. language barriers are usually overcome by the use of translators. when the translators are not reliable project management plans can be affected. a graduate described her dilemma in working with translators and how that affected her project management plans. …all of a sudden we are working with a translation team. we have to work out exactly what they can do, how they are going to do it and how much it is going to cost as well. all that gets taken into account…….but for the most part when there is translation… it is really my problem. another graduate in a helpdesk role stated how he had to communicate with clients who had a strong accent, and as a result their english was hard to understand. graduates in those situations have to be polite while facilitating communication either by use of a slower pace or translators. although the ability to work with people from different cultures and awareness of cultural and language barriers was strongly indicated as a requirement by many it graduates in this study, it is not one of the threshold skills developed for the altc by wright et al. (2010). this is surprising in light of the attention given to the development of cultural competence of staff and students in universities generally. while development of the skills required for working in such international projects can be fully developed only when graduates are on the job, an initial awareness and some development during university studies is not impossible and would be valued by students. the next section elaborates on this proposition. maximising and using diversity in the university environment to assist it graduates to develop social and cultural skills for the global workplace it graduates need relevant cultural and communication skills to work in an industry that is global, multi-national and involves clients and colleagues from different countries and cultures. they also need to be aware of local customs and practices when they go on overseas business trips. in addition to the ability to work with people from different cultures, nagarajan, s. & edwards, j. (2014). is the graduates attribute approach sufficient to develop work ready graduates? journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 5(1) 24 graduates need skills to work with people from different industry sectors, people from different age groups and with different experience levels in the hierarchy. oliver, jones, tucker & ferns (2007b) state that graduates with international perspectives are able to consider how issues might impact on people in other parts of the world and graduates with intercultural perspectives are able to consider how issues might impact on people from other cultures. according to jenkins (1995) the link between the effectiveness of graduates in the workplace and a global perspective cannot be ignored. universities could be responsible for developing graduates who fit into global workplaces. similarly, fuller and scott (2009) discuss the need for global graduates and the development of job-readiness and employability skills in a global context. this is particularly relevant for the it industry. oliver et al. (2007b) reported that employers surveyed in their study commented that their graduates lacked international perspective and intercultural understanding. social and cultural skills are those skills that graduates need to work effectively with people from different cultures and different professions (technical and non-technical), such as building and maintaining professional relationships with peers and customers. within australian universities, particularly in it departments, both staff and students come from a diverse range of ethnic and cultural backgrounds. this diversity could be used to help build these skills. universities could also tap into a different form of diversity and encourage collaboration between students in different disciplines and promote and facilitate socialisation between students from different courses, both on academic and cultural and social grounds (barkley, cross & major, 2005; trigwell, 2005; webb, dawes & egodawatta, 2011; schaffer, 2012). faculties should consider the possibility of developing cross faculty projects for students although this can present practical challenges. while forming project groups, the ideal is to form diverse groups with a mix of students from different age groups, with or without previous work experience. the development of socio-cultural and professional skills could be encouraged by healthy intra and inter-university competitions such as debates. encouraging student volunteers to plan and conduct major events on campus and increasing the interaction between students from different cultures will also help in the development of culturally sensitive global graduates. universities need to consider allocating dedicated resources to develop cultural awareness amongst their students through whatever is realistic and affordable, although there are several practical challenges to overcome. many university students cannot afford the time for social activities because they are working in part-time jobs to fund their living and study expenses. these jobs are often low level and offer few opportunities for the development of social skills. another obstacle for socialisation is that students from non-english speaking backgrounds are sometimes reluctant to participate in social activities at universities. the challenge is for universities to engage all their graduates in socialisation processes while they are studying. the graduates in a study conducted by crebert et al. (2004a) chose ‘group work’ (from a list of options) as the most effective context for the development of the university’s stated generic skills and abilities. in addition, during work placements, graduates believed, that being given specific responsibility and working collaboratively with colleagues were critical for skill development. graduates also stated that while teams at university were based on friendships, socio-cultural backgrounds and academic standards, at work they had to team up with people who might be different socially and professionally. in the study reported in this paper, it graduates believed that the teamwork they engaged in at university assisted to some extent with the development of teamwork skills. however, the type of teamwork skills required in typical it work settings, (for example, working with culturally diverse international teams in different time zones), were quite different. nevertheless, they indicated that any nagarajan, s. & edwards, j. (2014). is the graduates attribute approach sufficient to develop work ready graduates? journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 5(1) 25 group work-based learning had a greater impact on personal and social development than independent learning. the value of teamwork (engestrom, 1996), lifelong learning that views learning as ‘inescapably a social creation’ (ranson, 1998) and the notion of collective intelligence (brown & lauder, 1995) are highlighted by group work-based learning (both at university and workplaces). guile and hayton (1999) suggest that this is the case, even in the sphere of it in which individual learning seems to predominate. lave and wenger (2002) describe the social context of learning in terms of ‘legitimate peripheral participation’ and the different ways in which newcomers move from being an outsider to an insider (in workplace learning). they view learning as a part of social practice. rossin and hyland (2003) propose group work-based learning to provide opportunities for training for employment and for personal and social development (moral, cognitive and social benefits to its members and to the wider community). the process rather than just the learning outcomes is emphasised by the social context of learning. they claim that social learning and communities of practice serve as mechanisms for personal, social and self-development of graduates. socialisation at university could be achieved through encouraging student participation in work placements, internships, involvement in student organisations, networking and career building contacts. socialisation has the potential to provide graduates with opportunities to develop their social, communication and interpersonal skills. universities should maximise and utilise their environments to develop the social and cultural skills of their graduates. for example, this study showed that communication requirements vary across workplaces, based on the scope and kinds of communication and norms of workplace requirements and culture. communication in a hierarchical, oral, directive (command) culture is different from negotiations with self-managed teams in a workplace for a work based decision-making process (billett, 2000, p.145). these workplace cultural differences should be highlighted to graduates before they enter the workforce so they do not experience ‘culture shock’. communication skills, teamwork skills and the ability to work with people from different cultures are the most obvious skills that were developed from increased socialisation with university friends and professional peers as shown in the study findings. it has been reported in previous studies that graduates who actively participated in student organisations, internships and in organising or planning social and cultural events during university studies, perceived their courses as more relevant and useful than those who had not been so involved (shruptrine & willenborg, 1998; sleap & reed, 2006). conclusion an increasingly important aspect of university preparation for the workforce is the attention to graduate attributes. despite of the significance of cultural awareness and the ability to work with different cultures for professional graduates, there is little reference to the development of these skills in the current graduate attributes of many universities. these are of particular importance for it degrees and courses. even where such an attribute, often expressed as ‘global citizen’, is listed, there is no assurance that such skills are translated into learning and assessment resources. this paper has considered how universities might maximise the use of diversity on their campuses to assist with the development of cultural skills in graduates. in addition to this, faculties need frameworks beyond current graduate attributes to successfully address the development of skills such as the ability to work across different cultures. in conclusion, given the significance of graduate attributes at university, faculty and course level, it is of concern that they are often seen as yet another instrument for compliance rather than providing a focus for teaching and learning. there remains work to be done to ensure that students are not only aware of the importance of graduate attributes, but also that these can be achieved through student learning and assessment experiences. furthermore, graduate attributes frameworks need to be reviewed for specific professional skills for individual professions. nagarajan, s. & edwards, j. 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(2022). work ready graduates for australian small and medium accounting firms. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 13(1), 1-18. 1 the journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability issn: 1838-3815 (online) journal homepage: https://ojs.deakin.edu.au/index.php/jtlge/ work ready graduates for australian small and medium accounting firms sharon hayes1, brett freudenberg1 and deborah delaney1 corresponding author: brett freudenberg (b.freudenberg@griffith.edu.au ) 1griffith university, australia abstract approximately 40% of accounting graduate recruitment in australia is by small and medium accounting (sma) firms, firms which can face different constraints compared to their larger counterparts. given the characteristics of sma firms it is important to appreciate what they consider makes a work ready graduate. this article reports the findings of a study that explores what makes a graduate work ready when commencing employment within an australian sma firm. the findings suggest that a work ready graduate for an sma firm has a working knowledge and understanding of business accounting software programs, taxation and tax software. additionally, there is a high emphasis on communication and interpersonal skills. this raises the question as to what extent should current university degrees provide adequate technical knowledge and generic skill development for those graduates seeking employment with sma firms, and who should be responsible for it? keywords: accounting, graduates, small to medium accounting, employment, work-ready introduction the role for professional accountants continues to undergo significant change, adapting from the traditional role of providing information and keeping records, to providing business guidance and data analysis (ahadiat & martin, 2015). technology changes are foremost, with yaftian, mirshekary and mihret, (2017) recognising accounting as significantly affected by the introduction of industry software and innovative practices in recent decades. moreover, future challenges are anticipated for accounting graduates if the growing trend of outsourcing basic core accounting services continues, with entry-level tasks commonly providing a means to enhance and develop skills during early employment (chaplin, 2017). freeman and wells (2015) acknowledge that professional accounting bodies have been active in adapting learning outcomes and required competencies to align with industry developments. however, bayerlein and timpson (2017) argue that the learning outcomes of most accredited australian undergraduate commerce degrees do not align with the profession’s requirements. even so, alignment with accreditation guidelines will not ensure graduates are work-ready, due to the lack of consensus between employer requirements and the current accounting programs (pan & perera, 2012). the problem may arise because the graduate can choose to seek a career within numerous https://ojs.deakin.edu.au/index.php/jtlge/ mailto:b.freudenberg@griffith.edu.au hayes, s., freudenberg, b., & delany, d. (2022). work ready graduates for australian small and medium accounting firms. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 13(1), 1-18. 2 employment contexts, including public accounting practices of various size, corporate or government environments (hayes, freudenberg, & delaney, 2018). determining the work-readiness of a graduate must ultimately reflect the employment context in which the graduate commences. a ‘work-ready’ graduate is one who has obtained the desired configuration of ‘technical knowledge’ and ‘generic skills’, so they may competently perform in their employment context (bui & porter, 2010). technical knowledge describes the knowledge that is required for the certain discipline, and for accounting can include the understanding of debits and credits, preparing financial statements, and taxation compliance activities (low, botes, dela rue, & allen, 2016; jackling & de lange, 2009). whereas, generic skills include inter-personal skills, communication, and problem solving, which are not specific to a discipline (barrie, 2006). the term ‘graduate attributes’ is an overarching term describing the integral outcomes developed during university studies, and has been defined as the qualities, skills and understandings a university community agrees students should develop during their time with the institution (de la harpe & david, 2012). of course, these attitudes and skills can be inter-related (bui & porter, 2010), and in total could be comprehended as ‘employability’ which sits within, but is not identical to ‘graduate attributes’ (tempone et al., 2012, p. 42). yorke (2006) defined employability as: …a set of achievements – skills, understandings and personal attributes – that makes graduates more likely to gain employment and be successful in their chosen occupations, which benefits themselves, the workforce, the community and the economy (p.8). smith, ferns and russell (2014) describe a work-ready graduate as ...one who can be effective as a professional employee on the very first day of employment (p. 1). of course, to what extent this is a realistic aspiration on day one is questionable, but it is nevertheless a concept that deserves consideration. leong and kavanagh (2013) and mcdowall, jackling and natoli (2015) further show that employers anticipate the completion of a balanced curriculum, including both the requisite technical knowledge and the generic skills necessary to work effectively within a business context. consequently, these attributes include both technical and generic skills (kavanagh & drennan, 2008), and it is argued that the necessity for these skills requires consideration be given to the employment context. suggestions that small to medium accounting (sma) firms place relatively more importance on technical knowledge (bui & porter, 2010) have been disputed by low and colleagues (2016), arguing that there is no evidence from their new zealand (nz) based findings inferring that sma firms place more importance on particular skills when compared to larger firms. recent studies have investigated the attributes of accounting graduates across a broad variety of employment contexts including non-accounting industry employers (bui & porter, 2010; low et al., 2016; tempone et al., 2012). however, much of the previous research does not identify graduate attributes pertaining to sma firms despite these employers engaging almost 41% of domestic accounting graduates in australia (graduate careers australia, 2015). given the proportion of graduates securing employment with sma firms, it is important to consider if these accounting graduates are provided with the opportunity to develop work-ready skills across a board context of work environments. this is more acute for sma firms as those firms may have limited financial resources for training and supporting graduates as they commence employment (hayes, freudenberg, & delaney, 2018). accordingly, the scope of this study focuses on australian sma employers, identified as accounting firms with less than 100 full-time employees, which is consistent with the definition given by graduate careers australia (gca). expectations for work-ready graduates fluctuate across different employer groups, reinforcing the above view that the graduates’ work-readiness will depend on the employment role (howieson et al., 2014). bishop (2017) found that when considering trainee accountants in different employment contexts, that smaller firms typically include a widely varied client base and require trainees to apply a broader range of knowledge and generic skills. the expansion and complexity of services offered by a sma firm could also lead to a broadening of the knowledge and generic skills a work-ready hayes, s., freudenberg, b., & delany, d. (2022). work ready graduates for australian small and medium accounting firms. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 13(1), 1-18. 3 accounting graduate requires (sin & mcguigan, 2013). while a previous study has considered the technical knowledge and generic skills for graduates of australian sma firms from a taxation perspective (hayes, freudenberg, & delaney, 2018), this study is unique in its focus on the research question ‘do australian graduates generally attain sufficient skills to be considered ‘work-ready’ when commencing employment in an sma firm?’ other related concepts considered include who should be responsible for work-readiness and whether it is fully obtainable. the remainder of this article is structured as follows. section 2 provides a discussion of graduate trends and research into graduate attributes. section 3 provides the research methodology undertaken and describes the participants’ demographics. section 4 provides an analysis of the results, which is followed by section 5 with the recommendations, suggestions for future research and conclusion. ‘work-ready’ literature the following section considers some of our understanding of accounting graduates in terms of trends, and research into graduate attributes. graduate trends according to labour market research 81% of degree qualified accounting applicants were deemed unsuitable for the vacancy, with employers commonly citing lack of experience as a decisive factor (australian government, 2017). given the identified surplus of accounting graduates, it is of concern that 26.8% of all graduate employers had trouble sourcing graduates, of which accounting was the third highest profession experiencing difficulties (graduate careers australia, 2016). unfortunately, the reasons underlying these difficulties are not detailed. equally concerning is the insistence by more than half of these employers that they would have hired additional graduates if more suitable applicants had been available. it is noted that these recruitment difficulties may be a result of deficiencies in the university programs due to the misalignment of the needs and realities of current accounting practices with the university curriculum (australian government, 2017). graduate attributes graduate attributes can be described as the integral outcomes developed during university studies. these attributes can be critical when seeking employment, and extend beyond disciplinary expertise, to personal capabilities and behaviours (sin & mcguigan, 2013). cole and hallett (2019) have argued employability is not static, and extends to more malleable concepts of career adaptability, lifelong and lifewide learning, and higher education ‘should mirror this fluidity (p. 120). they consider beyond skills, there needs to be a focus on behaviour and performance, rather than just reflecting an industry-enforced agenda (p. 121). while some of these characteristics can be classified as either generic skills or technical knowledge, others extend beyond these with wellprepared graduates possessing an array of attributes suitable for the work context, such that they are ‘work-ready’ (smith, ferns, & russell, 2014). whilst a number of australian and nz studies have been conducted to identify the desired skills needed by graduates, the definition of ‘work-ready’ will depend upon the employment context in which the graduate is employed. low and colleagues (2016) argue that the recent literature is inconclusive in ascertaining which attributes the employers require of their graduates and the relative importance of knowledge, skills and personal attributes. studies from other countries involving accounting graduate skills have also considered the skills required, such as in sri lanka (abayadeerah & watty, 2014), south africa (fourie, 2014), and the united kingdom (towers-clark, 2015). given the similarity in contexts, including joint professional accounting bodies, of particular hayes, s., freudenberg, b., & delany, d. (2022). work ready graduates for australian small and medium accounting firms. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 13(1), 1-18. 4 relevance are the studies from nz and australia, and table 1 summaries six studies, and notes the most frequently identified skill and the employment context considered. studies involving sma firms suggest that the range of tasks and clients to which graduates (including trainee accountants) are exposed is generally wider, and the in-house training practices are less resource-intensive with a less developed structure (bishop, 2017). this suggests a broader range of graduate skills and attributes may be necessary within the sma firm context to ensure workreadiness. it should be noted that some of the variation in the studies could be due to the construction of the relevant research, as well as whether open ended questions were asked as opposed to closed choice options. nevertheless, the studies do provide some useful insights. considering these six studies (table 1) a common theme emerging is the importance of communication and team skills, as these appear in the top three of five of the studies. accounting knowledge also appears in 50% of the studies, although not all of these studies considered knowledge. kavanagh and drennan (2008) conducted a cross-institutional empirical study to determine which professional skills accounting graduates perceive as critical to employment success. the results were compared with the perceived importance of similar skills by a sample of australian employers. whilst the results show problem-solving skills, real-life experience, and basic accounting skills as the top three skills required, this study has several limitations. firstly, the observations focussed primarily on the perspectives of the graduates from three universities, with not all candidates studying accounting, and further it did not distinguish between smas and larger firms. jackling and de lange (2009) investigated the importance of technical knowledge and generic skills developed during undergraduate accounting courses at a victorian university using both graduate and employer perspectives. both groups recognised the importance of technical accounting knowledge, but graduates indicated that several generic skills were not being taught or developed sufficiently; including team skills, verbal communication and interpersonal skills. however, the study did not focus on the requirements of sma practitioners, with only six of the twelve participating employers noted as chartered accountants, and including one big four and one second tier firm. bui and porter (2010) found that nz employers continue to find accounting graduates not ‘workready’, identifying a relationship between firm size and the desired balance of technical and nontechnical skills. in this study, 13 interviews were conducted with staff from 11 accounting firms, with five from the big four and eight from sma firms. the smas identified team skills, good interpersonal skills and oral communication skills as attributes to be emphasised, together with good technical accounting skills. large firms typically suggested graduates should obtain their technical knowledge in-house during a post-education training period after securing employment, whilst smas identified that a wide range of technical accounting knowledge and skills such as bookkeeping are essential. this could illustrate that the needs of smas are different and still require base level knowledge as outsourcing may not be possible. tempone et al. (2012) investigated what australian accounting employers require for work-ready graduates. participants included 29 accounting employers from the big 4, mid-tier and sma firms as well as large corporations, public sector and not-for-profit entities. the study identified that demand for particular generic skills will be context specific, with differing requirements by the employers: attributable to the work undertaken in each of the sectors, the capacity of firms to train and develop generic attributes, and the specific outcomes these employers desired to obtain from their workforce and its endeavours (tempone et al., 2012, p. 52). accordingly, the employment context and size of the accounting firm may influence the skills required for a graduate to be work-ready. as the study focussed only on generic attributes, additional research is necessary to investigate all graduate attributes desired by an sma firm. hayes, s., freudenberg, b., & delany, d. (2022). work ready graduates for australian small and medium accounting firms. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 13(1), 1-18. 5 a study by low et al. (2016) examined which technical and generic skills are required for work-ready accounting graduates in nz over a variety of firm sizes. their findings did not conclusively align with prior studies indicating employer requirements could depend on the firm size or industry, which may be in part due to the open ended questions used in their interviews exploring technical and generic skills of an ideal graduate. in their study of 10 nz employers, they found a lack of evidence suggesting that sma firms place more importance on technical knowledge compared to large firms. however, it confirmed prior research showing that employers’ value and emphasise generic skills, including communication, interpersonal skills and teamwork. hayes, freudenberg and delaney (2018) examined 12 australian sma firms to understand the skills required for commencing graduates to be work-ready from a taxation perspective. this study highlighted that the technical knowledge required by the top three included knowledge in relation to tax preparation, accounting software and financial statements. the generic skills required included communication, interpersonal and teamwork; although the context of these skills was multi-faceted and related to such things as communication within a small firm, as well as with clients by either phone, letter or emails. the study indicated that the sma firms can have capacity constraints to develop skills, particularly generic skills. table 1: australian and new zealand studies authors research question(s) details of study top knowledge, skills required or most identified year & study location employer type kavanagh & drennan what professional skills do employers expect accounting graduates to possess at entry level? 1) problem solving 2) business awareness / real life experience 3) accounting skills 2008 australia 28 practitioners across a variety of industries jackling &de lange what do employers perceive as the most important graduate skills in their potential employees? 1) team skills 2) leadership 3) oral communication 2009 australia 12 human resource managers employer type not given bui & porter what are the right skills (or competencies) of accounting graduates?  accounting concepts  communication skills  teamwork (order varies by size or type of employer) 2010 new zealand 5 large firms 6 sma firms 0 government/ private/ other tempone et al. what are key graduate attributes required by employers of an accounting graduate? (2) at what level are they required at various stages of their career? generic only: 1) communication skills 2) teamwork 3) self-management 2012 australia 4 large firms 5 sma firms 20 government/ private/ other low, botes, dela rue, & allen. what are accounting employers looking for in their ‘ideal’ graduate? does the much touted ‘expectation gap’ within new zealand still exist? 1) listening skills 2) teamwork 3) oral communication 2016 new zealand 10 employers (including big four accounting firms, smas (bdo); audit new zealand and a large corporate employer). hayes, freudenbe what are the technical and generic skills technical knowledge: 1) financial statements 2017 australia 12 sma hayes, s., freudenberg, b., & delany, d. (2022). work ready graduates for australian small and medium accounting firms. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 13(1), 1-18. 6 rg & delaney. required in an australian sma firm? 2) accounting package software 3) tax and tax software generic skills: 1) communication 2) interpersonal 3) teamwork (southeast queensland) employers sma practices have demonstrated the need for numerous skills for a graduate to be ’work-ready’ (bui & porter, 2010), however the combination of attributes required is yet to be clearly ascertained. examining the requirements in light of the employment context becomes crucial due to the different focus of sma firms, the differing nature of the accounting services provided, and potentially due to the reduced capacity to train commencing graduates (tempone et al., 2012). despite the numerous studies about technical and/or generic skills across a range of accounting education, how these skills relate to the concept of ‘work ready’ for smas and who is responsible for their development is not clear. extending bui and porter’s (2010) study to the australian context, this study seeks to explore and examine what ‘work-ready’ means for sma firms. research methodology the first aim of this study was to consider how sma employers perceive and describe a work-ready graduate within their firm. the second aim was to examine the necessity for a graduate to be ‘workready’ and if so, identify the stakeholder responsible for ensuring that this occurs prior to employment commencing. method semi-structured interviews were held with sma firms listed within online membership directories of the three australian professional accounting bodies: chartered accountants australia and new zealand (caanz); cpa australia; and the institute of public accountants (ipa). firms employing between one and 99 full-time (or equivalent) employees were selected to correspond with the gca definition. convenience sampling (edwards & holland, 2013) was used to select firms located within 100kms of the gold coast region, providing a sufficiently broad viewpoint, and included employers within both the gold coast and brisbane regions of queensland. the sma firm was further required to have hired a commerce graduate within the past ten years. thirty-four suitable firms were invited to attend an interview with participants from 12 separate firms ultimately participating in the project. whilst this is a modest sample, the response rate of 35.2% was considered sufficient to provide rich and detailed information. however, attempts to generalise these results need to be done with caution and should only be considered as a preliminary exploration. interviews were held with a senior staff member who is actively involved with graduate recruitment, who completed an online survey to provide demographic information prior to the interview. given that the researchers wanted to allow participants to elaborate on the particular skills required in the sma context, semi-structured interviews were seen as appropriate to allow the researchers to obtain rich and detailed information through a variety of collection methods (pan & tan, 2011). semi-structured interviews with an average duration of one hour were conducted using an interview guide for consistency (see appendix, p.19). the data generated during the interviews was firstly eclectically coded as numerous themes emerged, to enable reflection and analysis (towers-clarke, 2015). the next phase was to develop a code book as suggested by decuir-gunby, marshal and mcculloch (2011), to assist with developing codes from the raw data and enable consistent coding. hayes, s., freudenberg, b., & delany, d. (2022). work ready graduates for australian small and medium accounting firms. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 13(1), 1-18. 7 the findings were subsequently analysed to note key themes and patterns upon which to draw conclusions (saunders, lewis, & thornhill, 2015). ethics approval was obtained, and participants completed a consent form prior to the interviews occurring. descriptive statistics table 2 details the demographics of the 12 participating firms, who all operated within the greater gold coast or brisbane regions, with 50% classified as small (n=3) or very small (n=3), and the remaining 50% (n=6) classified as small to medium. the inclusion of each firm’s ten-year graduate employment history shows that each participating firm has experience in graduate employment. table 2: demographics: participating firms p a rt ic ip a n ts p a rt ic ip a n t # firm location size (employees) number of graduates in past 10 years graduate training provided s ta ff m e n to r m a n u a ls / v id e o s in te rn a l tr a in in g e xt . tr a in in g p d s e m in a rs p1 gold coast/ northern nsw <5 1–2     p2 gold coast/ logan 21 to 100 10+     p3 gold coast & brisbane (3 interstate offices) 21 to 10 10+     p4 brisbane 21 to 100 6–10     p5 brisbane 21 to 100 6–10     p6 brisbane 21 to 100 10+     p7 gold coast & hinterland 21 to 100 6–10     p8 gold coast & hinterland 6 to 20 6–10     p9 gold coast 6 to 20 3–5     p10 gold coast 6 to 20 10+     p11 brisbane <5 1–2     p12 gold coast & hinterland <5 10+       indicates the training provided table 3 illustrates the services provided by each participating firm, as these may influence the desired work-ready graduate skills. hayes, s., freudenberg, b., & delany, d. (2022). work ready graduates for australian small and medium accounting firms. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 13(1), 1-18. 8 table 3: services provided by the participating firms services provided participant firms 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 financial statement & reporting    tax compliance and gst    business setup & structuring    bookkeeping services      cash flow & budgeting services        registered office services     due diligence reports            forensic accounting             financial planning           auditing           other – smsf services             other – finance & legal services             other – management & kpi             other – insolvency & restructure              indicates the service is provided results what is a work ready graduate? in determining what is a work-ready graduate, participants from each firm were asked to describe a work-ready graduate for their sma firm. this was an open-ended question to allow participants to elicit their own thoughts about this term (see appendix). most participants discussed workreadiness in terms of the duties that are expected of the graduate when commencing employment, and by identifying the skills needed to perform those duties, which are discussed below. figure 1 depicts the skills which were mentioned most frequently by participants as contributing to a workready graduate (n=12). hayes, s., freudenberg, b., & delany, d. (2022). work ready graduates for australian small and medium accounting firms. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 13(1), 1-18. 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 6 1 2 3 1 6 5 1 6 2 4 3 6 1 1 4 f re q u e n cy o f m e n ti o n characteristics figure 1: characteristics for sma work-ready accounting graduates from figure 1 it can be it can be seen that most participants mention characteristics related to ‘accounting software skills’, ‘taxation knowledge and software’ and ‘communication/interpersonal skills’, each of which is now explored in more detail below. accounting software skills six participants identified accounting software skills in describing work-ready graduates, referring to general business software programs including myob, xero or quickbooks. participants recognised the duties of the sma graduate are broad enough to require operating and understanding the accounting software, as well as advising and interpreting its data, stating: we’d prefer them to have xero and myob experience … a client rings up in xero and says i need help with running payroll, and they just expect you to be able to do it … it all happens very quickly and live. (p4) they need to be able to use accounting software … so that if a business that’s having financial stress doesn’t have financial statements, they can go through the double entry bookkeeping, so they need to understand how it works to be able to break it down. (p3) these findings confirm that being work-ready should not just include familiarisation with the software, but also understanding the accounting aspects, including how programs operate and transactions are processed. it is argued that sma clients are expecting a broader range of assistance and graduates can expect to utilise their accounting knowledge together with software skills more regularly. despite limited initial client contact (discussed below), these skills remain critical in assisting senior staff to accomplish tasks. taxation knowledge and software basic taxation knowledge is noted as a required skill by 50% of participants (n=6), confirming the high level of taxation compliance services provided by sma firms and the significance of these services within their firm’s activities: hayes, s., freudenberg, b., & delany, d. (2022). work ready graduates for australian small and medium accounting firms. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 13(1), 1-18. 10 predominantly what we do in all our accounting is taxation because that is what drives our business really. (p1) … the bread and butter stuff that we do, tax returns and accounting. (p7) as identified by chaplin (2017), basic tax return preparation is elementary work that is often undertaken by graduates. it was confirmed by four participants that the ability to perform this competently is one indicator of work-readiness: to be able to competently sit down and complete a very basic tax return from an individual tax return perspective. (p11) additionally, taxation software skills are mentioned by participants as a necessary component of basic tax return preparation. it may be argued that this is an implied skill as most compliance work is now undertaken by firms using industry software and must be submitted to the australian taxation office (ato) via electronic lodgement: … the ability to go into various tax programs and complete a basic tax return. (p12) although it is noted that this skill combination would contribute to a graduate being considered work-ready in many sma firms, one participant (from a specialist insolvency accounting firm) found this skill not necessary as it wasn’t a service provided by that firm. communication and interpersonal skills six participants described a work-ready graduate in terms of generic attributes that are needed by graduates in performing their work. communication skills were identified as necessary, confirming previous research findings (tempone et al., 2012): a work-ready graduate is a person who has developed communication (skills). (p8) they need to be able to write an email that’s both presentable and professional; they need to be able to answer the phone for any client that calls up with a question. (p5) several participants also noted that communication skills were especially critical where graduates were expected to deal with clients sooner compared to those in larger firms. although the stage of employment at which the graduate deals with clients varied across participants, and communication skills both verbal and written were considered important: if they are sitting in front of a client, you want someone who is professional and able to communicate with the client effectively. (p5) the requirement for communication skills was also seen in terms of communicating within the workplace, something that was noted within the description of interpersonal skills: they need to be able to communicate with other people, so interpersonal skills … not being afraid to ask a question (of your colleagues) because you think it is silly, you are not going to learn unless you ask questions. (p12) should graduates be work-ready? sma firm participants were asked to consider whether graduates should be work-ready or whether on-the-job training may be sufficient. nine participants recognised that there will always be the requirement for some level of on-the-job training, that a graduate will never be completely workready. this is demonstrated in table 2, as all sma participants provide at least one form of in-house training to graduate employees. even where a graduate has obtained a level of skills to be work hayes, s., freudenberg, b., & delany, d. (2022). work ready graduates for australian small and medium accounting firms. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 13(1), 1-18. 11 ready, ‘there is still that sort of on-the-job (training) to get them into your mould, your processes, your procedures …’ (p1), and this ‘couldn’t be something that the universities do’ (p2). the achieved level of technical accounting knowledge provided different viewpoints, with most participants agreeing that the technical knowledge can be taught when required: they don’t necessarily have to be work-ready all the time, it depends what the firm is looking for ... we are looking for people with highly developed soft skills. (p5) we do insolvency work so we have to teach them the law around the insolvency process and that’s very specific and takes a lot of training. (p3) others noted that whilst some graduates are less than work-ready, there must be some skills shown otherwise sma firm resources become strained: totally untrained, that won’t work … maybe it may work in a larger firm where they have enough people to train them but this is a small firm so they need to really start working. (p9) if someone doesn’t have some level of developed communication, and attention to detail and accuracy skills, that’s not something an employer will want to start from scratch with. (p8) overall, it is apparent that it is realised that graduates won’t be entirely work-ready, and some training will be required, although it is preferable that some attributes have greater development prior to commencement. who is responsible for work-readiness? participants were asked to consider who is responsible for ensuring work-readiness of graduates, whether it is the universities or the graduates or the employers themselves (see table 4). threequarters of participants (n=9) considered that universities should be at least partially responsible for ensuring the work readiness of graduates. however, only two of those held universities solely responsible, arguing higher graduate employability skills is an outcome that the university should be striving to offer all students: what we are talking about here is bridging that gap between that and them being able to perform… i would like to see the educational institution take on more of that responsibility to bridge that gap because i think it’s important … a lot of people won’t do it (hire graduates) because they don’t want to spend time … ultimately detrimental to the graduate. (p1) table 4: stakeholders responsible for work-readiness stakeholder p1 p2 p3 p4 p5 p6 p7 p8 p9 p10 p11 p12 total university          n=9 student        n=7 employer       n=6  indicates the response by the respondent two-thirds of employers (n=8) identified a combination of two of the stakeholders as responsible, with the possible responses divided evenly amongst the possible combinations. two participants stated that the responsibility belongs to both graduates and employers, and that the graduate should use the broad knowledge from university to prepare for their chosen career path with the employer providing on-the-job training: hayes, s., freudenberg, b., & delany, d. (2022). work ready graduates for australian small and medium accounting firms. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 13(1), 1-18. 12 there is no way the university can spit out a graduate that is perfect for every industry. (p3) three participants identified the responsibility as shared between the university and employers particularly in communicating the needs of industry: it doesn’t matter if they are small, medium or large, they all have the same issues with graduates – if the universities could meet with employers and ask them what they need to be job-ready. all firms are different with processes and check-lists … but all the basics are the same. (p12) three participants (n=3) stated that graduates are responsible along with the university to ensure they prepare as work-ready, as the employer is paying them to work and shouldn’t be liable for training too: i think it is the student’s responsibility to be ready but possibly the university’s responsibility to make sure they know what ready means ... so you have to give them the tools to do it ... the buck stops with them. (p7) one participant commented that all stakeholders were responsible, stating ‘it is probably a bit of a mix of everyone’ (p5). this suggests that universities are responsible for preparing students first, whilst the students should seek out any specific skills for a particular type of graduate employment, and the employer works with the graduate to provide job specific skills. while there is no clear finding about who is responsible, it does indicate that each stakeholder has a role to play. are graduates generally work ready? interview participants are asked to discuss whether recent graduates are work-ready for sma firms. several participants acknowledged that whilst recent graduates met their expectations in some areas, the technical knowledge was commonly lacking or rarely found, while others attributed this to selective recruitment: i’m pretty sure generic skills definitely meet that because that has been discussed in the recruitment stage and also in the probation stage … so yes most of the generic have. some of the distinct or really high performing graduates they know a lot of technical skills. (p6) the recruitment process and successful employment of graduates remains unpredictable, with five participants (41.7%) stating that their expectations were met. however, some remain unsure as to whether their expectations are realistic, with one acknowledging that meeting expectations is to be ‘distinguished from what i would say is work-ready because i have specific things that i need them to be able to do’ (p1). another participant admits this has been an area of ongoing deliberation: they met my expectations, yes, but my manager and i have been debating this for quite a while as to whether we just expect too much or whether what we are getting is really what we should be expecting. (p5) one participant identified a distinct decline in the employment opportunities, noting that ‘years ago this firm used to take ten each year’ (p2) and now only four graduates have been employed over the past three years. this significant drop in graduate employment was attributed in part due to lower quality graduates which in turn require high levels of training resources. the competitive nature of graduate employment may explain employer satisfaction with graduates. this is because the competition for a job ensures that the successful graduate is the candidate who possesses atypically excellent skills, and in this way students lacking the requisite skills find employment difficult to secure. overall, a third of sma participants identified that graduates did not hayes, s., freudenberg, b., & delany, d. (2022). work ready graduates for australian small and medium accounting firms. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 13(1), 1-18. 13 meet their expectations, commonly citing an obvious lack of both technical knowledge and generic skills, and raising concerns about the content being taught at universities: some graduates i ask them to look at a chart of accounts and they don’t know what a chart of accounts is, so this basic knowledge, how can they have finished three years of university? (p10) however, it appears that working while studying assists students in developing their work ready skills: it just doesn’t happen, the only ones who are work ready are the ones that have been working while they are doing university, so they are only job ready because they have been working. (p12) consequently, sma employers can still be satisfied with their graduates through the vetting process that can occur through the recruitment process, as well as students assisting themselves by working while studying. graduate on-the-job training another way to gauge what skills and knowledge are required for graduates to be work-ready is to examine the training provided to sma graduates upon commencement. table 2 identifies the graduate training provided within the first four weeks of commencing employment. of the five options listed, participants discussed the techniques and graduate outcomes for the induction programs and manuals, mentorships, as well as in-house and external training. the provision of technical knowledge through external training was stated to be a routine process when commencing: go to one of the institutes or cpa courses because they run new employee workshops where they spend a day on how to fill out a tax return and what the boxes mean. (p7) whilst not all sma firms utilise external training providers, all noted some form of technical skill training. the regularity with which graduates are employed by a particular sma firm will dictate whether it has any structured internal training program in place due to the resources required. staff induction courses are used in-house to introduce the graduate to their new working environment, and to familiarise the graduate with the policies and procedures of the firm, to ‘give them the fabric or base requirements of how to participate in our community’ (p3). participants described the induction process, varying in length from a few brief documents to a large bundle of detailed information. concerns were identified with the allocation of resources for graduate training, with one sma participant noting the difficulty implementing ‘a graduate program due to economies of scale, constant change, the technology is moving so fast’ (p11), whilst another struggled to identify why such technical training must be provided by the firm: … we feel like there is a huge onus on the firm to train them and it seems like it is more than just our own systems that they need to be trained in. we are actually training them on a lot of technical things that we feel they should already know from university but maybe it is that their confidence is lacking or maybe some of those inter-personal skills are lacking so they can’t show us that they know it … . (p5) this demonstrates the frustration about a perception of technical knowledge lacking, but also the possible relationship of how generic skills (such as interpersonal skills) may be influencing the ability of graduates to demonstrate their technical proficiency. this inter-relationship between knowledge hayes, s., freudenberg, b., & delany, d. (2022). work ready graduates for australian small and medium accounting firms. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 13(1), 1-18. 14 and skills can demonstrates the importance of developing the whole student. mentoring is also viewed as a way to introduce graduates to the technical and personal aspects of their new role, as the graduate can receive close guidance. mentoring is seen as an effective means for transferring knowledge and skills, with the mentor and graduate spending most of their time in close proximity for clarification or assistance. however, the resource cost to the sma firm is acknowledged because the mentor may not be performing their own tasks efficiently or achieving targets whilst they are working with the graduate, and due to this more junior staff might be appointed mentors: the level of experience of the mentor will depend on who is around and what workloads are around. typically they aren’t too senior because that isn’t a great use of resources but probably someone with two or three years’ experience, and they would help them with the firm’s policies and procedures and some of the technical skills. (p7) by considering the training provided to graduates in the first few weeks of work, it gives some indication of what knowledge and skills are required for them to be work-ready, this includes informal methods such as mentoring. discussion and conclusion this study has focused on the particular needs of sma firm in terms of what makes a ‘work ready’ graduate. this is unique as prior studies have generally looked at firms broadly, whereas this study has focused on smas which is important given the large number of graduates they recruit and the unique challenges smas can face due to their size and client base. sma participants recognised that while work-ready graduates are desirable, they appreciate it could be too challenging for educational institutions to accomplish this in an undergraduate degree due to the inclusion of a broad range of knowledge areas as prescribed by industry bodies. the findings highlighted that while universities are most commonly perceived as responsible for ensuring work-readiness of graduates, both employers and graduates were also acknowledged as being responsible. work-ready in terms of the research question ‘do australian graduates generally attain sufficient skills to be considered ‘work-ready’ when commencing employment in an sma firm?’, many participants answered positively, noting graduates typically meeting their expectations. they also indicated that a decline in graduate employment opportunities has resulted in increased demand by graduates, leading to the possibility that the increased competition means that the successful graduate is the candidate demonstrating above average skills and knowledge. examining the graduate training provided upon commencement confirms that graduates are not equipped with all the necessary skills to commence employment as work-ready. a number of participants provided immediate technical knowledge training in taxation and induction programs were often necessary for firmspecific practices, with staff mentoring to assist with day-to-day duties. however, concerns were raised about the financial resources required to make the graduate work-ready. in the case of graduates considered not work-ready when commencing with a sma firm, the problem seemed to stem from their required skills not being developed sufficiently. most notable is the under-development of written and oral communication skills, along with basic software skills. this provides an example of work-ready graduate skills that are highly desirable yet apparently lacking, and thus can require the sma to expend valuable resources. technical knowledge it is important that universities continue to provide the technical knowledge identified for workready graduates in the undergraduate degree, including financial statements preparation, hayes, s., freudenberg, b., & delany, d. (2022). work ready graduates for australian small and medium accounting firms. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 13(1), 1-18. 15 accounting software skills, and knowledge of double-entry bookkeeping. regard must also be given to the technological advances within the accounting and business industry to ensure that current trends are accommodated, such as the use of cloud-based software (hossack, 2015). although technical knowledge is not the only consideration for university degrees, and while accreditation can be a stronger driver in the content of courses (freudenberg & boccabella, 2014, p. 204), the question remains to what extent can the desired graduate attributes be developed in a three accounting year degree? previously calls have been made to consider whether accounting degrees should be extended to four years (howieson, 2003, p. 23), suggesting that in an extended degree more knowledge and skills could be developed. however, this is not guaranteed, as there can be a lack of consensus between typical employer requirements and current accounting programs (pan & perera, 2012). wil a lack of experience appears to be part of the reason that graduates can be seen as unsuitable (australian government, 2017), and this lack of experience could inhibit graduates ability to communicate what they do know (interview observation by p5). overall, working while studying appears to improve the work-readiness of graduates. a way students could be given this experience is through work-integrated learning (wil) (jackson, 2013). wil has been found to improve written and oral communication skills, interpersonal skills, and teamwork (freudenberg, brimble, & cameron, 2010), as well as the entry experience when commencing a job (saks, 1995). however, wil is typically undertaken by only a minority of business students, with less than one-quarter having a wil experience during their degree (which compares to over a half of students in health, education and environment) (universities australia, 2019). access to wil may be problematic for accounting students when wil involves outside placements (such as internships); there can be issues in terms of scalability due the generally large number of students, the need for industry partners and whether all students are eligible or just those high performing students (o’connell et al., 2015; hayes, freudenberg, & delaney, 2018). to increase students’ access to wil, one recommendation is the introduction of a simulated wil program delivered on-campus. in consultation with sma employers, an on-campus workplace simulation could be used to teach and enhance the technical knowledge for business software, taxation knowledge and taxation software, whilst also providing the opportunity to develop the generic skills of communication, teamwork, and interpersonal skills. ideally, authentic assessment involving using constructed client case studies could be developed to improve communication and critical thinking which is essential to work-readiness. higher order thinking and the promotion of knowledge transfer to the workplace setting are also desirable outcomes when using case studies (kossman, 2005). a simulated wil course could be undertaken as part of the commerce wil elective and offered to students who have substantially completed their degree, so they have a base knowledge to work from. in this way, a simulated wil may limit the resources required by each sma firm and initiate an increase in the employment rates for graduates. additionally, the national tax clinic program in australia has seen the establishment of clinics where students under supervision provide tax advice to the community, which has improved students’ knowledge and generic skills (freudenberg, perryman, thomas, & belle isle, 2020). awareness there also needs to be greater awareness of what work ready skills are for both academics and students. academics should be encouraged to provide more opportunities for students to develop their written and verbal communication skills in a work based context with authentic assessment. the adoption of authentic assessment pieces such as client interviews, business letters and presentations could provide opportunities to enhance these critical skills. hayes, s., freudenberg, b., & delany, d. (2022). work ready graduates for australian small and medium accounting firms. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 13(1), 1-18. 16 future research future research could determine the most effective way for graduates to be given the opportunity to advance the desired skills to become work-ready for sma firms, including the current resource costs to sma firms in training graduates. additionally, research could consider the difference in skills between graduates who are and are not successful in the recruitment phase to see if any differences exist. this might be measured through surveys, skill audits, self-efficacy measures and interviews with recruiters. future research could also consider why there appears to be a disconnect between industry and academia in terms of graduate outcomes. this could explore whether academics have the appropriate industry background to fully understand and develop the attributes required. conclusion in conclusion, due to the high proportion of sma firms employing graduates, it is important to understand what makes a work ready graduate in this context. this research has identified areas of concern that need to be addressed by educational institutions in conjunction with the sma firms and students. it appears the attributes required by a work ready graduate include accounting software, basic tax knowledge (and software), and particularly the generic skills of communication and interpersonal skills. the competition for graduate employment and the interview process itself can serve as a ‘self-selection’ mechanism for the employment of graduates considered work ready for the sma firm. it is important for future research to consider the development of accounting education to improve the employability of graduates in the sma sector. acknowledgement we wish to acknowledge the assistance and support received from the griffith university indigenous research centre in the revision of this paper. references abayadeera, n., & watty, k. 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(2022). work ready graduates for australian small and medium accounting firms. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 13(1), 1-19. 19 appendix: semi-structured interview questions question 1 this research is about exploring the employer’s perspective to determine what sme accounting firms view as a ‘work-ready graduate accountant’. a) with this in mind, how would you describe a ‘work-ready’ graduate for your firm? b) do you think it is necessary for a graduate to be ‘work-ready’ when they commence at an sme accounting firm? (please explain – is it sufficient that the graduate can train on the job?) question 2 thinking about an ideal graduate within your firm: a) what specific technical attributes do you desire in your graduate accountants? (technical skills or knowledge include areas specific to the field of accounting such as taxation, accounting standards, auditing, industry-specific software) b) what specific generic attributes do you desire in your graduate accountants? (generic attributes are not industry specific and include those that can be applied to many contexts, such as communication skills, leadership, teamwork & inter-personal skills) c) then comparing your desirability for technical attributes compared to generic attributes, do you believe one group is generally more important for a work-ready graduate within an sme sized accounting firm? question 3 from your experience, would you say that the accounting graduates you employ generally meet your expectations in terms of having the necessary skills and competencies you desire? why or why not? please explain. question 4 a) what training programs, courses or initiatives, if any, does your firm provide when new accounting graduates commence employment? b) what is the main purpose of doing this? i.e. how does it help? what does it achieve? question 5 who do you think should be responsible for preparing the graduates as ‘work-ready’? i.e. is it the responsibility of the university? the employers? the students themselves? other stakeholders? question 6 do you have any suggestions or recommendations as to how graduate could be made ‘work-ready’ for sme sized accounting firms? i.e. could students increase their work-readiness with access to work integrated learning opportunities such as internships, simulations or more practical coursework? exploring the outcomes of bsc human biology graduates and their perceptions of the course kishvena sornapooman1, georgina fyfe1 14855838@student.curtin.edu.au; g.m.fyfe@curtin.edu.au 1curtin university abstract in australia, the employment outcomes of new graduates are surveyed yearly and evidence of successful employment is linked by some to education quality. subsequently, higher education providers must ensure their graduates acquire relevant generic attributes as employers seek graduates with ‘work ready’ skills. students studying a bsc human biology preclinical degree (hbp) at curtin university do not have a prescribed profession at graduation, nor do they have fieldwork or clinical practice during their degree to help them confirm their career goals. the graduate destination survey shows that most curtin hbp graduates are involved in further studies four months post-graduation, but there is little information on what hbp graduates do after completing further studies. since there is no long-term information on hbp graduate pathways, it is difficult to match valued attributes with career destinations. this study explores the destinations of curtin hbp graduates between 2003 and 2012 and their perceptions of the most influential and useful aspects of the course. a mixed-methods approach was used for data collection. focus group feedback was used to modify an online survey which was distributed to graduates via personal or university emails, or via social media. the study sample was sorted into graduate profiles based on initial goals, goals formed during their hbp degree and those still without goals at graduation. most believed the degree itself did not lead directly to satisfactory employment but provided the fundamentals required for further studies. many graduates were involved in further studies before seeking a career-related job, and most settled into a career four years after graduating from hbp. the study reports the achievements of hbp graduates and recommends strengthening some aspects of the hbp curriculum. it also suggests what information may be most useful to prospective students on whether or not a generic undergraduate degree is a potential pathway to achieving their desired career. keywords: graduate destinations, graduate attributes, employment outcomes, generic undergraduate degrees introduction governments, industries and the higher education sector recognise the importance of developing graduate attributes of university students (coates, 2005) and exploring graduate destinations and outcomes. graduate attributes are the qualities, skills and understandings a university community agrees its students should develop during their time with the institution (bowden, hart, king, trigwell &watts, 2000). the australian labour market recognises the _________________________________________________________________________________________ sornapooman, k. & fyfe, g. (2015). exploring the outcomes of bsc human biology graduates and their perceptions of the course. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 6 (1), 24-43. 24 mailto:email@student.curtin.edu.au importance of a university degree and its accompanying generic attributes (li & miller, 2013). graduate employment is a key factor for measuring the quality of a degree; hence universities have progressively incorporated the development of graduate attributes into their quality measures (shah, cooper & burke, 2007). higher education providers must ensure that their graduates acquire relevant generic attributes (barrie, 2012) because australian employers seek graduates with ‘work ready’ skills and will ask applicants for evidence of graduate attributes (oliver, whelan, hunt & hammer, 2011). graduate destination data informs higher education institutions about employment outcomes of graduates, and provides information on the attributes graduates are expected to possess (or develop gradually) in the early years of employment (li & miller, 2013). data on graduate destinations and attributes are captured through the use of questionnaires (graduate careers australia [gca], 2013). often, government and industry sectors conduct focus groups prior to creating a questionnaire to increase its quality and validity (britt & weingart, 2005). in australia, validated instruments such as the graduate destination survey (gds) and course experience questionnaire (ceq) are used by government agencies to inform the higher education sector about graduate destinations and attributes (gca, 2013). these questionnaires include closed and/or open-ended questions that generate quantitative and qualitative data (covell, sidani & ritchie, 2012; yilmaz, 2013). curtin university uses the gds and ceq to investigate outcomes and attributes of graduates, providing valuable information on employment prospects and perceptions of graduate attributes (graduate careers australia, 2013). professional positions of graduates who studied a bachelor of science in human biology, referred to as human biology preclinical (hbp) since 2008 were not reported in the 2011 gds report because the gds requires a minimum of six responses to report employment positions (gca, 2013c: australian graduate survey [ags] 2011). both the gds and ceq reports capture the activities and perceptions of curtin students four months after they have graduated (gca, 2013). however, it may take graduates longer to find relevant graduate positions (coates & edwards, 2009). in america, the ‘phd’s 10 years later study’ is used, and similarly, the graduate longitudinal study new zealand collects information, although this is longitudinal information which is not readily available for specific cohorts. long-term australian studies such as the beyond graduation survey (bgs) and graduate pathways survey (gps) gather detailed information on graduate outcomes, but are not institution and course specific, e.g. human biology major (australian council for educational research [acer], 2008; gca, 2013a: bgs 2012). in addition, curtin university was not part of the 2012 bgs, thus there is no long-term data available on curtin graduates. the australian gds and ceq respondents are graduates who are often either very new to employment in their profession, or have not yet secured such employment (oliver et al., 2011). some graduates may choose to enter jobs that do not require their qualification, as these jobs may simply be part of a career path to higher-level jobs that match their educational attainment (schomburg, 2007). the gds data shows that most curtin hbp graduates are involved in further studies four months after graduation (gca, 2013c: ags 2011), but there is no specific information on what hbp graduates do after completing further studies, so it is difficult to match valued attributes with career destinations. therefore, data from the ceq are not always useful in investigating graduate attributes because four months after graduation students may not be in a career for which those attributes are relevant. furthermore, employment outcomes can be influenced by several factors external to the curriculum such as extra curricula activities (hobbies, volunteer work or community services); information not captured by the gds (mcinnis, griffin, james & coates, 2001). additionally, the gds does not capture information about whether the expectations of new graduates (their own career prospects, or views of their employers) are being met (oliver et al., 2011) _________________________________________________________________________________________ sornapooman, k. & fyfe, g. (2015). exploring the outcomes of bsc human biology graduates and their perceptions of the course. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 6 (1), 24-43. 25 and there are several challenges involved in capturing employer feedback, such as building a workable database of employers (nair & mertova, 2009). feedback from curtin students provided by unit-based evaluations during their studies is rich and useful (tucker, pegden & yorke, 2012), but there is evidence that students do not see the value of some aspects of their course until after they have graduated and have been given the opportunity to apply acquired attributes in the work environment or further study choices (coates & edwards, 2009). in light of these information gaps for certain cohorts, this study will explore the destinations of hbp graduates who graduated between 2003 and 2012 and will also investigate their perceptions of the most influential and useful aspects of the hbp course. method low risk ethical approval was obtained from the university’s human research ethics committee. all participants were provided with an information sheet prior to participation. participants all participants were graduates from the human biology preclinical (hbp) course at curtin university between 2003 and 2012. there were a total of 136 graduates contacted using university/personal emails and/or social media with the assistance of key contacts. graduates were asked to contribute to a focus group and a follow-up online survey. focus groups were conducted prior to the online survey. two focus group methods were employed; a face-to-face (ftf) method and an online asynchronous method. face-to-face focus group method one focus group session and one semi-structured interview were conducted. the focus group session consisted of two female graduates from 2012 and the semi-structured interview consisted of one female graduate from 2005. both sessions ran for approximately 25 minutes. the investigator facilitated the session by using a prepared script. the following questions were asked: (1) what were your initial motivations to choose the hbp course? (2) what were your plans after graduating from hbp? (3) when you completed the hbp course, how confident were you to take the next step? (4) what aspects of your university life did you enjoy the most? (5) what aspects of the course did you enjoy the most? (6) what aspects of the course did you least enjoy? (7) if you were to speak to future students of the course, what highlights of the course would you mention? follow-up questions were asked to encourage greater feedback from the participants. sessions were recorded with the italk application using an ipad. audio recordings were transcribed manually before being sent to participants for verification and editing where necessary. online asynchronous focus group method guidelines to establish and contribute to a blog-based discussion were sent to participants interested in contributing to the wordpress discussion. six graduates participated and discussion was conducted and monitored for four weeks. questions discussed were identical to the ftf focus group questions. _________________________________________________________________________________________ sornapooman, k. & fyfe, g. (2015). exploring the outcomes of bsc human biology graduates and their perceptions of the course. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 6 (1), 24-43. 26 to test question clarity and understanding and allow the investigator to practice conducting a group, the ftf and online method were piloted with 3rd year hbp students from a semester one class. transcripts from the pilot focus groups were not analysed and are not reported as results in this study. online survey an initial survey was constructed prior to the focus groups. some questions in the initial survey were derived from the graduate destination survey (gds) and course experience questionnaire (ceq); surveys that are used annually in australia to collect information about graduates and have had the validity of the questions tested over the years since its development (grace, weaven, bodey, ross & weaven, 2012). focus group transcripts were read several times to capture noticeable and frequent themes, which were then used to refine the initial survey. closed questions recorded respondents’ demographic information, employment outcomes and further education since graduating. the following open-ended questions captured the respondents’ perceptions of the most useful and influential aspects of the course: (1) please give an example of some influential aspects of the hbp degree course that helped you decide on a study/career path? (2) were there any key factors external to the hbp degree course that helped you decide on a study/career path? (3) please give an example of some key aspects of the hbp degree course that have been most useful in your life since graduating? (4) what did the hb degree course not provide that would have been helpful for your further study choices or career? the final survey was created and uploaded using web-based survey software (qualtrics). skip and display logic were used to create a survey that was applicable to each respondent. the final survey had 45 questions of which 29 were close-ended and 16 were open-ended. statistical analysis survey data were exported into microsoft excel and spss statistics 20 to generate descriptive statistics on quantitative responses with selected characteristics and across cohorts. all focus group transcripts and open-ended responses were exported into microsoft excel before being imported into nvivo 10, a qualitative data analysis program, where coding was completed. the focus group transcripts and open-ended survey responses were coded separately initially and then merged into thematic categories. these categories were divided into smaller emergent themes until no further division was possible. online survey response of 136 possible hbp graduates from 2003 to 2012, 74 were successfully contacted and asked to participate. sixty-two graduates could not be contacted by email or social media requests. three graduates agreed to participate in the ftf focus groups and six contributed to the online asynchronous focus group. in total, 42 of the 74 contacted graduates responded to the survey, giving a response rate of 31 per cent. the sample represented almost a third of all graduates from the last 10 years (table 1). participants were also encouraged to act as key contacts to recruit hbp graduates through their own social networks. only one graduate volunteered to act as a key contact for their cohort (2004). response rates were high for two cohorts (2004 and 2012); with 54 per cent of respondents from 2004 and 89 per cent from 2012. response rates for other cohorts ranged from 6 per cent to 30 per cent, and have been aggregated to show trends across cohorts. _________________________________________________________________________________________ sornapooman, k. & fyfe, g. (2015). exploring the outcomes of bsc human biology graduates and their perceptions of the course. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 6 (1), 24-43. 27 table 1: survey respondents and selected characteristics *grads=graduates the survey respondents were predominantly female (67%), enrolled full-time (95%) and attended classes on campus (100 per cent). most of the graduates were hecs students and deferred some or all of their hecs debt (76.2 per cent). ninety-five per cent of respondents were australian citizens or permanent residents and 97.6 per cent indicated that english was their first language. forty-two per cent of respondents currently lived in the outer metropolitan perth, while 34.1 per cent lived in the inner metropolitan regions. the remainder lived in remote and rural areas of western australia, interstate or overseas. the majority of respondents’ highest completed qualification prior to the hbp degree was secondary school (85.7%). results course choice figure 1 shows responses to the question ‘which of the following did you consider when selecting the hbp degree?’ since some of the written responses under ‘other’ overlapped with ‘job opportunities in the field’ and ‘prepare me for further studies’, these were allocated into appropriate categories and new per centages were calculated. seventy eight per cent of respondents who had pursued further studies stated that they selected the hbp course to prepare them for further studies in the field, while 12.7 per cent selected the course for job opportunities in that field. the remaining 4 per cent provided open-ended responses stating they had an interest in human biology, hence selected the course. not all students had completed their studies at the time of the survey. year graduate d *grads in cohort s (n) femal e grads (%) male grad s (%) grads contacte d (n) resp to surve y (n) surve y resp (%) sample representatio n (%) femal e resp (%) mal e res p (%) 2012 18 55.0 44.0 16 16 100 88.8 57.0 43.0 2011 17 65.0 35.0 14 5 35.7 29.4 60.0 40.0 2010 15 40.0 60.0 4 1 25.0 6.66 0.00 100 2009 14 72.0 28.0 8 3 37.5 21.4 33.0 66.0 2008 17 71.0 29.0 5 2 40.0 11.7 100 0.00 2007 10 50.0 50.0 4 1 25.0 10.0 100 0.00 2006 9 67.0 33.0 5 1 20.0 11.1 100 0.00 2005 7 43.0 57.0 3 2 66.6 28.5 100 0.00 2004 13 85.0 15.0 10 7 70.0 53.8 71.0 29.0 2003 16 58.0 42.0 5 4 80.0 25.0 100 0.00 total 136 74 42 56.8 30.9 _________________________________________________________________________________________ sornapooman, k. & fyfe, g. (2015). exploring the outcomes of bsc human biology graduates and their perceptions of the course. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 6 (1), 24-43. 28 figure 1: initial motivations to choose the hbp course when focus group participants were asked ‘what were your initial motivations to choose the hbp course?’, half stated that the degree was a stepping stone to further studies and job opportunities in the field. comments provided included: initially i wanted to pursue a career in physiotherapy and thought this would be a good way to get into the course; however i ended up in a completely different field (occupational health and safety) and couldn’t be happier and i had already decided on a course of study however i did not gain entry from school due to it being competitive, therefore this was my second option and it well prepared me for the second degree i am currently doing which is a graduate entry masters. others in the focus group said they chose the course because they had an interest in human biology, as indicated in the following responses: i did a year of the multidisciplinary science degree, and one of the units i did (amongst a variety of others, including scientific photography, math and physics) was human biology. turns out – i loved it! decided that i wanted to change to this direction and so switched degrees. almost all respondents (97.6 per cent) indicated that more education or training was needed after graduating from hbp to find the career they wanted (table 2). table 2: response to ‘did the hbp degree give you the career you wanted?’ hbp degree and satisfactory employment n % of responses bsc hbp degree was enough 1 2.38 more education or training was/is needed 41 97.6 the question ‘which of the following best describes your current situation?’ elicited the following responses to predetermined choices (table 3). participants were able to choose more than one response. table 2: current situation current situation n % of responses employed full-time 17 25.0 studying full-time 16 23.5 employed part-time 12 17.6 not seeking employment 8 11.8 not studying 7 10.3 studying part-time 4 5.90 5 33 9 6 37 4 0 20 40 60 80 100 job opportunities in the field prepare me for further studies in that field other % o f r es po nd en ts original response "other" included _________________________________________________________________________________________ sornapooman, k. & fyfe, g. (2015). exploring the outcomes of bsc human biology graduates and their perceptions of the course. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 6 (1), 24-43. 29 unemployed 2 2.90 seeking employment 1 1.50 self-employed 1 1.50 total 68 further studies of the 42 respondents, 26 stated that they were either currently studying or had completed a subsequent qualification. of the seven respondents who were not currently studying, six had pursued further studies after graduating hbp. respondents predominantly attended classes on campus (90%). table 4 shows the level and field of qualifications respondents undertook after graduating hbp. table 4: further study choices of the respondents who were pursuing or had pursued further studies, 73 per cent stated that the additional qualification was enough to find a career-related job and 15.3 per cent said they would need further study to find a career-related job (table 5). table 5: outcomes after further studies after completing further study n (%) % of responses to find a career-related job i will need further study 4 15.3 this qualification is/was enough to find a career-related job 19 73.0 don’t know 2 7.69 i was still not able to find a career related job 1 3.84 total 26 only respondents who graduated in 2012 indicated further studies would be required to find a career related job (see figure 2). respondents were currently undertaking further studies (full-time or part-time) regardless of the year they graduated from hbp (figure 3). level of qualification n % of responses field diploma 4 15.3 graduate diploma education; graduate diploma forensic science masters 6 23 biomedical engineering; nursing practice; clinical psychology; occupational therapy; medical imaging science; forensic and biological anthropology mbbs 6 23 bachelor of medicine and bachelor of surgery (mbbs); doctor of dental medicine tafe cert iv or below 2 7.69 cert iv in occupational health and safety; cert iv in fitness bachelors 3 11.5 health safety environment; physiotherapy; exercise, sport and rehabilitation honours 3 11.5 bachelor of medical science (honours); biomedical science (honours) other 2 7.69 blood collection (hltpat306d) total 26 _________________________________________________________________________________________ sornapooman, k. & fyfe, g. (2015). exploring the outcomes of bsc human biology graduates and their perceptions of the course. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 6 (1), 24-43. 30 figure 2: outcomes after further studies across cohorts figure 3: current education status across cohorts employment outcomes thirty eight per cent of respondents had not found a career-related job as they were currently undertaking further studies (table 6). (this value was obtained after some of the ‘other’ responses were allocated into appropriate categories). some of the responses in the ‘other’ category, for example i found a career related job but took longer than expected, and wouldn't describe it as a career so am undertaking further study, contributed to more than one outcome, hence the total with ‘other’ included 47 responses. the majority of respondents who selected ‘other’ clarified that they had found a career, but it was unrelated to the hbp degree. table 6: which of the following best describes what happened to you after graduating from hbp? outcomes after graduating from hbp n % of responses n (other included) % of responses i found a career-related job more quickly than i had expected to 3 7.10 6 12.7 i found a career-related job after further study 5 11.9 8 17.0 it took me longer to find a career-related job than 2 4.80 3 6.30 0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 r es po nd en ts (n ) year graduated still unable to find a job don't know this qualification is/was enough further studies needed 0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 r es po nd en ts (n ) year graduated not studying studying part-time studying full-time _________________________________________________________________________________________ sornapooman, k. & fyfe, g. (2015). exploring the outcomes of bsc human biology graduates and their perceptions of the course. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 6 (1), 24-43. 31 i had expected it to i still have not found a career-related job as i am currently undertaking further studies 15 35.7 18 38.2 i still have not found a career-related job as i will need to undertake further studies 6 14.3 6 12.7 i am currently seeking a career-related job 1 2.40 1 2.12 other 10 23.8 5 10.6 total 42 47 of the 42 respondents, 30 stated that they were currently employed full-time, part-time or self-employed (see table 3). some employment questions were not answered by respondents hence total numbers do not equal 30. forty per cent of employed respondents worked in the health care and social assistance area (table 7) and 55.2 per cent were employed in the private sector. table 8 shows some of the employment positions of recent and earlier graduate respondents. table 7: main area of current employment main area of work n % of responses retail 3 10.0 health care and social assistance 12 40.0 education and training 3 10.0 occupational health and safety 2 6.70 administrative and support services 2 6.70 research 2 6.70 other 6 20.0 total 30 table 8: current employment positions of recent and earlier graduates 2003 – 2008 graduate positions 2009 – 2012 graduate positions resident medical officer public health officer senior scientist (automated biochemistry) injury management advisor postdoctoral research associate behaviour support clinician physiotherapist manager, strategic initiatives (travel) thoroughbred racehorse trainer anatomy technician health and safety manager anatomy lecturer research scientist program consultant (south sudan) registered nurse (darwin) registered midwife (sydney) deck hand and hse officer laboratory/research assistant research associate communications coordinator duty manager retail manager corporate receptionist service assistant pharmacy sales associate academic tutor physiotherapist assistant pharmaceutical representative business analyst dental assistant public health consultant (bangladesh) rehabilitation consultant health and safety advisor occupational health advisor _________________________________________________________________________________________ sornapooman, k. & fyfe, g. (2015). exploring the outcomes of bsc human biology graduates and their perceptions of the course. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 6 (1), 24-43. 32 twenty nine per cent of respondents worked in the outer metropolitan regions and 50 per cent in the inner metropolitan regions of perth. four per cent worked in remote areas of western australia, 10.7 per cent worked interstate and 7.1 per cent worked overseas. forty five per cent of respondents stated that previous employment had assisted them to attain their current job. figure 4 shows the current types of employment (full-time, part-time or selfemployed) across cohorts. figure 4: employment type across cohorts table 9 shows respondents’ views on the match between their current job and the hbp qualification while figure 5 shows the distribution across cohorts. table 9: match between current job and hbp qualification match between current job and hbp qualification n % of responses i am under-qualified for my job 2 7.10 my qualifications match my job 7 25.0 i am overqualified for my job 11 39.3 not applicable because i have done further studies to gain my current job 8 28.6 total 28 figure 5: match between current job and hbp qualification across cohorts 0 2 4 6 8 10 12 r es po nd en ts (n ) year graduated self-employed employed part-time employed full-time 0 2 4 6 8 10 12 r es po nd en ts (n ) year graduated not applicable-did further studies overqualified match underqualified _________________________________________________________________________________________ sornapooman, k. & fyfe, g. (2015). exploring the outcomes of bsc human biology graduates and their perceptions of the course. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 6 (1), 24-43. 33 on the subject of job satisfaction, thirty five per cent of respondents felt very satisfied with their current job and 6.9 per cent felt very dissatisfied (table 10). figure 6 displays level of job satisfaction across cohorts. table 10: satisfaction with current job satisfaction with current job n % of responses very satisfied 10 34.5 somewhat satisfied 11 37.9 neutral 5 17.2 dissatisfied 1 3.40 very dissatisfied 2 6.90 total 29 figure 6: satisfaction with current job across cohorts when considering the future of their job, just over forty one per cent of respondents said that their current job was a career, 27.6 per cent said it was a stepping stone to a career and 31 per cent said that it was just a job to get them by (table 11). figure 7 displays the distribution across the cohorts. table 11: outlook of current job do you think of your current job as: n % of responses a career 12 41.4 a stepping stone 8 27.6 just a job (to get you by) 9 31.0 total 29 figure 7: outlook of current job across cohorts 0 2 4 6 8 10 12 r es po nd en ts (n ) year graduated very dissatisfied dissatisfied neutral somewhat satisfied very satisfied 0 5 10 15 r es po nd en ts (n ) year graduated just a job stepping stone to a career a career _________________________________________________________________________________________ sornapooman, k. & fyfe, g. (2015). exploring the outcomes of bsc human biology graduates and their perceptions of the course. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 6 (1), 24-43. 34 perceptions of the hbp degree course graduates were invited to provide open-ended responses to four items (see page 27) regarding their perceptions of the most useful and influential aspects of the course. for convenience, these are referred to as influential aspects, external factors, useful aspects and needs improvement. of the 42 respondents, 35 provided comments on influential aspects, 34 on external factors, 36 on useful aspects and 35 on needs improvement. coded focus group transcripts were combined with these four categories, therefore increasing the weight of opinion of a few respondents. respondents’ cited specific units in the course as the most influential aspects. physiology and anatomy units were commonly mentioned. many respondents also identified diversity of the units offered as the most influential aspect. units that were offered covered broad aspects of human biology such as physiology, anatomy, neuroscience, reproduction and human evolution and gave graduates the opportunity to determine what interests them. the following comments were offered: the broad aspects of the degree (ranging from basic physiology, human evolution, reproduction and anatomy) helped me decide on the specific career path/interest in which i plan to undergo further study into and potentially get a job in. because the human biology degree was very broad in its contents, it gave me a taste of a number of different areas and aspects which were of interest. a particular area was that of psychology and neuroscience which will be my focus next year after i finish travelling. in a nutshell the diversity of the degree would be its greatest aspect. respondents also made reference to using the degree as a stepping stone for further studies as they had already decided on future plans. some indicated that there were no influential aspects in the course as they were still unsure about future plans. others stated an overall interest in learning about the human body (figure 8). figure 8: influential aspects of the course that assisted with future decisions respondents identified personal interest and experiences as the main ‘external factors’ that influenced further study or career decisions with comments such as: various factors have influenced my choices. having seen a significant amount of people suffer from mental disorders was one of the key factors which perked my interested in the mind. university life, networking and socialising as well as work experience were also frequently mentioned as evidenced in the following comments: _________________________________________________________________________________________ sornapooman, k. & fyfe, g. (2015). exploring the outcomes of bsc human biology graduates and their perceptions of the course. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 6 (1), 24-43. 35 i have mainly made my decisions for work and study based on casual conversations with friends from school and university. i never saw a career advisor or attended a university open day. after i completed the degree i was involved in research with plastic and reconstructive surgeons at pmh, which inspired me to follow the medical career path. the other somewhat less influential ‘external factor’ mentioned was career information sessions (figure 9). figure 9: influential aspects external to the course that assisted with future decisions the two main ‘useful aspects’ included specific units and a good foundation for further studies as seen below: the grounds/basis created by studying physiology and anatomy in depth helped to prepare me for more in depth units of study completed in the final year of the degree. i feel that the human biology degree gives a very good introduction to a wide variety of subjects that are then useful for several other areas of study and then career. many respondents also mentioned certain skills and attributes gained during the course as the most useful aspects, including problem solving skills, critical analysis, independent learning, scientific thinking and team-work skills. some indicated the course experience, environment and friendships made were the most useful aspects, while others said they gained confidence throughout the course (figure 10). _________________________________________________________________________________________ sornapooman, k. & fyfe, g. (2015). exploring the outcomes of bsc human biology graduates and their perceptions of the course. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 6 (1), 24-43. 36 0 5 10 15 personal interest and experiences university life, networking, socialising work experience information sessions figure 10: most useful aspects of the course since graduating in terms of areas for improvement, respondents felt they needed more information on job prospects as seen in the comment below: provide more information about career paths that can be taken after human biology: day in the life of a doctor, physio, occupational health etc. many also mentioned the need for work placement during the course as well as specific units that would be useful for further studies. respondents also felt that the hbp degree course alone did not provide satisfactory employment. a few mentioned that the degree was not recognised by employers (figure 11). figure 11: areas of the course that need improvement discussion human biology preclinical graduates fell into four graduate profiles, based on all qualitative responses. the largest group consisted of graduates who had a set career pathway in mind and used the hbp course successfully as a stepping stone to further studies. graduates who fell into this category were those that did not meet the tertiary entrance rank (ter) scores to get into their preferred course. others did not feel ready to undertake a challenging course and chose to study hbp to gain confidence, knowledge and skills. the second most common profile was graduates who chose to study hbp with a set career pathway in mind but internal and or/external factors relating to the course had altered their plans. the third profile consisted of graduates who chose to study hbp with undecided future plans and internal and/or external factors had helped them make decisions. specific units and the diversity of the course were considered the most influential aspects. this is not surprising as the course is non-professionally orientated and therefore the units were designed to be broad and do not lead to a particular career pathway. findings also suggest that the most influential aspect external to the course was personal interest and experiences followed by university life, networking and socializing, and work experience. conversations with university staff and friends helped graduates make decisions on further education options and career pathways. employment while studying hbp or after completing the degree had also influenced graduates future decisions. the least common graduate profile was that of students who had not made a decision regarding their future plans when choosing to study the hbp course. they indicated that _________________________________________________________________________________________ sornapooman, k. & fyfe, g. (2015). exploring the outcomes of bsc human biology graduates and their perceptions of the course. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 6 (1), 24-43. 37 there were no influential aspects and unsurprisingly still had undecided future plans after graduating. the findings show that most respondents believed that the diversity and breadth of the degree was the most useful aspect of the course as it provided a good introduction to a wide variety of subjects that are also useful as a foundation for other areas of both study and careers. specific units in the course were also mentioned as the most useful aspect, although perceptions of these varied depending on the chosen pathways of respondents. graduates from earlier cohorts identified information on possible job prospects as the key aspect requiring improvement. in recent years, such measures have been taken to provide students with information on job opportunities. respondents also indicated the need for workplace experience during the course. although studies have shown that work placement is key to enhanced employability, it is challenging to establish work place experience for students who major in a non-professional course as there is no prescribed career. interestingly, the 2012 graduate outlook survey [gos] revealed that ‘work experience’ was one of the least frequently nominated selection criterion when employers were asked what they considered to be most important when evaluating applicants. however, since the current findings have established the profiles of graduates, placement and work experience could be tailored to fit particular graduate profiles. graduates doing further studies this study has shown that the majority of respondents chose to study hbp to prepare them for further studies in the field. according to gca (2013d), 15.3 in every 100 respondents across all degree levels continued on to full-time study, a figure which has continued to increase. a key factor for the high number of hbp graduates undertaking further study may be the difficulty in finding full-time employment due to the science-based labour market demanding postgraduate degrees of potential employees (carroll & tani, 2013). we know that some undergraduate degrees require at least some further study to gain access to employment in the field (gca, 2013d) and although a bachelor’s degree can successfully be used to gain employment, a higher level of qualification would not only increase the chances of gaining full-time employment but also achieve a higher or more specific position. furthermore, the hbp degree is not professionally orientated allowing flexibility in career choice and providing a stepping stone to further studies in the field instead of leading to a specific career. the downside of the non-professional orientation is that most graduates are likely to need further education to improve their employment prospects. psychology and other non-specific health-related degrees all have high numbers of graduates undertaking further studies (gca, 2013d). on the other hand, the extent of further study is particularly limited for graduates from degrees with a professional orientation such as nursing and engineering (gca, 2013d). employers considered academic qualifications as one of the most important aspects they look for in a graduate’s curriculum vitae (gca, 2013b: gos 2012). furthermore, employers increasingly seek graduates with the potential to lead workplace change and innovation (lowden, hall, elliot & lewin, 2011) and those with a preprofessional identity (purcell, elias, atfield, behle, ellison & luchinskaya, 2013). it is not surprising that a high number of respondents chose to undertake further studies. levels of further education ranged from a tafe certificate to a masters or doctoral degree. this is similar to previous studies which show that a significant number of graduates pursue some kind of further education after graduating. within the first few years of graduating, there is an active involvement of graduates advancing their skills and knowledge in both higher education and vocational programs (acer, 2008). a bachelor degree is the fundamental basis needed to progress in higher education, rather than the only qualification that will satisfy their career goals. this is particularly the case for science graduates. carroll and tani (2013) reported that science graduates had a much higher chance of working in employment related to their field of study if they held a postgraduate qualification, (68 per cent postgraduate and 43 per cent bachelor’s degree in a degree related job). this shows a _________________________________________________________________________________________ sornapooman, k. & fyfe, g. (2015). exploring the outcomes of bsc human biology graduates and their perceptions of the course. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 6 (1), 24-43. 38 significant postgraduate advantage to those in science-related degrees (carroll & tani, 2013). employment outcomes respondents were currently undertaking further studies (full-time or part-time), regardless of the year they graduated from hbp. although it is more likely for generic degree graduates to require further study to direct their vocational goals, this also suggests that education is a lifetime progression and graduates may actively seek further education to enhance their knowledge and skills in the years following graduation. this finding is consistent with previous studies (purcell, elias, davies & wilton, 2005; bradburn, nevill & forrest, 2006; allen & van der velden, 2008; cummings, 1998). pursuing further studies may also be due to changes in ambitions and outlooks in relation to the kind of job and wage after being in the employment field for several years. this matches several long-term studies (heazlewood, pymm & sanders, 2006; goyal & weiler, 2006; licciardi & miller, 2004). furthermore, employers occasionally support new graduate employees to participate in external training and development to further their knowledge and skills (gca, 2013b: gos 2012, bierbaum, 2007)). part-time employment was more common in recent graduates (2009-2012) and most respondents from earlier cohorts were in full-time employment. most respondents were appropriately placed in the work force to match their qualifications and skills four years after graduating. this matches respondents’ views on their current job. others (coates & edwards, 2009) have reported appropriate placement in the workforce around five years after graduating, across a broader range of undergraduate degrees. recent graduates in part-time employment were more likely to state that they were overqualified and dissatisfied with their current job and indicated that their current employment was just a job to get them by, while earlier graduates were satisfied with their current jobs and identified their job as a career. this is not surprising as professionally-orientated courses may actively place students in employment through fieldwork placements, while non-professional graduates are involved in further studies to achieve satisfactory employment. these findings are consistent with previous studies (gca, 2013a: bgs 2012). further, recent graduates may be more likely to stay in un-related part-time employment while they are in the process of securing employment relative to their degree (carroll & tani, 2013). with the drive to uncap university places, and national targets to increase the number of australians with bachelor degrees to 40 per cent of those aged 25-24 by the year 2025 (sellar, 2013), the already congested labour markets will attract more potential applicants than there is demand for (brown, lauder & ashton, 2011). respondents who graduated in earlier years were more likely to hold higher positions, attained after further qualifications. respondents had on average two to three employers within four years of graduating from hbp. graduates potentially made transitions to managerial positions once they had accumulated the necessary experience and skills which is similar to findings from the 2012 bgs report. limitations of the study: methodological considerations participants were recruited via personal/university emails and/or social media facebook (fb). this enabled a large number of individuals to be contacted in a cost-effective manner within a short period of time and also helped to capture hard-to-reach participants, such as those who graduated 10 years ago. however, it may have also contributed to the low response rate in the study. for example, the non-response to the private fb messages could be due to the fb system itself. when graduates were privately messaged on fb the following notification was received: ‘you aren’t connected to [participant name] on facebook, so your message would normally get filtered from their inbox to his/her other folder’. the non-response to university emails could be due to graduates less frequently checking their _________________________________________________________________________________________ sornapooman, k. & fyfe, g. (2015). exploring the outcomes of bsc human biology graduates and their perceptions of the course. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 6 (1), 24-43. 39 university emails upon graduation. furthermore, curtin university student emails are deactivated one year after students graduate. the lack of key contacts in several cohorts resulted in a poor response rate. the importance of a key contact to improve response rates can be seen in the 2004 hbp cohort. graduates were more likely to participate in the survey when asked to participate by someone they knew instead of by an unknown investigator. conflicting results whereby only 26 of the 42 respondents that indicated they were either currently studying or had completed their qualification is primarily due to poor survey design, in particular the question ‘which of the following best describes your current situation’. respondents were required to select three of the possible seven choices available, however several respondents only selected one choice and because of skip logic, specific questions such as those asking about further studies were not displayed. a ‘force response validation’ should have been used to ensure all relevant parts of the question were answered before allowing the respondent to continue. the broadness of the open-ended question on useful aspects of the course caused a lack of in-depth responses. consequently, it was difficult to investigate specific generic attributes and skills attained during the course such as writing and communication skills, solving complex, real-world problems and thinking critically. qualitative information from the focus groups helped to increase the quality of the survey questions and range of variables. the face-to-face method had high interaction between participants, and provided rich, in-depth data. however, participation rates were low because travelling to the venue was inconvenient and finding a time suitable for all participants was difficult. more participants took part in the online method as it was convenient and gave participants the freedom to manage their own time deciding when to contribute to the discussion. the main limitation with the online method was the loss of group interaction and the need for participants to write answers resulted in a lack of depth. for future studies, telephone interviews could be a more productive approach (sturges & hanrahan, 2004) as it allows more iterative interaction compared to online methods. qualitative studies have found response rates and participation increase when using telephone interviews as they accommodate participants who have difficulty finding a suitable time (fenig, levav, kohn & yelin, 1993). the authors acknowledge that an employment bias exists in the results of this study due to the geographical isolation of the region (western australia) and the professional boundaries of the possible hbp course graduate outcomes. a caveat should also be placed on the selfreported nature of the data in this study. conclusion this study provided an insight into hbp graduate destinations and outcomes over the last 10 years. the sample was small but key findings were: most hbp graduates were involved in further studies upon graduation before seeking a career-related job. most settled into a career four years after graduating from hbp. the sample in this study assorted into four profiles, based on their initial goals, goals formed during their hbp degree and those still without goals at graduation. further, most believed that while the degree itself did not provide satisfactory employment, it did provide the fundamentals required for further studies because it was diverse and it developed the confidence to pursue future goals. the main areas for improvement included career advice and the need for work place experience during the course. a study such as this which focuses on the usefulness and impact of the course on graduates’ work lives, has the potential to inform the curriculum review process of the hbp course. it also documents the achievements of hbp graduates, giving prospective students insight into where the degree may lead them and assisting current students in developing future career goals. this research may assist universities in providing useful information for _________________________________________________________________________________________ sornapooman, k. & fyfe, g. (2015). exploring the outcomes of bsc human biology graduates and their perceptions of the course. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 6 (1), 24-43. 40 prospective students in course handbooks and orientation sessions for generic undergraduate degrees. prospective students should be aware that non-professional courses do not necessarily result in a professional qualification and lead to a direct career without further postgraduate training and education. potential students who need a stepping stone degree to achieve their desirable course and career, and those who are unsure of their professional direction, would benefit most from non-professional orientated courses. in addition, students studying a generic course should be provided with information on job prospects with the degree after the first year. further research using a larger sample is necessary to determine the extent to which the views expressed by each cohort in this study are representative. attaining more key contacts in each cohort and making the online survey available for a longer period of time could improve the response rate. now that there is long-term information on hbp graduate destinations, future studies into useful attributes and capabilities attained throughout the course and employer requirements will be essential. _________________________________________________________________________________________ sornapooman, k. & fyfe, g. 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(2013). comparison of quantitative and qualitative research traditions: epistemological, theoretical, and methodological differences. european journal of education, 48(2), 311—325. _________________________________________________________________________________________ sornapooman, k. & fyfe, g. (2015). exploring the outcomes of bsc human biology graduates and their perceptions of the course. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 6 (1), 24-43. 43 exploring the outcomes of bsc human biology graduates and their perceptions of the course abstract introduction participants face-to-face focus group method online asynchronous focus group method online survey statistical analysis online survey response results further studies employment outcomes perceptions of the hbp degree course discussion graduates doing further studies employment outcomes limitations of the study: methodological considerations references ferns, s. & lilly, l. (2015). driving institutional engagement in wil: enhancing graduate employability. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 6(1), 116–133. 116 driving institutional engagement in wil: enhancing graduate employability sonia ferns1 (project leader work integrated learning), linda lilly1 (project manager) s.ferns@curtin.edu.au; l.lilly@curtin.edu.au 1curtin university abstract authentic learning experiences that replicate workplace settings are essential elements of the student experience for optimising graduate employability outcomes. work integrated learning (wil) supports the development of generic attributes which are highly regarded by employers through embedding authentic learning experiences in curricular and co-curricular programs. the regulatory and standards-based environment which monitors and controls higher education institutions’ operations is increasingly focussing on wil and the employability capabilities of graduates. in addition, external stakeholders such as employers and community agencies expect that graduates are prepared for a global and uncertain job market. the ultimate aim is to build a competitive and sustainable australian economy through ensuring a highly-skilled population. higher education is considered a key mechanism for achieving this ambition. reconceptualising curriculum development and assessment strategies is required in order to address these societal demands. embedding the development of employability capabilities in curriculum to ensure work-ready graduates is a priority for curtin university as it aspires to provide authentic learning experiences where students apply theoretical concepts in real-world settings. scaffolding skill development across curriculum is fundamental to quality curriculum design. flexible industry and community partnerships are integral to implementing a practice-based curriculum, enabling the development of professional practice to be an integral component of the degree program. this paper presents a three-year strategic project, which aimed to enrich the student experience through establishing an institutional framework for wil, as a case study to inform further wil initiatives. it outlines strategies implemented to achieve the strategic goals, to introduce innovative approaches for establishing an institutional framework, and to enhance the student experience through wil. keywords: work integrated learning, graduate employability, authentic learning, partnerships introduction higher education institutions are facing a profoundly challenging landscape, arguably the most significant in the history of universities (thomas, 2012; varghese, 2011; ernst & young, 2012). factors such as: the widening participation agenda; a vigorous competitive market; the demand for enhanced employability outcomes for students; rigorous quality accountability measures; the recognition of the value of industry and community partnerships; and the impact mailto:s.ferns@curtin.edu.au mailto:l.lilly@curtin.edu.au ferns, s. & lilly, l. (2015). driving institutional engagement in wil: enhancing graduate employability. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 6(1), 116–133. 117 of rapidly changing technologies influence how business is conducted. these influences require universities to reconceptualise teaching and learning approaches and rethink leadership strategies and institutional priorities (barber, donnelly, & rizvi, 2013). despite the notion of universities as creators of knowledge and innovation, they are recognised as highly reluctant to reform (fullen & scott, 2009). the history and long-standing traditional practices of academia, while respected and recognised as central to growth and development, can be barriers to transformation and adaptation in response to society’s changing needs. context changing workforce requirements global trends such as communication, digital technologies, and social, political and economic influences are transforming the workplace. automation of traditionally manually operated machinery is redefining the workforce. people will not only have multiple jobs but career direction and focus will shift as technological changes and emerging professions impact on the landscape (hagel, brown, mathew, wooll, & tsu, 2014). continuous lifelong learning will be imperative to being able to cope with the ever-changing job market. the challenges confronting society in the coming decades will require a skilled, innovative workforce to identify sustainable solutions (ey, 2015). constant retraining and reskilling will be required to ensure currency and relevance of employability skills that contribute effectively to corporations and the economy. autonomy, innovation and initiative are increasingly becoming a priority for employers seeking workers who make a difference to an organisation through entrepreneurship and creativity, giving them the competitive edge. universities have an obligation to ensure students have opportunities to network with industry and gain skills throughout their studies that equip them with the skills necessary for a rewarding and challenging career (edwards, perkins, pearce, & hong, 2015). role of the university australia values education as a mechanism for building a skilled and productive workforce that contributes effectively to a sustainable and globally competitive economy. education is perceived to impact on three levels:  economic and intellectual value for individuals;  economic and productivity value for society; and  civic benefits for society whereby education nurtures engaged citizens who contribute to society in positive ways (hagel et al., 2014). the role of the university is undergoing a fundamental transformation in terms of its role in society, mode of operation, and economic structure and value (ernst & young, 2012, p. 4). universities are no longer the creators and keepers of knowledge, with enhanced connectivity meaning rapid access to and transfer of knowledge. with global competition, heightened scrutiny of stakeholders and transparency of information, universities need to be accountable. with reduced budgets, increased costs to students, and decreasing graduate employment, the return on investment of a university education is in question (barber et al., 2013). the university campus needs to change shape and purpose to become a place of sharing, collaboration and cooperation to discover new ways of doing things. the content-focussed approach typical of a university education is no longer providing students with proficiencies and the transferrable skill set required for a fruitful career in an unknown, unpredictable future job market (thomas, 2012). students need to be exposed to real world learning opportunities where they engage in authentic problem-solving and build intellectual capacity through applying theoretical concepts in practice-based settings. the boundaries between university and community should be blurred to provide a more holistic and inclusive education (ferns, campbell, & zegwaard, 2014). ferns, s. & lilly, l. (2015). driving institutional engagement in wil: enhancing graduate employability. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 6(1), 116–133. 118 work integrated learning (wil) work integrated learning (wil) is high on the national agenda and gaining attention as a key strategy for universities to address the demands of stakeholders such as industry, community, students and government. with increasing accountability facing the higher education sector and societal demands for the higher education experience to prepare graduates for the dynamic environment of a global workforce, curriculum development and focus requires a paradigm shift (yorke, 2011). wil is a contextual-dependent, highly complex and multifaceted pedagogical approach (hodges, 2011). it encompasses the intentional integration of theory and practice where curriculum is informed through consultative and collaborative engagement with stakeholders external to the institution. establishing an institutional culture where endeavours to establish sustainable and proactive partnerships with external stakeholders are recognised through workload allocation and reward, requires a shift in focus and reorganisation of business infrastructure. authentic student experience at the heart of wil curriculum are authentic and relevant student experiences which ultimately boost the development of employability skills and employment prospects for graduating students. the student experience is enhanced through authentic learning experiences in settings that reflect the workplace (ferns, smith, & russell, 2014c; yorke & knight, 2004). authentic learning experiences are designed to reflect real world scenarios (shavelson, klein, & benjamin, 2009) with students being motivated by tasks that are perceived relevant to the world of work and involve the application of skills such as critical thinking, creativity and innovation. authentic assessment, similarly incorporates students performing real-world tasks that require meaningful application of theoretical concepts in a practical setting (mueller, 2012). an authentic student experience is fundamental to incorporating a wil philosophy across an institution. wil supports the provision of authentic learning, in a variety of contexts, within curricular and co-curricular programs, thus facilitating the development of generic skills highly sought after by employers (ferns et al., 2014a). the national wil strategy australia has driven some landmark initiatives focussed on strengthening university and business partnerships to promote innovative wil approaches thereby enhancing the employability skills acquired by students during their university studies. the statement of intent (universities australia, 2014a), released in february 2014, was a collaborative initiative between the australian collaborative education network (acen), chamber of commerce and industry (cci), business council of australian (bca) and australian industry group (aig). commitment to this intent was evidenced by the release of the national wil strategy on 11th march 2015, a strategy developed by the same parties in an effort to realise the initiatives implicit in the statement of intent (universities australia, 2014b). given the benefits of wil to employability, workforce skills and productivity, the national wil strategy outlines key areas for action that supports educators to work with industry and community based employers, ensuring a sustainable increase and broadening of wil opportunities to develop our human capital and competitiveness of the economy. the national wil strategy highlights the need to develop innovative, problem-solving and entrepreneurial skills through collaboration with external partnerships to afford students the skills required for employability in an unpredictable future (foundation for young australians, 2015). driving institutional change embedding innovative practices to execute an ethos that challenges traditional institutional protocols requires a strategic approach with initiatives introduced in a considered and developmental manner. pivotal to organisational change is the empowering of staff through http://cdn1.acen.edu.au/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/national-wil-strategy-in-university-education-032015.pdf ferns, s. & lilly, l. (2015). driving institutional engagement in wil: enhancing graduate employability. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 6(1), 116–133. 119 the identification of champions who, through passion and conviction, have a persuasive influence on those reluctant to adopt new methods in operation. gladwell (2001) refers to these champions as ‘messengers’. with a cohort of supporters who support the rationale underpinning the innovations, the likelihood of systemic adoption is increased. this paper presents a case study of a purposeful approach to the implementation of a threeyear strategic project. the overarching aim of the project was to enhance institutional capacity by establishing and implementing a wil framework for enhancing the student experience through the provision of curricular and co-curricular opportunities to augment employability capabilities in graduates. a carefully sequenced combination of strategies which focused on staff engagement, consultation with executive management, and the involvement of the student body, formed the basis of the project. pivotal to driving university-wide commitment and agreement was regular showcasing of best-practice and sharing teaching and learning initiatives that promoted wil activities. this case study highlights the value and subsequent impact of strategic leadership which was pivotal to driving a cultural shift and facilitating systemic adoption of innovation within the organisation. project overview the three-year project, which was initiated in early 2013 with the allocation of targeted strategic funding, aimed to enhance the employability of curtin graduates through industry and community relationships, an experiential curriculum, and co-curricular work experience opportunities. the strategies implemented to achieve the university’s strategic goals, introduce innovative approaches for establishing an institutional framework and enhancing the student experience through wil, are outlined below. the key objectives of the project were to: 1. develop a sustainable institutional framework for defining, positioning and evaluating wil. 2. provide a quality wil student experience that aligns graduate capabilities to meet student, graduate and employer expectations. 3. differentiate curtin through a systemic and collaborative approach to implementing curricular and co-curricular wil aligned to industry and community needs. 4. be recognised as leaders in the sector, by employers and in the community in facilitating engagement and partnership opportunities. 5. evidence graduate employability capabilities across the student lifecycle. the project plan was based on using a phased approach. while the various phases were incremental, there was also an overlap of strategies as the preceding initiatives informed future plans. the phases included: ferns, s. & lilly, l. (2015). driving institutional engagement in wil: enhancing graduate employability. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 6(1), 116–133. 120 establishing a cohesive wil team prior to embarking on the strategic directives of the project, establishing a cohesive and connected team was of critical importance. through several strategic planning sessions the team explored and identified the required team structure and identified the roles and responsibilities of team members. this process involved the negotiation of a strategic plan that included formulating a vision, mission and strategic goals for the wil team that aligned to the broader strategic aims of the project and the university. sharing the emerging purpose and destiny of the group shifts a community from a reactive to a creative orientation (senge, 1994, p. 298). strategic plan of the wil team the wil strategic project was a key strategic initiative of the university and aligned to the transforming learning at curtin program. within this context a clear team identity was established with an agreed vision statement and mission as outlined below: vision: a leader in work integrated learning actively engaging with students, faculty, industry, business, community and government to provide authentic, interactive and personalised learning experiences for our students, equipping them with professional and employability skills for the future. mission: 1. engage students through authentic work integrated learning experiences. 2. facilitate curricular and co-curricular work integrated learning opportunities for students to enhance graduate employability. 3. develop and sustain mutually beneficial relationships with communities both internal and external to curtin. 4. embed wil in curriculum. 5. provide support to staff to embed wil into curriculum with an agreed way forward, the wil team were poised to determine the shape of the team and reframe position descriptions to ensure individual roles and responsibilities were framed to explicitly address the team vision and mission and ultimately the project’s key objectives (ferns et al., 2014b, p.2). while a time-consuming and tenuous task, this aspect of the project 1 • establishing a cohesive wil team 2 • building an institutional framework 3 • community and industry engagement 4 • staff engagement 5 • student engagement 6 • dissemination and collaboration 7 • project sustainability ferns, s. & lilly, l. (2015). driving institutional engagement in wil: enhancing graduate employability. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 6(1), 116–133. 121 implementation provided the foundation for future tasks. to complete the team identity and establish a brand that would be recognised across the institution, a symbol was developed that reflected the wil philosophy. building an institutional framework this phase of the project incorporated several key tasks paramount to the university community embracing the wil philosophy. wil guidelines the intention of the wil guidelines (curtin university, 2014a) was to determine an agreed definition for wil and to establish a university-wide framework for developing partnerships with industry and community which would inform curriculum and engage students in relevant, skill-based experiences evidenced by realistic assessment profiles. the guidelines were not intended to be a prescriptive policy compliance document. by contrast, the purpose was to establish an agreed philosophical approach to wil which enabled flexibility and diversity for different discipline contexts. the wil guidelines incorporate quality indicators against several domains. the domains include learning design, assessment and moderation of wil, delivery of wil programs, community engagement and industry partnerships, and innovation in wil. extensive consultation was undertaken across all levels of the university prior to endorsement. while the guidelines provided a basis for building the institutional capacity, the process of agreeing on the final version facilitated robust discussion at both executive leadership and practitioner level across the university ensuring wil was firmly on the university agenda. governance it was imperative that initiatives and best-practices emanating from the wil strategic project had the support of groups and individuals with the capacity to influence executive-level decision-making. therefore, a wil steering committee and wil advisory group was set-up to establish a consultative approach to implementing wil programs and ensure efficient communication. members of these strategic groups included faculty representatives and managers who have substantial input in decision-making at the university. members provided advice on project processes, initiatives and directions which informed progress, implementation and future sustainability. in addition, a governance group involving representatives from legal and compliance, health and safety, and risk management was established to ensure that policy and logistical processes for wil were streamlined and efficient. consistency of documentation and expectations and easy access to information was essential in the management of innovation and change. templates and processes for negotiating legal agreements, adhering to health and safety regulations, and following appropriate risk assessment practices were developed and disseminated across the university. cohesive and connected policy documents were essential for successful, systemic implementation of wil (mcnamara, 2011). relevant manuals and policies were revisited, updated and approved to reflect decisions of the governance group. the work flow and resources designed to facilitate consistent governance of fieldwork, one form of wil, are shown in the fieldwork flowchart in figure 1 below. ferns, s. & lilly, l. (2015). driving institutional engagement in wil: enhancing graduate employability. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 6(1), 116–133. 122 figure 1. fieldwork flowchart summarising governance processes and tasks communication strategies communication provides the nexus between drivers of change and the community required to embrace that change. calculated and deliberate communication channels are pivotal to the dissemination of innovative practices (george, collins, gill, & cole, 1987). champions ferns, s. & lilly, l. (2015). driving institutional engagement in wil: enhancing graduate employability. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 6(1), 116–133. 123 ensconced in faculties are valuable resources for spreading the word. to guarantee that the wil messages were disseminated throughout the university community, an inclusive communication plan was developed (ferns et al., 2014b). the plan, created in the early stages of the project, streamlined the process for broadcasting messages and showcasing bestpractice to staff and students across the institution. it comprised four distinct sections: meetings, written and electronic communication, social media and national dissemination. stakeholder meetings included regular face-to-face encounters with all levels of the university where information was shared and feedback sought. these meetings with formal agendas and minutes provided a conduit to all university personnel (ferns et al., 2014b. p. 58). written and electronic communication included the regular reporting requirements which, while a time intensive activity, were perceived as valuable mechanisms for dissemination, provision of updates on progress and addressing accountability requirements. several key communication initiatives proved pivotal to spreading the word and promoting wil activities across the university. a monthly electronic newsletter titled the goodwil newsletter was distributed to both internal and external stakeholders. the newsletter proved to be a popular publication for faculty staff to showcase innovative wil activities. the wil website was an important feature of the project as it provided easy access to information about wil and relevant resources for staff and students. the website was developed over a period of time that allowed for a consultative and collaborative approach with all stakeholders. both the newsletter and website were useful for highlighting exemplary practice, sharing opportunities and communicating the progress and impacts driven by the wil project team. additionally, an integrated social media strategy was implemented to engage stakeholders in the wil website and resources, events and professional development opportunities. this included the creation and management of a wil at curtin facebook page; linkedin group and blog. the wil facebook page, with a total 651 followers, generates regular ‘likes’ through organic shares and in response to campaign activities. wil opportunities were promoted on facebook and students were able to ask questions and receive accurate and timely responses in real time. the wil linkedin group was activated in the latter part of 2015 with the intention of connecting industry and employers with students and the wil project team, to share information and resources and to promote discussion of wil in an open forum. the wil at curtin blog targets students seeking advice and support regarding wil experiences in an informal format. implementing a social media strategy has been significant to increasing stakeholder engagement in wil resources and website and has enhanced the online presence and accessibility of the wil strategic project at curtin. in addition, the wil team attended all university events including orientation week, festival of learning, education abroad fair, and careers’ fair to promote wil initiatives and engage directly with students and staff. the communication strategies employed by the wil team were carefully considered strategies for facilitating a cultural shift and building institutional capacity through the implementation of a comprehensive communication plan. engagement with host organisations integral to establishing successful approaches to wil are firstly engagement with external organisations, and secondly the considered manner in which this engagement occurs including the brokering, monitoring and maintenance of partnerships to ensure their sustainability. partnerships with external organisations are complex and occur in many forms. wil requires strong partnerships between all stakeholders: students, university staff and host organisations. mutually beneficial and reciprocal wil activities meet the needs of industry, business, government, community, students, and universities, in developing and delivering authentic learning experiences that benefit all partners/stakeholders (kay, winchester-seeto, rowe, & le clus, 2014). communication pathways and information for host organisations need to ensure a clearly articulated connection. similarly a collaborative and coordinated relationship with host organisations was essential to guarantee optimal input from employers https://www.facebook.com/wilatcurtin http://www.linkedin.com/grp/home?gid=7001209&trk=my_groups-tile-grp http://blogs.curtin.edu.au/work-integrated-learning/ ferns, s. & lilly, l. (2015). driving institutional engagement in wil: enhancing graduate employability. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 6(1), 116–133. 124 to enhance the students’ learning experiences, to facilitate the development of employability capabilities, and to broaden industry networks (van rooijen, 2011). for engagement to be effective, wil at curtin university aimed to be:  mutually beneficial for all parties–the university, the host organisation/partner and the student must all benefit from the relationship.  clearly understood–the university needs to be clear on the unique contribution and value added by their involvement in broader communities.  well managed, resourced and supported by the university.  meaningful and relevant to academic outcomes.  rigorously evaluated and measured. as a result of adopting these principles for effective engagement, staff at curtin university were able to:  enrich the teaching, learning and research experience.  enhance the work-readiness of curtin graduates.  build effective business, industry, government and community relationships that support the teaching and learning experience and leads to excellence in research innovation and sustainability.  foster close and ongoing relationships with alumni and other graduate networks.  create and leverage connections to enable the exchange of knowledge and learning.  become the preferred provider of work ready graduates in our local communities. staff engagement engaging all university staff including wil practitioners, professional and academic staff, course coordinators, heads of school, and executive management was essential for embedding wil practices in the student experience. being mindful that staff engagement was central to prompting a cultural shift across the organisation that embraced wil pedagogy and practices, the project team adopted several key strategies designed to ensure buy-in from all staff. staff resources a chapter on wil was written for inclusion in the teaching and learning handbook, the key curtin university resource for teaching staff (curtin university, 2014b). the chapter is a concise account with a definition, a link to the wil guidelines, a brief explanation of curricular and co-curricular wil experiences, a description of authentic assessment and a section on developing partnerships to inform curriculum. a print version and electronic version are available for staff. more importantly, the teaching and learning handbook links wil to the broader teaching and learning context at curtin (ferns et al., 2014b). the academic staff in the wil team developed an interactive module for the foundations of learning and teaching (folt) programme at the university. folt is curtin’s primary professional development for teaching staff including casual employees – thereby reaching a wide audience. the wil module was designed intentionally to encourage discussion and collaboration about approaches to embedding wil in curriculum. attendees were invited to explore wil approaches relevant to their discipline and were provided with resources to guide the enactment of wil in the curriculum. ferns, s. & lilly, l. (2015). driving institutional engagement in wil: enhancing graduate employability. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 6(1), 116–133. 125 authentic assessment framework effective, efficient and equitable assessment is a key issue in the implementation of wil experiences into the curriculum. while there is general agreement across the higher education sector that wil activities are a valuable component of a degree course, measuring student performance against clear and concise criteria remains a challenge. wil may take many forms and involves a range of stakeholders such as employers and community groups. furthermore, wil may be a class-based activity or occur in the workplace. it is this diversity and complexity of wil tasks that presents difficulties in designing fair and equitable assessments (ferns & moore, 2012; smith, ferns, & russell, 2014). outcomes of wil experiences may also be dependent on engagement in extra-curricular activities and personal backgrounds, both of which vary greatly across the student population. in response to these challenges, tools for engaging staff in reconceptualising curriculum have been prepared. the authentic assessment framework (aaf) was developed over an extended period and adapted according to feedback. the aaf is informed by contemporary research and has been trialled with several teaching teams. the purpose of the aaf is to determine the authenticity of assessments and learning activities thus ensuring curricula are developmental and student-focused. the aaf enables curricula to be interrogated by providing the graphic evidence of the level of authenticity in the student experience to ensure real-world relevance (bosco & ferns, 2014). the most valuable aspect of the aaf is the evidence-based approach to curriculum renewal enabling staff to conceptualise the benefits. wil descriptors five descriptors were developed to allow unit level recording and course level reporting of wil in curtin’s data management system. the wil attributes are shown in table 1 below. a sample wil chart, showing the spread of wil attributes across a course, is shown in figure 2. the wil chart provides evidence of existing wil in curriculum and highlights opportunities to improve skill development and work readiness of students. the wil chart is a useful tool for prompting discussion during course review and renewal. table 1: wil descriptors in student one (s1) for improved reporting of wil code in s1 wil attributes wil-na not applicable; this unit is not intended to have a wil experience wil-ne not evident wil-e emerging, wil evident in some outcomes and assessments wil-d developing, wil evident in all outcomes and assessments wil-hd highly developed, work or community based experience ferns, s. & lilly, l. (2015). driving institutional engagement in wil: enhancing graduate employability. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 6(1), 116–133. 126 figure 2: wil chart showing wil attributes across a course capacity building in an effort to disseminate exemplary practices, share university-wide activities, and involve staff in the wil agenda, the wil project team conducted events and professional learning opportunities for both academic and professional staff. these events were jointly funded by, and held in partnership with, the australian government office for learning and teaching (olt) project teams and the australian collaborative education network (acen). to date these have included: 1. international webinars titled:  engaging diverse students in wil, financial hardship and international students and wil;  responding to diverse students in wil;  building institutional capacity for student diversity;  inclusive wil: implications for stakeholders;  global mobility in health disciplines: best practice approaches for international fieldwork placements; 2. a workshop titled assessing work integrated learning; 3. a community of practice event called let’s talk about wil where wil practitioners were invited to showcase best-practice wil initiatives; 4. poster presentations; 5. a variety of sessions at the annual curtin university event: festival of learning; 6. several presentations in both 2014 and 2015 at the wa teaching and learning forum which is an annual inter-university conference in wa; 7. conference presentations and refereed papers. these events attracted staff from a number of universities including, in the case of the webinars, colleagues from over thirty australian and several international tertiary institutions. the wil team has also been involved in the development and delivery of global perspectives in work-integrated learning, an online professional development program for wil practitioners. leaders in wil from australia, canada, new zealand and sweden, through their respective national wil associations (acen, cafce, nzace and vilar) worked collaboratively to design the module which has attracted high demand internationally. the inaugural delivery took place from april to july 2015 with 35 participants. the second offering of the program began in october 2015 and concluded in december 2015. wil-na; 44% wil-ne; 6% wil-e; 6% wil-d; 19% wil-hd; 25% wil attributes across a degree wil-na; 44% wil-ne; 6% wil-e; 6% wil-d; 19% wil-hd; 25% ferns, s. & lilly, l. (2015). driving institutional engagement in wil: enhancing graduate employability. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 6(1), 116–133. 127 staff recognition recognising and rewarding staff engagement with wil was critical to the perception by staff of the value-added of participation (dezure, 2000). a number of initiatives were designed to encourage staff participation. the first was the provision of funding for ten small-scale facultybased wil in curriculum projects, with each faculty allocated funding for two projects. it was anticipated that the initiatives which emerged from the grants would be embedded into curricula in 2015. staff across the university competed for the funding and those who were successful were required to submit a final report highlighting the outcomes of their projects and were invited to present a poster at the 2015 festival of learning. as a consequence of this initiative a proposal has been made to include an award for innovative approaches to teaching and learning that incorporate a wil pedagogy in the university wide excellence in teaching awards. staff participation in wil activities was also encouraged by the involvement of the wil team in collaborations and research activities which highlighted to staff the credibility and integrity (fullen & scott, 2009) of not only the wil projects, but also the team and its achievements on both the national and international stage. this was a powerful influence on staff willingness to engage (ferns et al., 2014b). in particular, the final olt report assessing the impact of wil on student work-readiness (published in october 2015) substantiates the impact of wil on graduate employability and has been a catalyst for driving the university-industry partnership agenda. participation of the wil team on several olt project teams including: building institutional capacity to enhance access, participation and progression in work integrated learning (wil), quality in australian outbound student mobility programs: establishing good practice guidelines for international work-integrated-learning in health sciences, improving work placements for international students, their mentors and stakeholders, and developing strategies to maximise industry contribution and engagement with the wil experience has also raised the profile of wil and encouraged staff engagement. student engagement several strategies were developed for the explicit purpose of engaging the student cohort in the wil project. students attended preparation workshops prior to going on a wil workplacement. to ensure students gained maximum benefits from a work-based experience, carefully designed pre briefing and de-briefing sessions were held. students were also provided with ongoing support while on placement to ensure any emerging issues were dealt with and learning outcomes were optimised. in addition, the wil team created a wil blackboard site as a way of communicating with students to provide regular updates and as a mechanism to register for wil activities. the online fieldwork preparation module proved to be a useful student resource with the wil team updating content and revitalising the module in an effort to engage more students. the wil team also offered a series of interactive workshops where students engaged in conversations about the culture of the australian workforce, work-readiness skills, selfreflective practice, and ethical behaviour. some workshops were specifically designed to cater to international students in an effort to provide targeted support that enabled them opportunities to become familiar with australian business and industry. two wil units (subjects) were developed by the wil team and approved: work3001 engaging with community and work3000 engaging with industry. these units were designed to provide students with a wil experience that nurtured employability capabilities which were evidenced by authentic assessment. students who had the capacity within course structures, enrolled in the units and gained recognition as a part of their studies. the unit work3000 engaging with industry was delivered in the summer school 2015 study period with 46 international students enrolling. the students were afforded the opportunity to experience the culture of the australian workforce thereby enhancing their global mobility. ferns, s. & lilly, l. (2015). driving institutional engagement in wil: enhancing graduate employability. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 6(1), 116–133. 128 students enrolled in the wil units also had the option to undertake their placements internationally. the wil team used various communications channels, including faculty contacts, a wil at curtin facebook page to promote community and industry-based opportunities, events and wil activities to the student body. the team also engaged with students directly on campus through events such as the careers festival and orientation week. the australian collaborative education network (acen) scholarship was administered annually by the wil team on behalf of acen. student representation was also included on the governance groups convened by the wil project team such as the wil advisory committee. global mobility opportunities for students were provided by new colombo plan mobility grants, a government funded initiative which provides opportunities for australian undergraduate students to participate in international work-based experiences. the wil team was successful in winning new colombo plan mobility grants which provided funds for students to undertake short-term internships in china and cambodia with host organisations offering placements for chemical engineering, food science and technology, and education students. existing governance processes for international placements were implemented and refined, including development of new resources, liaising with third-party providers to ensure that the student experience met required standards and translation of relevant legal agreements into mandarin. culture shock presentations were delivered to prepare students travelling overseas. collaboration with the scholarships and admissions office provided another avenue for enhancing engagement between the wil team and students, and promoting further overseas internship opportunities. collaboration and dissemination internal and external networks were essential for the wil team to optimise the impact of the project deliverables and facilitate extensive communication channels. figure 3, below, provides a visual representation of the internal collaborations that were integral to successful wil innovations at the university. these collaborations ensured the wil initiatives were connected to the organisational infrastructure and embraced holistically. multiple external collaborators are essential to institutional capacity building. many of these are outlined in the section above on community and industry engagement. in addition to these partnerships, the wil team established strong networks with peak educational bodies focused on wil and engagement. the wil team was represented on the board of directors for both acen and engagement australia, as well as the national wil strategy reference group. these collaborations assisted in maintaining up to date information with contemporary wil developments both internationally and nationally. furthermore, these connections established collaborative research networks in which the wil team is involved. as a result, the academic staff in the wil team are working on several state-based and national research activities with wil leaders. several scholarly articles on wil have been published in academic journals and conference proceedings. ferns, s. & lilly, l. (2015). driving institutional engagement in wil: enhancing graduate employability. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 6(1), 116–133. 129 figure 3: internal connections of the wil team and their impact sustainability sustainability of the project outcomes and building institutional capacity for the long term requires a multi-pronged approach. the carefully sequenced and executed strategies outlined in this paper underpin the intention to instil sustainable practices across the institution. a targeted initiative was for a representative from the wil team to reside in each of the faculties. these staff, known as partnership coordinators, had a key role to build both internal and external networks and worked in their faculty to achieve the goals of the project by:  building networks/relationships with staff and students; careers & employment centre co-curricular opportunities career advice legal and compliance fieldwork agreements & related contracts faculty staff integrating wil into curriculum health safety & emergency management managing safety research & development fieldwork governance for research students leadership; ethics, equity, social justice wil support marketing; guild; future students wil promotion external relations industry partnerships & contacts international office global mobility: new colombo plan, science without borders curtin teaching and learning curriculum design alumni relations industry contacts and partnerships risk management risk, travel & insurance processes ferns, s. & lilly, l. (2015). driving institutional engagement in wil: enhancing graduate employability. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 6(1), 116–133. 130  ensuring an accessible resource and support for staff;  facilitating systemic uptake of a wil institutional framework;  streamlining communication channels. this achieved several key advantages including networking with staff, students and faculty leaders; providing assistance and support pertinent to the particular faculty’s needs; directly influencing faculty management groups and individuals; and building a tangible presence that promoted wil. the aim was for the partnership coordinators to continue post-project with the hope of providing ongoing support of and impetus for wil activities. the partnership coordinator’s role is presented diagrammatically in table 2 below. implementing strategies that sustain the wil project deliverables was the emphasis as the project team embarked on the final stages of implementation with completion scheduled for december 2015. table 2: engagement roles of the partnership coordinators support for students support for staff support for partners engage with and register students for wil opportunities engage with staff through targeted individual support or attending teaching and learning meetings engage with partners to develop mutually beneficial, sustainable partnerships promote current wil opportunities using a variety of modes communicate institutional wil framework, governance, reporting requirements* and resources to staff (* fieldwork tuition patterns and wil attributes) assist partners in selection process of students for placements coordinate student responses for wil opportunities develop and disseminate resources such as wil website, fieldwork manual, authentic assessment framework develop and use engagement framework that outlines best practice liaise with host organisations to source placements disseminate resources for governance policy, forms, wil guidelines develop partners’ page on wil and fieldwork websites conduct pre-briefings to prepare students for placement encourage and promote engagement in professional development opportunities develop resources such as expression of interest (eoi) to host a student and guide for host organisations support students during placement embed wil in curriculum support for partners while students are undertaking wil opportunities conduct debriefings to maximise learning outcomes deliver wil units engaging with industry; engaging with community provide tools for students to ensure due diligence, including risk assessments, legal agreements, travel processes and insurance maintain currency of best practice by involvement in peak bodies and research in t & l projects conclusion the australian job market is undergoing a transformation which is having a profound impact on employment outcomes for students and which in turn demand learning experiences that will facilitate a skill set commensurate with the employee of the 21st century. this paper has highlighted a strategic approach to building institutional capacity in adopting a work integrated learning framework to enhance not only the student experience, but also employability. an authentic and holistic student experience that embraces wil curricula and enacts a teaching and learning philosophy that promotes student employability is of the essence. the multi ferns, s. & lilly, l. (2015). driving institutional engagement in wil: enhancing graduate employability. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 6(1), 116–133. 131 faceted, staged approach to driving a wil culture across the organisation highlights the significance of a strong and cohesive project team who share common goals; the establishment of a clear and coherent institutional framework which reflects long term ambitions; the development and enactment of a comprehensive communication plan; the implementation of manifold approaches to staff and student engagement; and creating extensive internal and external collaborations to efficiently broadcast outcomes. the likelihood of accomplishing long term sustainability is heightened with considered execution of each of these phases. the project team has worked determinedly to engage the university community and embed wil practices that provide curtin with a point of difference in the competitive educational market. acknowledgements the authors gratefully acknowledge the significant contribution made to this paper by the following members of the wil project team: kym sher (partnership coordinator: science and engineering), joshua soh (partnership coordinator: curtin business school), kristy goodchild, (wil designer), denise d’cruz, (wil designer), and susan walsh, (project officer). ferns, s. & lilly, l. 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(2004). learning, curriculum and employability in higher education. new york: routledge falmer. http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/02602938.2011.618878 http://jfmueller.faculty.noctrl.edu/toolbox/whatisit.htm#top http://www.insidehighered.com/views/2009/10/16/shavelson http://cdn1.acen.edu.au/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/wil-statement-of-intent.pdf http://cdn1.acen.edu.au/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/national-wil-strategy-in-university-education-032015.pdf http://cdn1.acen.edu.au/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/national-wil-strategy-in-university-education-032015.pdf http://www.uq.edu.au/teach/assessment/docs/brief-21-may2011.pdf tran, thi tuyet (2016). enhancing graduate employability and the need for university-enterprise collaboration. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 7 (1), 58-71. 58 enhancing graduate employability and the need for universityenterprise collaboration thi tuyet tran1 thi-tuyet.tran@iab.de 1institute for employment research, german federal employment agency abstract over the last few decades there has been strong debate over the central mission of higher education and resistance to the employability agenda seemed strong. however, with the changing context of both higher education and the labour market, together with neoliberal pressure, enhancing graduate employability has become one of the central focuses in many universities worldwide. this article provides an overview of the relevant literature to resonate with why graduate employability has been more popularly presented in many university practices. the notion of graduate employability is examined and it is argued that without input from and collaboration with industry, universities are hardly able to achieve their vocational mission of equipping their students for the labour market. keywords: graduate employability, higher education, labour market, university-enterprise collaboration introduction higher education (he) has increasingly been tied to the needs of the economy and society. from developed countries to developing countries, there is a loud call to make university education more relevant to the workplace. there seem to be fewer debates over the central mission of he, with universities tending to accept neoliberal pressure and looking for ways to make their educational practices more aligned with the needs of the labour market. enhancing graduate employability has become one of the central focuses in many universities worldwide. collaboration between universities and enterprises in different ways has been reported as valuable in order to ‘bring the labour market’ into the classroom. this paper provides an overview of the relevant literature to explore the reason why graduate employability an ‘add-on’ mission for some academics and the ‘subset’ of a mission for the others (harvey, 2000, p. 4; speight, lackovic, & cooker, 2012), has been popularly presented in many university practices. the notion of graduate employability is examined and it is argued that without input from and collaboration with industry, universities are hardly able to strengthen their vocational mission of equipping students for the labour market. the changing context of he and the need to enhance graduate employability it has been argued that he has always met its social and economic obligation and this is tacitly achieved through academics’ professional understanding of social and economic needs (boden & nedeva, 2010). however, there has been an increasingly neoliberal pressure on he mailto:thi-tuyet.tran@iab.de tran, thi tuyet (2016). enhancing graduate employability and the need for university-enterprise collaboration. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 7 (1), 58-71. 59 to make explicit the task of preparing students with the knowledge and skills required by the contemporary labour market. several developments have led to this situation. first, mass he creates many internal changes within the sector. the number of students is booming. on the one hand, gaining access to he is no longer privileged or difficult; on the other hand, government funding for he is decreasing, with students increasingly having to pay for their study. furthermore evidence suggests that employability is increasingly important in students’ choice of institutions (artess, forbes, & ripmeester, 2011). at the same time global mass he has created a crowded labour market (tomlinson, 2012). this challenges the traditional mission of he which was to prepare the elite to govern the nation, to the need to provide an institutional basis for research into all forms of knowledge (jarvis, 2002, p. 43), and to facilitate access to desired forms of employment (scott, 2005). he credentials are no longer a sufficient condition for obtaining employment, let alone a desired form of employment. he institutions are beginning to recognise that there are concerns around accommodating employability for their graduates, and have gradually taken up this challenge (rosenberg, heimler, & morote, 2012). the changes resulting from mass he have been coupled with changes in the labour market in more recent decades. the spread of globalisation and of neoliberal policies has encouraged the restructuring of the economy around competition and efficiency, resulting in downsizing, delayering and restructuring of organisations. fewer people are required for the same job, and more tasks are required to be managed by each person. the new world of work requires skills such as negotiating, networking, problem solving, and skills to manage processes rather than just functional skills (evans, 2008). also increasingly expected are multi-skilled and multitasking employees (foss & laursen, 2005). this was not the traditional focus of he. thus, the sector is expected to be responsive towards the new needs of the economy, to provide ample opportunities for their students to develop knowledge, skills and to nurture their capability for life-long learning (harvey, 2000). universities are under pressure to take on-board employability, not only as a pragmatic response (clarke, 2008) to the competition among universities, but also to the requirements of society. in most cases, universities also need to satisfy the requirements and the expectations of the neoliberal governments. policy-makers tend to tie he institutions to the needs of the economy and the society (european commission, 2003, 2005, 2011). in the uk for example, the government has increasingly exerted pressure on the he system to enhance outputs, quality and their overall market responsiveness (department for education, 2010). there is an explicit expectation from the government that he institutions are able to provide graduates who can readily adapt to their working environment and are adaptable within it (cable, 2010). similarly, in the usa, an employability skills agenda has been developed with direct involvement from the government and the national association of colleges and employers (nace), the body responsible for publishing detailed professional standards for college and university career services. with the aim of assisting the usa industries to retain their competitive edge, the secretary’s commission on achieving necessary skills (scans)1 was established in 1990 to report the basic skills required for workers. in europe, the bologna process2 which prioritises employability among other he objectives has created pressure as well as opportunities for he to shift its identity towards an economic rationale (tomusk, 2004). up until recently, 50 countries with more than 4000 he institutions had adapted their he systems following the bologna process (bologna process, 2016). 1 http://wdr.doleta.gov/scans/ 2 the bologna process is a series of ministerial meetings and agreements between european countries designed to ensure comparability in the standards and quality of higher education qualifications. http://wdr.doleta.gov/scans/ tran, thi tuyet (2016). enhancing graduate employability and the need for university-enterprise collaboration. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 7 (1), 58-71. 60 not only are universities in the developed world under pressure to take on-board employability, universities in much less developed countries in south east asia are also struggling to adapt to the new requirements and expectations from their governments. recently, 30 universities from 10 countries (including brunei, cambodia, laos, indonesia, malaysia, myanmar, singapore, the philippines, vietnam and thailand) have become members of the asean university network (aun) and followed the aun quality assurance framework (qa) (asean university network, 20153). the asean member countries also developed their own quality assurance framework following the aun-qa and requested that all universities in the aun system follow those ‘standards’. the framework requires universities to work closely with employers from developing the curriculum, to revising the syllabus and then to the employment process of the students. the focus on outcomes (such as the ratio of graduates gaining employment after graduation) also drives universities to take into account the demands of employers in their academic practices. clearly, both internal and external contexts have placed graduate employability high on the policy agenda in most he sectors worldwide. the argument over who should take responsibility to develop graduate employability (tran thi tuyet, 2015) does not seem to be crucial as the focus of the discussion is now on how to best enhance graduate employability. in the following section, the dialogue surrounding the concept of employability is reviewed. what is graduate employability? although employability is in vogue in the he context, there is no common definition of it in the literature. some studies focus more on individual student ability to get and retain a job after graduation and as such define employability as follows: …the capacity to gain initial employment, maintain employment and obtain employment if required (hillage & pollard, 1998, p. 2), or … the ability of graduates to find and retain a graduate-level job and also the ability to move between jobs if required (yorke, 2010). in fact, the majority of the most popular definitions do not mention the stakeholders who need to be in charge of, or involved in, graduate employability. rather, employability is defined as the types of skills, knowledge, attributes or understandings, as seen in the following examples: …a set of achievement skills, understandings and personal attributes – that makes graduates more likely to gain employment and be successful in their chosen occupations, which benefits themselves, the workforce, the community and the economy (the enhancing student employability co-ordination team esect (yorke, 2006, p. 8). …a set of skills, knowledge and personal attributes that makes an individual more likely to secure and be successful in their chosen occupations to the benefit of themselves, the workforce, the community and the economy (moreland, 2006). …skills required not only to gain employment, but also to progress within an enterprise so as to achieve one’s potential and contribute successfully to enterprise strategic directions (australian chamber of commerce and industry & business council of australia, 2002). …the skills almost everyone needs to do almost every job. they are the skills that must be present to enable an individual to use more specific knowledge and technical skills that their particular workplaces will require (uk commission for employment and skills, 2009). 3 http://www.aunsec.org/aunmemberuniversities.php http://www.aunsec.org/aunmemberuniversities.php tran, thi tuyet (2016). enhancing graduate employability and the need for university-enterprise collaboration. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 7 (1), 58-71. 61 artess, forbes and ripmeester (2011) suggest that while the term ‘employability’ may not always be used, there is an underlying consensus as to what employability comprises a range of specific, employment-related skills or attributes (hard and soft skills) relevant to acquiring and succeeding in employment. although different in wording, these definitions all relate employability to a set of skills and/or attributes that are necessary for any graduate to move into the employment market, to find and retain jobs and to develop his/her career. the question then becomes what are those skills/attributes, apart from the knowledge (hard skills), that are traditionally the domain of the universities? again, one can find different concepts of skills used in the literature which all claim to be necessary for graduates to participate and to develop in the employment market: generic skills, soft skills, transferable skills, cross-disciplinary skills, graduate attributes, core skills, key skills, basic skills, crosscurricular skills, common skills, essential skills, enterprise skills or even employability skills, to name a few (caballero, walker, & fuller-tyszkiewicz, 2011; cabellero & walker, 2010; hager & holland, 2006; lowden, hall, elliot, & lewin, 2011; rust & froud, 2011). the word ‘skills’ appears in almost all articles in relation to the quality outcomes of he; professional knowledge is sometimes also considered a type of skill, called technical skills (ac nielsen research services, 2000; world bank, 2011). nonetheless, the professional knowledge or students’ technical skills are differentiated from generic skills. while technical skills often refer to discipline-based skills and capacity, generic skills (and its equivalent terms), as described by andrews and higson (2008), cover such areas as coping with uncertainty, working under pressure, planning and strategic thinking, reliability, communications and interpersonal interactions, teamwork and networking, writing and speaking, information technology skills, creativity, self-confidence, self-management and time-management, willingness to learn and acceptance of responsibility. in a project which reported to the australian chamber of commerce and the industry and business council of australia, generic employability skills were identified as more ‘simple’ skills which included communication, teamwork, problem solving, initiative and enterprise, planning and organisation, self-management and learning and technology skills (acer, 2002). these skills are increasingly viewed as important, not only for graduates and not only in an employment context. they are viewed as increasingly important in the changing context of contemporary life. nonetheless, these skills are essential in the employment context and are considered important to make graduates prepared or ready for success in today’s rapidly changing work environment’ (cabellero & walker, 2010, p. 16). the need for university-enterprise collaboration (uec) paradoxically, not all of these skills can be developed solely in the he context. initiative and enterprise skills, planning and strategic thinking and working under pressure are examples of such skills. moreover, different stakeholders (such as employers, academics and students) may view these skills differently, and indeed research has reported the mismatch between stakeholders’ perceptions of these skills (handel, 2003; sala, 2011; tran thi tuyet, 2012). nonetheless, when these skills are viewed as necessary for graduates to get and retain jobs, employers’ voices become powerful. interestingly, while university is seen as the place to develop students’ employability, the results of that development can only be seen in enterprises. moreover the skills helping graduates to retain jobs and to develop in their careers will mainly be developed in the working context. evidence suggests that employers value innovative, adaptable, resilient graduates with flexible enterprise skills, an enterprising mindset and business awareness, which are mainly the outcome of enterprise learning (owens & tran, thi tuyet (2016). enhancing graduate employability and the need for university-enterprise collaboration. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 7 (1), 58-71. 62 tibby, 2014; weligamage, 2009). clearly, if the he sector adopts employability goals then input and collaboration from industry is essential. there is another reason fundamental to universities and enterprises collaborating to enhance graduate employability: that is the need of industry for prospective employees to be workready in specific disciplines. enterprises are now under pressure to increase productivity in a competitive global market. moreover, with an exuberant pool of skilled workers (as a result of mass he), employers have become more selective in their choice, and their requirement for work experience often appears unreasonable for recent graduates (tran thi tuyet, 2014). getting familiar with the working culture, gaining practical knowledge in the workplace, knowing how to apply what has been learnt in practice, are some of the he practices helping students satisfy this requirement of employers. however, these practices all require input from and cooperation with enterprises. it is not surprising the literature on graduate employability has overwhelmingly focused on different forms of cooperation between universities and enterprises and highlighted that employers, students, graduates and he institutions value work-based learning and work integrated learning as particularly effective approaches to promote the employability of graduates (etzkowitz, 2004; lowden et al., 2011, p. vi; world bank, 2012). different types of uec the literature suggests that there are different ways for university industry interaction to occur; nonetheless, the traditional focus of uec has remained on knowledge transfer and innovation (bruneel, d’este, & salter, 2010; gertner, roberts, & charles, 2011; o’leary, 2013). discussion of the need for close uec to enhance graduate employability has recently emerged as a result of neoliberal government pressure and the importance of employability to university applicants (wilson, 2012). in the last decade, uec practices aimed at enhancing the work-readiness of university students developed quickly and are referred to in different terms such as work integrated learning or cooperative education. all of these practices share a common aim of connecting theory to practice, and they come in many forms such as work placements, internships, guest speakers, recruitment drives or practical projects of various types. generally these initiatives indicate the responses from both sides: universities and enterprises. some forms of uec have seen universities ‘go out’ (blackmore, bulaitis, jackman, & tan, 2016) into the workplace, sending academic staff and students to enterprises for practical lessons. these may be through collaboration for research and development (for academics) or through internships, placements or conducting real life projects (for students). and indeed, student mobility activities (e.g. student internship/placement) are often reported in the literature to be the most popular form of uec to enhance graduate employability. these initiatives also indicate the employers’ efforts in offering students places for internships and placements. some other types of uec reveal the efforts of employers/enterprises to engage in university practices. this might be, for example, employer involvement in curriculum development, in student assessment, or in recruiting students. other forms of collaboration/partnership between universities and industry have emerged to provide sandwich courses or degree programs in different formats. this blurs the barriers between the academic world and the world of work. table 1 summarises the major forms of uec for enhancing graduate employability. tran, thi tuyet (2016). enhancing graduate employability and the need for university-enterprise collaboration. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 7 (1), 58-71. 63 table 1: types of uec for enhancing graduate employability types of uec notes universities going out student work placements mobility of students student internships students conducting real life projects in firms university academics/managers experience the work in firms mobility of academics university training for enterprises’ orders enterprise engagement in university practices employer involvement in: employers’ involvement in curriculum development and delivery curriculum development degree advisory board student assessment guest lectures student mentoring career fairs or events sponsorships/ scholarships graduate recruitment universities and firms collaborate to deliver work based learning degree programs/sandwich years research and development activities practical projects either on university campus or in enterprises sources: confederation of british industry (2013); davey, baaken, galan muros and meerman (2011) and hogarth et al.(2007) benefits brought about by uec the most obvious advantage of the above forms of uec is the blending of the professional knowledge students acquired at university with authentic application of that knowledge in the workplace. most universities’ student and staff mobility initiatives work for the same aim: to expose participants to authentic and relevant contexts at workplaces where they can apply theory to practice. by joining the world of work, academics can enrich their understanding about the real practices and develop more responsive teaching syllabi, with the final aim being to provide students with more practical lessons both in and out of the university context. in other words, uec enhances experiential learning, which helps and also requires students to integrate theory and practice (cooper, orrell, & bowden, 2010; ferns, campbell, & zegwaad, 2014; ferns & moore, 2012; smith, meijer, & kielly-coleman, 2010). in these ways, uec provides students with opportunities to reflect on the knowledge they have learnt in the university context and apply that knowledge in practices at work to solve the real world tran, thi tuyet (2016). enhancing graduate employability and the need for university-enterprise collaboration. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 7 (1), 58-71. 64 problems (patrick et al., 2008; weisz & smith, 2010). similarly, the involvement of employers in university practices, such as their engagement in course design or in delivery of lectures, also improves the relevance of the lessons delivered for students. the partnership between university and industry in any form, somehow connects the academic discipline knowledge and the real experience at work, which has been seen by some, as contradictory. nonetheless, it is argued that the experience of professional life does promote knowledge development (ferns & moore, 2012; fry, ketteridge, & marshall, 2005). in other words, uec provides students with opportunities to connect skills and knowledge from different sources and experiences, to apply theory to practice in various settings, to appreciate diverse points of view and understand issues and positions contextually (huber & hutchings, 2004). the collaboration and partnership between university and industry to provide educational programs which combine and integrate learning and workplace application, provides students with valuable opportunities to learn the tacit knowledge at work, and thus, enhance their employability. it has been reported that one of the most difficult problems students experience in the transition from university to work is to learn the tacit knowledge at the workplace (beckett & mulcahy, 2006; sternberg et al., 2000). this knowledge is needed for students to successfully adapt to, select, or shape the real world environment (sternberg et al., 2000, p. 104). although this knowledge has nothing to do with the level of educational attainment students reach, it is suggested that schools and universities can provide guidance and intervention to develop occupational knowledge and skills (artess et al., 2011; chapple & tolley, 2000; creed, muller, & patton, 2003; harvey, 2005; helyer, lee, & evans, 2011; lowden et al., 2011; rust & froud, 2011). one of the best ways to achieve this is to put students in the real context of work, to learn and to develop their own understanding about this tacit knowledge. similarly, uec which provides students with opportunities to be exposed to the real world of work, can help students develop skills in meaningful ways. the language of skills sometimes appears overlapping and confusing, and is criticised for being unable to capture elements of knowledge which remain specific and tacit (beckett & mulcahy, 2006; tran thi tuyet, 2014; winch, 2006). numerous advantages of work integrated learning for skill development have been reported in the literature: it improves students’ critical thinking skills, time management skills, decision making skills, teamwork and organisational skills. it also enhances their adaptability and specific discipline skills, as well as broader transferable skills (eames & cates, 2011; ferns et al., 2014; fleming & eames, 2005; smith et al., 2010). by integrating theory and practice and creating opportunities for students to learn the tacit knowledge and work related skills during their university program, the collaboration between university and enterprise has provided students with opportunities to master their professional knowledge in their specific disciplines and become familiar with organisational practices at the same time. this improves the work readiness and competitiveness of students entering the world of work after graduation. when students participate in work integrated learning programs they may be better prepared to satisfy the new ‘picky’ requirements of employers in the labour market. the experience students are able to gain during placements, internships or real life projects also helps them to make better informed decisions about their career choice and path (zegwaard & coll, 2011). in other words, it helps students to shorten their transition from university to employment (elder, 2014; tran thi tuyet, 2014). the collaboration between universities and enterprises is reported to bring benefits for not only students, but also educational institutions, employers and the whole industry. as universities connect with the world of work and provide authentic opportunities for students, they become more responsive to industry and students’ expectations. this, on one hand, helps universities satisfy the requirements of the neoliberal governments, and on the other hand, improves a university’s image in competition for students (cooper et al., 2010). the collaboration to enhance graduate employability is also reported to open up other opportunities tran, thi tuyet (2016). enhancing graduate employability and the need for university-enterprise collaboration. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 7 (1), 58-71. 65 for universities and enterprises in research and development (ferns et al., 2014). moreover, the close partnership with industry also provides chances for universities to revise and reflect on their curriculum and practices in more responsive ways. by providing universities and students access to the enterprise working context, employers are also giving themselves not only an opportunity to open up other collaborations with universities, but also access to a short term technical labour pool at low or no cost, exposure to fresh and different ideas, and the opportunity to recruit high quality graduates before graduation (tanaka, 2009). furthermore, many employers consider the collaboration as a way to increase their social responsibility and to improve their corporate image. ultimately, the collaboration between universities and enterprises aimed at connecting theory and practice helps to increase productivity, efficiency and effectiveness for the industry and increase the competitiveness of the whole economy in the international market. challenges for uec uec is reported to be an important and effective way to help universities to enhance their graduate employability, and the collaboration is intended to bring benefits for not only students and graduates, but also for the stakeholders, universities and enterprises. however, developing an effective collaboration requires effort from both sides and a positive outcome or impact does not happen by accident (cooper et al., 2010). both universities and enterprises need to overcome many challenges in order to develop a workable partnership to help students effectively integrate theory to practice. some of the major challenges are discussed below. the most significant challenge for both sides is the requirement for them to step out of their comfort zone. as learning at a workplace is socially distributed, co-produced and legitimized by worker-learners and academics (choy & delahaye, 2011, p. 159), this requires a shift in university culture, from delivering the model/program to enabling the partnership (harvey, 2007). in order to ensure knowledge is integrated into the workplace, universities need to place equal value on theoretical knowledge and practical knowledge (orrell, 2011). this is an uncomfortable challenge for universities. similarly, the collaboration with universities to provide practical lessons for students also requires employers to understand the curriculum and pedagogy of their partner universities. together they need to create authentic case studies, role plays and scenarios which articulate the scope, nature and standard of required skills to students’ (jackson, 2015, p. 362). when most employers in modern society are ‘time poor’, being out of their comfort zone like this requires much time and effort; this is a real challenge for them. the development of a work integrated learning curriculum and assessment is another significant challenge, especially for universities, because it may reduce their autonomy. the curriculum needs to be designed to support the learning for both declarative knowledge, which is the information passed in books and lectures about theory, and functional knowledge, or the application of the theoretical knowledge in a real world situation (billett & choy, 2012; cooper et al., 2010). the challenge in developing curriculum is similar to the challenge of developing assessment practices which requires the shared input of both universities and enterprises. designing assessment of students’ performance in practical settings in not easy, as the assessment of the process in which students turn tacit knowledge into explicit knowledge and integrate conceptual knowledge and practical experience is difficult and is absent from the literature (tynjälä, 2008, p. 140). shifting curriculum and assessment this way is both disagreeable and difficult for universities. another problem that both universities and enterprises need to tackle is how to devote quality time to support students to acquire both declarative knowledge and functional knowledge through the work integrated learning curriculum. positive outcomes can only be expected if sufficient preparation, assistance and support for students before, during and after work tran, thi tuyet (2016). enhancing graduate employability and the need for university-enterprise collaboration. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 7 (1), 58-71. 66 integrated learning experiences is provided (billet, 2011; coll et al., 2009). universities need to provide students with guidance, introduction and understanding about workplace and workplace requirements. enterprises also need to provide students with suitable induction, training, a positive learning environment, guidance and mentoring (peach, larkin, & ruinard, 2012). these can only be achieved through a strong partnership between universities and enterprises (choy & delahaye, 2011; cooper et al., 2010; ferns et al., 2014; patrick et al., 2008; peach et al., 2012). it also requires mutual understanding about each other’s practices in order to design appropriate programs and to provide prompt support for students during the process of integrating theory to practice. conclusion clearly the collaboration or the partnership between educational institutions and workplaces has proved to be a practical way to increase university responsiveness for the economy, to bring authentic lessons from the market into the university curriculum, to enhance skills desired by contemporary employers, and thus, to enhance employability for students and graduates. uec is also reported to bring benefits for not only students and graduates, but also for universities, enterprises and the overall society. nonetheless, the development and implementation of a sustainable and effective collaborative activity/program to enhance graduate employability has brought many challenges for both universities and enterprises. it takes them out of their comfort zone, requires them to develop understandings about each other, to change their routine practices, and to set aside time, effort, human resources and investment to develop and support uec initiatives. developing partnerships means that diverse interests and expectations are represented. in order to develop effective collaboration, strengths and threats need to be identified, and a common goal which addresses mutual benefits to all stakeholders needs to be developed. both partners need to work collaboratively toward the common goal. the integration of theory and practice will only be enhanced when strategies are adequately resourced and well prepared for all, not only students, but also employers and university coordinators. this can only be achieved through a close partnership between universities and 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(2018). building employability skills for higher education students: an australian example. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 9(1), 84–92. 84 building employability skills for higher education students: an australian example robert gill1 rgill@swin.edu.au 1swinburne university of technology abstract employability has become an important focus for graduates and employers in australia, as many universities contend with the notion of developing knowledgeable and problem-solving graduates who are workforce ready practitioners. this paper presents an example of how the higher education communication disciplines from across victoria, australia, have developed a forum that allows graduating students to engage directly with industry leaders to better prepare for the leap from higher education to professional employment in the communication and media sectors. this national award-winning education forum brings multi-institutional student groups, recent graduates, academics, and industry practitioners and leaders together in order to aid the development of student skills in areas such as: networking, job application, time management, and effective work habits. keywords: employability, graduate attributes, student forum introduction this paper explores the example of the public relations, media and communication (prmc) student forum. the forum is an avenue for both industry and academia to identify and address gaps in the higher education and tertiary curriculum. this is achieved through a multiinstitutional workshop that enhances learning experiences for graduate attributes and employability. the forum and its teaching pedagogy is moulded by industry feedback, student feedback and academic observations. the content is weighted to higher education students due to the nature of the delegate list. the unique value in the development of this learning and teaching tool is that the content and curriculum have evolved over eight years, involving collaboration and feedback between educators, students and industry. being work-ready employability skills and conceptions on how to make such skills more prominent in the curriculum have been a strong focus in australian higher education for the past 20 years (moore & morton, 2017). over the past two decades, there has been an increased focus on practical skills, both nationally and internationally, through a movement towards making them more noticeable and explicit in the higher education curriculum. ruth bridgstock (2009), a prominent academic writing in the employability space, stated that shifts in education and labour market policy have resulted in universities being placed under increased pressure to produce employable graduates, with less focus on philosophical and higher-order thinking skills. many terms are used to describe practical and ‘work-ready’ skills, including generic skills, essential skills, soft skills, key competencies, transferable skills, enterprise skills and 21st gill, r. (2018). building employability skills for higher education students: an australian example. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 9(1), 84–92. 85 century skills. the frameworks that include these skills are also broader than those just relevant to employment and may include capabilities that can be described as life skills or graduate attributes (yorke, 2004; bridgstock, 2009). the value is in the non-technical knowledge, skills and attributes required that enable employees to effectively participate in the workforce (cranmer, 2006). in victoria, australia, an unusual collaboration has been formed between competing universities to develop an annual one-day student workshop open to all graduating students in the communication and media disciplines. the prmc student forum brings together victorian students from across these disciplines. students network with industry leaders, exchange opinions and ideas with their peers, are coached in preparing for the workforce, visit operating workplaces, and freely mix with practitioners and recently employed graduates – with the main objective of being better prepared for the transition from study to professional employment. the forum helps students identify those areas in their skill set that contribute to making them more employable. the experiences from the forum aid in developing generic graduate attributes and employability skills, or at least enable students to identify those attributes they will need to advance in order to become more proficient in the professional communication environment. this forum was awarded an australian learning and teaching citation in 2016 for its contribution to building employability skills, and is the case discussed below. defining graduate attributes and employability generic graduate attributes can be described as being the skills, personal attributes and values, which are intended to be acquired by graduates regardless of their discipline or field of study (smith & bath, 2006). bowden (in bridgstock, 2009) refers to the definition that graduate attributes are the qualities, skills and understandings a university community agrees its students would desirably develop during their time at the institution. smith and bath (2006) state these attributes or outcomes typically include a combination of qualities such as: critical thinking, intellectual curiosity, problem-solving, logical and independent thought, communication and information management skills, intellectual rigour, creativity and imagination, ethical practice, integrity and tolerance. employability can be defined as a set of achievements – skills, understandings and personal attributes – that make graduates more likely to gain employment and be successful in their chosen occupations, benefiting themselves, the workforce, the community and the economy (yorke, 2004). cranmer (2006) suggests such employability skills need to be incorporated into teaching and learning experiences in order to enhance graduates’ ability to secure jobs. the amount of development and nurtured skills making graduates ready for work in the curriculum is defined as the level of graduate employability, according boden and nedeva (2010). employers increasingly want graduates with job skills such as communication, teamwork and problem-solving (innovative research universities, 2011). according to many theorists, these attributes or employability qualities, identified as soft skills or intangible assets, are often difficult to authentically replicate in a fabricated classroom environment (for example: moore & morton, 2017; smith & bath, 2006; wibrow, 2011; andrews and higson, 2008). soft skills are considered those abilities to create working relationships and practical work habits that aid in efficient production. the 2013 commissioned report by the australian federal department of education, employment and workplace relations identified such graduate skills as missing, yet essential, part of the students’ toolkit to transition from study to employment (commonwealth of australia, 2013). the introduction and development of the prmc student forum discussed in this case aims to address what employability (soft) skills are needed to better prepare graduating students for the higher-level demands of professional communication roles. the forum embeds graduating students in real working environments and connects them with high-level practitioners. this is done specifically to advance the development of these soft or intangible skills that frame graduate attributes. gill, r. (2018). building employability skills for higher education students: an australian example. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 9(1), 84–92. 86 higher education and practical skills higher education in australia is considered to provide an education rather than being a training base (bowen & schwartz, 2010). this educational philosophy subsists to enable graduates to develop the higher order thinking that equips them to produce value from knowledge they have internalised through their study (walker, 2006). many theorists believe the core function of higher education is to provide an environment where students can utilise their body of knowledge to evolve into successful problem-solvers and logical persuaders, based on a capacity to think logically and critically (wheelahan & moodie, 2011; phillips, 2005; bowen & schwartz, 2010). this distinction is based on the ancient plato philosophy regarding training the brain to search for truth, whereas aristotle’s philosophy centred on practical skills and the search for the rational approach (korthagen & kessels, 1999). however, as indicated, the professional industry is looking for graduates who come equipped with the skills to be begin their employment confident and capable in task-orientated operations, as aristotle proposes. in other words, graduates who have a set of skills that define them as work-ready (bridgstock, 2009). this work-ready approach supports the notion of teaching that limits its practice to the intellectual level of academic competence and favours the practical and operational competence of the work environment (light, cox & calkins 2009). therefore, the plato model resonates with higher education, focuses on teaching episteme which can be characterised as abstract, objective and propositional knowledge, whereas an aristotle model focuses on teaching phronesis which is perceptual knowledge gained through practical wisdom based on the perception of a situation (and korthagen & kessels, 1999). the position for the industry is that graduates need to be competent with task-oriented responsibilities and abilities to function in a professional work environment, but such skills are currently lacking (moore & morton, 2017). the forum has been initiated to help address some of these employability skills gaps. prmc student forum background in 2010 the swinburne university of technology (swinburne) communication discipline initiated an academic forum for victorian public relations (pr) academics to meet and discuss areas in pr higher education that may be in need of advancement. a common issue raised by many institutions related to the anxiety students experienced moving from study to work, due to limited opportunities to directly engage with industry management and to exercise decision-making in authentic working environments. this was also flagged as a common concern for many graduating students (andrews & higson, 2008). deakin, victoria and swinburne universities formed a research committee as a result of the issues raised at the academic forum and agreed to develop an annual communication student forum that targeted some of the identified gaps between current curriculum, which typically struggles to address employability skills and progressive innovation towards transition into professional work at an institutional level. as discussed by the academics at the initial forum, these gaps in employability skills related to practical workplace skills developed in situ by practitioners embedded in the workplace. the committee invited contributions from industry and other tertiary institutions regarding the objectives, content and delivery of the forum over 2010 and 2011. the prmc student forum was developed to help students address some of the identified gaps in graduate attributes, and was first held in 2011. the basic structure for the forum involves an annual theme with relevant and prominent key speakers, industry case studies highlighting excellence in practice, a question and answer session with recently employed graduates, a roundtable with recruitment professionals, visits to operating workplaces, and an informal networking event with industry and academics. the morning sessions involve keynote speakers with expertise in the chosen theme. themes todate have included: crisis communication, social media, emerging technology, celebrity and gill, r. (2018). building employability skills for higher education students: an australian example. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 9(1), 84–92. 87 fashion publicity, and media management. the middle sessions have included example case studies, application processes and question sessions with recently graduated students. the afternoon sessions have involved visits to operating businesses and agencies. the evening sessions have provided feedback and networking in a social environment. communication and media students from across victoria are invited to attend the forum, but the emphasis and content has been more relevant to students nearing the end of their studies. the forum is open to both undergraduate and postgraduate students. student online networking sites are set-up to continue the evolving discussions post-forum. the format is an exemplar for similar forums to be set up across major australian commercial centres, as was requested in 2015 by the public relations institute of australia’s (pria) national education manager. data collection and participation the data included in this paper is a result of exit surveys for both students and industry participants. the student delegate list is dominated by higher education undergraduate students, but also includes 12 per cent tertiary and nine per cent post-graduate contributors to survey responses. the industry contributions have been gathered from 33 senior industry presenters, 27 recent graduates and 26 different professional organisations in the melbourne, victoria area. there are many reasons why students chose to attend the forum (see figure 2), but significantly 80 per cent of attendees consider the forum improved their prospect of becoming employed in the industry (exit and feedback surveys, 2011-17). the forum has evolved and grown in student attendances (figure 2) and industry contributions reflecting professional leadership and innovation in communication (table 1) over the past seven years. the forum has drawn on the experience of more than 60 industry leaders, enhancing the curriculum by providing students with direct access to leadership and innovation expertise, not typically available to students in the classroom. annual attendances are around 90 delegates, as the forum’s popularity resulted in a registration cap due to engagement and functionality limitations. figure 1: forum attendances the forum has transferrable success from year-to-year because graduating students and the industry have this opportunity to come together and share knowledge relating to critical skills, challenges, and barriers to successful employment specific and current to the communication industry. 0 20 40 60 80 100 120 2011 2012 2103 2014 2015 2016 2017 student delegates 2011-2017 swinburne vu deakin rmit monash la trobe other gill, r. (2018). building employability skills for higher education students: an australian example. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 9(1), 84–92. 88 figure 2. reasons for attending forum the forum has created exceptional learning and experiences for the vast majority of attending students, with 73 per cent of surveyed delegates stating it was “very beneficial” and a combined 90 per cent saying it made “considerable contributions” to their learning (feedback surveys, 2011-2017), matched against overall course satisfaction ratings for higher education in victorian universities being 78 per cent (uni. review, 2015). much of the students’ feedback relates to the value in improving their employability skills, exposure to the industry work environment, networking opportunities with both employers and like-students, and the shared experiences with practitioners and recently employed graduates (see figures 2, 3, & 4). influence on student learning, engagement and experience the structure of the forum (mentioned above) aims to better prepare graduating students in professional communication for the workforce by enhancing employability skills. to achieve this, the founding academic committee agreed on four basic aims for the forum: 1. improving student employability and graduate attributes through deeper understandings of the diverse work environments and through providing actual (authentic) workplace experiences 2. expanding students’ networks in industry to enhance their professional profile 3. refining each graduates’ preparation of their curriculum vitae, interview techniques and electronic profiles 4. creating cross-institution student hubs (both face-to-face and online) where students can share their concerns, anxieties and skills regarding moving into the professional workforce these aims have been overwhelmingly achieved to date, as already highlighted, 90% of student feedback stating the forum made positive contributions to their learning; and 89% of industry feedback confirming students present for work as more employable due to the employability skills they can identify as needing further development, as a result of the forum. industry feedback has suggested students come to graduate positions better prepared for the professional environment. students are exposed to a variety of professionals to advance their employability skills (aim 1), with each industry representative sharing their own experience and understanding of professional communication and the desired skill sets. student knowledge is further advanced through visiting workplaces and mixing with practitioners. annual forum themes have included: understanding sectors in professional communication; big business or agency roles; ethics in communication practice; the importance of social and mobile communication; and, being employment ready. industry ‘open houses’ are where students register to attend up to two workplaces and directly experience the working environments, ask questions about roles and responsibilities, and gain a deeper understanding of the specifics for the particular business. 0 20 40 60 80 percentage of students reasons for attending forum 2011-2017 hear from recent graduates understand the workplace and expectations contemporary professional communication learn more about the job application process understand the industry better meet students from other institutions gill, r. (2018). building employability skills for higher education students: an australian example. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 9(1), 84–92. 89 table 1. industry contributions industry contributors media agency consultant corporate / business gov’t. ngo association s recent grad. speakers and presenters 14 11 7 5 4 12 27 open house: student visits 13 15 6 7 3 n/a n/a deliberately, a diverse mix of workplaces are sourced each year to provide students opportunities to experience distinct work environments and better understand the employability skills particular to these roles (see table 1). from feedback, 57 per cent stated they wanted to get a feel from employers about necessary skills for the workplace and 32 per cent wanting to see exactly how the workplace operates. and 45 per cent indicated they wanted to better understand workplaces and the expected skills needed to perform effectively. figure 3. student feedback: benefits to attending open houses students expressed a need to heighten their profile (aim 2) with potential employers, with 55 per cent believing the open house experiences will improve their chance of getting an internship, and 58 per cent believing it will improve the possibility of getting a job. visiting workplaces and meeting managers and directors also creates familiarity and raises that student’s profile, with the intention to improve employment and work integrated learning (wil) placements for forum students through these businesses, as students can develop professional relationships with business managers and staff through these visits (see figure 3). networking has been identified as key graduate attribute that is difficult to foster in the classroom environment (bridgstock, 2009). the forum provides many opportunities for students to engage with and establish professional contacts within industry, and with students from other institutions. more than 50% of students stated in feedback they use the forum to directly network with industry management, and 54% indicated they will use networking to directly secure a job or an internship. figure 4. industry feedback: student forum benefits 0 50 100 percentage of students reason for attending open houses 2011-2017 understand work expectations feel for workplace roles see workplace operations contacts for possible internships contacts for work experience contacts for possible jobs 0 20 40 60 80 advanced employability skills industry better understand students students better understand industry industry feedback on student forum 2011-2017 unsure not at all somewhat definitely gill, r. (2018). building employability skills for higher education students: an australian example. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 9(1), 84–92. 90 as mentioned above, a key industry concern relates to students’ employability skills, particularly interpersonal skills and professional presentation (objective 3). the forum agenda incorporates recent employed graduates who share their experiences and challenges with finding and moving into professional communication roles (27 graduates have presented at the forum to-date). these graduates remain for the duration of the forum and openly engage with interested students during breaks. almost 20 per cent of the further comments section of feedback specifically indicated the employed graduate conversations were critical to their understanding of the industry. the informal atmosphere during breaks in the program mitigates barriers often associated with formal presentations and encourages students to share apprehensions and concerns they may not be comfortable airing in a public forum (chaney & martin, 2011). many comments from student feedback related to being better prepared for the application and interview process, so in 2015, an innovative inclusion to the agenda was ‘speed information’ sessions. these sessions involved students forming into small groups (mixed across the institutions) and visiting work stations where an industry expert would interact for 15 minutes on topics such as: cv preparation, electronic profiles, interview techniques, choosing the right job, professional networking, and the use of wil to help with employment. the feedback on this new session was exceptional, with 61 per cent of 2015 feedback sheets stating the speed sessions as being the most benefit to student learning, as students were able to share their own stories and hear the professional experiences of the facilitator and students from other institutions – opportunities typically not available at their institutions. an intended consequence was the forming of student groups and students unofficially learning from each other (objective 4). such student interaction across the institutions enables sharing of information around their fears, anxieties and the challenges of moving from higher education into the workforce. students were encouraged to join social media network groups relating to the forum and to further develop these networks and in many cases, new friendships – as often these students will be their industry colleagues in the near future. students have created social media sites to continue their collegial networks, including: facebook sites for yearly forums, instagram and twitter tags. also, the forum and has links to further discourse on employability with other students through the international pr summit student forums. formal forum platforms have included: priablog/student forum, themediapod.victorian_student_forum and pria.com.au/communications/student forum. at a more informal level, students have also created their own social media hubs (typically through facebook) to continue the network and conversations beyond the forum. around 35 per cent of students (see figure 1) specifically stated the collegiality they establish with similar students from other institutions as a key motivation for coming to the forum. there are limitations to the capacity of a one-day forum to significantly impact on the curriculum and learning for higher education students. however, the intention of the forum is enable students to gain further insight into the industry, develop working relationships with industry management, create student information hubs that facilitate further conversations (and build student networks), and help students identify those areas of employability they may not feel they have a strong foundation in. the aims of the forum are strongly linked to awareness, which can assist student pinpointing strategies for improvement that may make them more employable. to date the forum has been recognised by industry and academia in several ways, including: • 2016 australian national learning and teaching citation award • high commendation for student-industry engagement as part of the 2015 swinburne university vice chancellor awards. • all six state-based universities offering communication degrees in victoria have been represented on the committee over the past 8 years, and enthusiastically gill, r. (2018). building employability skills for higher education students: an australian example. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 9(1), 84–92. 91 encourage participation by their students (supported by strong attendance numbers across institutions, figure 2). • as indicated, industry feedback on student interactions demonstrates that 56 per cent state definitely and 33 per cent substantially that the forum has improved students’ understanding of the industry and its demands. summary the prmc student forum is a simple example of how higher education and tertiary institutions in australia can address some of the identified gaps in employability and graduate attribute skills for students leaving study and entering the professional communication workforce. in the past, many students have expressed apprehensions about moving into the workforce, and many professional organisations have expressed a desire to have more workready graduates. the forum data and feedback demonstrates that issues can be addressed by providing an opportunity for students and employers to discuss and identify how transition from study to work can be more effective and assured. then build a network of opportunities and experiences, which can help alleviate student anxiety and build surety in expectations for students entering the professional communication workspace. the forum will continue to run for the eighth time in 2018. gill, r. 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(2017). academic work-integrated learning (wil): reengaging teaching-focused academics with industry. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 8(1), 172–187. 172 academic work-integrated learning (wil): reengaging teachingfocused academics with industry michael b. whelan michael.whelan@scu.edu.au school of environment, science and engineering, southern cross university, lismore, australia abstract there has been an increase in the number of teaching-focused academics at australian universities over recent years. however, research-focused and teaching-research academics have an advantage over teaching-focused academics in terms of promotion, forced redundancies and tenure. while evidence of research success is measured by volume (number of publications and research income), evidence of teaching scholarship is less quantifiable. the value of industry-university collaboration has been reported widely. however, the focus is on the value of the knowledge transfer of university research to industry and collaborative industry-university research. academics collaborating with industry partners on research projects are able to experience current industry practice firsthand, raising the question: how do teaching-focused academics remain engaged with industry? the benefits of work-integrated learning (wil) to hosts, students and universities are well documented. this paper poses the question: is a wil placement a way to reengage teaching-focused academics with industry?, and introduces the concept of ‘academic wil’ where academics complete an internship placement with an industry partner. the impact on graduate employability is discussed and a methodology for a teaching-focused academic to use their academic wil experience as evidence of their achievements in the scholarship of teaching is presented. keywords: teaching-focused academic, work-integrated learning, industry engagement context for teaching-focused academics, often considered to be ‘lesser’ academics (academicus minor), maintaining industry connections is vital to the renewal and relevance of their curriculum (dyer et al., 2016; bennett, roberts, & ananthram, 2017). the focus of this paper is on how academics might use industry engagement to renew and refresh their understanding of current practice in order to sustain a relevant curriculum. a case study approach is used to demonstrate how an academic in the geographic information systems and remote sensing field who, having not taught in the field for 10 years due to administrative responsibilities (course coordination, course development and managing academic workload), prepared to once again take up teaching in the discipline. during the 10 year hiatus the teaching responsibilities included work-integrated learning (wil). the experience in wil provided some guidance in addressing the dilemma of designing a contemporary curriculum to prepare students to work in the field given the lack of recent mailto:michael.whelan@scu.edu.au whelan, m.b. (2017). academic work-integrated learning (wil): reengaging teaching-focused academics with industry. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 8(1), 172–187. 173 contact with the industry by the academic. firstly, some important connections with industry partners who supervised students on their eight-week placement had been made. secondly, the reflective journals of students on placements confirmed that they appreciated the value of their experiential learning and this prompted the questions: could short internships provide teaching-focused academics with the opportunity to renew their curriculum to ensure it aligned with current industry practice? is a wil placement a way for a teaching-focused academic to reengage with industry? review of literature in australia, academics are classified as teaching-only, research-only and teaching-research academics (department of education and training, 2016). probert (2013) used the term teaching-focused academic to include academics who focus on the scholarship of teaching. for the purposes of this article the term teaching-focused academic has been used to include teaching-only academics, teaching-focused academics and teaching-intensive academics (probert, 2013). in australia academics have 5 levels (a to e); level a (associate lecturer), level b (lecturer), level c (senior lecturer), level d (associate professor) and level e (professor) (australian industrial relations commission, 2007; chalmers et al., 2014; department of education and training, 2016). the rise of teaching-focused academics the number of teaching-focused academics in australia has increased from 755 in 2005 to 3212 in 2015, currently representing 7.2 per cent of academic positions (department of education and training, 2016). the increase in the number and percentage of teaching-only academics is illustrated in figure 1. probert (2013) quoted a slightly higher proportion, approximately 10 per cent, of academic positions were teaching-focused. the difference could be attributed to probert’s (2013) broader definition of teaching-focused academic. if the trend continues in australia (figure 1) 20 per cent of tenured academics could be teaching-focused by 2030. the number of teaching-focused academics is also increasing in the uk (locke, 2014) and canada (sanders, 2011). in australia, the rise of the teaching-focused academic is credited to universities seeking to increase their excellence in research (era) rankings. poor performing teaching-research academics tend to become teaching-focused academics to maintain era rankings (bennett, roberts, ananthram, & broughton, 2017; probert, 2013). by reducing the number of academics included in the census of ‘research active academics’ the publication rate and research income per academic can be increased with the same output (probert, 2013). norton (2013) proposed doubling the number of teaching-focused academics (from 2500 to 5000) in a handful of universities to act as a circuit-breaker to the institutional focus on research. whelan, m.b. (2017). academic work-integrated learning (wil): reengaging teaching-focused academics with industry. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 8(1), 172–187. 174 figure 1: number (full-time and fractional full-time appointments) and percentage of teaching-only academics in australian universities (department of education and training, 2016). the teaching-focused academics (academicus minor) there is a perception that teaching-focused academic are ‘lesser academics’ (bennett et al., 2017; bexley, james, & arkoudis, 2011; chalmers, 2011; israel, 2011; locke, 2014; neumann, 1992; norton, 2013; nyamapfene, 2014; probert, 2013). nyamapfene (2014) reported that uk teaching-focused academics considered that they were ‘second class’. there is strong evidence to affirm the perception that teaching-focused academics are ‘lesser academics’ in australia. most (64%) teaching-research academics prefer the research aspect of their job and 35 per cent prefer teaching (bexley et al., 2011). on the other hand, in the us 74 per cent of teaching-only academics prefer teaching (bexley et al., 2011). moreover, while higher degree students in australia are very interested in becoming academics, only 37 per cent see teaching as a ‘very attractive’ aspect of the career (edwards, bexley, & richardson, 2011). edwards et al. (2011) suggested that it was their supervisors who influenced higher degree students’ attitudes to teaching. university recruitment is focused more on research performance than teaching performance/skills (norton, 2013), leading to teaching-research academics who would prefer to be ‘research-teaching’ academics. institutions also focus on research to the detriment of teaching, as illustrated in the following quote. last year...a popular instructor with the school of business [at carleton university, canada] didn’t have his term contract as a full-time lecturer renewed. the university argued that the business school’s accreditation, funding and reputation hinges on its research capacity, and that when funding for a full-time tenure track position became available, it had to concentrate on hiring a professor with a track record in research as well as teaching. despite his [the instructor’s] teaching talents, [he] doesn’t have a phd. hundreds of students signed a petition to have him reinstated. he accepted a contract to teach two courses this academic year (farr, 2008). whelan, m.b. (2017). academic work-integrated learning (wil): reengaging teaching-focused academics with industry. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 8(1), 172–187. 175 a different culture exists in the us. almost all (97%) academics consider teaching to be ‘personally essential or very important’ (hurtado, eagan, pryor, whang, & tran, 2012). there is also a different system in higher degree training whereby students are actively involved in teaching as part of their qualification (edwards et al., 2011). the perception of the value of teaching in the us may account for the high job satisfaction amongst academics (bentley, coates, dobson, goedegebuure, & meek, 2013; hurtado et al., 2012) and a more positive outlook of junior academics in the us (bentley et al., 2013). the vulnerability of academicus minor in australia, permanent research-only academics outnumber teaching-only academics four to one (department of education and training, 2016; norton, 2013). promotion of academic staff is seen to rely on research performance rather than teaching performance, with only 29 per cent of academics perceiving that teaching was rewarded in promotion (norton, 2013). the data support their perception, with less than 10 per cent of teaching-only academics above senior lecturer level, while more than 30 per cent of teaching-research academics are above senior lecturer level (norton, 2013). even when a teaching-focused academic is recognised for teaching excellence it may not be acknowledged by their peers (chalmers, 2011) or, indeed, they may be subject to ridicule from other academics (israel, 2011). teaching-focused academics are further marginalised by casual employment (82% are casual employees) (norton, 2013). over the last decade there has been a significant increase in casual staff, primarily to support teaching (coates, dobson, goedegebuure, & meek, 2009; universities australia, 2015). when a tenured position becomes available an academic with a track record in research is often appointed rather than a teaching-focused and, most likely, casual academic (farr, 2008). tragically, the recent suicide of an academic, who had worked as a casual academic for 15 years, was linked to the loss of his contract (morgan, 2016). the vulnerability of the teaching-focused academic is further evidenced in relation to redundancies. the volume of research (number of publications and research income) is valued more than volume of teaching (probert, 2013). an attitude of ‘anyone can teach’ prevails (neumann, 1992). academics recognise the importance of teaching and research equally but consider research has greater value for promotion (figure 2). norton’s (2013) recommendation to double the number of teaching-focused academics may lead to recognition of teaching performance within the institution and better defined career paths for teaching-focused academics. there have been attempts to formalise the achievements and performance of teaching-focused academics. the uk-based professional standards framework for teaching and supporting learning in higher education, for example, has developed a fellowship system whereby academics can be accredited as associate fellows, fellows, senior fellows and principal fellows (higher education academy, 2011). in australia, chalmers et al. (2014) have developed standards for teaching-focused academics that aligned with australian academic levels (a to e). the standards are provided for seven criteria that focus on different aspects of the scholarship of teaching. whelan, m.b. (2017). academic work-integrated learning (wil): reengaging teaching-focused academics with industry. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 8(1), 172–187. 176 figure 2: importance of teaching and research vs perceived value for promotion based on a survey of australian academics (probert, 2013). at a national level there does not appear to be any strategy to improve the recognition of teaching-focused academics. the australian research council (arc) is the body that distributes much of the category one research funding to universities in australia. it has been in existence since 1946 with name changes in 1965 and 1988 (australian research council, 2016). in contrast, the australian government’s equivalent teaching and learning body was only founded in 2006. more tellingly, what started as the carrick institute in 2006, and has most recently been known as the office of learning and teaching, was closed in june 2016. there is no indication if, when and how it will be replaced (office for learning and teaching, 2016). the benefits of industry-university relationships the value of industry-university relationships with regard to research has been widely reported (e.g. bekkers & freitas, 2008; d’este & patel, 2007; schartinger, rammer, fischer, & fröhlich, 2002). among the organisation for economic co-operation and development (oecd) countries, australian businesses’ collaboration with higher education institutions or public research agencies is one of the lowest (universities australia, 2015). stronger links between industry and universities has been identified as a mechanism of improving the employability of graduates (business industry and higher education collaboration council, 2007). to develop better employability skills academic staff need to have knowledge of current industry practice (business industry and higher education collaboration council, 2007). recruiting academics from industry is one method to bring current industry practice into universities but it is unlikely to increase the research profile of a university (norton, 2013). bekkers and freitas (2008) identified 23 channels of knowledge transfer between industry and universities. of the 23 channels, the majority were research-based (e.g. publications, conferences, cooperative research) and focused on the transfer of knowledge from universities to industry. three channels were related to teaching and learning (university graduates as employees, students working as trainees and contract-based training offered by universities) and three were related to staff mobility (staff holding positions in industry and universities, flow of university staff into industry positions and temporary staff exchange). in their analysis the staff mobility channels remained together in one of six clusters but teaching and learning were distributed into other clusters (bekkers & freitas, 2008). their analysis whelan, m.b. (2017). academic work-integrated learning (wil): reengaging teaching-focused academics with industry. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 8(1), 172–187. 177 revealed that younger respondents valued staff mobility and it was valued when breakthroughs were imminent (bekkers & freitas, 2008). the teaching-research nexus, in theory, leads to better curriculum development (norton, 2013). academics tend to teach broadly in their discipline rather than teaching specific subjects focused on their latest research. there is a risk that a research academic may align the curriculum with their own narrow field of research (neumann, 1992). a more recent review (malcolm, 2014) clarifies the mechanisms of the teaching-research nexus but did not quantify the value in terms of improved curriculum or assessment. work-integrated learning (wil) work-integrated learning (wil) has for many years been considered an authentic experience that helps develop graduates’ employability skills and has great benefit to students (patrick, peach, & pocknee, 2008; smith, ferns, & russell, 2014). internships are the most common form of wil (phillipskpa, 2014). wil is often a requirement for disciplines that require accreditation (e.g. health professionals, teachers and engineers). wil provides an opportunity to measure the attainment of learning outcomes in an authentic, quantifiable way (jackson, 2010; whelan, 2017). one of the goals of wil is to deepen classroom conceptions, apply skills and make the curriculum more meaningful to students (orrell, 2011). one way to make the curriculum more meaningful is to review the curriculum in response to feedback from industry (patrick et al., 2008). contributing to curriculum development has been identified by industry participating in wil (phillipskpa, 2014) but curriculum development was not listed as a benefit in a scoping study (australian workforce and productivity agency, 2015). to improve teaching methods and to develop better employability skills in graduates, academic staff need knowledge of the structure and function of the workplaces in which graduates may find themselves as well as current industry practice (business industry and higher education collaboration council, 2007). teaching-research academics have the opportunity to engage with industry via their research interests (bekkers & freitas, 2008). however, a teaching-focused academic does not have the same opportunity (bennett et al., 2017). some teaching-focussed try to ‘keep their hand in’ with their discipline, but heavy teaching loads make it difficult to gain traction (nyamapfene, 2014). in some disciplines, for example nursing, industry engagement is required for accreditation. accreditation of a nursing degree requires some of the teaching staff to be registered nurses (australian nursing and midwifery accreditation council, 2012). to remain registered, nurses must meet the minimum requirement of recency of practice, that is, demonstrate one or more of the following; 450 hours practice within the past five years, completion of approved assessment and supervised practice (nursing and midwifery board of australia, 2016). as a consequence, nursing academics stay engaged with current industry practice. there exists an inherent conflict between teaching and research because of the institutional system that rewards research rather than teaching (chalmers, 2011; neumann, 1996). neumann (1992), after interviewing heads of department and university executive revealed, what could be described as, a cultural bias against teaching-focused academics in universities. neumann (1992) discovered a culture that valued knowledge of the discipline more than teaching skills. the quotes below (from senior academics participating in neumann’s study) illustrate a culture that was biased against teaching-focused academics. …academics involved in research were described as being: alert, enthusiastic, excited, keen, curious, fresh, and more alive (p. 164). whelan, m.b. (2017). academic work-integrated learning (wil): reengaging teaching-focused academics with industry. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 8(1), 172–187. 178 the teaching of those academics not involved in research was described as: repetitive, dull, unstimulating, unexciting, dry, sterile and stagnant (p. 164). this cultural bias against teaching-focused academics may no longer be expressed in such forthright language but the reports by bexley et al. (2011), norton (2013) and probert (2013) and statistics regarding casualisation of academics, poor promotion prospects, redundancy priorities (department of education and training, 2016; norton, 2013; probert, 2013; universities australia, 2015) and the attitude to teaching awards (chalmers, 2011; israel, 2011), indicate that, in fact, very little has changed. in addition, a recent report by bennett et al. (2017) revealed that teaching-focused academics considered the university culture was biased in favour of research academics. the academic wil concept in placement-based wil the student enters the workplace as an employee and is supervised by a host-supervisor. their performance is assessed by their host-supervisor and the academic. in academic wil the academic will enter the workplace as an employee and will be supervised by a host-supervisor. the academic’s performance will be assessed by the host-supervisor and can be incorporated into their teaching portfolio. the industry placement should lead to improvements in assessment (i.e. greater authenticity) and the curriculum (better alignment with current industry practice). the experience in industry should invigorate the academic and lead to greater enthusiasm in the classroom. better assessment, more relevant curriculum and more enthusiasm will lead to better student evaluations. thus, in academic wil the academic will be assessed by the host and also, indirectly, by the students. academic wil will provide teaching-focused academics the opportunity to test the curriculum in the workplace. academics will be able to provide evidence to substantiate curriculum changes to meet industry needs. industry will have closer relationships with academics responsible for curriculum development. teaching-focused academics can experience firsthand the current industry practice and use it when they return to the classroom. by going on placement, say biennially, staff will maintain their currency within their professions. academic wil has the potential to reduce the vulnerability of teaching-focused academics. academics should have well-developed skills (e.g. managing students, managing teaching teams, communicating with a diverse spectrum of stakeholders, evaluating reports and presenting to large groups) that employers value (business industry and higher education collaboration council, 2007; deloitte access economics pty ltd & office of the chief scientist, 2014; jackson, 2010; knight & yorke, 2003). teaching-focused academics engaged in academic wil will have the opportunity to have their performance evaluated by professionals external to the university system. evaluations from placement host-supervisors will provide them with evidence of their expert performance (department of industry innovation climate change science research and tertiary education & department of education employment and workplace relations, 2013). these evaluations are similar to the way in which researchers have their work evaluated by peer review. academic wil has the potential to change the culture of bias against teaching-focused academics identified by neumann (1992) and bennett et al. (2017). academics returning from a placement would have firsthand knowledge of the environment a new graduate would be experiencing. this knowledge will be valuable to the university and students. they will know how to assess their students more authentically and will be able to align the curriculum with industry needs. the dull teaching-focused academic (neumann, 1992) will become more enthusiastic, excited, keen, curious, fresh and alive after returning from an academic wil placement. whelan, m.b. (2017). academic work-integrated learning (wil): reengaging teaching-focused academics with industry. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 8(1), 172–187. 179 academic wil has the potential to overcome the perception that teaching-focused academics are ‘second-class’. by engaging in academic wil, teaching-focused academics are more likely to ‘produce’ work-ready graduates, something valued by industry, and likely to result in closer relationships between the university and industry. however, the real value of the teaching-industry nexus must be recognised by the executive of the university if its full potential is to be realised, such as leading to collaborative research projects. academic wil and teaching-focused academic promotion some australian universities have embraced boyer’s (1990) model of scholarship (discovery, integration, application and teaching) (probert, 2013). boyer (1990) argued that a faculty should be a mosaic of talent and it was difficult to maintain the mosaic if only one talent (research) was rewarded. academic wil fits well within boyer’s scholarship of application, scholarship of integration and scholarship of teaching. academic wil will establish a teachingindustry nexus, i.e. scholarship of engagement (boyer, 1996). academic wil will add another dimension (i.e. practitioner) to the academic’s portfolio. it is possible to build a case for promotion using boyer’s model (boyd, 2013; vardi & quin, 2011) and there has been some effort to formalise the performance of the expectations of teaching-focused academics (chalmers et al., 2014). however, confusion surrounding the role of teaching-focused academics makes it difficult to define a pathway (bennett et al., 2017). rubrics have been developed to provide greater transparency of standards in the scholarship of teaching. rigorous assessment methods would need to be developed and promotion panels for teaching-focused academics could include experienced practitioners rather than, as they tend to be now, dominated by high volume researchers. academic wil would assist in providing evidence such as that suggested below each of the following criteria and standards (in italics) as described in level d (associate professor) by chalmers et al. (2014): criterion 1: design and planning of learning activities (p. 44)  external expert peer review of unit/course materials /curriculum/initiative: the academic will need to provide evidence from their host-supervisor that the curriculum has been reviewed. it may require the development of a process to review curriculum based on feedback while on placement (e.g. interview or survey of colleagues in the host organisation). criterion 2: teaching and supporting student learning (p. 46)  evidence of systematic and integrated development of teaching practices informed by scholarship/research: the academic will need to provide an argument that the academic wil experience has been integrated so as to result in better teaching practices. evidence of changes and the positive outcomes from the changes will be required. criterion 3: assessment and giving feedback to students on their learning (p. 48)  successful engagement and demonstration of appropriate knowledge of effective assessment practices: the academic will need to document changes in practices that make assessment more authentic. the academic will need to provide evidence that assessment techniques not only meet the needs of the industry but also lead to the fulfilment of whelan, m.b. (2017). academic work-integrated learning (wil): reengaging teaching-focused academics with industry. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 8(1), 172–187. 180 course learning outcomes, threshold learning outcomes of the discipline and graduate attributes. criterion 4: developing effective environments, student support and guidance (p. 50)  initiative or innovation in supporting students and the creation of engaging learning environments: the academic will need to document changes in the learning environment attributed to their placement in industry, for example, creating a learning environment that mimics the environment in the workplace. evidence in the form of improved student evaluations would be required. criterion 5: integration of scholarship, research and professional activities with teaching and in support of learning (p. 52)  industry/professional peer recognition: the academic should be able to demonstrate that they are able to perform as an expert while they are on placement (department of industry innovation climate change science research and tertiary education & department of education employment and workplace relations, 2013). their host-supervisor would need to be recognised as a peer. criterion 6: evaluation of practice and continuing professional development (p. 54)  evidence of a sustained and successful commitment to and engagement in, continuing professional development related to academic, institutional and/or other professional practice: academic wil will be ideal for providing evidence of currency of professional practice. limitations of academic wil the following limitations of academic wil have been identified.  curriculum developments may be biased towards industry needs. while it is desirable to meet industry requirements of graduates, care must be taken to ensure that graduates also meet the graduate attributes required by the university, the threshold learning outcomes of the discipline (e.g. phelan et al., 2015) and the australian qualifications framework requirements (australian qualifications framework council, 2013).  the curriculum may migrate to one particular host or sector of the industry.  poor performing teaching-research academics who feel they have been ‘downgraded’ to teaching-focused academics may not have the incentive to participate in an industry placement.  cost-centre heads who reward good teachers by giving them more teaching (bennett et al., 2017) so that research-focused academics can “get on with the job” may not see the value of academic wil.  teaching-focused academics may enjoy their industry placement and leave academia for a career in industry.  casual academics may find they have a career path in industry and, as a consequence, are no longer available for teaching. whelan, m.b. (2017). academic work-integrated learning (wil): reengaging teaching-focused academics with industry. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 8(1), 172–187. 181 research questions two central questions guided the study:  what are the benefits of an academic wil placement to the participant, the university and the host?  what impact can an academic wil placement have on the quality of teaching? methodology the research approach used in this study was one of descriptive case study. according to baxter and jack (2008) this form of research is useful for informing professional practice and evidence-based decision making. in particular it enables researchers to describe an event or intervention in context with participants able to reflect on reality (yin, 2009). the participants in this study included a university academic and the industry hosts. also important in providing support for the intervention was the head of school. in the initial phase of the case study the concept of academic wil was presented to the head of school. support from the head of school was critical to enable the participant to be released from normal duties for four weeks to complete the placements. at the time the request was made, the school was in the process of renewing the curriculum of three subjects which focussed on spatial literacy/analysis. the teaching team had already consulted with an industry body (north coast spatial information group) to review the learning outcomes and curriculum. in addition, the regional director of the department of primary industries (dpi) had recently approached the university, informally, to explore opportunities for closer collaboration while the byron shire council had recently signed a memorandum of understanding to strengthen collaboration with the university. the head of school considered that the placements could lead to a better, more relevant curriculum and stronger collaboration with local industry. participants the host participants were contacted by email to establish whether there were any opportunities to support an academic wil placement. two, two-week placements were subsequently arranged. the first was with a state government department working on a geographic information systems project to map barriers that impede fish migration (department of primary industries). this dpi project had stalled due to limited resources and the dpi could see the benefit to be gained from a two-week placement. the second placement was with a local council to use geographic information systems in asset management. the council did not have a project, as such, but determined that an academic wil could be supervised in the asset management team. details of the two-week placements were finalised with site visits. the aims of the placements were to:  evaluate the curriculum and learning objectives.  identify gaps in the curriculum and learning objectives.  compare activities presented in practical classes with day-to-day activities while on placement.  improve skills using arcgis software.  help hosts achieve their outcomes. whelan, m.b. (2017). academic work-integrated learning (wil): reengaging teaching-focused academics with industry. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 8(1), 172–187. 182 data collection and analysis throughout the four weeks of the placement, data were collected and recorded in a structured diary which was designed to focus on the evaluation of the learning outcomes and curriculum of the three spatial subjects. the following information was collected at the end of each day.  a summary of daily activities.  the content needed to complete the activities, but which was not in the curriculum was identified.  the learning outcomes required to be able to complete the tasks but which were not currently assessed in the subjects were identified.  each content item and learning outcome of the three subjects was evaluated. the evaluation was based on a likert-type scale using levels of agreement (strongly agree, agree, neutral, disagree, strongly disagree, not applicable today) to the following statement: the tasks completed today have led me to the conclusion that the content item/learning outcome is essential for a new graduate to attain an adequate skill level. at the conclusion of the placement the head of school requested feedback from the host supervisors. findings-discussion the academic participant reported a number of benefits from the academic wil placement. these included benefits to students, to the teacher, to the host and industry, and to the university. benefits to students the most significant benefit to the students resulted from the academic being able to bring to the classroom current practice from industry. this was achieved by incorporating experiences from the placement into lectures and tutorials and by including statements such as, when i was working with the dpi earlier this year… and when you are working you will be expected to know …., thus validating the content being presented. similarly being able to align assessments with current industry practice by focusing on problem solving engaged the students in authentic assessment tasks. the design of these was supported by the industry partners providing problems for students to solve. it was also possible to share with the students the particular skills in geographic information systems that will make them more employable. a few examples are listed below.  developing mapbooks.  linking excel with the arcgis. linking these software packages was a common occurrence in both placements but it was a technique considered of limited use to students.  georeferencing images using ‘rubber sheeting’ techniques. benefits to teachers based on the wil placement a number of changes to procedures in tutorial exercises were introduced to more closely align with current industry practice. a few examples are provided below.  working with arcmap and arccatalog simultaneously. in the past the students were taught to use these modules sequentially.  dragging layers into the mapping area rather than opening layers manually.  keeping satellite imagery as the background during all editing and processing. in addition to these specific examples, the academic participant also reported that their teaching had improved in more subtle ways. working with the arcgis for a total of 20 days with experienced users able to assist with problems, had provided in situ learning which in whelan, m.b. (2017). academic work-integrated learning (wil): reengaging teaching-focused academics with industry. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 8(1), 172–187. 183 turn led to increased confidence in assisting students with a problem. the approach to problem solving became much more intuitive for the academic. benefits to the hosts and industry the hosts also reported benefits from the academic wil placement. with 25 years’ experience with geographic information systems, the academic was also able to solve problems for the hosts. for example, developing a methodology for deleting duplicate records for one host and assistance in integrating raster and vector data for the other was a direct result of the placement. for one host, significant progress was made on a project that had previously stalled. industry, as a whole, will benefit when they employ the graduates who have been exposed to the invigorated teaching and more relevant curriculum which was a direct result of the wil placement. they can also be confident that a student who has completed the geographic information systems unit successfully will have the skills required by employers. furthermore, the teaching-industry nexus has continued to develop with one of the hosts. they have continued to provide problems to be solved by students studying geographic information systems this year and proposed two small research projects for honours students. benefits to the university the university has benefited from the academic wil as the participant returned to academia with more skills, more confidence in the discipline and greater commitment to and enthusiasm for changing the curriculum, assessment and learning outcomes in the relevant units of study. there has also been a strengthening in the relationship between the university and the industry partner, which in turn should have an impact on internship placements and honours projects. furthermore, the university has received low-cost training. training in geographic information systems is expensive with costs reported to be around $au800 per day (esri, n.d.). training can be better targeted with academic wil. for example, an outcome of this academic wil was recognising the potential of unmanned aerial vehicles (uavs or drones). a placement with an industry partner using drones in field work, for example, would assist in the development of the curriculum for the degree. conclusion there were many personal benefits from the academic wil placement, including being able to test knowledge and skills in the ‘real world’. from the initial interviews with the hostsupervisors it became clear that new techniques would be learned which would be challenging at times. the challenges served to develop much more confidence in using arcgis. a critical outcome overall was the opportunity to benchmark the curriculum and learning outcomes against the requirements of the industry and to develop greater confidence in the design of the curriculum. the increase in industry networks and increased opportunities for wil placements for students have also been significant. acknowledgements professor jerry vanclay for supporting this initiative. professors liz johnson and bill boyd for their comments on the first draft of this article. michele day for her editing assistance and heidi fletcher (a student assisting with the review of the curriculum) for spurring me on with this quote: the need for more collaboration between universities and industry in australia, outside of the research realm, is definitely an under-appreciated and under-utilised resource. i’m glad someone is looking at this disconnect. whelan, m.b. 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(2016). personal development planning and eportfolios in speech pathology: staff and student perceptions. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 7 (1), 22-41. 22 personal development planning and eportfolios in speech pathology: staff and student perceptions katrina strampel1 and abigail lewis2 1centre for teaching and learning, edith cowan university 2school of medical and health sciences, edith cowan university k.strampel@ecu.edu.au; abigail.lewis@ecu.edu.au abstract this paper describes the evaluation of the use of an eportfolio which was embedded across a speech pathology program and designed to enhance employability. personal development planning (pdp) is a key part of employability and includes learning, reflection, goal setting and understanding the wider context. students’ perceptions of their engagement in this process were evaluated using a mixed methods approach. qualitative data was collected through student focus groups and individual staff interviews, while quantitative data was collected via a student questionnaire (reported in lewis & strampel, 2014). qualitative data was analysed using nvivo following the six phases of thematic analysis described by braun and clarke (2006). this paper reports the themes which emerged from the focus group data. a key finding of the study was that the platform used was not ideal for the eportfolio purpose causing frustration and negative reactions from students and colouring their engagement with, and enthusiasm for, the eportfolio activities. students achieved some of the objectives of personal development planning, especially goal-setting, but it was not until students were in their final year that they saw the links with their future career and employment. further embedding of key tasks would enhance employability aspects, including for example involving industry from the first year and modelling the pdp process with students. keywords: personal development planning, eportfolios, employability, speech pathology, career development learning, introduction tertiary education settings are constantly changing: senior leadership, industry, and students themselves, are calling for enhanced employability outcomes (fabris, 2015; cbi/pearson, 2015); new learning technologies are continuously emerging (mouza & lavigne, 2013); and, quality assurance bodies are mandating accountability in authentic, criteria-driven ways (see, for example, qaa, 2013; rhodes, 2008; teqsa, 2011). lecturers must acknowledge these demands and meet various stakeholders’ needs through the design and delivery of their courses. with the increasing focus on employability in higher education, a distinction must be made between employment and employability. while university leaders prioritise high employment rates for their graduates, lecturers and other university staff can only hope to have an impact on employment rates by enhancing students’ employability. much work has been done globally identifying graduate attributes, employability skills, competencies, and career management skills that, most argue, should be developed and demonstrated in addition mailto:k.strampel@ecu.edu.au mailto:abigail.lewis@ecu.edu.au strampel, k. & lewis, a. (2016). personal development planning and eportfolios in speech pathology: staff and student perceptions. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 7 (1), 22-41. 23 to discipline knowledge to improve students’ employability and employment outcomes (eisner, 2010; hager, holland, & skilbeck, 2007; evers, rush, & berdrow, 1998). for years now, graduate attributes have been embedded in program and course outcomes in many institutions. most syllabi suggest that students will ‘develop their oral communication skills through class presentations’; ‘engage in critical thinking…’; ‘problem-solve….’ and so on. there has also been a renewed focus on developing the ‘purposeful graduate’ (clydesdale, 2015): universities worldwide are placing more emphasis on career development learning (as distinct from career training), personal development planning, life wide and lifelong learning (peet et al., 2011; penny light, chen, & ittelson, 2012; richards-schuster, ruffolo, leyda nicoll, distelrath, & galura, 2014; ward, 2006; watts, 2006). most of these philosophies and approaches strive to help students understand, articulate, and plan their learning and experiences across contexts: formal and informal learning environments and curricular and co-curricular activities. for example, career development learning engages students in the process of understanding how to manage life, learning, and work over the life span (career industry council of australia, 2006) by acquiring the knowledge, skills, abilities, and attitudes that will prepare them to manage their careers (watts, 2006). there is potential for career development learning to make the higher education learning journey more personally meaningful for students by: helping them understand connections between formal learning, informal learning experiences, work, and ‘real-life’ contexts; making them more aware of the relationships between their disciplinary studies; and, providing an often-lacking focus on their personal aspirations, goals, and values (mcilveen et al., 2011). ultimately, career development learning may support students’ and graduates’ transition into and through employment (mcilveen, et al., 2011). in the united kingdom, many universities have a defined personal development planning (pdp) framework, which is then underpinned by many aspects of career development learning. ward defines pdp and its primary objective (as outlined in the dearing report, 2007) as a: …structured and supported process to develop the capacity of individuals to reflect upon their own learning and achievement and to plan for their own personal educational and career development. the primary objective is to improve the capacity of individuals to understand what and how they are learning, and to review, plan and take responsibility for their own learning, helping students:  become more effective, independent and confident self-directed learners  understand how they are learning and relate their learning to a wider context  improve their general skills for study and career management  articulate personal goals and evaluate progress towards their achievement; and,  encourage a positive attitude to learning throughout life (ward, 2006, p. 6). pdp relies heavily on self-regulated learning (srl), which involves the monitoring and managing of one’s cognitive processes as well as the awareness of and control over one’s emotions, motivations, behaviour, and environment as related to learning (nilson, 2013, p. 5). it includes setting goals, planning, self-directing and staying on task, ensuring needs are met, maintaining motivation, taking responsibility for one’s own learning, and so on (nilson, 2013). metacognition, a facet of srl, is also an important element of pdp. metacognition can be defined as having awareness and knowledge of one’s own learning and involves self-feedback which supports meaningful learning and knowledge transfer (nilson, 2013, p. 5). how pdp is implemented, however, differs significantly from university to university and even program to program within the same university. although there does not seem to be one clear approach or framework to follow (clegg & bradley, 2006), the process seems a valuable way to support students to make connections between their learning experiences, understand and articulate strampel, k. & lewis, a. (2016). personal development planning and eportfolios in speech pathology: staff and student perceptions. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 7 (1), 22-41. 24 their learning, and highlights the potential of portfolios to support students in their journeys (ward, 2006). portfolios and, more recently eportfolios, have been used in higher education, especially in teacher education (moran, vozzo, reid, pietsch, & hatton, 2013), social work (richardsschuster et al., 2014), and nursing (garrett, macaphee, & jackson, 2013), to give students the opportunity to document evidence of their learning outcomes, reflect on their growth overtime, and thus provide evidence of the learning process for staff and institutions. folio thinking describes reflective practice that fosters the effective use of learning (e)portfolios. it is underpinned by experiential learning, metacognition, reflective and critical thinking, and mastery orientations to learning (penny light et al., 2012). the process of folio thinking involves intentionally designing activities into the curriculum to allow students to reflect on their growth over time, thus highlighting the transformational effect of their experiences. in this way, the eportfolio is an important pedagogical strategy as it is about documenting the process of students’ learning, not just the product. it seems that eportfolios can be used to support students in their pdp by encouraging them to integrate discrete learning experiences both at university and outside of formal learning environments (housego & parker, 2009). further, eportfolios can be used to promote srl and support students to develop their own professional and intellectual identity (penny light et al., 2012). finally, as clegg and bradley suggest, the development of portfolios for pdp has the potential to form an intermediary stage leading to continued professional development (cpd) and lifelong learning (clegg & bradley, 2006, pp. 59-60). this paper reports a case where eportfolios were implemented in a speech pathology program in an australian university. the use of eportfolios was designed to engage students in developing their evidence of clinical competencies, as well as simultaneously developing their reflective and metacognitive capabilities, strengthening the curriculum/practicum links, and documenting evidence of students’ competence in areas defined by speech pathology australia (spa), the accrediting body for speech pathology programs in australia. students in speech pathology programs often feel a disconnect between theory taught in the classroom and how to apply their knowledge in clinical settings (walden, 2010). more generally, it has been found that students often do not see how their university learning prepares them for employment after graduation: there is a lack of understanding about learning outcomes and employability skills. in this case, the use of the eportfolio was designed to actively engage students in learning about their competency development, including collecting evidence of competency, reflecting on the evidence, and relating the competency development to lifelong learning. the overall intention was to provide a method for students to connect their classroom learning with their practice in clinical settings in a flexible manner whilst producing artefacts that provide a creditable account of meeting the criteria of spa in an authentic manner. background an eportfolio tool was implemented in the speech pathology program in 2010; formative learning activities were designed for several courses thus embedding the eportfolio across the four-year program to ensure the greatest benefits (faulkner, aziz, waye, & smith, 2013; woodley & sims, 2011). the purpose of embedding the eportfolio as a tool in the curriculum was to support students to: collect evidence against competencies; engage in reflective and metacognitive practice; link theory with practice; evaluate strengths and weaknesses in order to set future clinical practicum goals; and, map hours across a range of practice. research has shown that students are more likely to engage when the eportfolio is aligned with program outcomes, linked to future careers, has a clear purpose and has clear guidelines (buckley et al., 2009). these purposes were aligned with the objective of pdp as described earlier (ward, 2006). the design of the activities culminated in a final eportfolio that met part of the accreditation requirements for spa, demonstrating ‘entry-level’ evidence and reflection strampel, k. & lewis, a. (2016). personal development planning and eportfolios in speech pathology: staff and student perceptions. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 7 (1), 22-41. 25 against each unit of competence for speech pathologists. the use of an eportfolio in the speech pathology program was an innovation in two ways: eportfolio as a pedagogical strategy had not previously been implemented and the eportfolio tool (technology) was new to the staff and the students. as with the implementation of any innovation, it was expected that there would be some difficulties (chau & cheng, 2010). the use of the eportfolio as a pedagogical strategy required students to set goals, identify artefacts as evidence of their competencies, reflect on their experiences, and put these artefacts and reflective writing pieces together in a meaningful way. it was expected that many students would struggle with the concept of identifying evidence and engaging in critical reflection. simultaneously, by introducing a new technology, it was anticipated that issues and challenges would arise, which, in turn, might impact students’ satisfaction with the use of the tool for learning. understanding these potential barriers to success, several measures, such as scaffolding, support, and appropriate assessment design were taken to ensure the new way of learning and the technology would not hinder students’ engagement in the activities (allen & coleman, 2011). the authors (one lecturer and one learning designer) were both keen to embed the eportfolio in the program because of a strong understanding of the value of the portfolio as a pedagogical tool. both agreed that this value would be increased with an electronic portfolio which students could continuously add to, share with multiple stakeholders, take with them past graduation, and use to make links (physically or consciously) between experiences and learning across courses and years. ultimately, both agreed that an eportfolio was ideal to help students engage in critical reflection, understand how to articulate their learning, and help prepare students for graduation, employment, and lifelong learning. to support students’ engagement in the portfolio process, the lecturer designed and facilitated several sessions tailored for the students’ place in the program and their previous experience with the eportfolio – so giving ‘just in time’ information at relevant points, shown in the following table. table 1: embedding of eportfolio across the program year level eportfolio tasks first  the eleven speech pathology competencies introduced to the students  activities to support goal setting and scaffolding for reflections given  eportfolio assessed in second semester unit 60% of course mark: depth of reflection, understanding of competencies, goal setting and quality of evidence assessed second  step by step instructions for completing the eportfolio given each semester  reflections and artefacts drawn from short clinical experiences included  eportfolio assessed each semester, 10% of course mark: depth of reflection, goal setting and quality of evidence assessed third  students commence their first major practicum associated with clinical practicum units  tutorials attached to the practicum cover each unit of competency, focusing on the type of evidence to collect for each unit  revision of goal setting and reflection  additional reminders and support in semester 2 tutorials  eportfolio assessed each semester, pass/fail grading: depth of reflection, quality of evidence, goal setting and records assessed fourth  major block practicums throughout year, students spend most of the semester on practicum and off campus  students given the opportunity to ask questions in tutorials  eportfolio assessed each semester, pass/fail grading: depth of reflection, quality and wide range of evidence, goal setting and records assessed strampel, k. & lewis, a. (2016). personal development planning and eportfolios in speech pathology: staff and student perceptions. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 7 (1), 22-41. 26 at the time of implementation, myexpo was the eportfolio tool in use at the university. not designed as an eportfolio tool, it was being repurposed for several programs across the university, including nursing and education. some small programs were choosing to use free storage and showcase web 2.0 tools, such as wordpress and other blogging tools, but these were unsupported by the university and there were some concerns about privacy and confidentiality, especially with students working with clients and client reports. restricted by the university’s technology infrastructure and policy about using unsupported tools, the speech pathology program used myexpo. problems with the tool for an embedded eportfolio process were immediately evident: only one template was available, which meant that students’ entire program had to be documented in one piece. therefore the lecturer designed a template with embedded information for four years and this was cumbersome, confusing and overwhelming for students. formatting and organising information was difficult and frequent glitches and system crashes frustrated students. there was no flexibility to change the template once a student had started using it. potential future challenges were also identified, such as the fact that the eportfolio could not easily be exported or accessed once the student had left the university. to mitigate foreseen challenges and issues with the technology, various forms of support were offered to students, such as an instruction manual and faq guide which was updated frequently. the tasks were designed to increase in both complexity and volume as students progressed through the program. each semester, some structured tutorials were held in a computer lab to provide students the opportunity to complete their eportfolio activities with support. the eportfolio template in first year, second semester, students downloaded a template with detailed assignment information and marking guides which covered all four years. the template consisted of three parts: 1. reflections on my learning – structured reflections about their learning on their practicum and about themselves as speech pathologists. 2. my development of competency – uploaded evidence mapped against the competency-based occupational standards for speech pathologists (cbos) (spa, 2011), including a star-l (situation, task, assessment, results, learning) reflective comment (australian eportfolio project, 2009). 3. record of clinical hours – range of experience and learning contracts. students completed a part of the template each semester and submitted it for marking. the areas which were assessed are identified in table 1. aims of the study this paper presents an investigation of the effectiveness of an eportfolio tool to support students’ learning in a study approved by the university ethics committee that considered the following research questions:  how does the technology help or hinder students’ learning?  what are students’ perceptions about the eportfolio?  does the eportfolio support personal development planning? strampel, k. & lewis, a. (2016). personal development planning and eportfolios in speech pathology: staff and student perceptions. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 7 (1), 22-41. 27 methodology data collection the project followed a mixed-methods approach: data was collected via a student questionnaire and additional qualitative data was collected through student focus groups and staff interviews. the university’s research ethics office gave ethics approval for the project (no: 8307). questionnaire an anonymous student questionnaire (including both likert-style and open-ended questions) was administered online to second, third and fourth year students separately in july 2012, after the completion of first semester and their submission of their eportfolio for marking. at the time data was collected, the eportfolio had been embedded in the speech pathology program for eighteen months, therefore third and fourth year students had eighteen months’ experience with the tool and second year students had twelve months’ experience. invitations were presented through announcements in lectures and links to the anonymous online questionnaire were sent via email. hard copy information about the project was provided to students in lectures and soft copy documents were emailed to students. repeat emails were sent as reminders about the project and the questionnaire was open for two months. the questionnaire collected demographic data, used a likert-type rating to canvas student perceptions in several topics related to the research aims (for quantitative data not reported here, see lewis & strampel, 2014), and used free text questions to elicit what students perceived to be the most useful and most difficult things about the eportfolio along with suggestions for improvement. focus groups students were also invited to one hour focus groups, held by a research assistant, again with a separate focus group for each cohort. students were invited by repeated announcements through the learning management system and in person during lecturers. focus groups were conducted with second, third, and fourth year students between august and october 2012. the focus groups were designed to elicit students’ insights into their daily use of technology; the ease of use of the eportfolio tool; the purpose of the tool; their ideas for improvements for eportfolio use in the program; and, the value of eportfolios for lifelong learning after graduation. questions were designed to be facilitative and open-ended with prompts if required (see appendix for focus group script). data was gathered in semi-structured interviews around the themes in the questionnaires for triangulation of data and based around questions asked in other studies (e.g. bolliger & shepherd, 2010; gardner & aleksejuniene, 2008; hrisos, illing, & burford, 2008). students were also encouraged to raise other topics related to the use of eportfolios, to give the researchers a better understanding of students’ perceptions of their experiences. focus groups were audio recorded and transcribed by the research assistant. interviews individual interviews were conducted with all staff in the school of speech pathology in november 2012 by a research assistant. the interviews were designed to gain staff perceptions of the value of the eportfolios for student learning and the five interviews were audio recorded and transcribed. strampel, k. & lewis, a. (2016). personal development planning and eportfolios in speech pathology: staff and student perceptions. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 7 (1), 22-41. 28 data analysis qualitative data from these three sources (free text questions, focus groups and staff interviews) were analysed using nvivo and followed the six phases of thematic analysis described by braun and clarke (2006, p.87) as follows: 1. familiarising yourself with your data: each of the data sets was accurately transcribed, and checked. 2. generating initial codes: response patterns were coded and data was collated relevant to each code. 3. searching for themes: themes were derived from a thorough review of all of the data. relevant extracts were collated. 4. reviewing themes: themes were cross-checked against each other and with the original data set. 5. defining and naming themes: ongoing analysis by three researchers facilitated the refining of the themes, generation of clear definitions of themes, and names for each theme. 6. producing the report: compelling extracts were chosen, re-analysed, related back to the initial purpose of the research and the literature, and reported in this paper. participants all students enrolled from second to fourth year of the speech pathology program were invited to participate in the research: 14 second year students, 24 third year students, and 15 fourth year students (n=53) received invitations. of the students invited to participate in questionnaires the response rate was 47per cent (n=25) and 22 students participated in the focus groups (response rate 42 per cent). all teaching staff participated in interviews (n=5), one staff member (second author) had developed the eportfolio and marked first, second, third and fourth year eportfolios. the remaining staff were involved in marking fourth year eportfolios, but had an awareness of the eportfolio activities across the program and had been involved in discussions about the development of the eportfolio activities. results several themes arose from the data analysis, which are similar to those found in the quantitative data analysis (see lewis & strampel, 2014):  use of technology;  educational value of the tool;  engagement with the eportfolio activities;  integrated learning; and,  continuing professional development and lifelong learning. the use of technology from responses to the open-ended questions, it was clear that most students seemed to be comfortable and confident using technology. in particular the following comments from fourth year students indicate that they found it was easier to store large amounts of information online, research online easily, and share information: i want to put it in an electronic form so i can store it and reproduce it a lot more easily than having a stack of paper; strampel, k. & lewis, a. (2016). personal development planning and eportfolios in speech pathology: staff and student perceptions. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 7 (1), 22-41. 29 i think it makes activities a whole lot easier as well like researching and stuff instead of going through books and finding what you need in a massive book you just type it in and get it immediately; although using technology itself did not seem to pose a challenge to students, several issues were raised in regards to the tool that was being used, including inflexibility of the tool, structure and organisational ability of the tool, time-consuming nature of the tool and student onus to organise structure as evident in the following comments: there are certain things we cannot upload electronically, and it seems a waste to not have it on display if it something is really important or a good achievement (third year student); you have to figure out how to link that one item to those three things or you copy and paste that in three things and then it just keeps going down the side so it just becomes a massive mess (third year student); …takes very long time to do very simple things (third year student); i’ve got stuff in mine that’s typed out in a box and it’s this long and then in other places i’ve cut and pasted documents so [lecturer] has to click on it to open it and it looks so untidy she has asked me to tidy it up but i thought well what part to tidy (third year student). the ability of students to take control of a tool and to present information how they want it displayed is often seen as a benefit. however, two staff members also noted the challenges that arose due to students’ ability to organise the structure, for example: …it did look complicated…i think probably setting it up was cumbersome and if they didn’t spend a lot of time doing it or they weren’t very technically capable then it was probably a real challenge to some of them... but as long as people organised it properly it was easy for us to use. …when the student’s gotten confused and you have to search and search and search through all the evidence that makes it a lot more time-consuming when you’ve got to go and work out where they’ve put things because they’ve put them in the wrong place. various forms of support were provided to students to try to mitigate issues that might arise with the tool. students seemed not to value the support as indicated in the comments below: …[the lecturer] posted a thing up talking us through how to do it but i didn’t listen (third year student); … we got that little tutorial … and you kind of go yep that sounds easy and it’s not until the end of semester when you go to try and do it you go what did she say…i understand that we did the tutorial at the beginning so if people wanted to start putting in their evidence from the beginning of prac they could but for me i would of much preferred it closer to the end (fourth year student). many students did not attend the support sessions, which was acknowledged by one other student: we were literally like three of us in a lecture at a time…it was ridiculous (fourth year student). educational value students did not seem to understand the value of the eportfolio process, of eportfolios as learning tools or assessment tools, as evident in the following comments: strampel, k. & lewis, a. (2016). personal development planning and eportfolios in speech pathology: staff and student perceptions. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 7 (1), 22-41. 30 i don’t know what the end result of this is. are we supposed to show it to prospective employees [sic] or i still don’t really get what’s the point of it (second year student); end up wasting time trying to work out what needs to go in, and where it needs to go, then completing too many reflections to meet assessment criteria that i don’t get much out of (third year student); it just feels like there’s no point because the portfolio is for an employer or something and do they really care whether i achieve my goal in year 1 semester 1 (third year student); i have to be honest, until just before in that lecture where they said you actually take in pieces of evidence to an interview i didn’t know the point of the e portfolio. it’s probably not something i would’ve actually done (fourth year student); one third year student seemed to understand the educational value of the eportfolio, but suggested that by third year, it was too late: it was just words on a page and none of that really had any meaning and then sort of as it’s progressed it’s got some meaning now but we sort of missed all the bit at the beginning so we’re sort of floundering a little bit. one fourth year student, however, showed insight into the value of collecting evidence and engaging with the eportfolio activity over time: i think as you get more placements you get better at choosing your evidence cause you get used to oh that’s pretty good i’m going to keep that now rather than just wait til the end and gather them all up so get better at knowing what is appropriate to put in. engagement with the eportfolio activities the eportfolio activities required students to select evidence demonstrating their capabilities against numerous required competencies and reflect on their own capability. students commented on their engagement with the eportfolio activities: maybe for other assignments you want 80 but this one you just want to get it over and done with (second year student); yeah sort of like it’s not going to be of any use to me after you’ve assessed me why am i putting hours of work into this (third year student). it seems that students did not see the value in showcasing or reflecting on their own capability and, in some cases, this may have impacted the rigour of their work. four staff members commented on the rigour of student output, with the following comments: … i had … a student who she actually did have opportunity to write, to do more reports but what she put in the portfolio were half pages on an introductory conversation with somebody with aphasia. and that’s just not sufficient to demonstrate competence; have needed a lot of input and have put in minimal pieces of evidence; i think some of [lack of entry level quality evidence] was the lack of putting effort in rather than they hadn’t any other experience to draw on; …they have worked on it each year they’ve been able to put in evidence that isn’t entry level each year…they don’t seem to have realised in fourth year that they have to up the ante and put the very best in. strampel, k. & lewis, a. (2016). personal development planning and eportfolios in speech pathology: staff and student perceptions. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 7 (1), 22-41. 31 integrated learning students’ understanding of the value of the eportfolio for making connections between learning experiences seemed to be greater in the later years, as evidenced by the following comments: this has been the most useful thing about the eportfolio: keeping all my documents organised and up to date. it is also very helpful when it comes to refreshing my memory on previous pracs (second year student); it’s like an electronic repository for important documents. looking back at documents assists me to do better for subsequent tasks (third year student); …sometimes i feel like i haven’t had much experience in some areas and then i’ll have a look and i’ve actually got a number of things i could choose to put in that so then i guess it makes you realise how much you’ve actually done (fourth year student). interestingly, and despite the somewhat negative overtone, one third year student recognised the value of the eportfolio for understanding the integrative learning journey and identifying their own gaps so they could build necessary knowledge/experience: the only thing it did for me sort of was make me aware of what i did actually need to achieve because the competency thing was sort of blurred for me so it really put it down to well you need to have this and you need to have this so you need to be looking for it... two fourth year students commented on the ability to use the process to identify gaps and take control of their own learning: i thought it was good for identifying gaps because usually you go through your placement at like 100 mile an hour and you don’t really know what you’re doing or what you’re missing and you can kind of go to that and tick off on a sheet and go to your supervisor and say i need this evidence can you please find a way of me getting it so i thought that was good to identify those gaps; i think like identifying gaps in the evidence and also making sure that you’ve covered everything in the program and also the things you have learnt and had experience in to be qualified. two staff members commented on the eportfolio process as a possible way to enhance students’ metacognition in relation to their integrative learning journey, although both noted it hadn’t happened: i would imagine that students become more aware of their own change and that they should be more aware of the value of actually thinking about what they have done rather than just doing it for a prac and then going on to a new prac and just forgetting it; …if they crossed referenced more … then that should feed in to their logic about how different units relate to each other and how their skills relate to each other. now i don’t think that this particular year has done that but as we get an easier system then it should be more than just logistics, it should help their learning… continuing professional development and lifelong learning the key skills of a lifelong learner are understanding how you learn, setting goals, and engaging in metacognitive and self-regulatory activities. students across the years made strampel, k. & lewis, a. (2016). personal development planning and eportfolios in speech pathology: staff and student perceptions. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 7 (1), 22-41. 32 explicit comments that reflected a negative attitude towards goal setting and reflection and limited understanding of the value of engaging in such activities, for example: you don’t want to do that goal you’re just writing it cause that’s what you have to (second year student); i’m not the sort of person that would set goals it’s just not who i am (third year student); …[potential employers would] read it and go what is all this touchy feely stuff reflecting on everything and what is your idea as a speech pathologist, i’d feel like they would read that and go okay great where is your evidence that you know how you treat a stutter (third year student); …it’s not often you work on [the goals] during a placement cause you’re making the goals from before the prac and you’re not sure that they’re relevant and sometimes they turn out to not be relevant and then you’ve got to reflect on those goals you’ve placed before but generally you haven’t really looked at them (fourth year student). similarly, most students did not seem to value or understand the purpose of reflection as indicated in the following comments: i find it somewhat annoying having to reflect on everything because i guess i’m not the type of person that’s going to like be introspective of every single little facet that i’ve done that semester so like i understand the value of it but i feel like we’ve learnt reflecting now…we don’t need to do it over and over and over again (third year student); i didn’t think [the reflections] were as important as all my evidence and stuff…it’s just forcing me to reflect on myself, it’s just pointless (fourth year student). one student suggested that they did not understand the purpose of goal-setting: …it was never explained to us at the beginning, it was just put to us that we have to have these goals and do this big assignment in first semester of first year and it’s like do the goals and everyone’s like well what are we doing these goals for (third year student). one third year student, however, noted that after time the purpose and value of goal-setting became clearer: i think though now that i’m in third year second semester the penny is starting to drop what the goals actually mean like i can make goals that are a bit more relevant, that might sound silly but before i would like in first year i didn’t know what these goals meant i didn’t know what i had to do. although fostering students’ ability to engage in lifelong learning and thus be successful in their continuing professional development after graduation was a key objective of using eportfolios in the speech pathology program, very few students seemed to understand that outcome. as one lecturer stated: … they are learning because it is a professional skill but they don’t see it because they think everything has to be content and everything has to be how to do assessments or treatments or whatever … they don’t see all the other side of things of how to organise things how to conceptually do this or that or how to collect evidence, they don’t see all that aspect as learning and professional development as such. strampel, k. & lewis, a. (2016). personal development planning and eportfolios in speech pathology: staff and student perceptions. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 7 (1), 22-41. 33 discussion from the quantitative responses presented in an earlier publication (lewis & strampel, 2014), students found the eportfolio tool difficult to grasp and the activities too time-consuming, impacting on their ability to understand the link between eportfolio activities and their future careers as speech pathologists. the findings from the qualitative data substantiated these results; students had strong negative perceptions of the eportfolio tool, although they became more familiar with the platform over time and found the support documents increasingly helpful. this finding is in keeping with research around the implementation of new technologies in teaching and learning settings (chau & cheng, 2010). students often resist new technology, but when it is embedded in the program, with various supports and scaffolding, students become comfortable and confident with the technology and the process over time (allen & coleman, 2011). students reported they were generally comfortable with and confident working out new technology, but reported they found the eportfolio platform difficult to use and the template design difficult to navigate and understand. this seemed to put students in a state of ‘extraneous’ cognitive overload (bower & hedberg, 2009), leaving them unable to fully understand the value of the pdp activities, or meaningfully engage in them. furthermore, students seemed to be in a state of ‘germane’ cognitive overload (bower & hedberg, 2009) because they needed to spend extra time and effort processing what to do and how. from the data, it is clear that the technology issues raised concerns for students and overshadowed the value they placed on the pdp process. to ensure appropriate cognitive load, the design of both the eportfolio tool and templates within the system need to reduce extraneous and germane cognitive load so that students can focus on the natural complexity of information (intrinsic cognitive load) (bower & hedberg, 2009). the software platform needs to match the task requirements and the complexity of activities needs to be carefully graded to ensure engagement, as found by other researchers (chau & cheng, 2010; hrisos, illing, & burford, 2008). learning ward lists five dimensions of pdp described earlier (ward, 2006) that provide a lens from which the project can be understood. three relate to learning: did speech pathology students become more effective, independent and confident self-directed learners; understand how they are learning and relate their learning to a wider context by using the eportfolio and did the eportfolio encourage a positive attitude to learning throughout life? (ward, 2006, p. 6). the quantitative data showed students generally engaged with the eportfolio (lewis & strampel, 2014) and the qualitative data also provide evidence that the personal development planning process supported students in their growth across their academic career, helping them become more employable. in order to develop as self-regulated learners, students need to practice various metacognitive strategies over time (e.g. reflection) and across learning environments so that they are able to build these into their repertoire of lifelong learning strategies. the ability to demonstrate these strategies to potential employers will increase their employability (ward, 2006). the data shows that the eportfolio activities helped students see their learning. some were able to identify and fill gaps in knowledge, skills, and abilities, an important outcome of metacognitive activities. giving students the opportunity to understand what they have learned, what they will need to know, do, etc. by graduation, allows them to take some ownership of their own learning and seek opportunities to ensure they are ‘workready’. in this case, students needed to understand the value of gaining further learning experiences, as most focused on the ‘lack of evidence’ and ‘getting evidence’ rather than learning more about the skills required for the career. other studies report students found eportfolios supported their learning (bollinger & shepherd, 2010; gardner & aleksejuniene, 2008), but in this study there seems to be uncertainty in earlier years of the program, regarding the purpose of the eportfolio. this is reiterated by the fourth years who commented that they strampel, k. & lewis, a. (2016). personal development planning and eportfolios in speech pathology: staff and student perceptions. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 7 (1), 22-41. 34 did not understand the purpose of the eportfolio until a particular recent tutorial highlighted the value of the eportfolio for their career. it is possible that students in earlier years may not have the context and clinical perspective to fully understand the purpose of the eportfolio, or it has not been properly related to their current progression through program. this aligns with findings reported in the literature around the use of pdp to support students in making meaning of their learning. clegg and bufton (2008) describe the phenomenon as retrospective meaning making p. 438). they found that students did not put as much effort into foundation courses because they did not realise how much they would need the knowledge later: students commented that their goal in first year was to pass but in later years, they expressed regret that they did not know what they needed to know. by having such a focus on gaining evidence for their eportfolios, students seemed to miss the link between what they were doing to get the evidence and the evidence itself. their focus was on the product, rather than the process. the quantitative data revealed students understood the concept of reflection and also increasingly saw how reflection highlighted their learning on their placements (lewis & strampel, 2014). students did not report increasing depth of reflection, although this may be because the scaffolding of reflections continued throughout the program. in the focus groups students did not see the purpose of reflections as a learning tool and the cumbersome, inflexible eportfolio tool may partly explain this response. despite anticipating the need for support in the areas of folio thinking and technology, the data reveals that the use of technology impacted students’ perception of the value of the activity which, in turn, impacted students’ level of engagement in the activity. students do not realise that reflection is an integral part of being a speech pathologist and will be useful throughout their career. the literature suggests that reflection is a process that is not inherent to many people (mann, gordon, & macleod, 2009); indeed it often requires time, scaffolding and practice to become deep reflective thinkers. students clearly understood that they needed various forms and amounts of evidence to show potential employers, but they did not seem to understand the value of reflection and lifelong learning in developing their knowledge and skills. making the purpose of the activities more explicit to students, and relating it to their role as speech pathologists may support students to overcome this surface-level focus on products and outcomes. speech pathology australia requires continuing professional development (cpd) for membership and showing students how an eportfolio could be used for this purpose (as the case in other professions, (e.g. gordon & campbell, 2013) may increase engagement. having a software platform that can be shared with people external from the university (such as employers) and that can be taken when the student leaves the university enhances this link to students. staff need to model the pdp process with the eportfolio (clegg & bradley, 2006) demonstrating how the eportfolio can be used to apply for jobs (address selection criteria), engage in lifelong learning and meet accreditation requirements. general skills another dimension of pdp expects students to improve their general skills for study and career management (ward, 2006, p. 6). the quantitative data (lewis & strampel, 2014) revealed students understood the value of the use of the tool for organising their activities and supporting analysis of their skills, however, in the focus groups students seemed to lack understanding regarding the value of completing the eportfolio, especially in terms of employability in contrast to other research (buckley et al., 2009; gardner & aleksejuniene, 2008). more explicit industry involvement, including presentations from recent alumni about the value of reflective activities not only for employability and employment upon graduation, but also for cpd, could help with motivation for students. this could be embedded throughout the program, starting in first year with the introduction of the eportfolio activities. activities should be designed around these presentations so that students actually reflect on what they are hearing from the speakers to think about what this could mean for them and their role as a student and a speech pathologist. activities in their eportfolios to help them make these strampel, k. & lewis, a. (2016). personal development planning and eportfolios in speech pathology: staff and student perceptions. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 7 (1), 22-41. 35 connections might help them better understand the value of various reflective and metacognitive activities as well as the importance of lifelong learning (gordon & campbell, 2013). furthermore, it might help if employers are clear to students that they value the ability to set and reach goals, the ability to reflect on actions, the desire to engage in lifelong learning as it was only as students reached the end of fourth year that these links became clear and the value of the eportfolio was realised. goal-setting the final pdp dimension is that students can articulate personal goals and evaluate progress towards their achievement (ward, 2006, p. 6). in the questionnaires students reported the eportfolio did help them set goals (lewis & strampel, 2014) as in other studies (bollinger & shepherd, 2010). however, in the focus groups students were less certain that the eportfolio is a good place to select, evaluate the evidence and set learning goals for the future although they felt it aided their ability to analyse competences required for speech pathology. several students commented that they did not understand the value of goal-setting although fourth year students did value these activities. again the importance of goal-setting and selfevaluation for their future career needs to be made more explicit for students. for example, detailed but simple explanations about activities, linking them to course and program learning outcomes, and clearly outlining the reason they are important and how they will help student learning ensures students become aware of the value of activities for their career in speech pathology. moreover, students should be provided with verbal and visual representations of how what they are learning and doing relates to other content within the program, their practical experiences, and their future career. this requires a culture shift for lecturers because it is required in all courses within a program and with all activities and assessments. students will then understand their learning as a whole, rather than a series of distinct courses and assessments. in terms of employability, this aspect is critical for helping students gain employment: the more aware they are of themselves as learners, of having abilities, skills, and knowledge, and the better able they are to articulate these outcomes to employers through selection processes, including cv writing, addressing selection criteria, and verbal interviews, the more likely they will be to gain fulfilling employment upon graduation. limitations one of the main limitations of this project study is the small numbers – only 22 students participated in the focus groups across the three cohorts (42 per cent response rate). it is possible that the other 58 per cent of students may have different experiences to report so the sample may be biased. the issues with the software platform may have coloured students’ responses to questions. finally, teaching staff were also new to the platform which may have impacted the effectiveness of their teaching. future directions in late 2012, the university adopted a new eportfolio platform with more flexibility and functionality for use in the speech pathology program. the issues raised by students in this project have been addressed in various ways by academic staff, to enable students to focus on the pedagogical value of the eportfolio use rather than on the technology. further data has recently been collected after two years of student use in this new platform and this data will be compared with the current findings to evaluate whether students’ perceptions have changed over time. it is intended that future research can now focus on the design of the activities (e.g. to promote deeper reflection and pdp) and corresponding student learning outcomes and employability outcomes with the improved eportfolio tool. strampel, k. & lewis, a. (2016). personal development planning and eportfolios in speech pathology: staff and student perceptions. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 7 (1), 22-41. 36 conclusion this paper presents the qualitative results of a project that investigated students’ perceptions of the validity of using an eportfolio as a tool for supporting learning, showcasing and personal development planning across a program. difficulties with the technology, being unsuitable for the tasks required, had a negative impact on students’ engagement and valuing of the eportfolio activities. one aim of the use of eportfolios in the program is to provide students with an understanding of how to document evidence and reflection for their own continuing professional development post-graduation, as required by practicing speech pathologists. the results from the data indicate that teachers in any discipline may need to think more broadly than the tool and activities when implementing eportfolios for pdp. students seem to miss the connection between their classroom learning and experiences and their future career, despite several measures designed to help them make this connection. more than ever, students need authentic learning experiences, as well as other ways of seeing and hearing what happens in their potential careers. using an eportfolio as a pedagogical tool can assist students in making connections, post reflections and collecting evidence of learning, but without an inherent understanding of the value of these activities, the learning will be limited. unfortunately, it’s not enough for lecturers to tell students about the importance of collecting evidence, they need to model it, they need to demonstrate it, and students need to continually be encouraged to see the relevance to their future careers. further, the intentional design of activities to support pdp needs to be clear to students from day one: the importance, purpose, and meaningfulness of activities and assessments needs to be made salient so that students can begin to make the links on their own. anecdotal evidence across the university with the use of eportfolios suggests that whilst students are motivated from the beginning of their university program to graduate and find a ‘good job’, more is needed to motivate students to continually prepare for graduation in terms of career and personal development skills. it is becoming increasingly evident that to ensure students are intrinsically motivated to engage, the rhetoric presented to students around the use of eportfolios, and indeed many elements of higher education, may need to change from a focus on teaching and learning (pedagogy) to a focus on graduate attributes and employability. strampel, k. & lewis, a. 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(2016). personal development planning and eportfolios in speech pathology: staff and student perceptions. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 7 (1), 22-41. 40 appendix: eportfolio focus group script and questions today we will spend about an hour discussing the use and usefulness of the eportfolio for speech pathology students at edith cowan university. we would like to gain your thoughts and perspectives. the discussion will be audio-taped for research purposes. so that people feel comfortable expressing their views, we ask that you keep what is discussed today to yourself and that is what said in the room stays in the room. when i transcribe the tape, participants will not be identified by name, so no-one other than myself will know who said what. no other ecu staff members will know who said what. the data will be analysed into themes and although some individual comments may be quoted to explain the theme – no names will be used. there are no right or wrong answers, we would simply like to gain your views. if you feel differently to others, please speak up, we would like a full range of views so don’t be afraid to say something different to everyone else. we would like to hear from everyone and make sure everybody gets a chance to have their say, so please be respectful of other people’s opinions and ‘let everyone have a fair go’. 1. how do you use technology in your everyday life? prompts if required:  what technology? how many items you have?  how much do you use it?  how did you learn how to use it?  how do you feel about it?  do you consider technology a useful tool for learning? 2. how did you find developing your portfolio using technology? prompts if required:  how much did you use it?  how did you learn how to use it?  how do you feel about it?  did you encounter any problems using it?  were some sections more difficult than others (reflections, evidence for competency, records)  are the technological problems a major barrier to learning or using the eportfolio? 3. what do you understand the purpose of the eportfolio to be? prompts if required:  recording reflections  demonstrating competencies  collecting records  overall, do you consider the eportfolio useful for demonstrating competencies, collecting records, recording reflections?  can you think of alternative ways to demonstrate competencies, collect records, record reflections? strampel, k. & lewis, a. (2016). personal development planning and eportfolios in speech pathology: staff and student perceptions. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 7 (1), 22-41. 41 4. what additional features or improvements can you suggest to the eportfolio system? 5. can see yourself using the eportfolio after you graduate as part of your lifelong learning as a speech pathologist? i think we might begin to wrap up now. can i ask first, do you have anything burning that you would like to say? or something that you thought of, but didn’t say as the moment passed or there wasn’t the opportunity to say it? thank you very much for giving me your time, sharing your insights. just lastly, i would like to again emphasise the importance of treating everything that was discussed as confidential and that you will not be identified by name in any transcript. acuña, t., mcdonald, g., kelder, j., & able, a. (2016). implementing the threshold learning outcomes for agriculture at two australian universities. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 7(1), 2–.21. 2 implementing the threshold learning outcomes for agriculture at two australian universities tina botwright acuña1, glenn mcdonald2, jo-anne kelder3, amanda j able2 tina.acuña@utas.edu.au; jo.kelder@utas.edu.au; glenn.mcdonald@adelaide.edu.au; amanda.able@adelaide.edu.au; 1school of land and food, university of tasmania, hobart, australia 2school of agriculture food and wine, university of adelaide waite campus, australia 3faculty of health science, university of tasmania, hobart, australia abstract the national learning and teaching academics standards statement for agriculture (agltas) defines the nature and extent of the discipline and provides a set of threshold learning outcome statements (tlos) that define what a graduate should know, understand and be able to do on graduation. the australian council of deans of agriculture have endorsed the agltas document: it can be used to communicate to potential and current students the minimum standards of their degree, and also inform curriculum design. while the agltas document provides explanatory notes to assist educators to further understand the intent of the tlos there are no exemplars on how the agltas can be implemented. this paper presents two case studies of how academics at the university of tasmania and the university of adelaide used the agltas to map their respective agriculture curricula. curriculum mapping was used to evaluate the links between the curriculum and the target learning outcomes, and to identify gaps and areas for improvement. results include the curriculum maps but also a survey of academic staff and their reactions to the tlos, plus a reflective commentary on what we believe are the next steps and implications of the agltas for curriculum development, industry engagement and graduate employability in the agriculture discipline. keywords: curriculum mapping, learning and teaching academic standards for agriculture, agltas context: learning and teaching academic standards internationally, the quality assurance agenda in higher education has led to the development of academic standards statements for a range of disciplines, through regulatory bodies and projects such as the quality assurance agency in the united kingdom (qaa, 2008) and the european union’s tuning project (tuning, 2015). the latter approach has been adopted outside the european union in regions such as latin america and parts of the united states of america. similarly, an increased emphasis on quality assurance in higher education by the australian government has been articulated through the higher education standards framework (hesf) (australian government, 2015). mailto:tina.acuna@utas.edu.au mailto:jo.kelder@utas.edu.au mailto:glenn.mcdonald@adelaide.edu.au mailto:amanda.able@adelaide.edu.au acuña, t., mcdonald, g., kelder, j., & able, a. (2016). implementing the threshold learning outcomes for agriculture at two australian universities. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 7(1), 2–.21. 3 the australian government commissioned the then australian learning and teaching council to develop the learning and teaching academic standards component of the hesf from 2009 to 2011. as was the case internationally, the approach was designed to ensure that discipline communities would define and take responsibility for implementing academic standards. threshold learning outcomes (tlos) were defined in terms of minimum discipline knowledge, and articulate the expectations of a graduate from a program of study at university in terms of what they know, understand and are able to do. the process took account of existing awardlevel descriptors defined in the australian qualifications framework (aqf) (australian qualifications framework, 2013) and involved the participation of professional and accreditation bodies, employers and graduates as well as academic institutions and teachers. learning and teaching academic standards were developed using this process for ten fields of education, such as accounting, education, law and science. the learning and teaching academic standards are acknowledged in the hesf as reference points that higher education providers can use to describe how they meet requirements related to learning outcomes and assessment (australian government, 2015). in the agriculture discipline, there was a need to build capacity via skilled graduates to meet australia’s objectives for innovation and sustainable agricultural production into the future (cowan, 2010; parliament of victoria, 2012; nsw government, 2012; pratley, 2013; australian government, 2012) in the context of declining enrolments (australian council of deans of agriculture, 2009; pratley & botwright acuña, 2015). this provided the impetus to develop the ltas statement for agriculture (agltas) (botwright acuña, able et al., 2014). developed using a consensus approach (botwright acuña, kelder, lane, & hannan, 2014), the agltas statement is a formal document that articulates the collective views of agriculture discipline stakeholders, including academics, industry and students. in particular, the involvement of industry in the development of the standards ensures that the learning and teaching academic standards of agriculture graduates meet their needs. this, in turn, can improve the employability of graduates and build capacity. employability can be defined as a set of achievements – skills, understandings and personal attributes – that make graduates more likely to gain employment and be successful in their chosen occupations, which benefits themselves, the workforce, the community and the economy (yorke, 2006). the preparation of the agltas statement by the project team and a reference group was informed by 21 national workshops and two online surveys. this approach was based on approaches and achievements of prior projects and used already developed resources. specifically, the project built on the framework for engagement used in the altc-funded project to develop the learning and teaching academic standards for science (jones, yates, & kelder, 2011); resources to assist discipline communities to define tlos (altc, 2011); a pilot project on developing tlos for agriculture at utas that involved consultation with the university of adelaide and charles sturt university (botwright acuña et al., 2012); the process outlined by dowling and hadgraft (2012) used to develop practitioner-authenticated sets of graduate capabilities for engineering via the define your discipline project; the utas project that has mapped the utas bachelor of science against the ltas science tlos using an online tool (jones & holmes, 2013), and; the application of standards outlined by (brawley et al., 2011) for history in the after standards project. the learning and teaching academic standards statement for agriculture thus includes a definition on the nature and extent of the discipline, threshold learning outcome statements (tlos) that define what a graduate should know, understand and be able to do at graduation and associated explanatory notes. the five agriculture tlos broadly follow the science ltas (jones, yates, & kelder, 2011) and include: knowledge; understanding; inquiry and problem solving; communication; and personal and professional responsibility. however, each agriculture tlo embeds components that are strongly contextualised to the highly acuña, t., mcdonald, g., kelder, j., & able, a. (2016). implementing the threshold learning outcomes for agriculture at two australian universities. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 7(1), 2–.21. 4 multidisciplinary nature of agriculture capturing diverse elements such as business and social contexts, adoption and the value chain (botwright acuña, able et al., 2014). alignment of the tlos in agriculture with national and international comparators is explored in more detail in botwright acuña, able et al. (2014). the agltas statement, endorsed by the australian council of deans of agriculture, can be used to communicate to potential and current students what the minimum standards of their degree are, and can also be used to inform curriculum design. while the agltas document provides explanatory notes to assist educators to further understand the intent of the tlos there are no exemplars on how the agltas can be implemented. this paper presents two case studies of how academics at the university of tasmania (utas) and the university of adelaide (ua) used the agltas to map their respective agriculture curricula. curriculum mapping is used to evaluate the links between the curriculum and the target learning outcomes (lam & tsui, 2013; uchiyama & radin, 2009; plaza, draugalis, slack, skrepnek, & sauer, 2007), and to identify gaps and areas for improvement (sumsion & goodfellow, 2004). curriculum mapping exercises such as the one reported here, are successful and sustainable when the implementation process is adopted to provide ongoing feedback to students and academics (lawson et al., 2015). furthermore, allowing academics to take ownership of assessment and how it aligns to tlos encourages implementation of graduate attributes (or tlos) (lawson et al., 2015). we provide details of the curriculum maps developed using an online tool; the external benchmarking of assessment items aligned to the tlos; a survey of academic staff and their reactions to the tlos; plus a reflective commentary on what we believe are the next steps and implications of the agltas for curriculum development, industry engagement and graduate employability in the agriculture discipline. method in june 2014, workshops with academic staff were undertaken at the university of tasmania and the university of adelaide to map curricula in two degrees against the tlos for agriculture using an online curriculum mapping tool (cmt). the two institutions selected for this study were lead and partner universities, respectively, in the development of the national learning and teaching academic standards statement for agriculture who were undertaking a periodic review of their respective curricula. note that here ‘degree’ refers to a programme of study comprised of ‘units’ leading to a bachelor’s qualification. furthermore, ‘unit’ may be alternatively described as a course or subject at some universities. a cmt user guide (acuña et al., 2014) and the tool can be downloaded from www.agltas.edu.au. the cmt was further developed during the agltas project from a pilot tool developed by the university of tasmania to map the science tlos in the bachelor of science majors (jones & holmes, 2013). the cmt enables the mapping of curriculum against a set of user-defined statements, designated ‘criterion statements’ in the tool, which represent the set of standards against which the curriculum is to be evaluated. the tool is designed so that users can set up an instance of the tool to map a grouping of units comprising a degree against a set of criterion statements. the agriculture tlos were subdivided into criterion statements. the tlos for agriculture are provided in table 1 for reference and are referred to by their respective numbers in the curriculum maps provided in plates 2 and 3 (see appendix). a brief commentary on the process of curriculum mapping follows table 1. http://www.agltas.edu.au/ acuña, t., mcdonald, g., kelder, j., & able, a. (2016). implementing the threshold learning outcomes for agriculture at two australian universities. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 7(1), 2–.21. 5 table 1. threshold learning outcomes for agriculture* tlo 1 understanding agriculture demonstrate an integrative understanding of agriculture by: 1.1 explaining the role and relevance of agriculture and its related sciences, and agribusiness in society. 1.2 understanding the major biophysical, economic, social and policy drivers that underpin agricultural practice and how they contribute to practice change. 1.3 understanding how information is adopted and the context within which producers, processors and consumers make decisions. tlo 2 knowledge of agriculture exhibit depth and breadth of knowledge of agriculture by: 2.1 demonstrating knowledge of the core sciences in the context of agriculture. 2.2 demonstrating broad generalist knowledge of relevant agricultural production systems and their value chains, with specialist knowledge in at least one area. 2.3 understanding how knowledge from different sub-disciplines is integrated and applied into practice. 2.4 demonstrating a basic knowledge of economics, business and social science as they apply to agriculture. tlo 3 inquiry and problem solving critically analyse and address dynamic complex problems in agriculture by: 3.1 identifying contemporary issues and opportunities in agriculture. 3.2 gathering, synthesising and critically evaluating information from a range of relevant sources and disciplines. 3.3 selecting and applying appropriate and/or theoretical techniques or tools in order to conduct an investigation. 3.4 collecting, accurately recording, analysing, interpreting and reporting data. tlo 4 communication be effective communicators by: 4.1 understanding methods of effective two-way written and verbal communication with different audiences. 4.2 communicating with a range of audiences in an agricultural context using a variety of modes. tlo 5 personal and professional responsibility be accountable for their own learning and professional work by: 5.1 being independent and self-directed learners. 5.2 working effectively, responsibly and safely in an individual and team context. 5.3 demonstrating knowledge of the regulatory frameworks relevant to their specialist area in agriculture. 5.4 practising ethical conduct. *extracted from botwright acuña, able, et al. (2014). using the cmt, the unit coordinator self-assessed the extent to which the unit met each criterion statement, answering the questions: ‘is it taught?’, ‘is it assessed?’, ‘if assessed, to what level is it taught?’ and ‘how is it assessed?’ the coordinator indicated the level of taught and assessed, selecting from options of introductory, intermediate or meets graduate level achievement. options of partial at graduate level (meaning part of the criterion standard was met, but not all components) and exceeds graduate level (meaning a pass graduate student acuña, t., mcdonald, g., kelder, j., & able, a. (2016). implementing the threshold learning outcomes for agriculture at two australian universities. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 7(1), 2–.21. 6 will be at a higher level of achievement than the tlo statement) are also available. the report function of the cmt produced a ‘traffic light’ report or heat map that provides a visual representation for each group of units, indicating the extent to which standards are reached. both degrees consist of 20 core units and four elective units, with electives chosen in either first or second year (utas) or third year (ua) (plates 1 to 4). these two degrees could broadly be regarded as representative of the agriculture discipline in australia and internationally. they include foundation units in the physical and natural sciences followed by specialisation in a range of sub-disciplines related to crop and livestock production, farming systems and agribusiness that are contextualised locally, nationally and internationally. the degree reports for both institutions were generated from the cmt using the 20 core and the most popular combination of electives that students select. the process of curriculum mapping, which academics engaged in collaboratively, raised several questions that were addressed through peer discussion in the workshops. partial attainment of a tlo was taken to occur when only a specific part of a tlo was met. likewise, meeting the graduate level was taken to represent a student with a passing grade, whereas exceeding the graduate tlo occurred when the expectation of what students do is greater than this level. workshop participants completed pre and post-workshop questionnaires to evaluate the benefits of mapping the curriculum for the respective degrees against the agltas tlos (n=13 at utas and n=12 at ua). data were collected using a mix of quantitative and qualitative methods (creswell, 2003). the pre-workshop questionnaire collected demographic data about the participants and their knowledge about the agriculture tlos, degree and the australian qualifications framework. participants were asked to rate their knowledge of the degree being mapped using likert-scaled options, where 1=none, while 5=an integrated knowledge of all units and how they contribute to the curriculum outcomes for the degree. the post-workshop questionnaire established perceived changes in each participant’s awareness, knowledge, connection with the teaching team and curriculum. it was also used to inform the development of the explanatory notes section in the agltas statement (botwright acuña, able et al., 2014). in addition, four units from each university were chosen randomly for external benchmarking. for ua, the units chosen were: the compulsory second year unit crop and pasture production; the compulsory third year units agricultural and resource management and agricultural economics and policy; and the elective unit soil and plant nutrition (which 90% of students choose). for utas, the units chosen were: the first year core unit sustainable resource management, the second year compulsory unit crop production, the third year compulsory unit agricultural landscape systems; and; the third year elective agronomy. members of the degree teaching team with limited knowledge of the units or members of the agltas project blindly evaluated the unit handbook and details for all assessment items and provided feedback on whether the tasks addressed the agltas tlos or not. assessors were not asked to what extent tasks expected students to perform (introductory, intermediate, partially meets or meets tlo). the results of this evaluation were then compared with the output for individual units as provided by unit coordinators for the cmt. ethics approval for data collection was gained from the utas social sciences human ethics research committee (hrec 13526) and the ua human research ethics committee (h-2013092). results the tlos for agriculture, which were developed through a national consultation of academics, students and industry and endorsed by the australian council of deans of agriculture, met the needs of the universities in this study. thus, the agltas statement can act as a mechanism for change and review of undergraduate degrees in agriculture and related disciplines (such acuña, t., mcdonald, g., kelder, j., & able, a. (2016). implementing the threshold learning outcomes for agriculture at two australian universities. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 7(1), 2–.21. 7 as horticulture, viticulture and agribusiness). results are presented for the pre and postworkshop questionnaires, the output of the curriculum mapping and external benchmarking. the majority of academics participating in the workshops had tenured position, although employment status was not specified by some respondents. the academics taught introductory through to advanced level units. pre-workshop questionnaire participants’ knowledge of the tlos for agriculture before the workshop varied. around half (n=7) of the participants indicated they had some knowledge of the tlos and their origin. other participants reported relatively good knowledge; for example, one participant from ua responded that the tlos were an initiative to develop tlos specific for agriculture…based on those for science and biology. in contrast, the remainder of participants from both universities were generally aware of the existence of the tlos, but not their detail. when participants were asked to rate their knowledge of the degree being mapped before the workshop, the average response was 2.5 ± se 0.2 at utas and 2.6 ± se 0.26 at ua, where 2=good knowledge of units i have taught; slight knowledge of some units in the degree, and 3=good knowledge of units i have taught; good knowledge of units related to units i teach. these observations are consistent with academics having a unit coordinator or lecturing role, which can result in limited knowledge of other units offered in a degree. in an open-ended question, participants were asked what their unit contributed to teaching and assessing the learning outcomes for the degree. responses were quite varied. around 50 per cent of participants (n=7) at both universities used the key tlos of understanding, knowledge, problem solving and communication to describe how their unit contributed to teaching and assessing core learning outcomes. around 10 per cent of respondents framed their response to the question in terms of content knowledge specific to the unit that they taught, while the remainder were unsure. while academics were aware of the australian qualification framework (aqf), their knowledge about its role was minimal. around 50 per cent of respondents (n=7) noted that the aqf had a role in quality assurance and the provision of basic degree information. curriculum mapping overall, output from the cmt demonstrated that the degrees met or in some instances units exceeded the graduate level tlos for agriculture (plates 1 and 3). electives were often viewed as an opportunity for students to demonstrate and integrate learning or skills already learnt in a specific sub-discipline and even extend themselves, thus exceeding the relevant tlo. they also provided specialisation, particularly with regards to tlo 2 (knowledge) and tlo 3.3 (particularly in applying techniques and tools). further detail at the unit-level is provided in plates 2 and 4. regardless of degree, assessments within units provided excellent coverage of tlo 2 (knowledge), tlo 3 (inquiry and problem solving), and tlo 4 (communication) with clear progression in the extent to which assessment met graduate tlo over the years of the degrees evident. even though assessment of tlo 1 did not occur in all units, the tlo was usually met by those units focused on the extension of skills and knowledge to agriculture (especially the electives and those units with independent research projects). in those units where students were expected to undertake undergraduate research projects with a high level of independence, tlos 2.1 (knowledge of core science in context of agriculture), 3 (inquiry and problem solving) or 5.1 (being independent and self-directed learners) were sometimes exceeded. acuña, t., mcdonald, g., kelder, j., & able, a. (2016). implementing the threshold learning outcomes for agriculture at two australian universities. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 7(1), 2–.21. 8 on the other hand, there was a paucity of assessment linked with tlo 5.3 on knowledge of regulatory frameworks. however, those units teaching sub-disciplines that rely heavily on such frameworks met this tlo (such as crop protection at utas and agricultural economics and policy and plant health iii at ua) with others where the extent of knowledge required was cursory either met this tlo partially or at an intermediate level (such as agricultural technology and innovation at utas and livestock production at ua). at ua, in general, there was consensus that where needed, the relevant frameworks were taught but this knowledge was often not assessed. only seven of the 24 units curriculum mapped at ua assessed tlo 2.4 (demonstrating an appreciation of economics, business and social science as they apply to agriculture). however, this tlo was met through units that specifically focus on this aspect (such as agribusiness ii and agricultural economics and policy iii). although a higher proportion of units mapped tlo 2.4 at utas (10 of the 19 units mapped), the assessment was partially met across 4 of those units all in the third year. a number of partially met tlos were also observed for tlo 4.2 (communication with a range of audiences in an agricultural context using a variety of modes), especially at ua, largely because assessment items were geared to one type of audience and/or one mode within each unit. however, we determined that the range of audiences and range of modes were captured across the degrees when these were evaluated more closely. interestingly, tlo 5.2 (working effectively, responsibly and safely in an individual and team context), which also had multiple components that could be assessed individually was never mapped as being partially met. in most cases, academics felt that assessment of these components was implicit in task design (for example, working in groups to complete an experiment that was reported upon individually). practising ethical conduct (tlo 5.4) was often taken to refer to plagiarism and collusion, which by third year was no longer necessarily taught, but instead an expectation and not explicitly assessed. post-workshop questionnaire a series of questions were asked of workshop participants at the completion of the curriculum mapping activity, to ascertain any changes in their understanding of tlos and potential impacts on their own teaching and the student experience. participants reported a range of responses to the question ‘what do you know now that you didn’t know before the workshop?’ at ua, responses were generally positive, with improved understanding of the tlos and their link with assessment. for example, one participant noted …i understand much more about tlos and how to evaluate my [unit] with respect to assessment items and how well they achieve tlos. similarly another participant indicated that they had new knowledge about …definition of terms that i can probably tackle in my [units]… at utas, around 50 per cent (n=13) of respondents reported similar observations to that at ua. on the other hand, several academics were concerned about a perceived ambiguity of the standards and that the tlos are quite open to interpretation. two participants expressed a preference for the tlos to be accompanied by performance indicators or criteria, while a further two participants learnt nothing. the latter comment may be a reflection of the participant’s level of knowledge about tlos before the workshop, but this is not clear from the data. the second question asked of participants was ‘what do you think will be the benefits of this workshop mapping process for you in your teaching?’ several comments from academics at ua noted potential benefits to their teaching through improved unit design and assessment. for example, identifying gaps in learning outcomes in their units, unit structure and the intention to …think more critically about how and what i assess. at utas, several academics commented that the workshop would assist in the process of mapping the curricula in their own units. others noted a better holistic understanding of learning outcomes across the degree. on acuña, t., mcdonald, g., kelder, j., & able, a. (2016). implementing the threshold learning outcomes for agriculture at two australian universities. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 7(1), 2–.21. 9 a similar theme, another academic reported that curriculum mapping was of benefit to their teaching if it gets staff to communicate and understand what others teach to reduce overlap. similar ideas from utas academics were reported in response to the third question ‘what do you think will be the benefits of this workshop mapping process for the teaching team?’ at both utas and ua, several comments related to potential benefits through improved coherence and better balance of tlos across the degree. one academic went further and linked integration of the unit with assessment practice, seeing potential benefits to the teaching team through having more strategically structured assessment. on the other hand, one utas respondent questioned the process, noting that it was too subjective for making any objective and quantifiable benchmarking. a fourth question asked was ‘what do you think will be the benefits of this workshop for student learning experience?’ responses were generally positive at both universities and related to identifying gaps in the curriculum leading to improved and more relevant unit and degree learning outcomes for students. some participants at ua furthermore noted that it would assist academics to more clearly explain the goals of our unit in terms of graduate outcomes. in turn, this can lead to help clarify expectations of students, although as one participant noted, it is important to be specific about the tlos with students so they can appreciate it. a small proportion of utas staff could not perceive any potential benefit to the student experience. finally, participants were asked ‘what changes do you expect will be made to the curriculum as a result of this workshop?’ categories were provided, including degree and unit learning outcomes, assessment and content, or none. overall participants considered that changes to unit-level outcomes, assessment and content were more likely compared with the degree-level. external benchmarking of curriculum mapping in general, the results of the external evaluation aligned well with the results from the cmt reports (plates 5 and 6). however, in five of the eight units, the unit coordinators indicated that tlo 5.4 was addressed, while the external evaluator did not believe they were. this probably reflects the observations that academics took this tlo to be implicit in their assessment (particularly with regards to plagiarism and collusion) and that this tlo was not explicitly addressed in assessment details or rubrics. in a few instances, the external evaluator believed the assessment addressed a tlo but the unit coordinator did not. at ua, the coordinators of the units sampled for this exercise discussed the inconsistencies between external evaluation and their assessment using the cmt. in most cases, the difference in evaluation was related to differences in interpretation of the tlo. for example, external evaluation of the unit agricultural and resource management iii indicated that tlo 2.1 (knowledge of core sciences in the context of agriculture) was met in some of the assessment tasks (usually through how the questions were framed) but the coordinator did not believe the tlo had been addressed because they felt that tlo merely referred to a straight understanding of biology, chemistry and physics and felt they were asking students to perform at a higher level integrating more than core sciences. in some cases, issues with details (or lack of details) provided in the rubrics were identified. coordinators indicated informally (personal communication) that they used this information to refine their assessment tasks, unit learning outcomes and rubrics. discussion and recommendations the agltas standards statement was developed through a national consultation of academics, students and industry and endorsed by the acda (botwright acuña, able et al., 2014). the focus on collaborative mapping of the tlos using the cmt can act as a mechanism for change and review of degrees. although the agltas statement provides explanatory notes about the tlos, no exemplars were provided to assist universities in using them as part of their curriculum review processes. acuña, t., mcdonald, g., kelder, j., & able, a. (2016). implementing the threshold learning outcomes for agriculture at two australian universities. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 7(1), 2–.21. 10 in this paper we have presented two case studies of how academics at the university of tasmania and the university of adelaide have used the agltas to map their respective agriculture curricula. this has allowed us to document evidence that these degrees meet the tlos and, together with aqf mapping (not shown), meet requirements related to learning outcomes and assessment as described in the hesf (australian government, 2015). in addition we explore how peer engagement with the standards has supported their local needs in curriculum review. what follows is a discussion on the challenges and benefits of this approach to degree designers and we offer our personal reflections on what changes we have experienced as a result of the project. finally, we discuss the potential future role of agltas beyond the publication of the standards document, with respect to education, capacity building and the development of shared understandings about agricultural education among stakeholders. case studies: examples of how to use the agltas statement in this study, the cmt was used to provide a simple, traffic light report or heat map that indicates to what level a tlo was met through assessment activities delivered across all units in a degree. such tools aid in the mapping of curricula (ervin, carter, & robinson, 2013) and many universities have developed mapping tools to assist with the recent requirement to demonstrate degree compliance with the aqf, with various levels of complexity (veltri, webb, matveev, & zapatero, 2011; lawson et al., 2011). the advantage of the cmt used here is its simplicity and that it can provide a quick overview without requiring too much resourcing. furthermore, the headings and subheadings are editable, which means that the tool can be used for other purposes e.g. some schools at utas amended the tool for mapping aqf compliance of their degrees. with additional resources, the cmt could be further developed with functionality to show how each unit contributed to the overall degree. this was instead undertaken in the two case studies with an excel spreadsheet. consistent with published literature, curriculum mapping relied on academics to assess their own unit content (ervin, carter, & robinson, 2013). undertaking curriculum mapping against tlos requires a good understanding of their intended meaning. this was a barrier for some participants, particularly in the utas workshop, and has been reported elsewhere (ervin, carter, & robinson, 2013; sumsion & goodfellow, 2004). furthermore, some of the tlos conflated several ideas, which led to ‘partial’ meeting of some tlos. splitting lengthier tlos into sub-sections can assist in the curriculum mapping process, as shown when the bachelor of science majors were mapped against the science ltas (jones & holmes, 2013). here, for example, for tlo 4.2, a number of coordinators indicated ‘partial’ because they did not assess students for their communication abilities across a wide range of audiences using a variety of modes. in this case, determination of which modes and which audiences were addressed during assessment in each unit may be essential for assurance of this tlo. determining the proficiency level of students can be an issue (ervin, carter, & robinson, 2013), particularly when some learning outcomes are implicit. for example, tlo 1.1 (explaining role and relevance of agriculture in society) is usually only taught explicitly at first year, which raises the issue of how this standard is met at graduate level through assessment if it is by then regarded as implicit knowledge. similar observations have been made in the science discipline for tlo 1 (understanding science) (yucel, 2012). at times it was thus difficult to determine if a tlo had been achieved (sumsion & goodfellow, 2004). several australian universities are collaborating in the preparation of good practice guides for the agriculture tlos that provide academics with case studies of assessment and student learning outcomes that embed each tlo in the curriculum. the guides are intended to facilitate the implementation of academic standards by the agriculture discipline community and inform curriculum design. acuña, t., mcdonald, g., kelder, j., & able, a. (2016). implementing the threshold learning outcomes for agriculture at two australian universities. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 7(1), 2–.21. 11 external benchmarking identified examples where assessment tasks did not appear to meet a graduate tlo, yet the coordinator believed the unit did. benchmarking of assessment standards in teaching teams and across universities is considered as essential in the assurance of achievement standards (sadler, 2013). the perceived requirements for each proficiency level may also be affected by the unit coordinator’s own background and field of research. the interpretation of generic attributes and their level of attainment by students can differ significantly between disciplines and even between fields within those disciplines (jones, 2009). given the multidisciplinary nature of agriculture, the perceptions of academics about what is required to meet a graduate tlo means in practice can differ considerably. a combination of external review and curriculum mapping workshops involving the entire teaching team is therefore recommended when mapping degrees to tlos. the workshops had the additional benefit of providing a forum for academics to engage in peer-to-peer development. an increasing emphasis on degrees rather than units requires that academics function as a teaching team, which is somewhat at odds with the traditional, individualistic concept of ‘academic freedom’. the process of curriculum mapping has been noted to contribute to collaboration and collegiality (uchiyama & radin, 2009; plaza et al., 2007). a sense of collegiality needs, however to be underscored by the mapping process being undertaken in a mutually supportive atmosphere (lam & tsui, 2013; sumsion & goodfellow, 2004). this is to ensure the participants’ assumptions and biases are made apparent and available for discussion in the mapping process such that a mutually acceptable understanding can be reached (hogan, 2000). at the start of the workshop, academics on average reported that they had good knowledge of units they had taught, with only slight to good knowledge of units related to theirs in the degree. this was unsurprising. academics lead busy professional lives, with teaching, research and administrative commitments. our observations that some tlos were addressed more frequently than others suggest that academics had a tendency to design tasks at the unit level with limited consideration of other units. the process of curriculum mapping was shown to provide most academics with a more holistic view of how the degree meets the agltas and has the potential to drive greater innovation in assessment design. some academics noted that they could see potential benefits in understanding where there were gaps and overlaps in assessment that could be addressed through curriculum renewal. it also benefits the degree coordinator, to assist in recognising how unit learning outcomes align with the degree, which can then inform curriculum design (lam & tsui, 2013). curriculum mapping also assisted academics by reinforcing their understanding of constructive alignment (sadler, 2005) between assessment and learning outcomes at the unit, degree and the discipline threshold standards. tension between standards and curriculum there is tension between standards, which are stable, and the curriculum, which is by necessity, dynamic and stable only in the short to medium term. contributing factors are the constant need to review for quality assurance, changes in pedagogy and teaching delivery, and responsiveness to the changing needs of industry and students. we will briefly explore these tensions by expanding on the case study through reflecting on the recent curriculum review of the bachelor of agriculture at utas. the degree was last reviewed in 2010. resources used to inform the review included curriculum mapping, as outlined in this paper, enrolment and retention data (not shown) plus local input from academics, students and industry representatives. curriculum mapping had shown good coverage of tlos related to understanding agriculture, inquiry and problem solving and communication. on the other hand it could be argued, as noted by one academic, that there was overlap in some of these tlos across the degree. the tlo related to knowledge, particularly in relation to adoption and value chains, was somewhat patchy but met overall. acuña, t., mcdonald, g., kelder, j., & able, a. (2016). implementing the threshold learning outcomes for agriculture at two australian universities. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 7(1), 2–.21. 12 feedback from academics, students and industry noted a need to strengthen student understanding of business, social aspects and adoption of new knowledge to result in outcomes that are more commercially relevant. the convergence between curriculum mapping and stakeholder feedback has provided a strong basis for making recommendations for revitalising the curriculum of this degree. the agltas thus acted as an important reference point in undertaking this process through peer engagement and also informed the redevelopment of degree learning outcomes to promote improved graduate employability. the agltas is also being used by ua as a reference point for the current review of its bachelor of agricultural sciences. conclusion the processes described in this paper have been used to evaluate the curriculum, provide feedback on necessary improvements, and consider strategic decisions related to staffing and other resources that may be needed to deliver the improved curriculum. on a personal note, a benefit to the project team has been the development of our holistic understanding of the relationship between unit learning outcomes, assessment, degree learning outcomes and the agltas standards. this will assist us to address requirements for the aqf and hesf. while this benefits us, there is a question about how to extend this knowledge to other universities, while maintaining their autonomy in curriculum design. while journal articles such as this paper can help, peer-to-peer engagement is most effective. we plan to take the network of practice that begun with this project across the 14 universities that teach agriculture and continuing it as a discipline network. these networks have been successful in other disciplines such as accounting and biology. acknowledgements this work was supported by the australian government office for learning and teaching under grant number id13-2982. the views expressed in this paper do not necessarily reflect the views of the australian government office for learning and teaching. we would like to acknowledge phoebe bobbi for her excellent support during the project; prof elizabeth johnson for helpful feedback in her role as our external evaluator; and the members of our reference group, which included profs susan jones (utas) and roger leigh (university of adelaide), dr andrea crampton (charles sturt university), mr geoff thomas (thomas project services), mr ian mcleod (peracto) and ms nysha munro (utas). thanks to other members of the agltas project team (dr yann guisard, a/prof paul wormell and dr richard doyle) that have provided discussion about implementation of the tlos. acuña, t., mcdonald, g., kelder, j., & able, a. 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(2009). curriculum mapping in higher education: a vehicle for collaboration. innovative higher education, 33 (4), 271–80. doi: retieved from: http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10755-008-9078-8. veltri, n., webb, h., matveev, a., & zapatero, e. (2011). curriculum mapping as a tool for continuous improvement of is curriculum. journal of information systems education, 22 (1), 31–42. yorke, m. (2006). employability in higher education: what it is – what it is not. learning and employability series 1. the higher education academy. yucel, r. (2012). good practice guide (science). threshold learning outcome 1. understanding science. sydney: australian learning and teaching council. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10755-008-9078-8 acuña, t., mcdonald, g., kelder, j., & able, a. (2016). implementing the threshold learning outcomes for agriculture at two australian universities. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 7(1), 2–.21. 16 appendix plate 1: degree report for the bachelor of agriculture at utas using the curriculum mapping tool. acuña, t., mcdonald, g., kelder, j., & able, a. (2016). implementing the threshold learning outcomes for agriculture at two australian universities. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 7(1), 2–.21. 17 plate 2: curriculum mapping of unit-level assessment against the agltas tlos for the bachelor of agriculture at utas. numbers correspond to the tlos shown in table 1. those units highlighted as grey are electives with these being the most common pathway for students (students choose 4). units that are not highlighted are compulsory/core. acuña, t., mcdonald, g., kelder, j., & able, a. (2016). implementing the threshold learning outcomes for agriculture at two australian universities. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 7(1), 2–.21. 18 plate 3: degree report for the bachelor of agricultural sciences at ua using the curriculum mapping tool. acuña, t., mcdonald, g., kelder, j., & able, a. (2016). implementing the threshold learning outcomes for agriculture at two australian universities. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 7(1), 2–.21. 19 plate 4. curriculum mapping of unit-level assessment against the agltas tlos for the bachelor of agricultural sciences at ua. numbers correspond to the tlos shown in table 1. colour codes are the same as in plate 2. those units highlighted as grey are electives with these being the most common pathway for students (students choose 4 of 12). units that are not highlighted are compulsory/core. u n it o r co u rs e: a g r ic 1 5 1 0 w t a gr ic u lt u ra l s ys te m s b io lo g y 1 1 0 1 b io lo gy i: m o el cu le s g en es a n d c el ls c h em 1 1 0 1 f o u n d at io n s o f c h em is tr y ia st a ts 1 0 0 0 s ta ti st ic al p ra ct ic e i a g r ic 1 5 2 0 w t a gr ic u lt u ra l s ys te m s ib b io lo g y 1 1 0 1 b io lo gy 1 b : o rg an is m s c h em 1 1 0 2 f o u n d at io n s o f c h em is tr y ib so il & w a t 1 0 0 0 w t so ils a n d la n d sc ap es i a g r ib u s 2 5 2 0 w t a gr ib u si n es s ii a g r ic 2 5 0 0 w t a n im al a n d p la n t b io ch em is tr y ii p la n ts c 2 5 1 0 w t fo u n d at io n s in p la n t sc ie n ce ii p la n ts c 2 5 0 0 w t m ic ro b io lo gy a n d in ve rt eb ra te b io lo gy ii a g r ic 2 5 0 5 r w c ro p a n d p as tu re p ro d u ct io n ii a n im ls c 2 5 0 3 r w l iv es to ck p ro d u ct io n sc ie n ce ii a n im ls c g en es a n d in h er it an ce ii so il & w a t 2 5 0 0 w t so il an d w at er r es o u rc es ii a g r ib u s 3 5 0 0 w t a gr ic u lt u ra l ec o n o m ic s an d p o lic y ii i a g r ic 3 5 1 5 w t r es ea rc h m et h o d o lo gy in a gr ic u lt u ra l s ci en ce s ii i a g r ic 3 5 1 0 w t a gr ic u lt u ra l a n d r es o u rc e m an ag em en t ii i a g r ic 3 5 0 0 w t p ro fe ss io n al s ki lls in a gr ic u lt u ra l s ci en ce ii i a g r o n o m y 3 0 1 2 r w a gr o n o m y ii i p la n ts c 3 2 0 0 w t p la n t b re ed in g ii i p la n t sc 3 5 1 0 w t p la n t h ea lt h ii i p la n ts c 3 5 0 5 t so il an d p la n t n u tr it io n ii i 1.1 1.2 1.3 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 4.1 4.2 5.1 5.2 5.3 5.4 tlo 3. inquiry and problem solving tlo 4. communication tlo 5. personal and professional responsibility tlo 1. understanding agriculture tlo 2. knowledge of agriculture 1st year 2nd year 3rd year acuña, t., mcdonald, g., kelder, j., & able, a. (2016). implementing the threshold learning outcomes for agriculture at two australian universities. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 7(1), 2–.21. 20 plate 5. external benchmarking of four units from the bachelor of agriculture at utas. assessment tasks (and associated details) were evaluated externally for their alignment with the agltos (indicated as dark grey if addressed). the results from the cmt are also shown for comparison where dark grey indicates unit was assessed at below graduate tlo (introductory, intermediate); meets graduate tlo; or; exceeds graduate tlo while light grey indicates unit was assessed as partially meets graduate tlo. * = assessment task is summative (contributing to the final grade). acuña, t., mcdonald, g., kelder, j., & able, a. (2016). implementing the threshold learning outcomes for agriculture at two australian universities. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 7(1), 2–.21. 21 plate 6. external benchmarking of four units from the bachelor of agricultural sciences at ua. assessment tasks (and associated details) were evaluated externally for their alignment with the agltos (indicated as dark grey if addressed). the results from the cmt are also shown for comparison where dark grey indicates unit was assessed at below graduate tlo (introductory, intermediate); meets graduate tlo; or; exceeds graduate tlo while light grey indicates unit was assessed as partially meets graduate tlo. * = assessment task is summative (contributing to the final grade). dunne, j. (2019). improved levels of critical reflection in pharmacy technician student work-placement assessments through emphasising graduate attributes. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 10(2), 1-14. 1 the journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability issn: 1838-3815 (online) journal homepage: https://ojs.deakin.edu.au/index.php/jtlge/ improved levels of critical reflection in pharmacy technician student work-placement assessments through emphasising graduate attributes julie dunne1 corresponding author: julie dunne julie.dunne@dit.ie 1technological university dublin, orcid id: 0000-0002-5858-2694 abstract this study investigated the effect of activities to promote awareness of specific prioritised graduate attributes on the quality of reflection displayed in work-placement reflective blog assessments for pharmacy-technician students. previous related research showed an increased tendency to frame placement experiences in terms of graduate attributes when they are made more explicit in the curriculum. now, a thematic analysis of reflective writing from control and research groups, using a priori codes of ‘reflection’ and ‘graduate attributes’ explored the impact on the depth of critical reflection, and its relationship to explicit discussion of graduate attributes. the findings show an improvement in the quality of reflection, with significantly higher levels of critical reflection in the research group (37%), compared to the control group (20%), and lower levels of the non-reflective categories of thinking such as thoughtful action. furthermore, in 62% of research group cases, there is overlap between critical reflection references and explicit graduate attributes references. overall, the quality of reflective writing has improved through framing experiences in terms both of graduate attributes, as well as core theoretical knowledge, leading to increased focus on personal development and consequences for future action. keywords: graduate attributes, workplacement, pharmacy technician, reflective assessmen, thematic analysis, employabil ity, critical reflection, nvivo introduction this paper discusses the results of a research investigation into the effect of emphasising graduate attributes within a curriculum on the quality of reflection in pharmacy technician student workplacement assessments compared to previous years. like many higher education institutions seeking to focus on graduate employability, in 2013 dublin institute of technology (dit) (now technological university dublin) identified a suite of skills aligned to its academic mission as an industry focused institution that delivers job-ready graduates (dit, 2013). dit requested that these be integrated into curricula, and the current research explores an aspect of this policy by analysing its impact on a work placement reflective assessment. the research in this paper builds on a recent report that demonstrated that activities that emphasise prioritised graduate attributes within a curriculum in https://ojs.deakin.edu.au/index.php/jtlge/ mailto:julie.dunne@dit.ie dunne, j. (2019). improved levels of critical reflection in pharmacy technician student work-placement assessments through emphasising graduate attributes. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 10(2), 1-14. 2 advance of entering an internship or work-placement can help students by providing a focal point to frame their work-placement experiences in their reflective assessments (dunne, 2017). work-placement is a period of planned work-based experiential learning, where the learning outcomes are part of a program of study and should be associated with a formal assessment (european-commission, 2009a, 2009b). there is increasing emergent consensus that being reflective and developing reflective practice is crucial in becoming an effective healthcare professional, adding to and enhancing everyday professional values, knowledge and skills (neville, 2018). indeed k. smith, clegg, lawrence, and todd (2007) argue that the academic benefits of work-based experiences depend largely on the extent to which students reflect on them and relate them back to knowledge gained in theoretical modules. students have reported that having appropriate experiences were seen to be a key part of developing reflective skills, and that staff who champion the development of reflective skills and mentor students were perceived to play key roles in aiding the development of reflective skills (vivekananda-schmidt et al., 2011). a comprehensive review of integrating graduate attributes into the curriculum in australia identified challenges in setting standards, and in determining to what extent these standards are being met by students (hughes & barrie, 2010). it emphasised that graduate attribute assessment plans will not accomplish their aim if students are not made aware of their objectives and if students are not actively involved as partners in the assessment process. there have been many literature reports in various fields wherein attempts have been made to make more explicit within the curriculum the development and assessment of graduate attributes (treleaven and voola (2008) sin and mcguigan (2013); nicol (2010)). the involvement of peers has been especially highlighted by stracke and kumar (2014), who advocate the use of peer support groups as a bottom-up effort to enhance the top-down embedding of graduate attributes for research students. of key importance is the reflective process that underpins students’ understanding and development of graduate attributes (hughes & barrie, 2010). reflective practice is also recognised as an integrating pedagogical tool to support the clarification and acquisition of threshold concepts along with graduate attributes (hyde, flatau, & wilson, 2018). the earlier research by the author showed that students had an increased tendency to frame their placement experiences in terms of graduate attributes, as well as core skills developed in the curriculum, when graduate attributes were made more explicit in the curriculum (dunne, 2017). this consequently broadened their reflection and advanced their potential employability as defined by hillage and pollard (1998). this current paper will return to this research and consider whether the activities to emphasise graduate attributes also had an impact on the depth or level of reflection. to investigate this, it is necessary to gain an understanding of the various levels of reflection. in their seminal work, boud, keogh, and walker (1985) have broken the reflective process into three stages, as outlined in table 1. table 1: reflective processes stages of reflection actions involved returning to the experience remembering it documenting it without judgement attending to feelings utilising the positives dealing with the negative ones to remove obstructing feelings e.g. laughing at embarrassment, crying, anger dunne, j. (2019). improved levels of critical reflection in pharmacy technician student work-placement assessments through emphasising graduate attributes. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 10(2), 1-14. 3 re-evaluating the experience associating it with what is already known integrating it by seeking relationships validation of the authenticity of the ideas or feelings which have resulted appropriation, that is, making the knowledge one’s own. new perspectives, changes in behaviour, and willingness to act on the new ideas follow the outcomes of these processes. in the case of work placement experiential learning, it can be argued that it is the students’ professional behaviour and actions that change, which naturally can be related to their graduate attributes. however, for students, the process of reflecting on work-based learning is not trivial. k. smith et al. (2007) have discussed the difficulties students face when conceptualising work in terms of academic knowledge. the reverse process of transforming experiential/tacit knowledge from the workplace into a form they can verbalise is also challenging for students. they require support to enable them to achieve successful reflection. different types of reflective skills have been described for professional judgement, which students on placement should develop, namely, reflection-in-action (during experiences) and reflection-on-action (reflection on past-action) and includes reflection-for-action (considering future action). research shows well-designed activities and scaffolded assessment tasks involving explicit instructions, relevant support materials identified and clear assessment criteria appear to encourage higher quality reflective practice, specifically reflection-for-action (stupans, march, & owen, 2013). an example of supports to improve the quality of student reflection in work-placement journals has been reported by hume (2009). he has described the use of ‘shulman’s framework for good science teachers’ as a focal point for reflection. she found that in addition to a framework, additional preplacement workshops and activities, along with time to practice reflective writing, use of exemplars, and clear assessment criteria were important to help with reflection while on placement. naturally the same basic principles of reflection also apply for reflective assignments in an online environment. teaching innovations in this area include online technologies (e.g. blogs) which provide a virtual space for reflection which can be accessed by peers and tutors alike (chretien, goldman, & faselis, 2008). a review of the supports for student reflection in technology-enhanced learning identified that pre-defined guidance, human-intervention guidance and a mechanism to promote students to focus on critical points can act as a positive support for high-quality reflection (kori, pedaste, leijen, & mäeots, 2014). this aligns well to hume’s (2009) approach. the consideration of a framework to allow students to focus on critical points for reflection is central to this current research. it asks if emphasising graduate attributes will act as a critical point for students to focus upon for their personal development while on work placement, and will this influence the depth of reflection shown in their reflective assessments? this requires a means to judge if levels of reflection have improved, such that evidence for moving from non-critical reflection to deeper critical reflection can be found. the current study based this judgement on previous work by wallman, kettis lindblad, hall, lundmark, and ring (2008), and has been explained further in the theoretical framework section below. the study theoretical framework in the earlier part of this study described in dunne (2017), a participatory action research (par) methodology was implemented in order to create a learning environment that connects theory and practice with action and reflection as an outcome of participating with others (reason & bradbury, dunne, j. (2019). improved levels of critical reflection in pharmacy technician student work-placement assessments through emphasising graduate attributes. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 10(2), 1-14. 4 2008). this facilitated the students, through their participation and interactions with the tutor and each other, to develop their own understanding of the concept of graduate attributes, and become aware of and involved in the conversation. the current paper follows from this work and evaluates the impact of the par project on student reflection. a constructivist ontological position allowed for concepts about how graduate attributes are perceived and developed by the students to be produced through social dialogue and reflection. given that research into how each individual student perceives graduate attributes must take into account the differences in individuals, an interpretation of their reflective assessments was required. therefore, an interpretivist epistemological position was assumed. in their project to test the reliability, feasibility, and responsiveness of a categorization scheme for assessing pharmacy students’ levels of reflection during internships, wallman et al. (2008) have used a categorisation scheme that is outlined in table 2. in the scheme, the categories build upon each other as the students reach higher levels, increasing from habitual action to premise reflection. levels 4 to 6 are non-reflective, while levels 1 to 3 are reflective. see appendix 1 for further explanation of wallman et al. (2008) categories. table 2: categorisation scheme for assessing pharmacy students’ reflection categorisation of reflection premise reflection process reflection reflective content reflection introspection thoughtful action non-reflective habitual action bell, kelton, mcdonagh, mladenovic, and morrison (2010) have further evaluated this model in the context of business students’ reflective writing, and they found it reliable. wong, kember, chung, and yan (1995) have also investigated assessment of students’ reflective journals. they have similarly developed methods of coding reflection at different levels, one more advanced than the other. they align to the boud et al. (1985) description of reflection as described in table 1. at a more basic level, they found that it was reliable to distinguish between the three stages of reflection. however, they found it was not possible to reliably distinguish between the actions involved within each stage. based on this they proposed that it is possible and reliable to sort students into three categories, namely non-reflector, reflector and critical reflector. critical reflector describes a student who attained the actions of validation and appropriation, whereas reflection is associated with the actions of integration and association. indeed, it could be argued that both the wallman and wong approaches and models amount to the same thing, in that both categorise the levels of reflection into a higher and lower order of reflection. the lower order focuses on reflecting on the content or knowledge related aspects of the experience and how it relates to prior knowledge, and also to the immediate response to the experience. meanwhile the higher level of reflection relates more to the personal development of the reflector and the capacity to change future actions based on reflecting on the experience. consequently, no attempt was made to code levels of reflection beyond the main levels of ‘reflection’ and ‘critical reflection’, as was proved by the previously mentioned studies to be reliably reproduced (bell et al. (2010); wong et al. (1995)). nonetheless, is a recognised challenge for assessing reflection to have grader consistency (m. smith & trede, 2013). for rigour, an independent double blind coding of a random sample of assessments was carried out. dunne, j. (2019). improved levels of critical reflection in pharmacy technician student work-placement assessments through emphasising graduate attributes. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 10(2), 1-14. 5 the method chosen for the interpretation of the reflective assessments was through template analysis for thematic coding (baldwin, 2012). analysis of the assessments of a control group (2013/14) and research group (2014/15) was based on a hypothesis driven confirmatory approach using the a priori codes of ‘reflection’ and ‘graduate attributes’ (king, 2014). this was selected to accelerate the coding process to specifically address the research question which sought to investigate any relationships between the two themes. participants in the study the control group (cg) and research group (rg) involved in this study were all the students registered in the final year of the dit higher certificate in pharmacy technician studies in the two consecutive years of 2013/14 for the control group, and 2014/15 for the research group. there were no incidents of students belonging to both groups – each group was entirely independent of the other. other than the activities included in the study described by this paper that were implemented for the research group in order to address the inclusion of graduate attributes more explicitly in the curriculum in accordance with dit policy, there were no other significant changes to the curriculum, nor those teaching it, during the years involved. both groups also had the same workshop to support reflective writing, as previously reported (dunne & ryan, 2016). implementation the implementation of this participatory action research project has been described in the earlier study (dunne, 2017). the research involved: knowledge development: the students’ baseline knowledge and confidence about the dit graduate attributes (dit, 2014b) was examined. their ability to articulate or define the various attributes was developed through group exercises to create definitions for each attribute. to assist with this, the students were each furnished with several relevant examples of graduate attributes definitions. these included information from the university of sheffield careers service (careers-department, 2014), the he stem employability skills review (toland, 2011), the open university careers service resources, and resources from the university of aberdeen centre for academic development (aberdeen, 2014). graduate attributes prioritisation: a stakeholder survey was used to prioritise the graduate attributes. further details about the survey design, which was based on the australian graduate employability indicators survey are available (dunne, 2015). the prioritised attributes are outlined in table 2.3. graduate attributes development: the assuring graduate capabilities website (oliver, 2011) was used to identify suitable learning activities to develop graduate attributes. a series of online self-evaluation exercises to allow students to determine their strengths and weaknesses in skills to date. the links to self-assessments from the university of kent ("analyse your employability skills," 2015; "employability skills exercise,") were sent to the students to complete in their own time. a link to communications resources from the university of kent ("communication skills: speaking and listening," 2015). the link to the survey was sent to the students to carry out in their own time. an ethics debate centred on a short ethical case study relevant to the role of the pharmacy-technician, organised based on a modified version of the ‘think-pair-share’ format reviewed in kennedy (2007). a separate description and evaluation of our introduction of this debate in the curriculum has been reported (hogan & dunne, 2018). reflective assessment analysis: coding of reflective blogs to determine any differences in breadth and depth of reflection. the coding supported by nvivo is explained below. dunne, j. (2019). improved levels of critical reflection in pharmacy technician student work-placement assessments through emphasising graduate attributes. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 10(2), 1-14. 6 analysis of data using nvivo while qualitative research is not given to mathematical analysis, it is nonetheless systematic in its approach to data collection and analysis. in this research, the process involved breaking down the data into discrete ‘units’ and coding them to categories according to pre-defined a priori codes. coding of the 2013/14 and 2014/15 reflective blogs was carried out using nvivo software to support the qualitative analysis. while the researcher carried out the hermeneutic task, nvivo was used as a tool for efficiency and transparency of coding, and to query the data during the analysis. the coding in relation to the results in this paper sought to look for evidence of increased emphasis on graduate attributes in student reflection, as well as level or depth of reflection. there is some numerical aspect to the analysis, and some statistical analysis of the results using a chi square test to examine association between the level of reflection and the class group has been carried out. however, the coding has not been analysed with regard to word count being an indicator of level of discussion in relation to any of the given topics. the data was instead used to uncover broad trends in the assessments, to gain an understanding of any changes that may have occurred in the blog writings of the research group compared to the control group. this is appropriate owing to the qualitative nature of the study, as well as for robustness given the delimitation that only a random sample of the data has been double blind coded. the blog sources were individually coded, initially for the a priori codes of graduate attributes and reflection. any reference to either code, whether explicit or implicit and at any level was coded using the nvivo software. many references were coded to both categories, whilst many more were coded to one category only.the phases of the analysis were as follows: phase 1: extracting the data from individual blog posts from the research and control groups into individual microsoft word documents and uploading these as sources in nvivo as ‘case nodes’. the control group comprised of 26 student case nodes and 78 blog sources, while the research group consisted of 29 student case nodes and 87 blog sources. for anonymity when using extracts from their blogs, the students have been assigned the codes cg1-cg26 and rg1-rg29 respectively. phase 2: ‘open coding’ each blog post case node into the primary nvivo ‘nodes’ of graduate attributes and reflection, according to the nvivo codebook ( table ). phase 3: ‘coding on’ the primary nodes into sub-nodes, according to the nvivo codebook. note, during the early analysis phase, a further coding-on was carried out to reduce the explicit references to graduate attributes into ‘explicit but unnamed’, and ‘explicit and named’. phase 4: running nvivo matrix queries on the coded data to establish trends and relationships. phase 5: comparison of sample double coded assessments for agreement of coding. table 3: section of nvivo codebook for thematic analysis of control and research blogs with respect to depth of reflection and graduate attributes statement type open code sub-code code description reflection all references to reflection at any level level of reflection: thoughtful action or introspection references to reflective comments that are better described as thoughtful action or introspection (wallman, 2008) non-critical reflection references to reflective comments that are non-critical in nature, as per 'content reflection' (wallman, 2008) dunne, j. (2019). improved levels of critical reflection in pharmacy technician student work-placement assessments through emphasising graduate attributes. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 10(2), 1-14. 7 critical reflection higher order reflection, process reflection and premise reflection (wallman, 2008) graduate attributes all references to graduate attributes explicit and implicit statement type: implicit references to graduate attributes that have been interpreted by the researcher rather than explicitly labelled by the blog author. explicit references to graduate attributes that have been explicitly acknowledged by the blog author, either by using the graduate attribute term itself or clearly alluding to the skill as has been defined for this project. interpretation by the researcher was not required. limitations, delimitations and ethics this research was delimited to the students in dt425/2 higher certificate in pharmacy technician studies (dit), 2013/14 as the control group for comparison. the study is limited to the cohort of students registered to the module tfip2001 pharmacy work-placement dit (n=29). owing to the nature of the action research based methodology, there is an inherent deficit in the study because the research group and control group were not sampled from the same cohort, but rather individual cohorts in their final year of the same course in consecutive years. the study was delimited to a single primary coder, namely the author of the study, with a representative sample of double coding by an academic unrelated to the project for rigour. the level of coding and analysis was delimited to that which is considered, through previous studies discussed in the literature review, to be reliably reproducible (wallman et al. (2008); bell et al. (2010); wong et al. (1995)). the project has received ethical clearance from the dit research ethics committee (ref no. 14-68). findings and discussion the main research question of this study was to establish the effect of activities to promote awareness of graduate attributes development on the quality of reflection displayed in student pharmacytechnicians’ reflective assessment blogs compared to previous years. impact on reflection (1): range of graduate attributes discussed the aforementioned previous report by the author, focusing on the quality in terms of the breadth of reflection on prioritised graduate attributes, revealed that the research group showed a considerably greater likelihood to reflect on a wider range of graduate attributes. the report also demonstrated that this reflection was also much more likely to refer to the development of the attribute or skill in an explicit manner. this improves the students’ employability by providing them with concrete examples of transferable skills that they can clearly articulate to prospective employers (dunne, 2017). these results have been summarised in table 4. table 4: analysis of most commonly referenced graduate attributes for explicit vs implicit statements by research vs control group graduate attribute control group research group communication explicit 11 30 implicit 56 36 dunne, j. (2019). improved levels of critical reflection in pharmacy technician student work-placement assessments through emphasising graduate attributes. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 10(2), 1-14. 8 emotional intelligence explicit 8 13 implicit 42 34 motivation explicit 2 20 implicit 6 12 work related learner explicit 7 18 implicit 5 7 for context, the following blog examples illustrate the difference between implicit and explicit references to the ‘communications’ graduate attributes. typical implicit references to communication are shown below, and really reflect the student retelling of the day to day events of the pharmacy which involve their interaction with customers, and other members of the pharmacy team: just to make sure that it would be suitable with the antibiotic i double checked what i was giving to the girl by telling the pharmacist what the problem was and what i suggested for her to take [control group no. 4]. i told him that a generic version of a medicine may be a different size or shape, have different colours, flavours or combinations of non-active ingredients compared to the original product, but that none of these differences affect the way the medicine works [control group no.1]. whilst characteristic explicit references include the following, which fall into named and unnamed categories respectively: while looking back on the situation i realise how important communication skills are especially when dealing with the elderly as things need to be explained clearly and examples must be shown if necessary [research group no.3]. i am strongly of the opinion that as healthcare professionals, we need to know the audience to whom we are delivering advice to. it is important to alter the way you deliver information to each individual [research group no.4]. impact on reflection (2): level of critical reflection this current report will now focus on investigating the more complex question of whether this increase in awareness and articulation of graduate attributes is associated with an increased level of critical reflection. in the next section of findings, the coding for levels of reflection will be considered generally, and following that any influence of discussion of graduate attributes linked to level of reflection will be explored. in total, 364 references were coded to the primary ‘reflection’ code. to gain an overall appreciation of the level of reflection shown in the entire set of blogs analysed for this study, these references have been grouped according to the categories thoughtful action (non-reflection), reflection, and critical reflection in table 5. table 5: breakdown of reflective references (research and control group combined) by category category no. references critical reflection 106 non-critical reflection 190 thoughtful action or introspection 68 dunne, j. (2019). improved levels of critical reflection in pharmacy technician student work-placement assessments through emphasising graduate attributes. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 10(2), 1-14. 9 as can be seen, there is a higher number of non-critical reflective references, compared to critical reflection. in the next phase of analysis, an nvivo matrix query was run to determine if there was any difference in level of reflection between the control and research groups, and the results are shown in table 6. table 6: breakdown of reflection by category between research and control group control group references (% of total cg references) research group references (% of total rg references) critical reflection 33 (20%) 73 (37%) non-critical reflection 90 (55%) 100 (50%) thoughtful action 42 (25%) 26 (13%) a chi-square test showed a strongly significant association (χ2= 8.06e-13, df = 2, p=0.103*) between the distribution of references across the categories of critical reflection, non-critical reflection and thoughtful action, and the class group (control or research). these results clearly show the trend in this association is in the direction of improvement in the quality of reflection, with higher levels of critical reflection in the research group, compared to the control group, and lower levels of thoughtful action. hillage and pollard (1998) explains that students’ communicative skills in reflection can be developed through group discussions, manipulation of materials in response to a stimulus, simple role-plays or simulated interviews. these can refine reflective skills in a supportive environment, and can lead (amongst other outcomes) to more sophisticated written reflective essays (ryan, 2011). it is possible that the research group have become more forthcoming in their reflections through participation in the earlier cycles of action research, including discussions to define the graduate attributes, and participation in the oral debate (hogan & dunne, 2018). impact on reflection (3): relationship between explicit graduate attributes and level of reflection the main research question was to establish the effect of activities to promote awareness of graduate attributes development on the quality of reflection displayed in student pharmacy-technicians’ reflective assessments compared to previous years. it is interesting at this point, therefore, to investigate if the apparent increase in levels of critical reflection in the research group (table 6) can be linked to the increased levels of explicit discussion of the graduate attributes shown earlier in the findings to be the case for this group (table 4) (dunne, 2017). the result from an nvivo matrix query to determine the level of overlap between the critical reflection references and the graduate attributes statement references is shown in figure 1. this shows that of the 73 critical reflection references made by the research group, 45 (62%) were also coded to explicit graduate attributes. a further 13 (18%) were also coded to the implicit graduate attributes category. the breakdown of this by attribute is shown in figure 1. dunne, j. (2019). improved levels of critical reflection in pharmacy technician student work-placement assessments through emphasising graduate attributes. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 10(2), 1-14. 10 figure 1: matrix query of critical reflection references: relationship between explicit and implicit reference statements by control group and research group an example of this overlap is shown in the following blog extract: reflecting back on this situation, i can see why i felt stressed and my levels of concentration were low as i was put under pressure to perform a task in a short amount of time in a busy and crowded dispensary, knowing the lady is waiting. since this incident, i have learned to manage my time no matter what the situation in order to prevent errors such as this one and ask for help if i feel under pressure completing a task. it also shows the necessity for accuracy and organisation in order to avoid error. i also wish i had used better communication skills, explaining to the lady that she should collect her medication the following day which would of gave me time, space and concentration to prepare it correctly. due to this incident causing a lot of stress and disappointment, i have learnt a lot from it and my mistakes. this extract shows critical reflection that has been related to personal development, and describes how future action can be altered based on reflection on the experience and on the graduate attributes, as well as competencies, required to adequately complete the task in the workplace. it also shows the importance of work-placement in the curriculum, as this scenario simply could not be replicated in a college environment. this extract is typical of many in this category, whereby the students have been able to enhance and deepen the reflection of a workplace experience or event by framing the experience in terms of graduate attributes, as opposed to knowledge or competencies in isolation. this aligns to the explanation of critical reflection by kalantzis and cope (2008) in dunne (2017), who discuss it in the context of a socio-cognitive process, involving experiencing new ideas, contexts or behaviours and making sense of them in light of what is already known or experienced, by identifying with them in relation to our existing schemas or foundation knowledge; analysing their underlying features and how they sit within the broader context (for example social, cultural, professional), so that this new knowledge can be applied appropriately in different contexts. arguably, this change in emphasis and level of critical reflection in student assessments has been brought about by the action research project that has served to raise awareness and improve student articulation of skills, as well as highlighting to them the importance of these skills for their employability. furthermore, the combination of activities mentioned in the implementation section that were designed to highlight graduate attributes, as well as a means for students to articulate and find evidence for their development will improve the quality assurance around graduate attribute type learning outcomes, as advocated by ryan (2011). 0 10 20 30 40 50 explicit implicit control group research group dunne, j. (2019). improved levels of critical reflection in pharmacy technician student work-placement assessments through emphasising graduate attributes. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 10(2), 1-14. 11 conclusions and future work overall, this action research project has been successful in demonstrating that activities to promote awareness and develop graduate attributes can improve the quality of reflection displayed in workplacement assessments. the analysis of the reflective blog assessments shows that there has been a change in the nature of reflection compared to previous years. there has been a substantial increase in the breadth of attributes being reflected upon, with communication, emotional intelligence, workrelated learner, and motivation discussed most often. additionally, these have been explicitly identified considerably more frequently as part of the reflective process compared to previous years. this has served to provide students with suitable examples and experience in articulating their skills, which should enhance their employability. on the whole, the quality of reflective writing has improved. non-critical lower order reflection has given way to a significant increase in deeper critical reflection in the research group cohort, characterised by relating experiences to personal development and consequences for future action. this has often arisen because the students have been able to enhance and deepen the reflection of a workplace experience or event by framing the experience in terms of transferable skills, as well as core technical skills and knowledge. arguably, this change has been brought about by the action research project. the nature of the blog assessment allows students to share experiences and application of knowledge through reading and commenting on each other’s blogs, however the research group have had additional opportunity to discuss and debate with their peers the development of graduate attributes and learn from sharing suitable examples that demonstrate these. it is anticipated that an overall curriculum review is now required, to include opportunities to develop, be assessed and document experiences relating to graduate attributes from the earliest stages of the program, for example in a professional development eportfolio module. acknowledgements the author wishes to thank the students of the dit pharmacy technician studies program and the dit learning, teaching and technology centre for their contributions to this research. references aberdeen. 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(2011). lessons from medical students’ perceptions of learning reflective skills: a multi-institutional study. medical teacher, 33(10), 846–850. doi:10.3109/0142159x.2011.577120 wallman, a., kettis lindblad, a., hall, s., lundmark, a., & ring, l. (2008). a categorization scheme for assessing pharmacy students’ levels of reflection during internships. american journal of pharmaceutical education, 72(1), article 05. wong, f. k. y., kember, d., chung, l. y. f., & yan, l. (1995). assessing the level of student reflection from reflective journals. journal of advanced nursing, 22(1), 48-57. doi:10.1111/1365-2648.ep8542692 dunne, j. (2019). improved levels of critical reflection in pharmacy technician student work-placement assessments through emphasising graduate attributes. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 10(2), 1-14. 14 appendix 1: a categorization scheme for assessing pharmacy students’ levels of reflection during internships (wallman et al., 2008) 6. non-reflection: habitual action. habitual action is an unconscious act that takes place without thought and can be performed at the same time as another act. a description of an act performed without thought or having to focus could be, for example, writing using a keyboard (for a skilled typist). a description of the course of events can be categorized as habitual action. 5. thoughtful action: thoughtful action draws upon existing knowledge. the starting point lies in previously existing knowledge, and choices between different alternatives regarding how to perform the task are made either unconsciously or not at all. why a certain choice is made is not questioned and no interpretation is made. no thought is given to the consequences of the act except according to the previously learned action. 4. introspection: introspection refers to thoughts about oneself, one’s own thoughts or feelings about performing a task. there is no comparison between the actual task and/or one’s previous experiences, nor are there any thoughts as to why these feelings occur or what they might lead to. reflection. the definition of reflection as it is used below, is that a situation is identified in relation to an actual experience. this problem must somehow be analysed in order for the task to be executable. previous knowledge is used in the specific situation and is questioned and criticized when necessary. 3. content reflection: content reflection pertains to what one perceives, thinks, or feels, or how one acts when doing a task. there should be a questioning or an interpretation of behaviour in order to be categorized as reflection, otherwise it is most often categorized as ‘5. thoughtful action’. content reflection, on the other hand, is based on a person’s previous knowledge or a previous experience and the person consciously thinks of what he/she does in order to solve the actual problem. they do not, however, reflect upon why the action taken works or how their own behaviour developed. what effect the thought, feeling, or act may have should be discussed. 2. process reflection: process reflection refers to how one performs the functions of perceiving, thinking, feeling, or acting, and to an assessment of how effective the performance is. there should be a proposal for, or an interpretation of, behaviour for a categorization as process reflection. for example, a person smiles to solve the problem, but also thinks further on how he or she thinks it might work out. they also consider how a kind reception from another person can reduce their own irritation. reflection of process can also contain reflection of how they feel and act themselves when they meet the angry customer, and how this is considered as a problem, as well as how they handle their own feelings. one’s thoughts and beliefs about how the thought, feeling, or act has an effect should be discussed in addition to how others apprehend the act. 1. premise reflection (theoretical reflection): premise reflection relates to why one apprehends, thinks, feels, or acts the way one does and the consequences of that existing knowledge sets the framework for how one acts in different situations. this should include an analysis of the whole situation/problem; ‘what’ and ‘how’ should be put into context. consequences should be considered so that they can be included in a deeper understanding or reinterpretation of the problem. alternative methods should also be considered, often leading to questioning of prejudice based on a theoretical reasoning. this could lead to a reinterpretation of the situation so that the starting point is different the next time thes same kind of problem occurs, and thus the action becomes different. this can be very hard to identify in written essays; the behaviour must be controlled the next time it happens. kinash, s., & jorre de st jorre, t. (2019). editorial: ten stars special issue. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 10(1), 1–6. 1 editorial: ten stars special issue this special issue was produced by the ten-stars network, an international network of tertiary staff, students, graduates and employers dedicated to furthering research and practice related to graduate employability. the employability network, was formed at the 2018 stars conference (www.unistars.org) in response to shared interests that are very much aligned to those of the journal of learning and teaching for graduate employability. it is therefore with great pleasure that we introduce the journal’s first special issue, which is also the network’s first collaborative output. the first issue of the journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability was published in 2010, ‘as a forum for fostering interdisciplinary dialogue among researchers, teacher scholars, careers staff and industry and professional practitioners concerned about graduate employability’ (quin, 2010). almost ten years on, dialogue among those key stakeholders is no less important, and assuring graduate employability remains a challenge that spans international contexts. in fact, with growing global uncertainty related to rapid technological developments and the changing world of work, alongside other equally concerning social and political disruptions, the preparation of graduates to face uncertainty in and beyond the workforce is arguably more important than ever (oliver & jorre de st jorre, 2018). fortunately, thanks to the dedication of many, and platforms such as this journal, there is now an expansive and growing body of research and evidence based practice that can be drawn upon to design, question, and redesign teaching and learning for graduate employability. universities and academics are often at the centre of discourse about graduate employability, but in reality, concerns and responsibilities are shared more broadly amongst: leaders of tertiary institutions (university and non-university providers); academics in and beyond traditional faculty roles; and other staff who contribute to the student experience and graduate outcomes through diverse roles (such as those that contribute to career learning services, learning design, and student support, to name just a few). students, graduates, employers and professional associations, as well as government and quality assurance agencies, are also key stakeholders, whose influence and perspectives are essential to developing effective strategies (kinash, crane, judd, & knight, 2015; kinash, et al., 2015). with this in mind, the ten-stars network was convened by professor shelley kinash, to encourage and support collaboration between all those interested in continuing to discuss, inform, and influence graduate employability. this special issue, was conceived as a way of sharing some of the network’s diverse and collective expertise with a broader audience, who are also invited to become part of our network (https://tenstars.graduateemployability.com/). all of the papers in this ten stars special issue are empirical, theoretically grounded and richly informed by the growing body of published employability literature. the roles and experience of our contributing authors are diverse, as are their research questions, methods and methodologies. however, all of the inquiries shared have been designed to impact graduate employability, so they are all contextualised to tertiary education, and provide recommendations for further research and efficacious practice related to learning and teaching for employability. importantly, none of the approaches examined are bolt-ons (requiring already busy students to do more). rather, authors have focussed on deeply considered approaches to designing and refining the tertiary educational experience, so that employability and careers perspectives are embedded in the student learning experience, and deeply contextualised to disciplines. http://www.unistars.org/ https://tenstars.graduateemployability.com/ kinash, s., & jorre de st jorre, t. (2019). editorial: ten stars special issue. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 10(1), 1–6. 2 the first three papers, focus on students’ experience of employability. these papers examine: what students need to identify who they are, and who they are becoming, in the context of careers. bates, rixon, carbone and pilgrim challenge us to think beyond simple notions of employability skills, and to consider what else students will need to develop and pursue their changing career goals. the authors propose that employability is determined by a person’s ‘professional purpose’ which reflects ‘commitment to developing a professional future aligned to their personal values, professional aspirations and societal outlook’. the paper draws together findings from two empirical studies examining whether professional purpose is explicit in curriculum purposefully designed to influence students’ mindset, one with 33 undergraduate students, and the other with 42 academics. the authors conclude that professional purpose can be made explicit in the curriculum, and propose directions for further research and a conceptual model for the development of professional purpose mindsets. whereas bates et al., propose a model for what students need, jorre de st jorre, elliott, johnson and bisset examine students’ own priorities and conception of factors relevant to employment and employability. through analysis of interviews with 138 science students from four australian universities, the authors investigate whether students are more preoccupied with gaining immediate employment or long-term employability for future careers, and their beliefs about actions that will help them. the authors found that students were most concerned about obtaining employment immediately after graduation. students were eager to increase their chances of gaining employment and achieving their career goals, but many were unsure about how to proceed. the authors call on universities to ‘explicitly design curriculum to help students understand: the career opportunities available; the skills and abilities needed for diverse careers; and the experiences through which they might develop and evidence these’. teychenne et al. also examine students’ career planning strategies and concerns, and emphasise the need for universities to develop students’ career planning skills and behaviours. however, they also illustrate how a brief intervention was able to improve students’ career adaptability in a second-year exercise and public health-related unit. the authors’ analysed preand post-intervention questionnaires completed by 80 students to examine how an online career planning module influenced students career planning, decision making, problem solving/confidence and exploration, and observed small but significant improvements in all areas of career adaptability examined. these results can be interpreted as proof of concept for their career planning approach. this is a space to watch, as the approach described is expanded and tested across more diverse groups of learners, including those in other disciplines. the remaining papers shift in focus from students’ experience of employability, to those of other stakeholders. the first three of these, examine challenges and opportunities associated with developing graduate employability at scale. like other papers already described, bridgstock, grant-iramu and mcalpine emphasise the importance of career development learning and encourage institutions to integrate it with other curriculum so that all students can benefit. however, the authors explore the challenges and opportunities faced by tertiary institutions seeking to integrate career development learning across the curriculum. the authors draw on case studies and interviews with 37 staff across nine universities (in australia and internationally), and present three cases to illustrate a range of policies and practices that exist, and their own strategy recommendations. the authors point to the importance of cross-disciplinary collaboration between career development practitioners, learning designers and academic units to embedding career development learning into the curriculum at scale. young et al. also highlight the importance of cross-disciplinary collaboration to embedding learning relevant to employability into the curriculum. in their paper, assessment-led reform: creating a sustainable culture for on and off campus wil, the authors describe an action research project used to enhance assessment across two science programs at an australian kinash, s., & jorre de st jorre, t. (2019). editorial: ten stars special issue. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 10(1), 1–6. 3 university. the authors utilised a mixed method approach to collecting and analysing data from students, industry and course teams, to identify factors that were important to redesigning assessment at a program level. in particular, they highlight the importance of building the confidence of discipline experts and developing transparent partnerships between students, industry and faculty. dollinger and brown propose a model that institutions might use to guide comparison of different work-integrated learning strategies. the authors utilise student and staff interviews to compare the benefits and drawbacks associated with four different types of work-integrated learning, implemented across three australian universities. the authors provide a comparison table, which succinctly plots low, medium or high ease of implementation, barriers, scalability, authenticity and proximity. the paper provides further evidence to support the inter-textual claim that wil is an efficacious employability strategy. the type of wil that appears to hold the most promise, according to the authors’ cost-benefit analysis, was industry-based placements within formal subjects. however, the authors acknowledge that their sample sizes are low, and that their findings should be interpreted as postulations or hypotheses. this highlights opportunities, for these authors or others, to replicate and extend this research and analysis. the next three papers extend earlier discussion about the value of collaboration and industry partnerships, by examining how universities might deepen industry engagement and partnerships to design and deliver curriculum that improves graduate outcomes. male and king examine how industry engagement contributes to graduate learning outcomes and employability in engineering. the authors draw on the results of a national study that examined student and employer perspectives of engineering education. they present a theoretical framework and model for designing effective engineering education, and guidelines for effective industry engagement, that include recommendations for faculties, industry, professional and industry peak bodies, and governments. the authors also track the long-term development of wil in engineering and flag a change in the peak professional body’s conceptualisation of the role of wil, from student ‘exposure’ to student ‘engagement’. while this inquiry is situated in engineering, it provides useful examples and a benchmark for other disciplines. walker, morrison and hay also extol the virtues of professional experience for developing employability. in the context of teacher preparation, they examine how and to what extent strategic partnerships influence the quality of interactions between a school of education and partner schools, including students perceptions of their in-school placement experiences. the researchers analysed survey responses from pre-service teachers who had undertaken placements at partnership (n = 25) and non-partnership schools (n = 26). over 90% of students in both cohorts agreed that the ‘final practicum experience was a valuable part’ of their teacher preparation, but there were subtle differences between students experience in partnership and non-partnership schools. overall the partnership program had positive impacts on pre-service teacher preparation, however, an unanticipated finding was that preservice teachers in non-partner school settings actually had more opportunities to observe and interact with other teachers (not just their supervising mentor) and participate in broader school activities. thus the study highlights the importance of ongoing partnership development informed by evaluation of student and stakeholder experiences. clarke and windslade affirm the findings of walker, et al. described immediately above, but provide an alternative model for developing school-university partnerships in teacher education. ‘initial teacher education programs have been perennially criticised by school educators for their lack of connection to the authenticity of ‘real-world’ classroom practice’. the authors seek to address this through the development of a team teaching approach collaboratively designed by an academic experienced in teacher education and two secondary school teachers. although the pilot project described was implemented at a small scale, the researchers collected and analysed data from multiple sources to identify common themes, kinash, s., & jorre de st jorre, t. (2019). editorial: ten stars special issue. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 10(1), 1–6. 4 including: interviews with teacher partners preand postteaching the professional experience subject; student blogs and experience surveys; and journaling by the academic. the authors identify challenges and benefits associated with the partnership model, but overall found that it added value to the professional experience of students, while also having reciprocal value for partner school teachers. a key takeaway from this paper is the importance of respect for different expertise to balancing power and building effective and reciprocal partnerships. the trial has established proof of concept and highlighted areas for further development, in particular expansion at scale. while situated in teacher education, the paper provides an efficacious employability initiative that could be adapted to other contexts, disciplines and industries. the final three papers, each expand discussion about what tertiary institutions are doing, and could do, to support graduate employability in unique ways. fraser, duignan, stewart and rodrigues expand the context of this special issue, both in terms of geography and tertiary institution type. their inquiry across is set across seven new zealand institutes of technology and polytechnics (itps). the researchers used classroom observation and interviews with 23 experienced itp teachers to identify practices used to nurture ten core employability attributes in students and graduates: positive attitude, communication, teamwork, self-management, willingness to learn, thinking skills, resilience, innovation, entrepreneurship and cultural competence. a key contribution of the authors’ is an open, online dashboard of strategies and resources organised and tagged by the ten employability attributes (https://sites.google.com/view/employabilityskills). the authors conclude their paper by writing, “we have only just begun.” readers are encouraged to connect with the authoring team and build-upon this action research. oraison, konjarski and howe, take an important step back from the strategies used to develop employability skills, to examine whether the skills articulated are actually fit for purpose. the authors examine alignment between course specific graduate attributes, accreditation requirements and industry employability criteria (selection criteria in job advertisements) across three disciplines at an australian university. in other words, they asked are the capabilities that graduates are expected to develop (course specific graduate attributes) equivalent to what professional bodies say graduates need (accreditation requirements) and what employers are actually asking for in job advertisements (industry employability criteria)? the authors found that the answer to their question was ‘mostly’. however, universityarticulated graduate attributes and professional association accreditation standards both tend to include ‘cultural understandings’ and ‘attitudes towards inclusion and diversity’, whereas the selection criteria associated with job advertisements seldom include these components. does one or the other side of the equation need to change? is this a case in which universities and professional associations are trail-blazers and that employers will follow this lead? read this compelling paper to inform your reflections. finally, this special issue concludes with a novel paper examining universities as employers of graduates. arvanitakis et al., peer into our own backyard, and inquire into how well universities are doing at supporting our graduates to transition into and through university careers, in particular, work related to learning and teaching. the five authors candidly share and analyse their own career stories, alongside 322 recent university vacancies from two universities, to investigate: what do learning and teaching careers look like at universities? and, what are the occupational patterns, satisfactions and concerns of staff in those careers? they conclude that the transition into and through university careers in learning and teaching is mostly haphazard, and present recommendations for universities, and graduates pursuing or navigating careers in higher education teaching and learning. in summary, this special issue of the journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability includes twelve empirical investigations into the scholarship of teaching and learning for heightened graduate employability. the included inquiries span diverse contexts and approaches, from large scale national projects to small action research projects, and https://sites.google.com/view/employabilityskills kinash, s., & jorre de st jorre, t. (2019). editorial: ten stars special issue. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 10(1), 1–6. 5 cross-disciplinary inquiries to studies that focus-in on particular disciplines such as science, engineering and teacher preparation. however, all of the studies included have been selected because separately, but especially together, they build on the existing literature and approaches for developing graduate employability, and provide value able insights that can be adopted in similar contexts or adapted to enrich others. acknowledgements we would like to thank all of the ten-star members who contributed to this special issue, from those who helped to conceive the idea, to those who wrote and reviewed papers. we also offer our sincere thanks to prof beverley oliver and the jltge editorial board for their support. last but not least, we would like to acknowledge the guidance, expertise and dedication of journal manager, di gardiner, who has been integral to the publication of this special issue. guest editors: professor shelley kinash and dr trina jorre de st jorre kinash, s., & jorre de st jorre, t. (2019). editorial: ten stars special issue. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 10(1), 1–6. 6 references kinash, s., crane, l., judd, m-m., & knight, c. (2015). discrepant stakeholder perspectives on graduate employability strategies. higher education research & development, 35(5), 951– 967. doi:10.1080/07294360.2016.1139555 kinash, s., crane, l., judd, m-m., mitchell, k., mclean, m., knight, c., … schulz, m. (2015). supporting graduate employability from generalist disciplines through employer and private institution collaboration. report prepared for the office for learning and teaching. canberra: australian government. oliver, b., & jorre de st jorre, t. (2018). graduate attributes for 2020 and beyond: recommendations for australian higher education providers. higher education research & development, 37, 821–836. quin, r. (2010). editorial. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 1, 2–12. nghia, t. (2017). developing generic skills for students via extra-curricular activities in vietnamese universities: practices and influential factors. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 8(1), 22–39. 22 developing generic skills for students via extra-curricular activities in vietnamese universities: practices and influential factors tran le huu nghia tlhnghia@gmail.com melbourne centre for the study of higher education, university of melbourne abstract developing generic skills (gs) for students has become central in many higher education curricula in recent times. however, there is still a lack of studies regarding how these skills are developed for students, especially in developing countries. drawing from a phd study, this paper reports the contribution of extra-curricular activities in developing gs for students in vietnamese universities and analyses factors influencing the effectiveness of developing gs for students via these activities. a content analysis of relevant documents and 69 interviews with university leaders, academics and organisers of the youth union and its associates (yua) showed that extra-curricular activities were an integral component of a university’s strategy for training students in gs. this was due to a lack of autonomy over the curriculum, which prevented most vietnamese universities from adding skills subjects into the curriculum. furthermore, the yua also had a long-standing tradition of developing non-discipline-specific skills for students. the yua were found to be successful in developing gs for students via extra-curricular activities; however, their operation was influenced by university leadership, student participation, external stakeholders’ support, and the leadership of the yua. the paper argues that extra-curricular activities were conducive to developing gs for students; therefore, they should be included in skills development programs in higher education. key words: higher education, generic skills, extra-curricular activities, vietnam, the youth union introduction generic skills (gs) are defined as transferable, non-discipline specific skills that may be achieved through learning and can be applied in study, work, and life contexts (tertiary education quality and standards agency, 2013). these skills are found to enhance university graduates’ employability and lifelong learning abilities, help them cope with an unknown future, and enable them to act for the social good (hager & holland, 2006). these skills include but are not limited to communication, teamwork, problem-solving, and critical thinking skills, creativity, resilience, among several others (hager & holland, 2006). recently, initiatives related to gs implementation have been launched across the globe by international organisations and national governments (gonzález & wagenaar, 2003; hadgraft, pearce, edwards, fraillon, & coates, 2012; shattock, 2001). in many western developed mailto:tlhnghia@gmail.com nghia, t. (2017). developing generic skills for students via extra-curricular activities in vietnamese universities: practices and influential factors. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 8(1), 22–39. 23 countries, higher education (he) institutions have also begun to implement gs policy in their institutions using different concepts of gs, regardless of the consensus on developing gs to improve graduates’ employability. for example, among many gs selected, thai universities often focus on the development of ethical attributes for students to align with the buddhist culture of the country (chaisinthop, 2014; thai government, 2006). another example includes the danish government call for their universities to invest in developing lifelong learning skills for students due to the aging population and the flexicurity economic model (andersen, 2012; danish government, 2003). a study by pitman and broomhall (2009) also reveals differences in gs selected to develop for students between groups of australian universities, which researchers linked to visions and missions of these groups of institutions. universities were also found to implement gs policy at different scales as well as using different curriculum models and pedagogical practices (al-mahmood & gruba, 2007; barrie, hughes, smith, & thomson, 2009; pitman & broomhall, 2009). some universities execute gs policy institutionwide (fleming, donovan, beer, & clark, 2013) whereas others choose to implement it at a school or program level (o'neill, 2009). some universities embed gs that they have prioritised into each subject of a curriculum and employ student-centred pedagogies, including work integrated learning – to help students develop these skills via curriculum-based activities throughout their academic years (al-mahmood & gruba, 2007; barrie et al., 2009; stoner & milner, 2010). in contrast, some universities opt for developing stand-alone skills subjects to train students in gs independently from disciplinary contexts (al-mahmood & gruba, 2007; barrie et al., 2009). many also include extra or co-curricular activities to develop such skills for students (barrie et al., 2009). in short, the literature suggests that gs have been implemented inconsistently across universities, and greatly depend on national and institutional contexts (al-mahmood & gruba, 2007; barrie et al., 2009; pitman & broomhall, 2009). in vietnam, a developing non-english speaking country in the east, the ministry of education and training (moet) has launched many initiatives in order to improve graduates’ learning outcomes (harman, hayden, & pham, 2010). one of them was developing gs for students, which was scripted in the guideline 2196/bgdđt-gdđh (moet, 2010). however, there has not been a concrete definition for gs, even in the guideline 2196/bgdđt-gdđh (moet, 2010). generally, these skills are understood as kỹ năng mềm (soft skills), kỹ năng sống (life skills), or kỹ năng làm việc (work skills). among them, the concept that views gs as work skills seems to be dominantly adopted in many vietnamese universities partly because the purpose of he is to develop a highly quality workforce to serve the socio-economic targets of the country (vietnamese national congress, 2012). it is also adopted possibly because of the increasing demands for graduates with adequate work skills in the labour market (bodewig, badiani-magnusson, & macdonald, 2014; manpower group, 2011). since the guideline was issued, there have not been any studies that specifically investigate how this gs policy is implemented in vietnamese universities, especially ones examining the experiences and viewpoints of university leaders and academics, who are key agents of the implementation. therefore, a phd study was conducted in late 2013 and early 2014 to investigate influential factors of gs implementation in six vietnamese universities of different institutional contexts. one of the main findings of the study was that extra-curricular activities under the youth union and its associates (yua) – a social-political organisation led by the communist party and installed in all universities and schools in vietnam – were involved as an integral component to the institutional strategy for executing the moet’s gs policy. these activities were reported to have significantly contributed to developing gs for students. this finding differed from current practice in many western universities that appraises the effectiveness of developing gs via curriculum-based activities, and often treats extra-curricular activities as secondary (barrie et al., 2009). this paper will report types of extra-curricular activities that the yua organised to develop gs for students in vietnamese universities, analyse reasons why these activities were involved, and identify factors influencing the effectiveness of executing gs policy via these activities. the paper argues that extra-curricular activities have the potential nghia, t. (2017). developing generic skills for students via extra-curricular activities in vietnamese universities: practices and influential factors. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 8(1), 22–39. 24 to aid in the execution of gs policy; therefore, instead of disregarding them, university leaders should acknowledge, support and involve these activities in the institutional strategy for implementing gs policy, which will contribute to enhancing students’ employment outcomes. literature review context of gs implementation in vietnamese he the vietnamese he system possesses characteristics different from its counterparts in the west. it is characterised by a combination of confucian morals, western educational heritages and socialist ideologies (harman et al., 2010; pham & fry, 2002). the general aim of vietnamese he is to produce human resources with adequate skills and attributes to sustain the nation and integrate into the world market (vietnamese national congress, 2012). the he system has been undertaking tremendous reforms in recent years, including developing gs for students, aiming to enhance the effectiveness of university operation and improve the quality of its graduates. however, numerous obstacles have challenged these reforms, including a lack of curriculum and institutional autonomy, inadequately qualified teachers, insufficient resources, and a lack of collaboration with industries, to name a few (harman et al., 2010; tran, 2009; tran, 2015). developing gs, often conceptualised as work skills, for students has become an urgent mission for vietnamese universities due to three factors. after the doi moi policy, vietnam has experienced a high economic growth rate for successive years and has aimed at becoming an industrialised and modernised country by 2020 (world bank, 2008, 2017). unfortunately, there has been a shortage of a skilled labour force that is capable of effectively performing work duties (bodewig et al., 2014; manpower group, 2011; world bank, 2008). to achieve socio-economic targets and meet the demands for skilled labour, vietnamese universities have been expected to produce an adequate number of graduates with sufficient professional and work skills, which has place a huge pressure on them. secondly, vietnam has been exposed to increasing regional and global competition in terms of education and economy. upon becoming a member of the world trade organisation, vietnam also signed the general agreement on trade services, which allows foreign education providers to enter vietnam to provide their services (varghese, 2007). along with that, it joined the asean economic community at the end of 2015, which allowed free labour flow between member countries (the association of southeast asian nations, 2008). while joining the wto and the asean economic community could elevate vietnam’s competitiveness, it also exposes the country to intense competition in socio-economic, educational, cultural and political fields. in order to successfully compete in this community, and globally, the he system is expected to produce competent graduates to adequately maintain the competitiveness of vietnam in these markets. third, developing gs for students has become politically driven in vietnam, both in primary, secondary and tertiary education. the ministry of education and training has committed to improving the he system in order to make it comparable and competitive with others in the world. the he system has been undergoing unprecedented reforms since the early 2000s (harman et al., 2010). one of the central targets of the reforms is to increase the quantity and quality of university graduates, following the advice of the world bank’s consultation on planning for human resources to fill the need for socio-economic growth in the coming years (pham, 2010). one of the initiatives that directly makes gs development an essential mission is the issue of the guideline 2196/bgdđt-gdđh that formally mandated universities to develop gs for students (moet, 2010). as such, on top of developing gs for students as an aspiration to addressing socio-economic demands, developing gs has become a compulsory initiative. nghia, t. (2017). developing generic skills for students via extra-curricular activities in vietnamese universities: practices and influential factors. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 8(1), 22–39. 25 in short, developing gs for students has become relevant and important in vietnamese he. however, there have been hardly any studies that specifically investigate how gs policy has been realised in the universities. this study, therefore, will focus on examining how gs are developed for vietnamese university students using experiences and viewpoints of academics and university leaders, who are key agents in the process of developing these skills for students. the study will contribute to the existing literature by investigating gs implementation outside of western university contexts. extra-curricular and generic skills development extra-curricular activities are often used to develop gs for students in western universities in conjunction with curriculum-based activities (barrie et al., 2009). as the name suggests, these activities are considered secondary to curriculum-based activities for developing gs for students. these may include service learning activities, volunteering programs, certain skillfocused clubs, serving in student committees or undertaking non-compulsory internships, travels or field trips (barrie et al., 2009). studies in this area consistently suggest that these extra-curricular activities offer students many informal learning opportunities which are conducive to the development of students’ gs and greatly contribute to their employment outcomes (chmielewski-raimondo, mckeown, & brooks, 2016; clark, marsden, whyatt, thompson, & walker, 2015; hager & holland, 2006; lau, hsu, acosta, & hsu, 2014). for example, studying 28,768 taiwanese business graduates, lau et al. (2014) found that those who joined extra-curricular activities rated their communication, leadership, creativity, and selfpromotion skills higher than those who did not. a study by clark et al. (2015) also revealed that in british alumni’s opinions, extra-curricular activities helped develop their employability skills to a great extent, thus significantly contributing to helping them obtain their first job, and facilitating their work performance. possibly for these benefits, extra-curricular activities have been used more often in order to develop gs for students in he. different types of extra-curricular activities are found to influence the development of certain types of gs differently (lau et al., 2014). first, service learning, a process in which students learn and develop through active participation in meaningful services that are needed by the community (osman, 2011), provides good opportunities for students to develop their gs (for example, kalles & ryan, 2015; kearney, perkins, & maakrun, 2014; osman, 2011). by participating in this form of learning, students have opportunities to apply the already acquired knowledge into real-life situations, and develop several practical skills relevant for the context of that community. for example, in a study conducted in malaysia, osman (2011) found that students participating in provided service learning experiences were better able to understand their acquired knowledge and gain better communication skills in the multicultural context, as well as developing more effective collaborative working skills and higher perceptions of gender differences. the researcher also recognised a change in students’ perceptions of actual education and meaningful learning experiences. in addition, internships are beneficial for developing many gs for students (barrie et al., 2009). internships are often referred to as work-integrated learning, which is part of the curriculum and is often monitored by coordinators of a program or school. they can be categorised into the domain of extra-curricular activities in a sense that students can look for an unpaid position which may be relevant or irrelevant to their major to gain more work skills, experiences and connections with professionals (barrie et al., 2009). internships have been reported to help students develop a variety of gs, consolidate their specialised knowledge and skills and increase their employment opportunities (shoenfelt, stone, & kottke, 2013; tse, 2010). however, except for work placement organised by universities, there are not enough internship opportunities, as extra-curricular activities, available for all students to participate (barrie et al., 2009); thus, they must compete for such precious opportunities. nghia, t. (2017). developing generic skills for students via extra-curricular activities in vietnamese universities: practices and influential factors. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 8(1), 22–39. 26 furthermore, travel and field trips are also reported to be conducive to developing gs for students (chmielewski-raimondo et al., 2016; falk, ballantyne, packer, & benckendorff, 2012; scarinci & pearce, 2012). for example, scarinci and pearce (2012) studied 326 undergraduate business students at northwood university (florida, usa) and found that travels helped students improve 18 gs moderately to greatly. the skills that improved the most were independence, being open-minded, adaptability, feeling comfortable around all types of people, being understanding and overall awareness. however, these activities are costly and need external stakeholders’ support; thus, it is not often organised, especially in developing countries and by those who self-fund their higher education studies. however, organising extra-curricular activities has faced many barriers. the first challenge is associated with student participation. as it is treated as extra-curricular, many students may disregard the importance of such activities when compared with specialised knowledge taught in class (al-ansari et al., 2016; tran, 2015). the second challenge is that some types of extracurricular activities such as being a research assistant or intern, or serving in a student committee are unable to involve a large number of students (barrie et al., 2009). next, in most extra-curricular activities, students appear to only play the role of observers, which hinders them from developing leadership skills or organisational skills. finally, as most extracurricular activities are linked to local communities, the support of external stakeholders, such as local people, industries or authorities are essential. without their support, extra-curricular activities may only occur on campus, which will hinder the development of gs in real-life contexts. in the case of vietnam, extra-curricular activities have been coordinated by the youth union, which is a social-political organisation founded by ho chi minh and led by the labour party, the only political party in vietnam currently. information on the website of the youth union (ho chi minh communist youth union, 2015) declares its three functions as below:  contributing to building the party, inheriting and sustaining the legacy of the party and ho chi minh;  creating an environment for young people to study and develop their personalities, competence of a worker suitable for the society’s; and  being a representative who cares and protects the legal rights of young people. in vietnamese universities, the primary duty of the youth union is to provide political education to students. however, it also extends to work with other clubs that develop students’ learning skills, nurturing their talents in music and fine arts, or with agencies that assist students with their career, and with student associations to conduct social engagement activities. for example, they have organised the green summer campaign (chiến dịch mùa hè xanh) for students to go to rural areas to teach poor children or help disadvantaged people, or they transfer knowledge and technologies to farmers. recently, the organisations have been involved in teaching students concrete skills that immediately enhance students’ employment outcomes (tran, 2015). in some universities, the yua also links students with local employers and industries through career fairs or career consultation services. although they are categorised as extra-curricular activities, student participation in those activities are usually recorded and assessed against concrete criteria at the end of each semester to generate the so-called điểm rèn luyện, or self-improvement score. it is not added into students’ academic achievements, but is used as a reference when granting scholarships. still, students’ achievements in yua activities are often beneficial for students when they look for employment, especially in public services and organisations. the roles of the yua extra-curricular activities in vietnamese universities have not been adequately researched and documented. the reason why the yua extra-curricular activities were involved, how effectively they could contribute to executing gs policy, and which factors influenced the effectiveness of developing gs for students via these activities should be nghia, t. (2017). developing generic skills for students via extra-curricular activities in vietnamese universities: practices and influential factors. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 8(1), 22–39. 27 examined adequately. by doing so, more insights into practices for gs implementation in he contexts would be produced, adding more options for universities to choose from when executing gs policy. the study the phd study was conducted as a qualitative multiple case study, which provides an opportunity to investigate the implementation of gs in its real-life context and to compare the implementation across the cases to identify similarities and differences (yin, 2009). the study received ethics approval from the university of melbourne in 2013. the universities were selected based on the maximum variation sampling principle, which allowed the researcher to achieve representativeness by looking for universities of a wide range of extremes (merriam, 2009). in total, three public and three non-public universities of different institutional contexts were recruited for this study (table 1). to ensure feasibility, this study was conducted in the south of vietnam. to preserve the distinctive characteristics of gs in a discipline (jones, 2010), this study focused on investigating the implementation of gs solely in the business administration program, rather than across disciplines offered by the selected universities. focusing on one program allowed the researcher to analyse the implementation of that program across levels of a university organisation structure and compare the implementation across the universities more reasonably. the business administration program was chosen for two reasons: (1) it is the most popular program found across the universities in vietnam, and (2) there is more evidence of gs implementation in the economics schools than others. the participants in each selected university were recruited using a snowball sampling technique (browne, 2005), which allowed the researcher to approach potential participants based on the recommendation of another participant. the researcher first searched profiles of university leaders on the university website and contacted the one in charge of academic affairs to request permission to conduct the study in their institution, as well as to obtain an interview. that university leader was then asked to nominate leaders of the school of business administration (or an equivalent title) that were involved in the implementation, to be interviewed. after interviewing these school leaders, the researcher then asked them to nominate teachers who would be interviewed about how gs policy was put into practice at the subject level. the researcher also sent emails to the yua leaders so that they could appoint an organiser to attend the interview, in most cases, this would be the leader of the youth union. this technique helped ensure that the researcher interviewed key informants involved in gs implementation in their institution. in total, 69 university leaders, school leaders, disciplinary teachers and skills teachers, as well as the yua leaders and staff members (hereafter, yua organisers) were recruited (table 1). students were not involved in this study because it focused specifically on analysing university leaders’, university staff members’ and academics’ viewpoints. nghia, t. (2017). developing generic skills for students via extra-curricular activities in vietnamese universities: practices and influential factors. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 8(1), 22–39. 28 table 1. summary of universities and participants name institutional context participants university a (public) located in a regional city, university a is governed by the moet in terms of academic affairs, and by both the moet and the local authority in terms of finance and administration. this institutional context is typical for most public universities in the system.  4 leaders  7 teachers  2yua organisers university b (public) located in a metropolitan city, university b is considered one of the 14 key universities in vietnam at the time of research. it was waiting for autonomy in curriculum design and finance management to be enacted in 2015. the context of a prestigious university without curriculum autonomy makes it a special case to include in this study.  4 leaders  8 teachers  1yua organiser university c (public) located in an average-sized city, university c is considered one of the leading universities of the eight socio-economic regions in vietnam. it is directly governed by the moet in terms of academic affairs, funding and administration. in recent years, it has become well known for innovations in pedagogy and management practices.  3 leaders  9 teachers  1 yua organiser university d (private) located in a metropolitan city, university d was upgraded from a semi-public vocational college in a metropolitan city. it is among 37 non-public universities that was established or upgraded after the hera was launched in 2005. it is supervised by the moet, but with curriculum autonomy. this curriculum autonomy and vocational education tradition make it a special case study.  4 leaders  5 teachers  1 yua organiser university e (private) located in a regional city, university e is among 37 non-public universities that was established or upgraded after the hera was approved by the moet in 2005. this university reports to the moet mostly in terms of academic affairs. it does not have curriculum autonomy. this university represents newly established private universities in vietnam.  3 leaders  6 teachers  1 yua organiser university f (private) located in a metropolitan city, university f is one of the first 17 non-public universities in vietnam that were established in the 1990s. the university is supervised by the moet primarily in terms of academic affairs. it represents the longestestablished private universities in vietnam.  3 leaders  6 teachers  1 yua organiser semi-structured interviews (horton, macve, & struyven, 2004) were used to collect data from the participants. in the interviews, participants were asked about factors influencing the implementation of gs policy in their institution, based on their experience. the interviews focused on three aspects of the implementation: (a) leadership and management issues, (b) curriculum-based gs development activities, and (c) extra-curricular activities that nurtured nghia, t. (2017). developing generic skills for students via extra-curricular activities in vietnamese universities: practices and influential factors. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 8(1), 22–39. 29 students’ gs development. all interviews were recorded and transcribed verbatim for the analysis. in addition, documents that were available on university websites or provided by participants were collected. examples of these documents were statements of learning outcomes, minutes and decisions made by university and school leaders on issues related to curriculum and learning outcomes, samples of lessons plan and assessment tasks that teachers used to teach and assess gs. a qualitative content analysis was employed to analyse the data (elo & kyngäs, 2008). this approach not only allowed the researcher to draw key points of gs implementation but also interpret why they occur (kohlbacher, 2006), which fits the purpose of this study. for the purpose of this article, on a case by case basis, data were coded and put into three categories: (i) reasons that vietnamese universities involved the yua extra-curricular activities in developing gs for students, (ii) what extra-curricular activities were organised to train students in gs, and (iii) factors influencing the effectiveness developing students’ gs via the yua extracurricular activities. the codes were subsequently compared across the cases to find similarities and differences. this step also involved evidence-based interpretation of factors influencing the roles and contributions of the yua extra-curricular activities. finally, the results emerging from the analysis were organised into the final report. findings the analysis showed that regardless of the differences in gs they selected to train students in, the six universities shared the same concept when executing the moet’s gs policy: developing work-readiness skills for students. examples of skills they treated as gs within the adopted concept were creativity, communication, presentation, teamwork, problem-solving, cv writing and job interview skills. in line with the guideline 2196/bgdđt-gdđh (moet, 2010), they also treated english and computer skills as gs. the universities commonly translated the concept into practice in two ways.  via curriculum-based activities, they added some skills subjects, which were coordinated by skills teachers, to train students in work-related gs. in specialised subjects of a discipline, they either explicitly required or only encouraged disciplinary teachers to develop gs for students.  via extra-curricular activities, under the yua, they invited skills experts, successful business people or employers to inspire students, train them in practical work skills such as job interviews and cv writing. the yua also collaborate with external stakeholders to organise community engagement activities, field trips or charity work, through which students could also develop a myriad of gs. as such, extra-curricular activities were included in the institutional strategy for executing gs policy in vietnamese universities. however, the contribution of this type of informal learning appeared to vary between the six universities. university a the university and school leaders suggested that the yua extra-curricular activities were involved in gs implementation because the moet’s regulations of 120-140 credits for undergraduate programs restricted them from adding skills subjects into the curriculum, and because the yua had experience in training students in social skills via different types of extracurricular activities. the yua organisers stated that they had successfully organised diverse extra-curricular activities to (i) support the transition of first year students into the university, and (ii) help final year students succeed when seeking employment. together with the yua organisers, participants consistently reported that students could join the yua skills classes, career nghia, t. (2017). developing generic skills for students via extra-curricular activities in vietnamese universities: practices and influential factors. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 8(1), 22–39. 30 consultation, career fairs, and social engagement activities with the support of skills experts, employers and successful business people. the yua organisers commented that although the yua activities were voluntary, student participation rates were high, commenting that students learned eagerly and asked many questions in their skills classes. the yua organisers acknowledged the support of university leaders – mostly in administrative work–as a significant factor in their success, while a lack of funding and connections with people in industries limited their work. they explained that being a small university in a regional city, they did not receive any donations from alumni, employers or enterprises, aside from financial aid from an international organisation to teach skills for students from disadvantaged backgrounds. they revealed that the university did not have many resources for extra-curricular activities, as much of it was allocated for reforming academic and administrative practices simultaneously occurring in the institution. university b the university leaders suggested that they intentionally delayed gs implementation via curriculum-based activities until 2015, when they would have autonomy in curriculum and finance management to conduct a comprehensive institutional reform. therefore, at the time of research, the yua extra-curricular activities were the main channel through which students could develop gs in the university. this is not surprising given that the yua were experienced in organising extra-curricular activities, as was confirmed by most participants from this university. the participants consistently reported many types of activities that the yua had been organising to develop gs for students, such as career consultation, seminars on work skills, cv writing and job interview skills, charity work or field trips to local businesses. the participants agreed that students who joined the yua extra-curricular activities appeared to possess better gs than those who did not. however, in participants’ views, despite a high rate of student participation in the yua activities, many of them appeared to participate only for the self-improvement score, which influenced their scholarship and probably future employment opportunities. the yua organiser also pointed out that students and staff members in the university still considered the yua activities as play rather than learning, which he saw as the biggest obstacle for the yua to conduct gs training for students. fortunately, the yua organiser, university leaders and three teachers reported that extensive connections with industries facilitated the yua work regarding developing work-readiness skills for students in terms of providing financial support, skills experts, and field trips. university c like most of the cases in this study, the university and school leaders interviewed suggested that they involved the yua extra-curricular activities in gs implementation because of the moet’s restriction of the credit number for undergraduate programs, which made it difficult to add skills subjects into the curriculum. moreover, based on the yua’s effective operation, university leaders decided to let the yua to coordinate at least compulsory skills subjects to all students in the university, not only voluntary activities as in the other five universities. the yua organiser suggested three main objectives of the yua extra-curricular activities: (i) developing students’ confidence, (ii) enhancing their abilities for social engagement, and (iii) improving their employment outcomes. he named many activities that would develop gs for students, such as career consultation, skills classes, career fairs, arts clubs, charity organisations, and community engagement activities. all participants in this case suggested that extra-curricular activities helped improve gs for students to a great extent. nghia, t. (2017). developing generic skills for students via extra-curricular activities in vietnamese universities: practices and influential factors. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 8(1), 22–39. 31 the yua leader suggested that neighbouring provincial authorities and student associations supported their community engagement activities greatly in terms of finance and administrative work. he also mentioned that a shortage of funding from the university, and lack of connections with employers and skills experts in industries, limited work skills training activities. in a finding similar to that in university b, participants recognised a high rate of student participation in the yua activities; however, participants ascribed it to students’ attempts to get self-improvement scores rather than to improve their skills. university d participants from this university proudly reported that they had successfully developed gs for students via curriculum-based activities, which they attributed to university leadership, curriculum autonomy, and connections with industries. nevertheless, this university involved the yua extra-curricular activities as an additional channel for students to develop gs in reallife contexts, as suggested by a university leader. unlike the other five cases, the yua extra-curricular activities played the role of an additional channel through which students could further improve their gs. however, students themselves selected, designed and organised extra-curricular activities to train themselves as well as their peers in the desired skills with minimal direction from the yua leaders. the interviewed yua organiser reported that students had established more than 20 clubs to develop technical and generic skills for themselves, plus charity organisations and talent clubs. the yua organiser suggested that extensive connections with industries and proactive students enhanced the development of gs for students via extra-curricular activities. however, he recognised that students did not know how to apply for funds from the university or raise funds from external stakeholders, although these were available for them. university e the yua organiser and university leaders suggested that the moet’s regulation of credit number made university and school leaders unable to add all skills subjects into the curriculum as they wished; therefore, the yua extra-curricular activities were used as a means for students to develop their gs in addition to skills subjects the university had attempted to insert into the curriculum. the yua organiser stated that the main purpose of the yua work was (i) creating an environment for students to apply gs that they had learned in the class, and (ii) facilitating students’ transitions from the university to the workplace. he reported that apart from developing political attributes, the yua usually organised meetings with successful business people, career consultations, career fairs, and contests on disciplinary knowledge, sports, and arts. the yua organiser and all leaders suggested that participation of young academics and university staff members encouraged students to participate in the yua activities. in the yua organiser’s opinion, a lack of personnel was a challenge. he illustrated this with the example of the suspension of the green summer campaign, which was due to some students committing offences due to a lack of available staff members who would monitor students during the campaign. he also reported that a lack of funding from the university, due to university leaders allocating resources on building teacher capacity and facilities, and a shortage of donations from external stakeholders, due to being a small, newly established regional university, caused them to restrict their extra-curricular activities within the campus. nghia, t. (2017). developing generic skills for students via extra-curricular activities in vietnamese universities: practices and influential factors. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 8(1), 22–39. 32 university f in the school of business administration of university f, the dean refused to add skills subjects into the curriculum, as indicated by all disciplinary teachers in this case. this made the yua extra-curricular activities the primary channel for students to develop gs in this school. the yua organiser listed many extra-curricular activities they had organised, such as skills classes, career consultation, career fairs, social engagement activities and recreational activities that promoted competitiveness, collaboration and creativity on top of their primary role of training political qualities. to him, most of the extra-curricular activities were aimed to equip students with work-readiness skills. the yua organiser suggested that the support of university leaders, in terms of resources and administrative work, and assistance of young academics in organising extra-curricular activities, facilitated their work. more than half of the participants commented that existing relationships with business people and alumni benefited the yua with the development of work-readiness skills for students via extra-curricular activities. however, the yua organiser and three disciplinary teachers observed that many students only participated for the selfimprovement scores, which reduced the effectiveness of developing gs for students via the yua activities. discussion and conclusion the intention of this study was to examine how extra-curricular activities could help develop gs for students, analyse reasons why they were involved, and identify factors influencing the effectiveness of executing gs policy via this channel. each issue will be discussed in more depth in the following sections. the interviews with the participants of the six universities revealed that the yua conducted five types of extra-curricular activities to develop gs for their students:  training political qualities. the yua organisers stated that it was their conventional duty and that acquiring these political qualities would enable students to function more effectively in a socialist society. some examples of these qualities are a stable communism political stance, loyalty to the vietnamese communist party, and understanding work conventions and practices in public organisations.  coordinated skills classes. the yua regularly invited gs experts, both internal and external, to teach important work-readiness skills such as communication skills, job interview skills, cv writing, presentation skills, teamwork and career planning skills.  career consultation. the yua in the universities provided a career consultation service where students could come and request advice about their career paths. however, some of the participants noted that not many students used this service, suggesting that students were unaware of it.  linking students with employers. career fairs were organised in four universities so that students could meet potential employers, participate in mock job interviews, and attend workshops in cv writing and job interviews.  social engagement activities. diverse activities were organised to help students integrate into social programs such as the green summer campaign, caring for orphans and the elderly, hiv propaganda, environment protection projects, to name a few. information on university websites also reveals initiatives that helped students acquire cross-cultural competence, including cultural exchanges between vietnamese, thai and malaysian students in university c, or pairing vietnamese and foreign students in exchange semesters in university d. nghia, t. (2017). developing generic skills for students via extra-curricular activities in vietnamese universities: practices and influential factors. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 8(1), 22–39. 33 unlike the existing literature (barrie et al., 2009; chmielewski-raimondo et al., 2016; falk et al., 2012; scarinci & pearce, 2012), internships and field trips were not organised by the yua, but they were included as capstone and compulsory subjects in many programs offered by vietnamese universities. together with treating english and computer skills as gs, the placing of internships and field trips within the domain of curriculum-based activity, confirms that gs are conceptualised differently between he contexts (pitman & broomhall, 2009). the analysis suggested two main reasons why the yua extra-curricular activities were involved. firstly, curriculum and pedagogical issues prevented the use of curriculum-based activities to develop gs for students. in the literature, many universities choose to embed gs into subjects in the curricula. however, this strategy depends heavily on the engagement and collaboration of all teachers as well as their capacity to use effective pedagogies to impart disciplinary knowledge and skills as well as gs to students. this strategy appears unfeasible for many vietnamese universities due to a lack of teachers’ capacity and their inertia in using traditional teaching and learning methods. it was likely this was the reason that vietnamese universities chose to add skills subjects into curricula, as this strategy made gs implementation more explicit to stakeholders, and only required the engagement of skilled teachers or experts. other teachers in the universities were required or encouraged to teach gs dependent on the policy of each institution. unfortunately, the moet’s regulation of 120140 credits per undergraduate program prevented five universities from adding more than two skills subjects that trained students in communication, teamwork, and problem-solving skills among others. therefore, the yua extra-curricular activities were used to offer students more opportunities to develop gs. although university d could develop gs for students via curriculum-based activities due to having curriculum autonomy, extra-curricular activities were used to create more opportunities for students to practice the gs they learned in class. secondly, the yua had a long-standing tradition of training students in social engagement activities. therefore, it was relevant for them to continue and expand their work regarding training students in gs, not just in social engagement skills. perhaps, without these two concurrently existing conditions, vietnamese universities would have added many skills subjects into the curricula, or with adequate experience, integrated the selected gs into disciplinary subjects, and continued to treat extra-curricular activities as an adjunct part of students’ campus life, as seen in western universities (barrie et al., 2009). thus, the involvement of the yua extra-curricular activities in training gs for students incidentally elevated the importance of the so-called ‘extra-curricular activities’ in vietnamese universities. regardless of multiple activities the yua organised to train students in gs, the role of these activities in the institutional gs implementation strategy varied between the universities. at the time of research, along with difficulty caused by the moet’s regulation of credits, there were many priorities or institutional reforms simultaneously taking place (harman et al., 2010); therefore, the yua’s extra-curricular activities were the main channel through which gs policy was executed in five universities. in university d, the yua extra-curricular activities were an additional channel for implementing gs policy. aside from being a principal or additional channel in executing gs policy, it was evident in this study that the yua extra-curricular activities contributed a great deal to the development of students’ gs. most participants agreed that students who participated in the yua activities were more ‘active’ and ‘dynamic’, self-regulated their learning more effectively, as well as obtaining employment upon graduate earlier than their peers. although students’ perspectives were not investigated in this study, participants’ experiences suggested that extra-curricular activities were conducive to developing gs in students, as found in recent studies (kalles & ryan, 2015; kearney et al., 2014; osman, 2011). thus, with such contributions to the development of students’ gs, extracurricular activities should be involved as an inherent part of the institutional strategies for training students in these skills. nghia, t. (2017). developing generic skills for students via extra-curricular activities in vietnamese universities: practices and influential factors. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 8(1), 22–39. 34 regarding factors influencing the effectiveness of the yua extra-curricular activities, this appeared to be firstly influenced by institutional leadership. included as an integral part of the institutional gs implementation strategy, the yua extra-curricular activities had to be organised in line with the institutional concept for executing gs policy. in this study, although there were slight differences in which skills each university selected, the main concept of the implementation was developing work-readiness skills, which is consistent with the purpose of the he system (vietnamese national congress, 2012); therefore, yua extra-curricular activities were also oriented in this direction, as evidenced earlier. also, institutional leadership defined the yua extra-curricular activities as the principal or additional channel through which gs implementation was executed. this determined the extent to which the yua extracurricular activities could contribute to developing students’ gs during their time at the university. likewise, how university leaders communicated the role of the yua extra-curricular activities to stakeholders also would either facilitate or hinder their work. the analysis showed that in most of the case studies, students, teachers and other stakeholders were not adequately informed with clarity on the role. therefore, the yua extra-curricular activities were still disregarded and the importance of this style of informal learning continued to be underestimated. these findings indicate that institutional leadership must be effectively exercised in order to change stakeholders’ views of and engagement with developing gs via extra-curricular activities. secondly, the effectiveness of the yua extra-curricular activities seemed to depend on students’ participation. many participants across the six universities observed that students joined in the yua activities enthusiastically and associated participation with progress in gs or employment outcomes. at the same time, the participants also observed that many students only participated in these activities for the self-improvement score that would enhance their chance of getting a scholarship, which is consistent with a finding from tran (2015) who interviewed vietnamese students and found that they often participated in gs-development activities superficially. therefore, it is imperative that universities inform stakeholders of the role and the benefits of participating in the yua’s extra-curricular activities, should they use these activities as a channel to develop gs for students. thirdly, an extensive connection with external stakeholders appears to be significant for the yua to organise extra-curricular activities. this study showed that the majority of extracurricular activities were organised with the support of external stakeholders’ in terms of personnel or donation. due to the simultaneous occurrence of institutional reforms and gs policy implementation (harman et al., 2010), the six universities appeared to have allocated insufficient resources for the yua activities. all yua organisers reported to have used the small grant for prioritised activities from the university, and had looked for other sources of funding from external stakeholders. in this respect, the yua of well-known universities, which also had an extensive network with industries, seemed to receive more personnel and financial support from employers and successful alumni, as demonstrated in university b, and from local authorities, as shown in university c. in contrast, this study also documented that the yua at university e struggled with organising extra-curricular and social engagement activities mostly due to a lack of funding from the university and almost no donations from external stakeholders. this case is consistent with previous studies that found many vietnamese universities have not adequately collaborated with external stakeholders in their teaching, training and research activities (tran, 2009; tran, 2015). all of these findings suggest that universities should endeavour to develop networks with external stakeholders in order to facilitate the use of extra-curricular activities for developing gs for students. fourth, the yua leaders influenced gs implementation via extra-curricular activities. most often, they decided which gs development activities would be organised, which skills experts would be invited, and the location that social engagement activities would take place. all of these were associated with their perception of the relevance of certain kinds of gs for students in the university, their experience in operating the yua, and their networking with external nghia, t. (2017). developing generic skills for students via extra-curricular activities in vietnamese universities: practices and influential factors. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 8(1), 22–39. 35 stakeholders. therefore, involving yua leaders in the process of conceptualising the implementation, developing their leadership skills and supporting them in forging relationships with external stakeholders are essential for the overall success of gs implementation. limitations and conclusion this study relied on perspectives of university leaders, academics and the yua leaders rather than the perspectives of students and graduates. therefore, the usefulness of extra-curricular activities in developing gs for students in he should be interpreted cautiously. future studies should include the voices of all stakeholders in order to explore how they view the importance of extra-curricular activities and confirm whether extra-curricular activities are conducive to the development of students’ gs and to what extent their gs could develop via such activities. in short, this study evidenced that extra-curricular activities could be used to successfully implement gs policy in he. diverse in their forms and interesting in nature, these activities are not always restricted by factors such as teacher qualifications, time, and venue. therefore, they should be included as an inherent component of the institutional strategy for executing gs policy, rather than an adjunct element as seen in many universities now. however, in order to effectively use these types of activities for the implementation, a number of issues need due attention. as extra-curricular activities are often treated as ‘extra’ and disregarded by students and other stakeholders, university leaders must communicate to students the importance and the role of these activities in developing gs, so that students can engage with participating in this type of informal learning and other stakeholders can give support when necessary. they should also allocate adequate resources for extra-curricular activities proportional to the contribution they could bring to student skills development programs in higher education. additionally, forging relationships with external stakeholders such as employers, skills experts, alumni, and local authorities is pivotal to developing gs for students via this channel because these stakeholders would create more opportunities, provide personnel or resources for learning via extra-curricular activities. all of these measures would elevate the roles of extra-curricular activities in he, and they would no longer be inferior to other academic activities in developing gs for students. nghia, t. (2017). developing generic skills for students via extra-curricular activities in vietnamese universities: practices and influential factors. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 8(1), 22–39. 36 acknowledgements this study was funded by the endeavour scholarship and fellowship program, australian government. the author acknowledges thoughtful comments and advice on earlier drafts from associate professor sophie arkoudis, doctor ryan naylor and the anonymous reviewers. i am grateful to all of the participants and those who have supported me with the project. nghia, t. (2017). developing generic skills for students via extra-curricular activities in vietnamese universities: practices and influential factors. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 8(1), 22–39. 37 references al-ansari, a., al-harbi, f., abdelaziz, w., abdelsalam, m., el tantawi, m. m., & elrefae, i. 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(2015). accreditation requirements in allied health education: strengths, weaknesses and missed opportunities. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 6(1), 2—24 2 accreditation requirements in allied health education: strengths, weaknesses and missed opportunities lindy mcallister1, srivalli vilapakkam nagarajan1 lindy.mcallister@sydney.edu.au; srivalli.nagarajan@sydney.edu.au 1the university of sydney abstract this paper reviews the accreditation requirements for six allied health (ah) degree programs in australia to understand the range of accreditation requirements and approaches, with a particular focus on requirements around clinical education in ah education. strengths of current approaches and further requirements are identified. of particular interest are those areas where accreditation could better support educational goals and processes, including the preparation of work ready graduates and the encouragement of the use of currently underutilized opportunities for preparing the ah workforce for future healthcare needs. the findings suggest that the accreditation criteria perform well for the development of students’ conceptual and procedural knowledge. however, there are several opportunities for improvement where accreditation could better support preparation of graduates to meet current and future needs of healthcare. these opportunities include increased emphasis on biopsychosocial perspectives of health as healthcare models shift from hospital to community-based settings, increased emphasis on development of interprofessional skills, encouragement of diverse supervision models, explicitness about intentions and interpretations of accreditation requirements, and increased employer representation on accreditation panels. constraints on universities’ uses of new educational approaches imposed by or arising from non-explicit accreditation requirements are outlined. arising from this analysis, a summary of considerations for ah accreditation bodies is provided. keywords: allied health, accreditation, curriculum, pedagogy, active learning clinical placements, work readiness, health graduates. introduction accreditation of ah programs (also known as courses in australia) plays a crucial role in ensuring educational effectiveness, quality assurance and continuous improvement in higher education. it is largely seen as an organised means by which universities demonstrate quality education to students, universities, professional bodies, employer groups, the public and government (wergin, 2005; dodd, 2004). accreditation requires programs to demonstrate achievement of clearly defined purposes and objectives related to the preparation of students for practice, to demonstrate that adequate resources are available to achieve the program objectives and to include reasonable quality assurance measures that will enable continuous improvement (fauser, 1992). the main objectives of accreditation are ensuring the quality of programs and future graduates, and thereby protection of the public by ensuring that all health graduates are able to provide safe and high quality healthcare for patients. traditional models of accreditation are compliance-driven (see for example medical radiation practice board of australia [2014]) and require documentation to evidence the professional capabilities of graduates as described by the accrediting body, followed by site visits to clarify points of mailto:lindy.mcallister@sydney.edu.au mailto:srivalli.nagarajan@sydney.edu.au mcallister, l & nagarajan, s. v. (2015). accreditation requirements in allied health education: strengths, weaknesses and missed opportunities. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 6(1), 2—24 3 uncertainty, collect additional evidence and triangulate data (evidence) from multiple sources such as academics, students, clinical supervisors and employers. other models (see for example australian skills and quality authority course accreditation models [asqa, 2013]) use a university-based internal systemic approach to quality assurance and continuous improvement. in the past, accreditation often focused on educational inputs and resources, but in recent times there has been a shift in this focus with an increased emphasis being placed on student learning outcomes and attainment of competencies (wergin, 2005; speech pathology australia, 2011). this shift in emphasis is linked to changes such as enhanced curricular coherence (health workforce australia, 2011), more efficient preparation of the health workforce, and enhanced public accountability for investments in health professional education (ahpra, 2013; australian government, 2011). in addition to accreditation, universities’ academic quality performance against the higher education standards framework is also scrutinised by the tertiary education quality and standards agency (teqsa) (teqsa, 2014). in australia, ah pre-entry programs are developed by universities, based on professional standards, competency statements, registration and accreditation requirements, as well as university requirements and statements of graduate attributes. programs are then accredited by the relevant accrediting board or council of the australian health practitioner regulation agency (ahpra) for registered professions (e.g. australian physiotherapy council) or professional associations for non-registered professions (e.g. speech pathology australia) against their professional standards, competencies and accreditation requirements to ensure that all university programs meet the minimum standards and develop entry-level graduates ready for professional practice. accreditation standards developed by accrediting authorities identify the essential knowledge, skills and attributes required for competent entry-level practice in a specific profession. accreditation standards may take an international perspective to their accreditation standards (for example the world federation for occupational therapists (wfot) (2002)) or give importance to local contexts of practice (for example exercise and sports science australia (essa, 2012) or include both local and international perspectives. for example, wfot have developed minimum standards for the education of occupational therapists worldwide so that upon successful completion of occupational therapy courses all graduates will have comparable levels of skill, knowledge and ways of working. these standards are used by the occupational therapy board of australia and particularized to the national contexts for accreditation of occupational therapy programs in australia. a focus on both current and future workforce and patient needs should be at the core of any accreditation. consideration must be given to work readiness of graduates and their capacity to work within complex systems with complex patients needing interprofessional (ip) care, and deliver healthcare in both the community and hospitals (health workforce australia, 2010a). a shift from current perceptions about what a particular discipline does now to what they might need to do in the future must occur. in preparing graduates, consideration must also be given to new educational approaches which support the attainment of competence and quality while ensuring the safety of graduates; for example, using simulation, role-emerging placements and service learning, ip learning and ip supervision. however, in some cases these are not allowed or are implicitly discouraged as part of clinical education deemed appropriate by accreditation bodies (for example, see table 2 essa requirements for clinical supervision of exercise physiology students). given the changing needs for work ready graduates to be able to deliver healthcare in diverse settings, and the availability of new educational approaches to preparing health graduates, the purposes of this paper are to: a) review the accreditation requirements of ah professions (particularly in relation to clinical education); b) consider whether these requirements support the adoption of new educational technologies and approaches and c) investigate whether accreditation requirements are aligned with workplace requirements for work ready health mcallister, l & nagarajan, s. v. (2015). accreditation requirements in allied health education: strengths, weaknesses and missed opportunities. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 6(1), 2—24 4 graduates. although accreditation documents increasingly reference professional standards and competency documents, but these are often not explicitly included in accreditation documentation. the focus of this paper is on accreditation documentation. method a document analysis of current accreditation requirements for six ah professions in australia was conducted with a view to comparing the accreditation requirements across different ah professions, particularly in relation to clinical/fieldwork education components of the programs. while individual profession’s competency statements were not analysed, they were embedded in the accreditation requirements of some professions. the ah professions included were: occupational therapy (ot), physiotherapy (pt), speech pathology (sp), exercise physiology (ep), medical radiation sciences (mrs) and rehabilitation counselling (rc). table 1 lists the accreditation documents that were analysed. table 1: list of allied health accreditation documents used for analysis profession document title date/authors/ websites ot occupational therapy australia. (2011). self-study manual (revised) for accreditation of entry-level occupational therapy education programs. (2nd ed.). fitzroy. occupational therapy australia. (2013, january). guidelines for accreditation of entry-level occupational therapy programs. fitzroy. 2013. occupational therapy australia. http://www.otaus.com.au/about /entry-level-programaccreditation/accreditation-ofentry-level-education-programs sp accreditation is based on two documents: 1. speech pathology australia (2014). accreditation of speech pathology degree programs. melbourne, australia: speech pathology association of australia (spa). accreditation of speech pathology degree programs (document available on request to spa) http://www.speechpathologyau stralia.org.au/professionalstandards-ps/universityaccreditation ep exercise and sports science australia (essa) (2012). national university course accreditation program: policies, procedures and application form for academic units applying for accreditation of a course with exercise & sports science australia. exercise and sports science australia (essa) (2012). http://www.essa.org.au/foruniversities/page1369-2/ pt australian physiotherapy board: accreditation of entry level physiotherapy programs – a manual for universities australian physiotherapy council (2006). http://www.physiocouncil.com.a u/accreditation rc rehabilitation counselling association of australasia (rcaa) accreditation manual for rehabilitation counselling education programs 2012. rcaa (document made available via email to the authors upon request) mrs includes diagnostic radiography (dr). medical radiation practice board of australia (2013). accreditation standards: medical radiation practice december 2013. medical radiation practice board of australia (2014). medical radiation practice accreditation guidance material march 2014. http://www.medicalradiationpra cticeboard.gov.au/accreditation .aspx http://www.otaus.com.au/about/entry-level-program-accreditation/accreditation-of-entry-level-education-programs http://www.otaus.com.au/about/entry-level-program-accreditation/accreditation-of-entry-level-education-programs http://www.otaus.com.au/about/entry-level-program-accreditation/accreditation-of-entry-level-education-programs http://www.otaus.com.au/about/entry-level-program-accreditation/accreditation-of-entry-level-education-programs http://www.speechpathologyaustralia.org.au/professional-standards-ps/university-accreditation http://www.speechpathologyaustralia.org.au/professional-standards-ps/university-accreditation http://www.speechpathologyaustralia.org.au/professional-standards-ps/university-accreditation http://www.speechpathologyaustralia.org.au/professional-standards-ps/university-accreditation http://www.essa.org.au/for-universities/page1369-2/ http://www.essa.org.au/for-universities/page1369-2/ http://www.physiocouncil.com.au/accreditation http://www.physiocouncil.com.au/accreditation http://www.medicalradiationpracticeboard.gov.au/accreditation.aspx http://www.medicalradiationpracticeboard.gov.au/accreditation.aspx http://www.medicalradiationpracticeboard.gov.au/accreditation.aspx mcallister, l & nagarajan, s. v. (2015). accreditation requirements in allied health education: strengths, weaknesses and missed opportunities. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 6(1), 2—24 5 comparison analysis table 2 summarises a comparison for each discipline of accreditation requirements for program length, the minimum number of hours of clinical practice required of students, categories in which experience should be obtained, supervisory requirements, prescribed general/fieldwork teaching modes and educational methods, assessment tools used, supervisor to student ratios for placements, and any other requirements related to placements. duration of programs ah programs range from three to four years duration for undergraduate and one to two years for graduate entry masters programs. some ah programs (e.g. sp, pt, ot and ep) are delivered as four-year undergraduate or two-year graduate entry masters programs. others (e.g. rc) have a minimum of three years for undergraduate programs and a minimum of one year full time for postgraduate programs. dr requires a minimum of three years for undergraduate and two or two and a half years for graduate entry master programs. hours of clinical practice some ah professions specified the minimum number of hours of clinical placement with or without any conditions while others did not prescribe minimum hours of placement or specify any conditions. in professions such as ot, ep and rc accreditation guidelines specified the minimum number of hours of clinical placement and any conditions were provided. for example, 1000 hours of clinical practice are required in ot and it is also a requirement that students spend those hours implementing an ot process or an aspect of ot process with or for a real person. ep specified that only 50 hours out of the minimum 500 clinical hours could be used for simulated activities; another 50 hours should involve exercise prescription and the activities delivered by students are to be within the scope of practice of an accredited exercise physiologist (aep). in dr, pt and sp no specified number of hours of clinical practice was mandated. in these programs the clinical placement hours required for students varied from one university degree to another. for example, health workforce australia (2014) shows that the clinical education hours across the physiotherapy programs in australia during 2012 ranged from 594 hours to 1470 hours with an overall average of hours being 1000 hours. no specified minimum number of hours was provided for sp but students must be assessed as competent at the point of graduation, against the competency-based occupational standards (cbos) (speech pathology australia, 2011) for speech pathologists. categories in which experience should be obtained some ah professions specified the categories in which experience should be obtained and/or minimum and maximum number of hours for each experience category. for example, ot, sp, pt and ep requirements were very prescriptive. the type of prescription was however v varied. ots need to have clinical experience in a range of placements across the lifespan and in rural/remote as well as metropolitan settings. sp, on the other hand, requires students to obtain experience with both adult and paediatric caseloads in impairment categories of language, speech, voice, fluency, swallowing and multi-modal communication for units of competence 1-4 (assessment, analysis and interpretation, planning evidence-based speech pathology practice and implementation of speech pathology practice), as well as experiences to demonstrate competence in units 5-7 (planning, providing and managing speech pathology services, professional and supervisory practice and lifelong learning and reflective practice). mcallister, l & nagarajan, s. v. (2015). accreditation requirements in allied health education: strengths, weaknesses and missed opportunities. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 6(1), 2—24 6 discipline and accrediting entity program length hours (hrs)of clinical practice categories experience should be obtained in supervisory requirements teaching modes and educational methods for work integrated learning assessment tools supervisor to student ratios for placements occupational therapy occupational therapy australia and wfot 4 years for bachelor and 2 years for graduate entry master (gem). 1000 hrs minimum (as prescribed by international body wfot) occupation and ot, body structures and functions, biomedicine, human and social environment and social perspectives of health. must be supervised and assessed by an ot with at least one year's experience as an ot practitioner. no requirement for supervisor to be onsite. case studies, learning with and from recipients of ot, discussion, skills training, assignments, reflective exercises, projects, literature review, experiential learning, problem-based learning, interprofessional learning, lectures. education practices should address local contexts and be informed by international perspectives. assessment tool in australian ot programs: students practice evaluation form (spefrevised edition package (spef-r, 2013) not stated. exercise and sports sciences (includes exercise physiology) exercise and sports science australia (essa) exercise and sports sciences : 3 years for bachelor. exercise physiology: 4 years for bachelor and 2 years for gem ep. 500 hrs minimum apparently healthy (low risk) clientele minimum of 140 hrs in each of the following categories: cardiopulmonary/ metabolic; musculoskeletal/ neuromuscular/ neurological; maximum of 80 hrs in other clinical health delivery. depends on type of placement; supervisor qualifications range from qualified / degree trained in exercise sciences/physiology to certificate 4 in personal training with ten years industry experience. suitable supervisors for apparently healthy placements: an accredited exercise physiologist (aep); an essa exercise science member (es) a degree qualified exercise and sports science professional; a personal trainer with a certificate 4 in fitness with a minimum of 10 years industry experience; a degree qualified physical education teacher; a bachelor degree qualified/trained allied health professional with experience in exercise delivery (e.g. physiotherapist); a state, national and international level sports very prescriptive and detailed (essa, 2012). at least 60% of practicum hours should be face to face exercise delivery. up to 35% hours can be used for preparation for exercise services; up to 5% hours can be used for administration. for other clinical health delivery area there is no requirement for apportioning hours into these three categories. maximum of 50 clinical hours (out of the 500 hours) for simulated learning activities conditional that 50 hours involves exercise prescription and the activities are within the not stated clinical supervisor to student ratios may be up to 1:5 with the proviso that there must be some 1:1 supervision of each student at each placement. table 2: a comparison of ah programs across several accreditation requirements mcallister, l & nagarajan, s. v. (2015). accreditation requirements in allied health education: strengths, weaknesses and missed opportunities. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 6(1), 2—24 7 discipline and accrediting entity program length hours (hrs)of clinical practice categories experience should be obtained in supervisory requirements teaching modes and educational methods for work integrated learning assessment tools supervisor to student ratios for placements coach; an australian strength and conditioning association (asca) level 2 or 3 coach. suitable supervisors for cardiopulmonary/metabolic /musculoskeletal/neuromuscular/ neurological placements: an accredited exercise physiologist (aep); an essa exercise science member (es); a degree qualified exercise physiologist; a bachelor degree qualified/trained allied health professional with experience in exercise delivery (e.g. physiotherapist, cardiac care nurse, occupational therapist, doctor, clinical nurse consultant, osteopath). some (greater than 2) clinical hours in each category must be supervised by an aep (accredited exercise physiologist). flexibility in how 140 hours is spent (for example, 50 hours with cardiac nurse and 90 hours with aep) scope of practice of aep (accredited exercise physiologist criteria) speech pathology speech pathology australia 4 years for bachelor and 2 years for gem. not specified. no minimum hrs requirement, focus is on attainment of competency as defined by cbos prescriptive: range of practice (for child and adult) should cover 6 core areas and 4 principles. core areas: 1) language 2) speech 3) swallowing 4) voice 5) fluency 6) multimodal communication. principles: principle 1: in all work contexts and decisionqualified sp required as a supervisor. range of teaching modes used; flexible teaching modes with no prescribed conditions; simulation/ offsite experiences allowed; problem-based pbl or case studies encouraged. assessment using casebased and other exams, exams, case studies, essays, project work, and assessment tool: compass not stated. table 2: a comparison of ah programs across several accreditation requirements mcallister, l & nagarajan, s. v. (2015). accreditation requirements in allied health education: strengths, weaknesses and missed opportunities. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 6(1), 2—24 8 discipline and accrediting entity program length hours (hrs)of clinical practice categories experience should be obtained in supervisory requirements teaching modes and educational methods for work integrated learning assessment tools supervisor to student ratios for placements making, the speech pathologist must consider the recommended evidence base for the speech pathology practice. principle 2:speech pathologists at entry-level are not required to demonstrate full competence in areas of complex clinical practice. principle 3: there are a number of designated areas within the range of practice of speech pathology that are acknowledged as advanced practice and require further training and/or workplace credentialing in order for the speech pathologist to provide them. principle 4: interprofessional practice is a critical component of competence for an entrylevel speech pathologist. direct observation of work with patients. physiotherapy the australian physiotherapy council 4 years for bachelor and 2 years for gem. no minimum hrs requirement (used to be 850 hrs prescriptive: 3 core areas musculoskeletal pt, neurological pt, cardio respiratory pt and a range of settings and across the life span. further details in australian physiotherapy council (2006). experienced clinical supervisors /clinical supervision required. not necessary for a qualified pt to supervise a pt student. no prescribed modes. a variety of assessment modes is desirable including practical tests, objective structures clinical examination (osce), simulated skills and patients, role play/ performance, direct observation of work assessment tool: assessment of physiotherapy practice (app) (dalton et al., 2009) not stated. table 2: a comparison of ah programs across several accreditation requirements mcallister, l & nagarajan, s. v. (2015). accreditation requirements in allied health education: strengths, weaknesses and missed opportunities. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 6(1), 2—24 9 discipline and accrediting entity program length hours (hrs)of clinical practice categories experience should be obtained in supervisory requirements teaching modes and educational methods for work integrated learning assessment tools supervisor to student ratios for placements with patients. medical radiation sciences diagnostic radiography medical radiation practice board of australia (mrpba) for diagnostic radiograph y 3 + 1 year of supervised practice or 4 years for bachelor 2 +1 year of supervised practice or 2.5 years for gem not specified not prescribed general guidelines provided in mrpba’s accreditation document for dr programs not stated. supervisors must hold a general registration with mrpba and have radiation license (for example, in nsw radiation license with nsw epa) to supervise students on placements due to the nature of radiation (risks) and that such supervisors are onsite. also see note 2. not prescribed. if professional practice placement undertaken is at an international clinical site it should be equivalent (not defined) to those conducted in australia. not stated for diagnostic radiography not stated. rehabilitation counselling the rehabilitation counselling association of australasia (rcaa) min 3yrs full time bachelor or minimum 1 yr full time gem. 200 hrs minimum should include minimum of 80 hrs in direct service provision and direct client contact as appropriate for the program. student to receive minimum one hour of individual supervision each week of their placement. not stated. general practice is that the supervisor should be a qualified rehabilitation counsellor. not detailed. encourages use of a variety of approaches. not stated not stated. general practice is supervisor should be qualified and be available for direct supervision at least one hour per week of field placement. table 2: a comparison of ah programs across several accreditation requirements mcallister, l & nagarajan, s. v. (2015). accreditation requirements in allied health education: strengths, weaknesses and missed opportunities. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 6(1), 2—24. 10 pt also specifies core categories/caseload types (musculoskeletal, cardiopulmonary, neurological) with a requirement that students should gain experience across the lifespan. like sp, the number of hours for each category was not specified. ep specified the categories of healthy placements, cardiopulmonary/metabolic, musculoskeletal, neuromuscular and neurological as well as the minimum and maximum number of hours against each category. no such prescriptive requirements for dr and rc are stated. table 3 provides a detailed comparison of non-direct client care learning activities that are explicitly allowed as part of accreditation requirements. table 3: a comparison of non-direct client care learning activities allowed by six professions profession minimum hours for placements minimum hours of face to face contact with client services delivered with or for a real client (eg, report writing, resource development) simulation educating others (example, health promotion, carer/parent/ teacher/ other professional training) ip learning or practice y = yes; n = no; ns = prescription within minimum hours not stated ot y y; hours ns y y y y ep y y; hours prescribed y y y n sp n y; hours ns y y y y mrs n y; hours ns y y ns ns pt n y; hours ns y ns ns ns rc y y; hours ns y ns ns ns supervisor requirements requirements for supervisors varied across different ah professions in terms of supervisor qualifications, number of years of experience, location of supervisor, and/or supervisor type allowed for placement type. for example, ep had different supervisory requirements for different categories of clinical and non-clinical practice. supervisors for ‘healthy placements’, focussed on providing clients with strength and conditioning training (e.g. at australian institute of sports or elite sports clubs) have a set of skills different from those supervisors in clinical placements where patients are involved. healthy placement supervisors may be: an accredited exercise physiologist (aep); an essa exercise science member; a degree qualified exercise and sports science professional; a personal trainer with a certificate 4 in fitness with a minimum of 10 years industry experience; a degree qualified physical education teacher; a bachelor degree qualified/trained allied health professional with experience in exercise delivery (e.g. physiotherapist); a state, national or international level sports coach; an australian strength and conditioning association (asca) level 2 or 3 coach. the qualification requirements for ah clinical supervisors ranged from university degree trained (for example ot, pt and sp) to a certificate iv level (ep allowed supervisors with certificate iv in personal training and ten years’ experience for healthy mcallister, l & nagarajan, s. v. (2015). accreditation requirements in allied health education: strengths, weaknesses and missed opportunities. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 6(1), 2—24. 11 placements).the number of years of clinical experience required before people could supervise students ranged from one year (e.g. ot) to ten years of experience (ep, for healthy placement types) and others such as pt just specified ‘experienced supervisor’ without stating the number of years of experience. dr did not state any specific supervisor qualification requirements. requirements for an onsite supervisor were stated for some ah professions but not others. ot criteria explicitly state that there is no requirement for the fieldwork supervisor to be onsite. no reference is made to a requirement that fieldwork supervisors have to be onsite in sp, ep, dr, rc and pt. supervision of a student by another ah professional was allowed in some ah professions (e.g. sp) if it was a generic or an interprofessional education (ipe) placement. in role emerging placements in ot it is acceptable to have a non-ot health professional work with a student onsite, with a university-based ot educator to provide distance student supervision. ep allowed supervisors from other ah professions for a selected component of the fieldwork but required an accredited aep to supervise some hours for each category of experience. clinical supervisor to student ratios requirements for clinical supervisor to student ratios are specified for some ah professions. for example, ep criteria state that the clinical supervisor to student ratio may be up to 1:5 with the condition that there must be some 1:1 supervision of each student at each placement. other professions do not state a ratio. teaching methodologies and modes of educational delivery consideration in accreditation documents of teaching methodologies (case studies, problem based learning, simulation etc.) and educational modes (face to face or via internet) ranges from being minimal (e.g. dr allowed for flexible teaching modes with no prescribed conditions) to detailed and prescribed requirements (e.g. ep stated that at least 60 per cent of practicum hours should be face to face exercise delivery). some accreditation documents encourage a flexible approach to the use of teaching and learning modes; for example, ot and sp encourage use of a variety of teaching methods such as case studies, projects, interprofessional learning activities to build competence. others prescribe the maximum number of hours allowed using certain education modes. for example, ep criteria prescribe that a maximum of 50 hours out of the required 500 clinical hours is allowed for simulated learning activities. although there is increased acceptance that some learning activities could be simulated (hill, 2012), support for inclusion of simulation is not yet explicitly stated in some accreditation documents (e.g. pt). assessment methods and modes references to a range of assessment methods and modes are seen in the accreditation documents. for example, pt encourages use of a variety of assessment modes including practical tests, objective structured clinical examination (osce), simulated skills and patients and role play/ performance. pt, sp and ot use validated and reliable, standardised assessments, based on direct observation of student clinical performance: the app (assessment of physiotherapy practice) (dalton, keating & davidson, 2009), compass (competency assessment in speech pathology revised 2011) (mcallister, lincoln, ferguson & mcallister, 2011) and the spef-r (students practice evaluation form) (spefr, 2013) respectively. these assessment tools are used in each program in australia. standardised assessment tools are in development for dr (kilgour, 2011) and ep. other ah professions (e.g. rc) do not yet have standardized or national assessments. strengths of ah accreditation standards there is acknowledgment in ah that both academic and practice settings are important and each have a role in student learning. there is clear recognition that learning occurs both mcallister, l & nagarajan, s. v. (2015). accreditation requirements in allied health education: strengths, weaknesses and missed opportunities. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 6(1), 2—24. 12 inside and outside university. competency standards detailed in the accreditation documents capture the conceptual knowledge that all ah graduates in a discipline are expected to know. they also capture the requirements for procedural knowledge and skills development such as the ability to adhere to occupation-specific procedures in a health practice setting. universities use professional competencies and accreditation standards to develop learning goals and demonstrate that such goals are mapped to their ah curriculum requirements and used to guide assessment of student learning outcomes. there is also increased emphasis in some professions on problem-solving skills leading to shifts towards problem-based education (e.g. occupational therapy australia (2011)) and reflective practice (e.g. speech pathology australia (2011) cbos unit 7 on lifelong learning and reflective practice). accreditation standards and processes provide a means for achieving minimum standards across universities offering ah programs. if the standards are clear in terms of the outcomes that are desired in graduates then they should be useful for programs to frame up their curriculum and demonstrate how they develop the competencies and the outcomes that are required. accreditation also requires universities to define, collect, analyse and provide evidence of student learning and achievement thus giving student learning outcomes a central focus in quality assurance (wergin, 2005). engagement with accreditation processes allows universities to evidence student learning and achievement. some ah standards also take into account the international minimum standards for education programs (e.g. ot) thus ensuring that australian competency standards for ah professionals are comparable to international standards for ah professionals, and that graduates will be recognised internationally. in ah professions where minimum professional standards do not exist, accreditation standards serve as the minimum standards for that profession. they can be used to define the standards of performance that a) the public can expect when they use an ah service or interact with an ah professional or b) health employers and workplaces can expect when they recruit an ah professional. ah graduates from accredited university programs are able to register with their profession’s registration board (or professional association for unregistered professions) because they can demonstrate achievement of core competencies consistent with entry level requirements for ah professionals. weaknesses and missed opportunities in ah accreditation standards there are several areas of weaknesses and missed opportunities in ah accreditation standards. this discussion is presented under two headings: the first relates to work readiness of ah graduates and the second relates to constraints in the adoption of new educational approaches available to universities. work readiness of ah graduates ah accreditation requirements aim to ensure that all ah university programs meet the minimum standards and develop entry-level graduates who are well prepared for work. however, employers suggest that new health graduates are not work-ready (garling, 2008; nsw ministry of health, 2011). skill deficiencies cited by employers include a lack of communication skills, interpersonal skills, problem solving abilities, and understanding of business practice (walker, young, pang, fullarton, costa & dunning, 2013). employer comments as reported by walker et al., (2013, p.118-119) include: 1) they might be brilliant, academic, clinical people but if you can't communicate then it's a bit of a waste of time; 2) she works in a team but i think she doesn't get that a team works with each other; 3) if they're not understanding what's policy and procedure, then what else are they missing?; 4) it is the hierarchical areas that really get the grads kind of worried so they feel like they can't go to anybody because they're on the bottom of the pack. these views have serious implications for accreditation, university preparation, workplace supervision and support (health workforce australia, 2010a), capacity to meet the demand for collaborative models mcallister, l & nagarajan, s. v. (2015). accreditation requirements in allied health education: strengths, weaknesses and missed opportunities. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 6(1), 2—24. 13 of healthcare (national health and hospitals reform commission, 2009), and health professionals’ workforce satisfaction, performance and retention (walker et al., 2013). it may be that some ah accreditation requirements are out of step with current workplace requirements for new ah graduates and are grounded in old approaches to education (e.g. placement in hospitals when healthcare is moving to primary healthcare and communitybased care). there appear to be mismatches in employer, university and professional expectations about preparedness of new ah graduates for practice. for example, health employers expect new graduates to have active learning skills, to proactively seek and manage learning opportunities in the workplace. however, this agentic learning style (billett, 2009) cannot be fostered in overly prescriptive placement learning environments. past studies have identified stressful transitions, negative workplace experiences and inability to cope with workplace challenges for new health graduates (kelly & ahern, 2009; newton & mckenna, 2007; walker et al., 2012; deary, watson & hogston, 2003). increased dialogue between employers, universities and accrediting bodies may reduce mismatches in expectations. it is suggested that there is a shared responsibility amongst accreditation bodies, employers and universities to ensure that graduates are able to cope with such challenges when they enter the workforce and a means to achieve that is through flexibility to prepare students to be active learners. it is our recommendation that all ah accreditation panels include employers on their teams. there is some employer representation on university-based degree external advisory committees (comprised of academics, employers, clinicians, student representatives and perhaps also service users) that develop and monitor curriculum. while academics’ perspectives are important for the development of accreditation standards, inclusion of employers and service users may add value by increasing the understanding of the contemporary practice needs and employer work readiness expectations of new ah graduates. preparing ah graduates for future practice needs there is a shift in progress in healthcare services from hospital-based settings to community-based settings with increasing awareness of the need to address chronic diseases (who, 2008) and manage chronic conditions (rodger, webb, devitt, gilbert, wrightson & mcmeeken, 2008). an increase in australia’s ageing population combined with lifestyle factors such as smoking, increased levels of alcohol intake and sedentary behaviours and occupations are likely to increase the prevalence of chronic conditions such as diabetes, cardiovascular disease and musculoskeletal conditions resulting in an unprecedented demand on our chronic care services. nsw treasury papers provide estimates that by 2020 chronic disease is expected to account for over 80 per cent of the total burden of disease in australia (nsw government, 2008). such forecasts have implications for workforce preparation. our analysis of the accreditation documents shows that required educational goals and clinical placement types do not reflect this increasing focus on chronic disease and primary healthcare. during the consultation processes for the development of hwa’s national strategic frameworks, healthcare providers indicated that health professional education is not keeping pace with the changing models and place of care (national health workforce taskforce, 2009). currently much of the focus of health professional preparation is on acute care, hospital-based settings and in-patients. some of this focus is driven by accreditation requirements; some of it is driven by practitioner beliefs about the types of clinical placements that students require to meet accreditation requirements. for example, in seeking to expand the range of available clinical placement sites, some university physiotherapy programs (blackford, mcallister & alison, personal communication 2013) have met resistance from physiotherapists in aged care sites who insist that some placement types for example, rehabilitation can only be obtained in hospitals even though appropriate mcallister, l & nagarajan, s. v. (2015). accreditation requirements in allied health education: strengths, weaknesses and missed opportunities. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 6(1), 2—24. 14 patients live in aged care facilities and are in need of services. while this is probably not the intent of accreditation documents, requirements are variably interpreted by different stakeholder groups. we suggest that accreditation bodies consider making it explicit in accreditation documents that experience in chronic care is required, and that categories of clinical experience they require students to obtain (e.g. musculo-skeletal, cardio-pulmonary for pt) can be met through placements in diverse settings, not just from hospitals, and in collaboration with professional associations and universities, develop strategies to educate stakeholders about options and flexibility in meeting requirements, . this will provide clarity for university placement coordinators and for external clinical supervisors and facility staff. the australian government’s health priorities (nhmrc, 2013) acknowledge that ageing, chronic disease, and mental health are major challenges for the healthcare systems in australia. to effectively deliver care for chronic diseases and conditions and primary adoption of a bio-psychosocial model of healthcare, such as that embodied in international classification of functioning, disability and health framework (icf) (who, 2013), which provides a holistic view of health based on biological, individual and social perspectives. a bio-psychosocial perspective on health and wellbeing, contrasts with the medical model which focuses on illness (nhmrc, 2013; who, 2013). these two differing models are variously reflected in curricula and accreditation standards in the ah professions. dr and pt, for example, predominantly reflect medical models and/or science perspectives of healthcare, in contrast to professions such as ot, sp, and rc which include a social perspective of healthcare. the technical requirements for the ah professions are well addressed in accreditation criteria but some ah professions appear not to emphasise the development of ah student knowledge and skills that address social dimensions of health. for example, tinning, jenkins, collins, rossi and brancato (2012) argue that exercise science has suffered from its science-focussed approach to curriculum development which has led to insufficient engagement with issues that foster development of students’ understanding of social aspects of health and factors leading to chronic conditions. it is important that all ah curriculum and standards take into account a holistic view of health based on biological, individual and social perspectives. such an approach is necessary to ensure adequate preparation of health graduates to the meet both the current and future healthcare needs (australian government, 2011a). development of interprofessional practice skills all health graduates are required to work in interprofessional teams. one of the key action objectives of the health workforce innovation and reform strategic framework for action 2011-2015 (hwa, 2011) is to develop an adaptable health workforce that can support team based and collaborative models of care. several authors have discussed the need for graduates to engage in interprofessional learning (humphries & hean, 2004) and collaborative practice, particularly given the changing nature of healthcare (rodger et al., 2008). yet there is no direct requirement in some ah professions’ accreditation criteria regarding development of such skills. supervisors from different professions bring different perspectives and capacities to develop students’ knowledge, reasoning and generic skills development during clinical education. a requirement for profession specific supervision to a student may restrict opportunities for enhanced student learning and generic and ip skills development. these issues are discussed in detail in the next section on prescriptiveness. as evident in table 2, some ah accreditation documents are silent about pedagogically sound models of education and do not explicitly encourage models of placement that will support the type of learning needed for graduates’ workplaces using learning within teams, peer learning and learning through feedback and reflection. mcallister, l & nagarajan, s. v. (2015). accreditation requirements in allied health education: strengths, weaknesses and missed opportunities. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 6(1), 2—24. 15 adoption of new educational approaches prescriptiveness a range of new educational approaches is now available to universities that can enhance student learning and alleviate some of the pressure experienced with placement shortages (health workforce australia, 2013). however, prescriptiveness in some accreditation requirements impedes the adoption of these approaches as well as innovation in placements. while it is acknowledged that students need experience with a diversity of placement and patient types, being overly prescriptive about the type and location of placement limits opportunities to tap the potential of placements in non-traditional sites, service learning and role emerging placements, all of which are highly relevant to the preparation of graduates for primary healthcare and chronic disease management (thomas, penman & williamson, 2005). in addition, overly prescriptive placement requirements can lead to an increase in demand for specific types of learning experiences during placements that students must undertake prior to graduation. rodger et al. (2008) also warn that if access to a prescribed area in which experience must be gained becomes problematic (for example, insufficient hospital based placements for rehabilitation clients) this makes it difficult for students to complete prescriptive placement requirements and graduate. prescriptiveness about placement and patient types denies what we know about the generalisability and transferability of knowledge and skills. for example, sheepway, lincoln and mcallister (2014) studied the development of student competence in speech language pathology degree students and found that their competencies developed over a one year period of clinical placements irrespective of placement type or context or intensity of placement (daily versus block mode) thus indicating that there was a possible transfer of learning occurring between placement types. prescriptiveness regarding number of hours for placement types is also problematic for several reasons. first, it assumes that upon completion of the required number of hours students will have gained the required competencies and ignores the generalisability and transferability of knowledge and skills that can occur between placements. second, it shifts emphasis from the quality of the placement experiences, supervision and clinical performance assessment, to quantity and the completion of required, but sometimes arbitrary number of, possibly low quality, hours. wimmers, schmidt and splinter (2006) studied the professional performance of medical students across 14 hospital placement sites and concluded that the volume of experience was found to be less important for students’ clinical competence development in comparison with repetition of experiences and quality of supervision provided during placement experiences. holmes, bossers, polatajko, drynan, gallagher, o’sullivan and denney (2010) studied the competency development in canadian ot students who undertook placements during their studies to determine if the evidence supports the 1000 hours of placement prescribed by wfot. they found that student competencies increased with each placement and that entry-level status is achieved by the majority of students in most of the competencies. however, their studies found that student competencies in areas such as clinical reasoning, practice knowledge and facilitating change were not achieved at 1000 hours. the focus for accreditation should be more clearly on outputs (learning outcomes and competencies) rather than on inputs (specific placement types and experiences with patients). this would open up not only more diverse types of placements, but also recognise the contributions of other learning experiences which build knowledge and skills needed for practice. a shift away from prescriptiveness regarding patient types, placement locations, and requirements of hours for specific placement types also provides the flexibility required for consideration of new and innovative models of supervision. accreditation requirements that prescribe the levels of experience of clinical supervisors (number of years of industry experience) and/or mandate only same-profession supervision may limit utilisation of interprofessional placement opportunities, access to supervision mcallister, l & nagarajan, s. v. (2015). accreditation requirements in allied health education: strengths, weaknesses and missed opportunities. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 6(1), 2—24. 16 expertise outside of specific professions and does not support utilisation of peer learning opportunities that interprofessional placements can provide. these limitations have implications for achievement of rich student learning outcomes particularly in relation to the development of students’ knowledge and understanding of perspectives of other health professions, communication and interprofessional team work skills. an evidence-based approach to supervision requirements that considers the requisite skills for supervision, which may not equate to years of clinical experience or same-profession supervision only, and which encourages opportunities for students to develop capacity to learn with and from peers, reflection and clinical reasoning skills, is essential to ensure achievement of student learning outcomes and good quality supervision. prescriptions for face-to-face supervision modes and hours restrict the use of modern technologies and underestimate the powerful learning experiences such technologies can support. generation y learns in different ways to past generations of learners and hence new modes of teaching that are suited for this generation of learners is key to achieving student engagement and interest (penman, donnelly & drynan, 2010; jones, mckenzie & wong, 2010). simulation in real clinical settings clinicians must prioritise a patient-centred approach over learnercentred. simulation enables a priority focus on student learning needs without compromising patient-safety or workplace productivity (maran & glavin, 2003). health workforce australia (2010b) states that simulated learning environments (sle) provide a flexible alternative to traditional placement models, expand clinical placement capacity and have a positive impact on student learning during clinical supervision. they report widespread willingness amongst university education providers to consider sles for aspects of their programs of study. repetition of simulation experiences until demonstration of mastery and use of contrasting cases can improve learning outcomes (cook, erwin & triola, 2010). a recent us study conducted by the national council of state boards for nursing (ncsbn, 2014) investigated the effectiveness of simulation as an alternative to traditional clinical placement program in a final year nursing program. approximately 50 per cent of clinical placement time was replaced by a simulation based curriculum. the study found that simulation programs were just as effective as traditional clinical placements programs at preparing nursing students for professional nursing work. the evidence base for simulation in ah is growing. watson et al. (2012) concluded that pt students’ achievement of clinical competencies was as good in simulated learning groups as in traditional placement groups. hill (2012) studied the use of standardised patients (or actors) in the clinical education of speech pathology students at an australian university sp program and found that standardised patients can support the development of foundation clinical competencies in sp students. nationwide studies in progress for pt and in preparation for ot and sp will further add to the evidence base. blackford, mcallister and alison (paper under review) studied the impact of replacement of the first week of a five week physiotherapy clinical placement with a simulated learning experience using standardised patients and found that sle significantly increased students’ confidence to apply their professional and clinical skills. further, simulated patients have been shown to enhance learner experience as well as address the problem of placement shortages (howard, blackmer & markowski, 2006; blackstock et al., 2013). simulation has a role to play in clinical education and should be encouraged (explicitly) in ah accreditation documents. role emerging and service learning placements some ah professions (e.g. dr, pt) still place students primarily in occupation-specific placement sites. other professions such as ot encourage role-emerging placements in nontraditional settings. some studies in ot have shown that non-traditional placements and role-emerging placements assist with the development of students’ reflection and clinical reasoning skills (overton, clarke & thomas, 2009; thew, hargreaves & cronin-davis, mcallister, l & nagarajan, s. v. (2015). accreditation requirements in allied health education: strengths, weaknesses and missed opportunities. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 6(1), 2—24. 17 2008). relatively few professions use service learning placements, in which students (typically in teams) engage in activities that address community identified needs together with structured opportunities intentionally designed to promote student learning and development (jacoby & associates, 1996). service learning placements are valued for their capacity to develop interprofessional and generic competencies. while service learning is well established in north america, various barriers, including accreditation requirements have sometimes limited its adoption in australia. role-emerging and service learning placements need to be given more consideration in all ah professions both to increase placement capacity and to address generic skills development and work readiness of graduates. tele-supervision tele-health delivery of services to patients is well established and effective (theodoros et al., 2006; russell, 2004). tele-supervision has the potential to tap into remote placements, utilise the supervision expertise of part-time clinical supervisors and support new supervisors both in rural and urban placement sites. tele-supervision is not yet widely used but with increasing placement shortages, untapped potential placements as mentioned above, excessive clinician workloads, and difficulty in finding willing supervisors it is essential to develop innovative ways of using fieldwork supervision expertise. while face-to-face or direct supervision is needed for many placement experiences due to reasons such as patient safety, indirect or tele--supervision may still be appropriate for many placement types providing services to low risk patients. some recent studies have shown the benefits of mobile technologies during clinical training (vyas, albright, walker, zachariah & lee, 2010; lee, albright, o’leary, terkla & wilson, 2008) to support the education and training of the health workforce and using such technologies to reach underserved communities. hall (2013) discusses the results from a pt pilot project that explored the effectiveness of video calling using skype in clinical education. the results showed that tele-supervision was a cost and time effective means of communication with students during their clinical education experiences and provided several opportunities for students to develop partnerships with clinical education academic coordinators and for academic and clinical supervisors to develop partnerships beyond local areas and into rural and regional areas. tele-supervision models can also be used to support remote supervisors and hence increase supervisor capacity, providing a win-win for students, universities and clinical supervisors. the evidence base is growing that tele-supervision has similar outcomes or nil negative impact on students’ capacity to develop and demonstrate competence in comparison with traditional models of supervision. it is timely for ah accreditation documents to encourage tele-supervision explicitly where appropriate. multiple student placements a missed opportunity in the ah accreditation documents is the encouragement of supervision models that have multiple students on placements at one time. it is acknowledged that some 1:1 supervision will still be required in high risk contexts (medically unstable patients, dangerous situations) but in our experience of requesting placements for thousands of students each year, some professions (and some clinicians irrespective of profession) cling to the traditional 1:1 model in the belief that this provides the best learning for students. there is no evidence to support this belief. there is evidence to support that 2:1 and 3:1 models in clinical supervision are as effective as the traditional 1:1 model of supervision (lekkas et al., 2007; ladyshewskey, 1995). rindflesch et al. (2009) found that 3:1 or 4:1 models also produced learning outcomes in ot and pt students which were at least as good as 1:1 models. a comparison study of the three models of placement in ot found that the 2:1 model offered more opportunities for peer support and enhanced quality of the educational experiences through peer learning (baldry currens, 2010; martin, morris, mcallister, l & nagarajan, s. v. (2015). accreditation requirements in allied health education: strengths, weaknesses and missed opportunities. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 6(1), 2—24. 18 moore, sadlo & crouch, 2004; bristow & hagler, 1997). such approaches to supervision also address placement shortages encountered by many ah faculties. summary of considerations based on a review and comparison of accreditation documents for six ah professions in australia, summarised in tables 2 and 3, this paper has identified a number of areas for improvement, consideration and further dialogue. accrediting bodies, universities and health industry stakeholders are encouraged to collaborate to ensure that accreditation requirements are aligned with workplace requirements for work ready health graduates. in particular, consideration needs to be given to making explicit in accreditation documents the following:  a holistic view of healthcare by inclusion of bio-psychosocial perspectives in all ah programs.  a balanced approach to the development of technical profession-specific skills, and generic and interprofessional skills.  encouragement of flexible approaches to the facilitation of student learning during placements using a combination of modes including use of modern portable information and communication technologies (i.e., tele-supervision) that is fit for the purpose and ensures patient and learner safety.  encouragement for the use of non-traditional and role emerging placements where appropriate.  encouragement for the use of simulation in clinical education where appropriate.  flexibility in patient types and settings to meet requirements for ‘patient types’ to be seen by students.  encouragement of supervision models that have multiple students on placements at a time and multiple supervisors sharing student supervision.  a need for employers to sit on accreditation panels to ensure workplace needs for work ready graduates are considered. accreditation documentation that explicitly allowed for flexibility in achievement of work ready graduates would enable universities to work with placement sites and clinical supervisors to increase placement numbers, improve quality, more efficiently achieve desired learning outcomes and meet employers’ demands for work ready graduates. conclusion this paper analysed the accreditation documents for six australian ah professions with a view to comparing the accreditation requirements using common criteria such as number of hours of clinical practice for students, patient types and caseload categories in which experience should be obtained, supervisory requirements, academic hours inputs, prescribed placement teaching modes and educational methods, and clinical supervisor staff to student ratios. the focus was primarily on the clinical placement requirements. the findings show that the accreditation criteria and standards perform well for the development of students’ conceptual and procedural knowledge. however there are several areas for improvement such as the preparation of graduates to meet current and future needs of healthcare, a focus on biopsychosocial perspectives of health as healthcare models shift from hospital to community-based settings, addressing the gaps in interpretation and intentions of accreditation requirements, the development of ah students’ active learning mcallister, l & nagarajan, s. v. (2015). accreditation requirements in allied health education: strengths, weaknesses and missed opportunities. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 6(1), 2—24. 19 capabilities, the encouragement of supervision approaches that are pedagogically sound, an increased emphasis on the development of interprofessional skills, and increased employer representation on accreditation panels. finally, a summary of the points for consideration by ah accreditation bodies is provided. it is acknowledged that our discussion focused heavily on the missed opportunities in accreditation rather than the self-evident strengths of accreditation. our aim in this paper was to initiate debate around how changing accreditation requirements might enable the adoption of educational approaches that would better meet future workforce needs. mcallister, l & nagarajan, s. v. 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(2006). influence of clerkship experiences on clinical competence. medical education, 40(5), 450–458. http://www.who.int/classifications/icf/en/ http://www.who.int/whr/2008/whr08_en.pdf internationalisation of curriculum at home: imperatives, opportunities and challenges for allied health education srivalli nagarajan1 and lindy mcallister 1 srivalli.nagarajan@sydney.edu.au; lindy.mcallister@sydney.edu.au 1university of sydney abstract preparation of globally competent health graduates who have a good understanding of local and international healthcare is an important goal for allied health education. internationalisation of curriculum and internationalisation at home strategies are needed to prepare students to work in culturally diverse contexts. a critical review of issues, challenges and future needs in the internationalisation of allied health curricula is the focus of this paper. current approaches to internationalisation from a range of disciplines are considered and their applicability to allied health courses is discussed. important challenges for progress on internationalisation goals and integration of internationalisation experiences into allied health curricula are identified. suggestions for progressing internationalisation of allied health curricula through the formal and informal curriculum are presented. future research needs that are key to progressing internationalisation goals in allied health education are considered. important questions that will prompt academics, clinical educators and students to consider how well internationalisation goals are being addressed in allied health education are also raised. keywords: allied health, health graduates, internationalisation of curriculum, internationalisation at home, internationalisation of higher education, global health, crosscultural communication. introduction graduates of health degrees, including allied health1 graduates, are expected to work in socially and culturally diverse environments and have a good understanding of different cultures, their health behaviours and beliefs (useh, 2011). oliver, jones, tucker, & ferns (2007) state that graduates with international perspectives are able to consider how issues (for example, local healthcare systems or policies) might impact on people in other parts of the world and that graduates with intercultural perspectives are able to consider how issues (such as, one’s own cultural beliefs and values) might impact on people from other cultures, for example, in the delivery of healthcare as practicing professionals in their own community. fuller and scott (2009) discuss the need for global graduates, that is, graduates who possess skills to work across local as well as international contexts, and the development of job-readiness and employability skills in a global context. to develop such graduates, internationalisation of courses is needed. allied health practice requires clinicians to interact with patients from diverse cultural backgrounds on a daily basis. this paper makes a case for why internationalisation in allied health is not just desirable but an absolute necessity. in 1 as defined by services for australian rural and remote allied health (lowe et al., 2007). nagarajan, s. & mc allister, l. (2015). internationalisation of curriculum: imperatives, opportunities and challenges for allied health education. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 6(1), 88–99. 88 mailto:srivalli.nagarajan@sydney.edu.au mailto:lindy.mcallister@sydney.edu.au this paper a critical review of issues, challenges and future needs in internationalisation of allied health curricula is presented. approaches to internationalisation from a range of disciplines are reviewed and their applicability to allied health courses is considered. the primary audience for this paper is allied health academics who have responsibility for course design, development and assessment. there are various social, cultural, academic and economic drivers of internationalisation of university courses. to meet accreditation requirements and prepare workplace needs (mcallister & nagarajan, 2015) faculties must prepare culturally competent work-ready2 graduates who are able to work with diverse groups of patients. further, public health issues are increasingly becoming borderless with rapid rates of globalisation (apta, 2014). knight (2004) described academic drivers as including international dimensions to research and teaching, international branding, profile and status, and enhancement of academic quality, whereas economic drivers include the need to meet workforce demands for local and global contexts and institutional income generation. a major challenge to internationalisation of curricula in any discipline is the lack of clarity about what internationalisation means. hall (2010) undertook a comparison and evaluation of different definitions of the term ‘internationalisation’. hall identified that internationalisation was being used to refer to diverse activities including: a) an increase in the number of international or foreign students on campus; or b) the delivery of courses overseas; or c) international academic mobility for students and lecturers; or d) the inclusion of international, intercultural or global dimensions in the curriculum and teaching and learning approaches. different regional and thematic interpretations (jones & de wit, 2012) along with inconsistency in use of terms such as internationalisation and globalisation are also problematic. lattanzi and pechak (2012) state that while globalisation (e.g. the idea of shared global environment or society) highlights common challenges and interconnectedness of societies, internationalisation (e.g. understanding and exploring multiple national identities and contexts) shows us that societies and nations are unique and autonomous and allow us to learn from each other irrespective of the level of development that has occurred in various societies. as a result attempts to develop a shared understanding of what internationalisation entails may become complicated and difficult. two key approaches to internationalisation internationalisation of curriculum (internationalisation of curriculum) (knight, 2003) and internationalisation at home (internationalisation at home) (nilsson, 2003) are of particular importance for allied health degrees. internationalisation of curriculum and internationalisation at home – definition, differences and issues many authors have described internationalisation of curriculum (see for example, leask (2005) but knight’s definition seems to be the most frequently cited. knight (2003, p.2) defines internationalisation of curriculum at the national, sector and institutional levels as the process of integrating an international, intercultural, or global dimension into the purpose, functions or delivery of postsecondary education. for the purposes of this paper, knight’s definition of internationalisation of curriculum applies. student mobility, typically achieved through international placements, and global health courses are popular means through which internationalisation of curriculum is achieved in health education (particularly in medical education). there is a misconception that international placements equal internationalisation of curriculum (de wit, 2011). however, these opportunities may not be 2 work readiness is defined as the extent to which graduates possess the attributes that prepare them for success in the workplace (caballero et al., 2011). nagarajan, s. & mc allister, l. (2015). internationalisation of curriculum: imperatives, opportunities and challenges for allied health education. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 6(1), 88–99. 89 core components in health degrees and hence there is no guarantee that they will be completed by all students or that learning outcomes will be assessed. further, de wit (2012) states that mobility is merely an instrument for promoting internationalisation and not a goal in itself (p.6). therefore, simply studying or staying abroad is not equivalent to internationalisation of curriculum. for example, students visiting foreign countries could develop feelings of isolation and refrain from engaging with the locals due to either culture shock or uneasiness. it is important to evaluate all mobility experiences to understand if students have developed the intended international and intercultural perspectives (de wit, 2011). having a number of strategic partnerships with international institutions for staff and student exchange is also not equivalent to internationalisation. de wit points out that all exchange activities and experiences of staff and students should be evaluated to understand if such experiences have resulted in the development of intended international and intercultural outcomes for the participants. a conceptual framework for internationalising the curriculum (see figure 1) has been developed by leask (2012). this framework captures the multiple layers of interactions between curriculum design, content, pedagogy, learning tasks and assessment, and how these are influenced by broader issues such as institutional, local, national and regional and global factors. leask (2009) states that development of intercultural competence should be a key outcome of any internationalised curriculum. the campus environment, culture, curriculum, teachers and student interactions in and outside of classrooms have a role to play in the internationalisation agenda. figure 1: a conceptual framework of internationalisation of curriculum (source: leask, 2012) (reproduced with the permission of office for learning and teaching (olt) nagarajan, s. & mc allister, l. (2015). internationalisation of curriculum: imperatives, opportunities and challenges for allied health education. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 6(1), 88–99. 90 leask describes how both formal and informal curricula could be used as vehicles to develop intercultural competence through interactions between domestic and international students on campus. however, simply having a greater number of international students does not guarantee internationalisation (de wit, 2011). there is evidence to suggest that there are many university programs where international students are seen as an isolated group (leask, 2012). leask also notes that providing opportunities for intercultural engagement alone is insufficient. she suggests these opportunities need to be facilitated so that the interactions between students from different cultures lead to meaningful contributions to the development of cross-cultural competencies in all students. another concept known as internationalisation at home has been discussed as an alternative to internationalisation of curriculum to overcome barriers of: a) limited mobility of students due to cost barriers associated with travel and living overseas and b) administrative challenges (including cost and risk management) for universities in ensuring international placement opportunities are available in a timely and safe manner for all allied health students. nilsson (2003) refers to internationalisation at home as any internationally related activity with the exception of outbound student mobility (p. 31). internationalisation at home does not rely on student mobility. instead internationalisation concepts and what knight (2006) describes as a ‘diversity of activities’, (for example, using international case studies for learning and assessment, extracurricular activities, liaison with local cultural/ ethnic groups, and research or scholarly activities focussed on different approaches to issues in different countries) are embedded in the compulsory curriculum undertaken ‘at home’ with a specific focus to develop the international and intercultural competencies in all students (leask, 2011). for the purposes of this paper, leask’s notion of internationalisation at home applies. key examples of internationalisation of curriculum and internationalisation at home in disciplines other than allied health as part of her office for learning and teaching (olt) national teaching fellowship, leask identified a number of papers reporting on internationalisation of curriculum in a range of disciplines (office for learning and teaching, 2014). these are summarised in table 1 as a prelude for considering the application of reported approaches to internationalisation of curriculum in allied health. some disciplines featured in table 1, such as medicine (harden, 2006; mcnicoll, burney, & luff, 2006; murdoch-eaton, redmond, & bax, 2011) and nursing (calvillo et al., 2009; mill, astle, ogilvie, & gastaldo, 2010) have a long history of internationalisation of the curriculum. medicine relies mainly on overseas placements and global health courses (stutz, green, mcallister, & eley, 2014) for internationalisation of their curricula. disciplines such as accounting (cobbin & lee, 2002; evans, tindale, cable, & hamil mead, 2009), and law (davies & shirley, 2007) have attempted to internationalise their curriculum using a variety of approaches as detailed in table 1. as table 1 shows, the internationalisation of curriculum and internationalisation at home (iah) literature discusses the significance of internationalising curriculum (for example, using student mobility) and the challenges, but provides few studies on actual implementation of internationalisation of curriculum or internationalisation at home initiatives and evaluation of outcomes for students, faculties and universities. in particular, few studies exist on the impact of internationalisation of curriculum and internationalisation at home on graduate practice and graduate competencies (lattanzi & pechak, 2012). nagarajan, s. & mc allister, l. (2015). internationalisation of curriculum: imperatives, opportunities and challenges for allied health education. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 6(1), 88–99. 91 table 1: approaches to internationalisation of curriculum in various disciplines* discipline / country reference context/approaches used medicine uk murdoch-eaton et al. (2011) explores three pedagogic models for teaching global health: 1) an additive or contributory model of global health content (e.g., elective subject); 2) an integrated approach (some elements of global health teaching components are embedded within mainstream curriculum (e.g., utilisation of international tutors and visiting speakers to provide stimulus and share experiences across a range of cultural perspectives); 3) a transformative learning experiences approach requiring institutional and program flexibility (e.g., using international staff and students, patients/community, students recently returned from international placements as resources or as co developers of curricular material). medicine uk harden (2006) explores the use of a three-dimensional international medical graduate (img) model based on the interrelationship between student, teacher, and curriculum, unlike traditional model of medical education which involves a local teacher, a local student, and a local curriculum. the img model uses varying combinations of the three dimensions (e.g., international student, local teacher, and local curriculum). information and communication technologies (ict) tools (example, videoconferencing using skype) and e-learning provide support for virtual classrooms. medicine/ nursing and health sciences australia mcnicoll et al. (2008) reports on the internationalisation of curriculum project experiences of an australian university’s faculty of medicine, nursing and health sciences which attempted to internationalise the curricula of its 32 undergraduate and 76 postgraduate coursework programs. initiatives such as consciousness-raising for academic leaders, professional development for academics, an offshore teaching guide and a resources website received considerable acceptance across diverse academic staff. nursing canada mill et al. (2010) examines concepts related to global citizenship, globalisation, social responsibility, and professionalism in the context of nursing education. argues that internationalisation efforts must move beyond creation of international placement opportunities or the use of international examples within existing courses. discusses the need for nurse educators to develop strategies and design innovative curricula to provide opportunities for all students to become engaged with the concept of global citizenship. nagarajan, s. & mc allister, l. (2015). internationalisation of curriculum: imperatives, opportunities and challenges for allied health education. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 6(1), 88–99. 92 discipline / country reference context/approaches used nursing usa calvillo et al. (2009) describes five cultural competencies for nursing students and provides suggestions for evaluation of students’ cognitive learning of cultural competence, and changes to students’ values and belief systems as they gain exposure to diversity. provides recommendations for implementation (leadership commitment to cultural competence, faculty development, and foreign-language requirements). accounting australia cobbin & lee (2002) applies a curriculum analysis technique to undergraduate accounting subjects by auditing curricular elements that are internationally relevant, australia-specific and those that are specific to australia but are transferable to international contexts and makes recommendations for internationalising different subjects. accounting australia evans et al. (2009) uses a collaborative teaching approach (involving discipline specialist and english language specialist) in programs with diverse student populations to develop professional communication as a key aspect of accounting programs. recommends program level approach changes without compromise to technical content. science australia bell (2008) describes a case study of a science course that involved student groups from three different countries using videoconferencing for cross-institutional and international discussion. discusses issues such as perceived cultural differences in communication. business australia crosling et al. (2008) describes a case study of organisational change (process) involved in one australian institution's attempts to implement curriculum internationalisation in the foundation subjects in six core business disciplines. factors that need to be considered to enable curricular changes (academic workload, commitment from senior management) during the internationalisation process are also described. provides evidence for positive experience of staff and students involved in the internationalisation project initiatives. law australia davies & shirley (2007) describes an international work placement model for internationalising work integrated learning for law students at an australian university. a range of international employers were involved in the creation of virtual international placement opportunities for students using ict tools such as skype, e-learning, learning management systems, e-portfolios and specially designed activities. (*more examples available on the internationalisation of the curriculum in action website http://uq.edu.au/tediteach/olt/resources-literature-disciplinespecific.html nagarajan, s. & mc allister, l. (2015). internationalisation of curriculum: imperatives, opportunities and challenges for allied health education. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 6(1), 88–99. 93 http://uq.edu.au/tediteach/olt/resources-literature-discipline-specific.html http://uq.edu.au/tediteach/olt/resources-literature-discipline-specific.html internationalisation of curriculum and internationalisation at home in allied health education literature search strategy it is significant that leask’s fellowship identified few examples of internationalisation of curriculum and internationalisation at home initiatives in allied health curricula. as discussed later in this paper, much of the work in allied health to date has taken a narrow focus on the development of intercultural competency. a literature search on internationalisation of curriculum and internationalisation at home initiatives in allied health education was conducted using google scholar. the authors’ familiarity with literature in the internationalisation of curriculum and internationalisation at home in allied health led them to believe that google scholar would be a useful search engine to search for the ‘grey literature’ such as the olt project reports, conference proceedings, books and articles (gray et al., 2012) and preprint papers on author’s or organisation’s websites. it is acknowledged that google scholar has several disadvantages: not all articles returned in search results are truly scholarly or peer-reviewed (example, course manuals) and hence it is not an adequate tool for conducting systematic reviews (boeker, vach, & motschall., 2013). however, google scholar was a preferable option for searching the literature due to its breadth of coverage. the five allied health discipline groups at the university of sydney with whom the authors are currently engaged in internationalisation of their curriculum were selected for this literature search (physiotherapy, occupational therapy, speech therapy, exercise physiology and diagnostic radiography). several combinations of the following terms were used: internationalisation of the curriculum, allied health, speech therapy, speech pathology, physiotherapy, physical therapy, occupational therapy, diagnostic radiography, internationalization of curriculum, internationalisation of the curriculum, internationalization of the curriculum, internationalisation, exercise physiology, internationalisation at home. the search strategies employed looked for exact phrases with and combinations for articles from the period 2000-2014 (for example, exact phrase ‘internationalisation at home’ and ‘physiotherapy’ anywhere in articles published between 2000 and 2014 returned 17 results). where the results returned more than 100 articles (example, ‘internationalisation’ and ‘allied health’ returned 225 search results) the first 100 articles were opened and viewed to see if they had internationalisation of curriculum initiatives in allied health as the primary focus of the article. the majority of the resources that had used the search terms above did not on review have internationalisation of curriculum or internationalisation at home as the main topic of discussion. only a few articles focussed directly on internationalisation of curriculum and internationalisation at home initiatives in allied health education (see table 2). some of these discussed the importance of internationalisation in allied health education while others discussed the need for development of internationalisation outcomes for allied health graduates. a small number of papers (n=6) reported on internationalisation of curriculum initiatives undertaken in allied health (for example, internationalisation of curriculum initiatives in physiotherapy education at university of south australia discussed in das (2005). discussion of the literature all the papers that discussed course level internationalisation of curriculum or internationalisation at home initiatives or approaches in an allied health related discipline are listed in table 2. table 2 also shows the skills and/or competencies in relation to internationalisation and the variety of tasks, activities and approaches discussed in these studies. due to a paucity of internationalisation of curriculum and internationalisation at home nagarajan, s. & mc allister, l. (2015). internationalisation of curriculum: imperatives, opportunities and challenges for allied health education. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 6(1), 88–99. 94 literature in allied health a detailed discussion of studies that have occurred in allied health has been included in this section. papers and project reports listed in table 2 cover topics such as practical strategies internationalising curriculum within an allied health curriculum, student perceptions of internationalisation skills and their importance, achievement of internationalisation of curriculum using curriculum revisions, alignment of internationalisation of curriculum objectives and curriculum, development of intercultural competence curricular resources, use of ict for advancing internationalisation outcomes and discussion of service learning as a potential opportunity for development of international perspectives of allied health students. horton (2009) proposed several ideas for internationalising occupational therapy education which included introduction of international themes or dimensions into teaching and learning and research. practical strategies to internationalise the curriculum (see table 2) were also presented, and horton emphasised the need for financial, academic and administration support for successful implementation of the suggested strategies. case studies in physiotherapy have used curriculum revision as an opportunity to address internationalisation as well as ict tools and technologies to achieve internationalisation outcomes for domestic as well as international students. das (2005) described a case study of the review of a physiotherapy program at university of south australia to achieve a better alignment with their principles of internationalisation of curriculum that resulted in changes to curriculum which advanced cultural competence of their students and staff. leask (2004) also discussed a case study of physiotherapy students at the same university where internationalisations outcomes were achieved simply by using ict tools (see table 2) to carry out some course activities/assignments that enabled student interactions with peers and external educators at overseas physiotherapy departments at various institutions. graduate perceptions of the importance of internationalisation skills were also studied. useh’s (2011) study explored physiotherapy graduates’ perceptions of socio-cultural competence. physiotherapists believed that socio-cultural competence included skills such as flexibility (ability to adapt to different situations), respect and awareness of differences in behaviour and attitude to health care, awareness of multicultural identity, cross-cultural awareness and stress management, empathy and foreign language proficiency. empathy and flexibility was perceived by participants as highly important socio-cultural competence to be considered for inclusion in the physiotherapy course. foreign language proficiency was considered as the least important aspect of socio-cultural skill for reasons such as participants not interested in working abroad and lack of availability of translators. pechak and thompson (2010) and lattanzi and pechak (2012) discussed the notion of international service learning (isl) as a possible approach to internationalisation of physical therapy education and use of isl as a pedagogical tool. seifer (1998) defines service learning as a structured learning experience that combines community service with explicit learning objectives, preparation, and reflection. when service learning occurs outside of the country where the education program is located it is referred to as isl (pechak & thompson, 2010). while the papers in table 2 addressed internationalisation of curriculum or internationalisation at home, another body of research relevant to internationalisation skills and competencies for graduates focusses on cross-cultural and socio-cultural skills. some terms commonly used to indicate skills and competencies that contribute to internationalisation outcomes for health graduates are cross-cultural, socio-cultural, international and intercultural skills. a second group of papers addressing internationalisation in allied health learning and teaching were also identified. these papers focused on the development of cross-cultural skills and intercultural/cross-cultural competencies, understanding the social determinants of health and working in low resource environments, skills for working internationally; and the role of service learning in development of these skills. studies with speech pathology, occupational therapy and physiotherapy students explored the experiences of clinical educators and students nagarajan, s. & mc allister, l. (2015). internationalisation of curriculum: imperatives, opportunities and challenges for allied health education. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 6(1), 88–99. 95 table 2: approaches to internationalisation of curriculum and internationalisation at home in allied health reference/ discipline/ internationalisation of curriculum or internationalisation at home skills/attributes discussed in the paper tasks/activities/approaches identified in the referenced paper as contributing to internationalisation of curriculum and internationalisation at home horton (2009) occupational therapy internationalisation of curriculum • cross-cultural skills/competence • culturally competent graduates • graduates who can utilise diversity for personal development (understanding of their own beliefs and values, respect differences in beliefs or values across different cultures), understand contextual implications of internationalisation experiences to make a judgement about how to apply that experience/evidence in their own clinical contexts • reports on the introduction of international themes or dimensions into teaching, learning and research • reports on the introduction of cross-cultural skills in curriculum, special classes such as language studies • encourages staff/students study/work abroad (needs financial, academic and administrative support) and engage in communication in an international work environment with people from different cultures • encourages access to skilled migrant groups, asylum seeker groups, refugees (depends on accessibility, support) useh (2011) physiotherapy internationalisation of curriculum • socio-cultural competencies, intercultural competence • skills flexibility, respect and awareness of differences in behaviour and attitude to health care, awareness of multicultural identity, cross-cultural awareness and stress management, empathy in a foreign language • intercultural competence (knowledge of cultural issues and other strategies that affect practice and develop ability to cope/deal with them; ability to work with people from different cultures, awareness of cultural barriers, cultural communication) • expand focus from local scenarios and clinical examples to international clinical training scenarios • identifies challenge of lack of assessment tools to evaluate outcomes of internationalised curriculum which makes it difficult to measure progress and impact of internationalisation nagarajan, s. & mc allister, l. (2015). internationalisation of curriculum: imperatives, opportunities and challenges for allied health education. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 6(1), 88–99. 96 reference/ discipline/ internationalisation of curriculum or internationalisation at home skills/attributes discussed in the paper tasks/activities/approaches identified in the referenced paper as contributing to internationalisation of curriculum and internationalisation at home lattanzi & pechak (2012) physiotherapy internationalisation at home • being able to understand the relationship between social and economic determinants of health • developing understanding of globalisation of health and health care trends, practices that help/hinder quality of care delivered locally/internationally and • understand healthcare in low-resource settings (identify barriers to health in low resource settings locally and internationally, be able to work across cultures, understand culture and ethical issues in underserved population groups) • provides service learning opportunities with a local diverse community as one way to achieve internationalisation of curriculum objectives at home (reynolds, 2005; lattanzi & pechak, 2012) • uses integrated course content (includes public/global health content in an existing course) or dual degree pathways • uses ict and technology applications (skype, webbased video conferencing, virtual collaboration for research assignments) to engage expert speakers/international partners from around the globe • provides students with opportunities for reflective practice that is, self-assessment and assessment of cultural competency • provides students with in-class activities about identifying barriers to health in different local and international settings, case studies on healthcare practices in low resource settings pechak & thompson (2010) physiotherapy internationalisation of curriculum • considered programs in us/canada that provided service learning • service-learning, clinical experience, cross-cultural experience, experiential learning, international cultural immersion, international physiotherapy experience, study abroad • discusses service learning as an opportunity for developing cultural competence leask (2004) physiotherapy internationalisation at • intercultural perspectives • international perspectives • ability to work across national and cultural boundaries • ability to obtain ideas and use experiences from different parts of the world • discusses an example case at university of south australia (williams & blaney, 2000) that used ict tools and technologies for achievement of internationalisation outcomes in a health sciences course. physiotherapy students used ict tools (web nagarajan, s. & mc allister, l. (2015). internationalisation of curriculum: imperatives, opportunities and challenges for allied health education. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 6(1), 88–99. 97 reference/ discipline/ internationalisation of curriculum or internationalisation at home skills/attributes discussed in the paper tasks/activities/approaches identified in the referenced paper as contributing to internationalisation of curriculum and internationalisation at home home and email) used to interact with international educators to gather information regarding assessment and management of a patient scenario provided to them. evaluation showed students believed that this assignment enhanced their understanding of international perspectives das (2005) physiotherapy internationalisation of curriculum (ioc) • focusses on international students studying health sciences courses in south australia; aim was to revise curriculum (of a postgraduate unit for physiotherapy students) to better align with principles of ioc and foster cultural competence • fostering cultural competence • relevance of understanding of culture to practice of physiotherapy • ways that culture effects communication and strategies for improving cross-cultural communication • shift from viewing students as having gaps in skills or understanding about australian norms to fostering the development of cultural competence that would enable students to recognise cultural differences between their home and australian education as well as healthcare systems • reflective practice used to revise course content and assessment • evaluation suggests cultural competence advancement in both students and teachers mak & barker (2013) allied health, nursing and business internationalisation at home • focusses on health (pharmacy, nursing and psychology) and business. aim was to internationalise learning and teaching practices • intercultural capabilities or intercultural competence • internationalisation of teaching and learning practices • fosters intercultural capacity building of students and teachers • adaptable intercultural competence curriculum resources • develop cultural awareness of local and international students nagarajan, s. & mc allister, l. (2015). internationalisation of curriculum: imperatives, opportunities and challenges for allied health education. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 6(1), 88–99. 98 undertaking international fieldwork placements (mcallister & whiteford, 2008; chipchase, allen, eley, mcallister, & strong, 2012) and studied the development of students’ clinical reasoning skills in intercultural placements, cultural knowledge and intercultural competence. studies in occupation therapy and physiotherapy education have also reported on academic and student perspectives on studying abroad (deardorff, 2006; kinsella, bossers, & ferreira, 2008). more recently, a project (mak & barker, 2013) funded through the australian government’s office for learning and teaching developed adaptable intercultural competence curriculum resources for health faculties, including psychology (see table 2), with a view to internationalise learning and teaching practices at home institutions. the literature review summarised in table 2 shows that consideration of internationalisation of curriculum and internationalisation at home in allied health courses is limited. horton (2009) calls for more research on how to use internationalisation strategies in occupational therapy education and to understand how such internationalisation can impact students’ practice. the next section provides some ideas derived from the papers reviewed in this article for progressing internationalisation of curriculum and internationalisation at home in allied health education through formal and informal curriculum. suggestions for progressing internationalisation of allied health curricula an internationalised curricula includes international and intercultural dimensions (leask, 2009). this section provides some suggestions for allied health educators for internationalising their curricula. these suggestions are grounded in the preceding overview of internationalisation approaches in other disciplines and a summary of current internationalisation approaches in allied health. a list of key questions that needs to be considered by academic teams embarking on an internationalisation of curriculum process is described in detail in leask (2012). leask emphasises the need for these teams to engage in a cyclical process of conceptualising, planning, implementing, reflecting and evaluating programs and activities for internationalisation of curricula (see figure 2). leask also describes the important role of the institution as well as the discipline involved in the internationalisation of curricula. the institutional policies (for example, graduate attributes), international dimension in degrees offered (example, international languages offered as subjects within courses) and financial support for developing international teaching and figure 2: the process of internationalisation of curriculum (source: leask, 2012) (reproduced with the permission of office for learning and teaching) nagarajan, s. & mc allister, l. (2015). internationalisation of curriculum: imperatives, opportunities and challenges for allied health education. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 6(1), 88–99. 88 research collaborations to assist with staff and student development are enablers for internationalisation at an institutional level. the academics from the individual disciplines are the central actors in the internationalisation of the curriculum process as they are responsible for curriculum design, delivery and assessment. academics need to consider how they can influence their institutions to create an environment that facilitates internationalisation. formal curriculum is defined as the stated, intended, and formally offered and endorsed curriculum while the informal curriculum is an unscripted, predominantly ad hoc, and highly interpersonal form of teaching and learning that takes place among and between faculty and students (hafferty,1998, p. 404). both formal curriculum (for example, subjects aimed at fostering an understanding of application of theory to different cultures and contexts such as developed, developing, underdeveloped countries) and informal curriculum (for example, enabling students to engage with migrant or refugee groups in the home country to provide different perspectives about health systems and practices in different countries) need to be carefully planned to provide opportunities for allied health students to develop international and intercultural perspectives. leveraging the informal curriculum maximising and using diversity in the university environment is one of the many ways to assist allied health graduates develop social and cultural skills. the diversity of staff and students who come from a range of ethnic and cultural backgrounds is under-utilised on campus as a resource for development of students’ intercultural competence (ho, holmes, & cooper, 2004). allied health education needs to consider ways to address common barriers to integration of domestic and international student cohorts such as language, cultural and social barriers, and previous life and educational experience of domestic and international students. in well-planned activities, international students could contribute diverse cultural perspectives and experiences to enrich those of domestic students (leask, 2009). it has been suggested that encouragement of student interactions should be supported through a rewards system that recognises the importance of such interactions (leask, 2009). table 3 provides some ideas for leveraging informal curriculum opportunities. table 3: ideas for internationalisation at home – leveraging informal curriculum opportunities leveraging informal curriculum • liaising with local cultural/ethnic groups (garfinkle, 2007) • using migrant/refugee/ethnic groups in the home country to provide different perspectives (lattanzi & pachak, 2012; useh, 2011) • using diversity on campus to encourage cultural lunches, debates, competitions, mentoring (example, domestic students mentoring international students) (leask, 2009) • buddies/mates programs, attendance and participation in cultural events on campus (leask, 2009) • peer assisted study sessions, study support groups organised by teacher and student services support departments (leask, 2009) • intra and inter-university competitions, for example, the healthcare team challenge (richardson, gersh, & potter, 2012) • encouraging allied health student volunteers to plan and conduct major events on campus and facilitating increased interaction between students from different cultures nagarajan, s. & mc allister, l. (2015). internationalisation of curriculum: imperatives, opportunities and challenges for allied health education. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 6(1), 88–99. 89 a further issue to consider when using informal curricula or co/extracurricular activities as means for the development of intercultural competencies is how to assess the development of such skills. if these co-curricular activities are not mandatory it is difficult to guarantee participation of all graduates and assess or measure achievement of outcomes (leask, 2009). harnessing the cultural diversity of campuses could be reflected in the formal curriculum by inclusion of appropriate assessment items. leveraging the formal curriculum the literature suggests some key approaches for progressing internationalisation at home through formal curricula. these include cultural awareness and competency training, developing an understanding of different cultural approaches to healthcare, service learning placements, and project work. cross-cultural competency development could be infused throughout the allied health curriculum in a range of ways. embedding international case studies, assignments and utilising the cultural diversity available on campus through staff and students in teaching, learning, assessment and research activities are key to enhancing students understanding of healthcare in different countries and cultures. additional suggestions are provided in table 4. table 4: suggestions for internationalisation of allied health curricula – leveraging formal curriculum opportunities themes leveraging formal curriculum student development • utilisation of international research and international students as informants for analysis and discussion of international health systems and perspectives (mcallister & whiteford, 2008) (e.g., maximise the use of diversity in the student cohorts by forming learning pairs for assignments and rotating pairs (for example: pair a local student with an international student for assignments) or bring together students from different disciplines within the faculty to interact and collaborate with each other on assignments) (leask, 2009) • engagement of students in research projects/assignments to analyse different approaches to issues in different countries (leask, 2009). • inclusion of mandatory service learning placements in a different country or socio-culturally diverse settings at home (volunteer organisations, not for profit) (reynolds, 2005; lattanzi & pechak, 2012). curriculum design, learning activities and assessment • discussion of application of theory to different cultures and contexts (developed, developing, underdeveloped countries) (horton, 2009) (e.g., comparative studies of patient interventions in home and other countries (hanover research council, 2010)) • inclusion of multicultural or international views/perspectives (e.g., case studies) in allied health subjects for both learning and assessment • development of cultural awareness through – discussion of cultural, language differences and barriers, impact of language and culture, different culture/country based attitudes to disadvantaged people, disabled persons (horton, 2009) (e.g., brainstorming of ideas and strategies in-class to develop ability in students to cope with cultural as well as socioeconomic differences (useh, 2011)) • gathering of support from stakeholder groups such as the professional standards or board or associations to formally recognise cross-cultural competency as a priority for graduate skill development (mcallister & nagarajan, 2015). • utilisation of perspectives of experienced allied health academics/clinical educators involved in international collaborations and students undertaking fieldwork and study in international placements to inform development of learning resources (such as testimonials, videos from international placement experiences that could be used for on campus education). staff development • preparation of academics as international educators with ability to facilitate culturally diverse student groups (mcallister & whiteford, 2008) • provision of dedicated cross-cultural or cultural sensitivity training courses (leask, 2009) nagarajan, s. & mc allister, l. (2015). internationalisation of curriculum: imperatives, opportunities and challenges for allied health education. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 6(1), 88–99. 90 teaching, learning and assessment tasks may need to be redesigned to achieve real engagement between all students on campus. innovative ways of teaching and learning could be considered, such as use of virtual classrooms with international mentors, international employers, and interactions with international experts or even student groups from different countries (harden, 2006; bell, 2008). this requires allied health educators to consider a shift from traditional ways to teaching and learning (for example, local teacher-local student-local curricula) towards contemporary ways of teaching and learning (example, local student international teacher-international curriculum) (harden, 2006), and to make structural changes to the curriculum to meet internationalisation of curriculum objectives. assessment should test knowledge as well as action or demonstration of intercultural and international competencies (leask, 2009). carefully planned informal and formal curricula will need to address a range of challenges to implement and integrate internationalisation goals in allied health curricula. these challenges have been identified in a range of disciplines and are summarised in the next section. approaches to overcoming challenges for implementation and assessment of internationalisation at home in allied health throughout the paper numerous challenges to internationalisation of curricula were signalled. in this section we discuss some key challenges: creating a shared understanding of nationalisation, a lack of studies focused on internationalisation in allied health, difficulties in measuring success for internationalisation learning outcomes and institutional barriers to developing curricula. the lack of shared understanding of what internationalisation means was noted in the introduction. comparison of internationalisation of curriculum and internationalisation at home studies is difficult because of lack of shared understanding of internationalisation concepts and terms. describing, evaluating and assessing internationalisation of curriculum or internationalisation at home outcomes from different studies is challenging because studies do not use terminology and measures. this is also a barrier to gathering ‘evidence’ for impact of internationalisation of curriculum and internationalisation at home. the internationalisation of curriculum approaches in allied health described in an earlier section demonstrated a range of terminologies to refer to skills and/or competencies in relation to internationalisation and a variety of tasks, activities and approaches that contributed to internationalisation goals. this diversity of terms and approaches presents challenges in comparing studies or understanding the development of skills and competencies for health graduates. an agreed framework and nomenclature would assist comparative research; the united nations educational, scientific and cultural organisation (unesco) (2013) resource may provide such a conceptual and operational framework for intercultural competences. it provides steps that can be taken for clarifying, teaching, promoting, enacting and supporting intercultural competences. a recent uk study (ryall, 2014) investigated health sciences staff conceptions and experiences of internationalisation at a uk institution and indicates current understandings amongst teaching academics. key findings were that: a) health sciences staff considered internationalisation as developing people’s knowledge of global issues, growth in intercultural sensitivity and skills and the ability to see the wider picture and their position within it; b) internationalisation enhanced people’s ability to cooperate and collaborate with each other and as a result adapt to a dynamic world; and c) the internationalisation process has stages of input, activities, output and outcome which are a complex but interlinked set of stages which are influenced by global, national, higher education and individual factors. more studies are needed to address a gap in knowledge about the disciplinary staff conceptions of the term internationalisation. nagarajan, s. & mc allister, l. (2015). internationalisation of curriculum: imperatives, opportunities and challenges for allied health education. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 6(1), 88–99. 91 the literature analysis presented in this paper indicates that there is a paucity of studies in allied health that focussed on the implementation of internationalisation at home (useh, 2011). although discussion of internationalisation of curriculum and internationalisation at home is well developed (leask 2005, 2007, 2009, 2011, 2012) research on the implementation and assessment of internationalisation at home is still scarce. many difficulties in evaluation of outcomes for students, faculties, university and community in relation to internationalisation of curriculum and internationalisation at home exist. however, some research in this direction is already starting to emerge. recent studies in the broader internationalisation literature (deardoff, thorndike pysarchik, & yun, 2009; olsen, 2009; jenkins-deas, 2009) have started reporting on outcomes for individuals who have experienced internationalisation of curriculum or internationalisation at home. currently there are no studies in allied health that examine the impact of internationalisation of curriculum or internationalisation at home initiatives on allied health graduates’ practice. more research evidence regarding assessment of internationalisation of curriculum and internationalisation at home initiatives and their impact on allied health graduates’ practice is essential. there are also difficulties associated with measuring success in internationalisation of curriculum or internationalisation at home. for example, consensus and clarity regarding what indicators to measure, methods of measurement, and foci of measurement (inputs, outputs or outcomes) should be resolved before an institution embarks on measuring success of internationalisation of curriculum or internationalisation at home initiatives (de wit, 2009). some models for assessment of outcomes and impacts of internationalisation by using sample indicators for the assessment of internationalisation of curriculum have been reported in the literature (hudzik & stohl, 2009). sample indicators for the assessment of internationalisation of curriculum have also been reported in case studies (hudzik & stohl, 2009). learning inputs (for example, number of lecturers engaged in teaching with international or global content), outputs (for example, number of students enrolled in international or global majors), learning outcomes (evidence of students’ capacities to work with others from different cultures) and a number of other indicators (for example, engagement inputs, outputs and outcomes) can be used for assessment of internationalisation (hudzik & stohl, 2009). recent studies have begun to systematically evaluate implementation and outcomes. teissier (2007) reported a case study from mexico which used an internationalisation at home model for institutional development across the entire institution at universidad regiomontana (ur). the internationalisation at home model at this university included elements such as internationalising the curriculum (introduced an internationalisation of curriculum process to all academics through workshops and support from internationalisation of curriculum experts), use of textbooks in a language other than spanish, leveraging expertise of international visiting teaching staff and speakers, assessing linguistic ability of staff and students and ensuring an international ambiance and ethos on campus. similarly, leask (2007) described a case study of using diversity on campus in an australian university to develop an institution wide approach to internationalisation. key findings were that institutional policy, planning and public statements of support recognising the intellectual wealth which the diverse group of students and staff bring to the life of the university were an important aspect of internationalisation within an institution. there are also challenges for universities as large institutions in embracing internationalisation. the time and expense involved in engaging all relevant stakeholders in the internationalisation of curriculum/internationalisation at home process along with a lack of funding, legal and administration support present obstacles to pursuing internationalisation goals in many institutions (van damme, 2001; siaya & hayward, 2003; adelman, 2004). in this section some practical strategies for internationalising allied health curriculum are described. universities and faculties need to consider allocation of dedicated resources to develop cultural awareness amongst their students. strategies to introduce cross-cultural skills in curriculum, special classes such as language studies, encouraging staff/ students to study or work abroad need financial, academic and administrative support (horton, 2009). strong nagarajan, s. & mc allister, l. (2015). internationalisation of curriculum: imperatives, opportunities and challenges for allied health education. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 6(1), 88–99. 92 evidence justifying any investment in internationalisation initiatives is essential but is currently limited in literature. the future of internationalisation in allied health a review of the current literature and resources for internationalisation in allied health also provides directions for future effort. the main aim of a recent study (mak & barker, 2014) funded by the australian government, office for learning and teaching (olt) titled, internationalisation at home: enhancing intercultural capabilities of business and health teachers, students and curricula was to internationalise the learning and teaching practices of business and health education. participating disciplines, pharmacy, nursing and psychology, implemented capacity building of academic staff, local and international students and development and implementation of intercultural competency curriculum tools and resources. one of the key recommendations for universities arising from this study was that the need to increase support and resources available for professional development on internationalisation of curriculum and internationalisation at home for academics and clinical placement supervisors. the recommendations and the curriculum resources developed as a result of this study are applicable to allied health more generally. internationalisation efforts in allied health are well placed to address many of the misconceptions identified by de wit (2011). while there is a focus on increasing student mobility in allied health, participation rates are low and there appears to be recognition amongst academic staff that this alone does not equal internationalisation. more could be done to capture the learning outcomes from students on placements overseas and make these available more broadly to the student body through internationalisation at home initiatives, such as seminars from return students which are a required part of the curriculum for their student peers. there are large numbers of international students studying allied health degrees in australia, and the degree requirements for the development of practical skills, in on-campus classes and on clinical placements where students are frequently placed in small groups, creates situations where international and domestic students mingle and learn with and from each other. the nature of allied health practice brings allied health clinicians into daily contact with patients from diverse cultures and degree accreditation requirements include cross-cultural competencies for most allied health degrees. these are typically assessed on clinical placements where students can be expected to interact with patients from many cultures. while this aspect of internationalisation at home is already embedded and assessed in allied health curricula, allied health degrees could do more to systematically develop and assess competencies for practice in culturally diverse settings. leask noted the importance of academic teams taking a cyclical approach to development, implementation and evaluation of efforts to internationalise curricula. allied health already takes a holistic, cyclical approach to curriculum because accreditation requirements demand a whole-of-degree overview and tracking of knowledge and skills development. it would not be too great a step to include internationalisation of curriculum and internationalisation at home as curriculum foundation stones in allied health. conclusion the importance of internationalisation of curriculum and internationalisation at home for allied health education is highlighted in this paper. a review of the literature suggests that discussion of internationalisation of curriculum and internationalisation at home is well developed in other disciplines but not in allied health. several challenges to internationalisation for all disciplines including allied health were discussed. existing frameworks for internationalisation of curriculum that allied health education could adopt were highlighted. development of consensus on definitions and frameworks for internationalisation of curriculum and nagarajan, s. & mc allister, l. (2015). internationalisation of curriculum: imperatives, opportunities and challenges for allied health education. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 6(1), 88–99. 93 internationalisation at home will allow comparative research on internationalisation outcomes for all stakeholders. there is a need for all disciplines to research the implementation and outcomes at different levels. for example, robust research evidence is required in all disciplines to identify effective pedagogic and curricular responses for preparation of graduates capable of working in international contexts. further, research on implementation and assessment of internationalisation of curriculum and internationalisation at home in most disciplines is still scarce. there is also a need for future research to focus on impact and outcomes arising from internationalisation at home initiatives. there is little evidence of impact of internationalisation of curriculum and internationalisation at home goals on allied health graduate employment or practice. because it is coming relatively late to internationalisation of curriculum and internationalisation at home, allied health education has the opportunity to learn from other disciplines and ensure that its efforts in internationalisation of curriculum and internationalisation at home use consensus definitions and frameworks, are evidence based and incorporate evaluation of implementation and outcomes. great opportunities exist for allied health to build internationalisation into formal curriculum because accreditation and registration requirements demand that skills such as cultural competence are formally included and assessed in curricula. the applied and practical aspects of clinical education lends itself to leveraging informal as well as formal curriculum. this paper identified some challenges for internationalisation of allied health education and raised important questions that should prompt academic, clinical educators and students to consider how well allied health education is addressing internationalisation goals and how these might contribute not only to graduate capabilities, but also to graduate employability. nagarajan, s. & mc allister, l. 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(2015). internationalisation of curriculum: imperatives, opportunities and challenges for allied health education. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 6(1), 88–99. 99 http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0021/002197/219768e.pdf internationalisation of curriculum at home: imperatives, opportunities and challenges for allied health education srivalli nagarajan1 and lindy mcallister 1 srivalli.nagarajan@sydney.edu.au; lindy.mcallister@sydney.edu.au 1university of sydney abstract keywords: allied health, health graduates, internationalisation of curriculum, internationalisation at home, internationalisation of higher education, global health, cross-cultural communication. andrewartha, l. & harvey, a. (2017). student voice and influence on employability in australian higher education. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 8(1), 202–214. 202 student voice and influence on employability in australian higher education lisa andrewartha1 and andrew harvey1 l.andrewartha@latrobe.edu.au; andrew.harvey@latrobe.edu.au 1la trobe university abstract higher education institutions are increasingly focussed on improving the capacity and potential of their graduates to gain employment. attempts to develop employability skills through both mainstream and extra-curricular activities create new demands and expectations for students. despite these demands, little attention has been given to student voice and influence in the employability sphere. furthermore, the specific role of student unions in improving employability has been marginalised in australian research. the research reported in this paper involved conducting a national survey of student groups and a comprehensive desktop review to capture student perspectives and investigate strategies to improve employability. from the research five broad student-centred approaches were identified: providing input into university employability strategies; placing students in positions of leadership and responsibility; delivering careers services; managing clubs and societies; and advocating for students from equity groups who have relatively poor completion rates and/or graduate outcomes. the findings are discussed and recommendations targeted to higher education institutions and student unions are provided. key words: higher education; graduate employability; student unions; student voice; student equity introduction universities are increasingly focussed on developing strategies to improve the capacity and potential of their graduates to gain employment. at the same time, students from diverse backgrounds are participating in higher education in unprecedented numbers. a major national research study was undertaken to investigate a range of higher education employability strategies and their accessibility and relevance to diverse student cohorts (harvey, andrewartha, edwards, clarke, & reyes, 2017). one component of this project focussed on student voice and influence. the aim was to explore the unique role that student unions can play in promoting employability and to capture previously unheard student perspectives on the employability arena. to achieve these aims, a national survey of student representatives and a desktop review of student union structures and activities were conducted. while terminology differs across institutions and nations, the term ‘student unions’ is used broadly in this article to refer to all student-led organisations that represent students and advocate for their rights and interests, including guilds and associations. the term ‘student representatives’ is used collectively to refer to students holding positions within student unions, including presidents, vice-presidents, general secretaries, and equity officers. a major role of student representatives is to speak to the views and interests of the wider student population, making them well placed to reflect the student voice. mailto:l.andrewartha@latrobe.edu.au mailto:andrew.harvey@latrobe.edu.au andrewartha, l. & harvey, a. (2017). student voice and influence on employability in australian higher education. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 8(1), 202–214. 203 this article begins by providing the national context of the rise of employability within higher education and outlining disparities in graduate outcomes. the growing importance of extracurricular activities, many of which are managed by student unions, is then explored. subsequently, the findings from the original research are presented. these findings underlined the important role that student unions can play in improving student employability, particularly through student leadership roles and clubs and societies. of particular interest was the finding that students were mostly marginalised from the development of university employability strategies, despite holding strong views and expressing a willingness to contribute. student representatives were specifically concerned about the employment outcomes of students from equity groups and felt that universities could do more in this space. finally, the implications of the research for universities and students unions are discussed, highlighting the broad need for cultural change to redress unequal graduate outcomes. context employability is central to the modern mission of australian higher education. employability can be loosely defined as the capacity and potential of a graduate to gain employment (yorke, 2006). traditional conceptions of employability have focussed on providing graduates with skills sought by employers, including both discipline-specific skills and transferable skills (bridgstock, 2009). more recent conceptions of employability acknowledge the additional skills and attributes that graduates need in order to sustain employment in increasingly competitive and rapidly changing labour markets. bridgstock (2009), for example, stresses the importance of career management skills. she argues that graduates need to proactively navigate the working world and successfully manage the career building process, based on attributes such as lifelong learning and adaptability (p. 35). bennett, richardson, and mackinnon (2016) also emphasise the importance of adaptability, innovation, and life-long critique of self and career to achieve sustained employment (p. 26). it should be noted that employment is distinct from employability, which refers specifically to the acquisition of a job (yorke, 2006). a graduate with a high level of employability might not secure employment for a range of reasons, such as labour market factors and personal circumstances. as employability is inherently more difficult to measure than employment, short-term graduate employment outcomes have often been used as a proxy measure. australian universities are facing increasing pressure to demonstrate the employability of their graduates. a major national research study highlighted the prioritisation of employability in higher education (harvey et al., 2017). this project found that approximately three quarters of universities considered employability within their strategic plans, and approximately half of the universities had a member of senior management with specific responsibility for employability (harvey et al., 2017). at the same time, information on graduate employment outcomes is becoming more accessible to prospective students. the quality indicators of learning and teaching (qilt) website was launched in 2015 and allows students to compare graduate employment outcomes across institutions and disciplines (qilt, 2017). since 2016, the qilt suite of surveys also includes a new national measure of employer satisfaction, which captures the satisfaction of workplace supervisors with the technical and generic skills of recent graduates. it is clear that employers expect graduates to be both versatile and technically skilled in today’s competitive labour market. a recent analysis of job vacancy advertisements found that the most common requirements of employers were: communication skills; teamwork skills; job specific or technical skills; experience; and interpersonal skills (messum, wilkes, peters, & jackson, 2016). in this environment, university-industry collaboration is becoming more pervasive as a means of improving graduate employability (tran, 2016). performance-based funding is also rising. under the australian government’s (2017) proposed higher education reform, a proportion of university funding will be dependent on performance measures such as completion rates and employment outcomes. andrewartha, l. & harvey, a. (2017). student voice and influence on employability in australian higher education. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 8(1), 202–214. 204 as graduate outcomes are increasingly scrutinised, it is important to address persistent inequities. the australian higher education equity framework identifies six equity groups: people from low socio-economic status (ses) backgrounds; people from regional and remote areas; people from non-english speaking backgrounds (nesb); aboriginal and torres strait islanders (also referred to as indigenous peoples); people with a disability, and; women in non-traditional areas, such as science, technology, engineering and mathematics (department of education, employment and training, 1990). despite strong participation growth, most equity groups are still under-represented in higher education compared to their population share (harvey, burnheim, & brett, 2016). low ses, regional, and indigenous students also have lower completion rates than their peers (department of education and training, 2016). for equity students who are retained through to graduation, there are clear patterns in employment outcomes. graduates from non-english speaking backgrounds and graduates with a disability have particularly poor employment outcomes (brett, 2016; graduate careers australia [gca], 2015; li, mahuteau, dockery, junankar & mavromaras, 2016; mestan & harvey, 2014). low ses and regional graduates remain under-represented in the most competitive fields that attract the highest salaries (centre for the study of higher education, 2008) and in post-graduate study (burnheim & harvey, 2016; harvey & andrewartha, 2013). indigenous students remain severely under-represented in higher education. while indigenous graduates have positive employment outcomes overall (gca, 2015; edwards & coates, 2011), they earn less than non-indigenous graduates (richardson, bennett, & roberts, 2016). female graduates from many science, technology, engineering and mathematics disciplines are paid lower salaries than their male counterparts (gca, 2015). given these trends, it is crucial for universities to consider equity issues within their employability strategies and initiatives. one way in which students can develop their employability skills is by participating in extracurricular activities alongside their degree study. research suggests that employers value extra-curricular participation as a means of distinguishing between similarly qualified graduates and providing a potential indication of cultural fit, social skills, and communication skills (stuart, lido, morgan, solomon, & may, 2011). there has been a recent trend towards formally recognising extra-curricular participation through modified or supplemented academic transcripts and/or within student portfolios of achievement. curtin university, for example, introduced the curtin extra certificate in 2014 where students record their participation in approved extra-curricular activities to share with prospective employers and support applications for further study (curtin university, 2016). indeed, extra-curricular activities are becoming less ‘optional’ and more ‘mandatory’ for some graduates to succeed in competitive labour markets. student unions are responsible for representing the interests of students, communicating student views to university management, and providing extra-curricular opportunities through clubs and societies. there has been little research on the role of student unions in australia, compared to the united kingdom and united states. although the structures and operations of student-led organisations differ within and across the three nations, the main role of these organisations is to represent students and advocate for their rights and interests. research from the united kingdom found that student unions have a range of important functions, including: representing students; providing services; improving the student experience; providing welfare services; campaigning; supporting students; running social events; running student societies; and promoting equality and diversity (brooks, byford & sela, 2015b). being involved in student union activities can signal desirable employability skills to potential employers. students can hold a variety of leadership positions within student unions, and research shows that extra-curricular activities that demonstrate leadership, responsibility, commitment, and accomplishment are especially desirable to employers (rivera, 2011; stuart andrewartha, l. & harvey, a. (2017). student voice and influence on employability in australian higher education. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 8(1), 202–214. 205 et al., 2011). participation in student union clubs and societies can also be a useful indicator of communication skills and personal qualities, and research suggests that social networks made through clubs and societies can help graduates find jobs and progress in their careers (stuart et al., 2011). not all students have the same level of involvement with student unions. studies from the united kingdom have found that some student groups are under-represented in leadership and officer positions within student unions, including: black and minority ethnic (bme) students; mature age students, particularly those over 30 years of age; and female students, who are particularly under-represented in the role of president (brooks et al., 2015a; equality challenge unit, 2007). international research has also shown that low ses students spend less time than their peers participating in extra-curricular activities, including student-led clubs and societies (martin, 2012; walpole, 2013; radloff, 2010; stuart et al., 2011). this trend has been attributed to higher ses students having increased access to leisure time, as well as a ‘privilege of ease’ in navigating campus life due to accumulated social and cultural capital (martin, 2012). international research has also suggests that ethnic minority students and mature age students are less likely to participate in student union activities (stuart et al., 2011). as described above, there is a growing focus on improving student employability in contemporary higher education. to date, little attention has been given to student voice and influence in the employability arena and the specific role of student unions has been largely ignored. to address this gap, a desktop review of student union structures and activities was conducted, followed by a national survey of student union representatives. method ethics approval was obtained from the la trobe university human ethics committee (e16016). a desktop review of student union structures and activities was conducted to explore the role of student unions in improving student employability. the review identified 43 separate unions, associations, and guilds for undergraduate students, across the 37 australian public universities. examined specifically were the types of positions available to students within student unions and their main areas of responsibility. student union representatives were surveyed to capture their perspectives on employability in higher education and explore the role of student unions. the survey comprised 33 questions and was administered via the qualtrics online survey tool. some survey questions asked for specific information about student union structures and activities, while other survey questions asked for responses based on personal experiences and perceptions. a total of 164 student representatives across all australian public universities were invited to participate in august 2016. the invitation database covered all 37 public universities and included the 43 different student unions identified via the desktop review. invitations were extended to presidents, vicepresidents, general secretaries, and equity officers. the term ‘student representatives’ is used to collectively refer to students holding these positions within student unions. a total of 54 out of 164 student representatives responded to the survey, representing a 33 per cent response rate overall. survey respondents included representatives from 31 out of the 43 student organisations identified in the desktop review (72 per cent). survey respondents came from all university types, including technology focussed; research-intensive (known as the ‘group of eight’); innovative research; and regional universities. findings from the desktop review and national survey, five broad ways in which student unions can increase student employability were identified: providing input into university employability strategies; placing students in positions of leadership and responsibility; delivering careers services; managing clubs and societies; and advocating for students from equity groups who have relatively poor completion rates and/or graduate outcomes. andrewartha, l. & harvey, a. (2017). student voice and influence on employability in australian higher education. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 8(1), 202–214. 206 input into university employability strategies student unions are an important avenue through which students can have input into university employability strategies and initiatives. the survey found that a little over one third (38 per cent) of universities had a formal employability strategy for students. only four out of the 31 student unions (13 per cent), however, had provided input into the student employability strategy at their university. these student unions provided input by having student representatives sit on, and actively participate in, various boards and committees that guide the employability strategies. this input was provided at multiple levels, including: academic board; education committees; student experience committees; teaching and learning committees; and faculty level teaching and learning boards. while few student unions had input into employability strategies, approximately three quarters of the students (74 per cent) thought that student unions should seek to influence university employability strategies. the survey also found that student representatives had strong but mixed views about the extent to which universities should prioritise student employability. overall, however, student representatives were more likely to think that employability should be prioritised over broader learning (see table 1). table 1: should higher education prioritise improving student employability or promoting learning and knowledge more broadly? response count of students (n = 45) proportion of students % prioritise employability 18 40 focus equally on the two objectives 17 37 prioritise broader learning 10 23 a relatively high proportion of student representatives (40 per cent) felt that employability should be prioritised over broader learning. these students felt that an employability focus was necessary in contemporary higher education given the current economic climate and labour market trends. as one student commented: with the increasing cost of university degrees and the proliferation of graduates who cannot find work in their field, i think it is fair that more attention is placed on employability now. in contrast, approximately one quarter of student representatives (23 per cent) felt that universities should prioritise broader learning over employability. these students felt that higher education should focus on developing student knowledge, intellectual curiosity, critical analysis, and independent thought. several students felt that university provided a unique opportunity for the pursuit of learning for its own sake, whereas employability skills could be gained outside of university study. one student, for example, thought that: universities should be focussed on teaching students their subject matter of their degree. it is an employer’s responsibility to train them for the job. slightly more than one third of the student representatives (37 per cent) felt that universities should be equally focussed on improving employability and broader learning. these students tended to view the two objectives being integrated and complementary. one student, for example, commented as follows: i don't think they're mutually exclusive. developing learning capabilities and intellectual rigor should improve a student's use as a potential employee. focusing andrewartha, l. & harvey, a. (2017). student voice and influence on employability in australian higher education. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 8(1), 202–214. 207 purely on practical skills may make them more job ready, but less flexible and adaptable. some student representatives specified that, while both objectives were equally important, professional degrees should have an employability focus and generalist programs should have a broader educational focus. other student representatives emphasised the importance of providing students with choice to meet their various needs. one student, for example stated that: students who wish to come to university solely for the purpose of finding a job should be catered for. similarly, i believe students who are there to learn more skills, critical thinking techniques, and knowledge in general should also be encouraged and nurtured. positions of leadership and responsibility unions provide students with the opportunity to hold a variety of positions of leadership and responsibility that can improve their employability. the desktop review found that every student union (100 per cent) had a president and vice-president, who were typically elected by fellow students. students in leadership positions could learn high level governance and organisational management which were seen to be particularly transferable to employment. these positions had a high level of responsibility for representing students and communicating student views to university administration. unions were described by several student representatives as providing a relatively safe and accessible environment for students to develop employability skills. one student, for example, described these situations as a: …typically risk-reduced introduction to small to medium sized organisations that students otherwise need to [go to] work or go on an internship to receive. the responsibility and experience is rarely found in other activities a student typically engages in. students could also manage clubs and societies where they learned transferable skills of financial management, basic governance, and people management. three quarters of the student unions (74 per cent) recruited students as paid office bearers and almost half (45 per cent) of the student unions recruited students as unpaid office bearers. the desktop review revealed that many of these officer positions were structured around particular areas of responsibility or specific student groups. some of the more common positions with particular areas of responsibility: welfare officers (present in 49 per cent of student unions); social engagement officers (42 per cent), and environmental officers (40 per cent). the most common positions associated with specific student groups were: women’s officers (42 per percent); and lgbtiq officers (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex, queer, or questioning) (40 per cent). the majority of student unions (71 per cent) also recruited students as volunteers. volunteering was seen as a major aspect of unions where students could learn about teamwork and event coordination, make social connections, and receive positive job references. as one student explained: …a good volunteer can get a great reference from the student union and also have the opportunity to network with so many different students and potentially staff. almost half (48 per cent) of the unions employed students as causal workers. students employed as casuals, such as hospitality and service staff, often received training and obtained professional experience relevant to their specific duties. some short courses were provided (or discounted) through some student unions, such as responsible service of alcohol, microsoft office excel, general construction instruction, and first aid. andrewartha, l. & harvey, a. (2017). student voice and influence on employability in australian higher education. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 8(1), 202–214. 208 participation in clubs and societies student unions provide students with the opportunity to participate in a range of clubs and societies which can be cultural, political, spiritual, musical, sport, special interest, and discipline-related. the desktop review identified 2,890 different clubs and societies across 43 student unions. student representatives often commented on the diversity of clubs and societies on offer, many of which centred on different student groups. there were groups for lgbtiq, indigenous, muslim, indonesian, papua new guinea (png), and pacific islander students, for example, among many others. as one student testified: keeping a diverse range of clubs and societies means that the most students can be involved. many clubs and societies were free or had low cost memberships so that cost was a negligible barrier to entry. student representatives were asked for their views on how participation in clubs and societies can improve employability. participating in clubs and societies was seen to help develop transferable skills for future employment. four types of skills were identified most frequently: management and governance; event organisation; leadership; general planning and organisation (see table 2). as one student summarised, ‘clubs and societies offer students a chance to act as a leader of an organisation, manage its finances, and coordinate its activities. additionally, clubs and societies thrive off delegation and teamwork, which are invaluable soft skills’. table 2: how does participating in student union clubs and societies improve employability? skills developed count of student representatives (n = 49) proportion of student representatives % management and governance 10 20 event organisation 10 20 leadership 9 18 general planning and organisation 9 18 social and networking 6 12 teamwork 5 10 communication 4 8 participating in clubs and societies was seen to offer broader benefits beyond the development of employability skills. the social benefits of participation were seen to contribute to a positive student experience as well as helping to secure employment after graduation. as one student representative noted: …the basic provision of a social network and peer group can improve a student's morale and marks during university whilst providing networking links with associated job prospects after graduation. the fact that participation was viewed favourably by potential employers was also noted. one student, for example, explained that: students gain a wealth of experience that is above and beyond their competitors when they demonstrate they have a passion for their hobbies and are willing to develop their andrewartha, l. & harvey, a. (2017). student voice and influence on employability in australian higher education. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 8(1), 202–214. 209 experiences. the job market is increasingly giving weight to these types of experiences on the cv. some clubs also maintained an alumni record that provided students with a positive job reference to help them enter the workforce. provision of careers services student unions can potentially increase employability through the provision of their own careers services and by referring students to centralised careers services. however, when asked whether their student union directly provided careers services, only four out of 31 surveyed student unions (13 per cent) reported that they provided job interview training, curriculum vitae (cv) checks, and careers information, and organised employer networking events. the survey also found that there was little interaction between student unions and careers services. only approximately one third of student unions (35 per cent) directly interacted with careers services at their university. this interaction was typically minimal and included: cross-promotion of employment opportunities, including advertising student union positions through careers services; some direct referrals between student unions and careers services; and organising joint volunteering and leadership programs and other events. while the unions rarely provided their own careers services, three quarters of the student representatives (76 per cent) felt that unions should directly provide at least some basic careers services, such as advice about cvs, job applications, and job interviews. there were several barriers limiting the capacity for student unions to provide their own careers services, however, especially a lack of funding for suitably trained staff (see table 3). table 3: what are the main barriers to student unions providing careers services? main barriers count of student representatives (n = 36) proportion of student representatives % lack of funding to recruit/train staff to deliver careers services 17 47 lack of demand due to centralised careers services and/or small campus sizes 11 31 lack of funding for additional expenses e.g. set up costs, infrastructure, industry connections 9 25 difficult to coordinate and integrate within the organisational structure of the university 5 14 advocating for equity groups who have relatively poor completion rates and/or graduate outcomes student representatives expressed concern about the employability of students from equity groups and felt that universities were not doing enough to address inequalities in completion rates and graduate outcomes. only seven student representatives (16 per cent) felt that their universities were promoting the employability of students from equity groups either ‘very well’ or ‘extremely well’. these students offered a range of recommendations to address this gap, many of which involved universities collaborating more closely with employers. the most common recommendations were to: develop placements and internships targeted to equity groups; and organise more employer networking events, careers fairs, and professional mentoring opportunities. students also recommended that universities provide: increased andrewartha, l. & harvey, a. (2017). student voice and influence on employability in australian higher education. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 8(1), 202–214. 210 access to extra-curricular opportunities for equity students; greater integration of employability into compulsory units; and more careers advisors with a direct focus on equity groups. more broadly, student representatives were concerned that some employers had recruitment practices that disadvantaged equity groups. based on their personal experiences and perceptions, survey respondents indicated which equity groups they thought found it easier, the same, or more difficult than their peers to secure employment after graduation. the majority of student representatives (80 per cent) reported that graduates from non-english speaking backgrounds find it more difficult than their peers to secure employment. this trend was often attributed to employer discrimination. as one student commented: all too often a student/graduate is overlooked due to cultural background, accent, name etc without being given a chance. approximately two-thirds of survey respondents (66 per cent) reported that graduates with a disability find it more difficult than their peers to secure employment. as one student noted: the additional requirements for successfully hiring a person with a disability can scare potential employers. approximately two-thirds of survey respondents (64 per cent) reported that graduates from low ses backgrounds find it more difficult than their peers to secure employment. low ses graduates were also seen to be unfairly disadvantaged due to smaller professional networks. one student explained that: people with more connections and greater opportunities to network and greater financial backing always have an advantage when there is no equity in a system. student representatives reported that universities did not customarily provide student unions with data that could help them support equity groups. one student stated that: the university does not provide the [student union] with any statistics in relation to retention of students from these areas. it would be helpful to have access to this information so that the [student union] could support students identified as most at risk. furthermore, student unions themselves did not routinely collect data on the extent of equity group involvement in union activities. fewer than half of the student unions monitored how many of their position holders were from equity groups. only two of the 31 surveyed student unions (six per cent) monitored how many students from any of the equity groups participated in clubs and societies. student representatives were troubled by inequalities in extra-curricular participation and the potential effect on employment outcomes. based on their personal experiences and perceptions, survey respondents indicated which groups they thought were less likely than their peers to participate in extra-curricular activities. the majority of student representatives (74 per cent) reported that low ses students were less likely than their peers to participate in these extra-curricular activities that might increase their employability, such as volunteering, work experience, and overseas exchange programs. this trend was attributed to a lack of available time and financial resources, often linked with the need to prioritise paid work. as one student explained: working combined with university commitments, family commitments, and a need for social interaction don't really afford students the time or money to volunteer or go overseas. approximately two thirds of student representatives (65 per cent) reported that students with a disability were also less likely to participate in extra-curricular activities. the trend was attributed to social barriers, especially fears of exclusion and discrimination, and physical limitations, depending on the nature and extent of disability. despite these trends, universities did not consistently provide support to encourage equal extra-curricular participation. the andrewartha, l. & harvey, a. (2017). student voice and influence on employability in australian higher education. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 8(1), 202–214. 211 most common types of support were targeted bursaries for students in financial hardship to participate in work placements and/or overseas exchange programs, which were provided by 40 per cent of universities. discussion and implications the findings underlined the important role that student unions can play in improving student employability, but also revealed a range of limitations. five broad ways in which student unions can increase student employability were identified: providing input into university employability strategies; placing students in positions of leadership and responsibility; delivering careers services; managing clubs and societies; and advocating for students from equity groups who have relatively poor completion rates and/or graduate outcomes. some of these approaches were widespread, while others were only provided by a minority of student unions. taken together, these findings help to fill the gap in the employability literature regarding the influence of student voice and the role of student unions. student unions routinely provided opportunities to improve employability beyond degree study. all student unions placed students in positions of leadership and responsibility and managed a range of clubs and societies. consistent with previous research, the student representatives recognised that leadership experience was especially desirable to employers, and that participation in clubs and societies was associated with improved social networks and transferable skills (rivera, 2011; stuart et al., 2011). few student unions provided their own careers services, however, often attributed to funding constraints. direct interaction between student unions and centralised careers services was also minimal. despite being keen to contribute to the development of employability strategies, students were mostly marginalised from institutional processes. only a small minority of student unions provided input into the student employability strategies at their universities, yet most students thought that their unions should have this input. indeed, student representatives had strong views about the prioritisation of employability in higher education. while many felt that improving student employability should be a university priority, they were also mindful of the need to balance this objective with broader learning for its own sake. student representatives were also concerned about the employability of students from equity groups, particularly graduates from non-english speaking backgrounds and graduates with a disability, and felt that universities could do more in this space. these concerns are in line with previous research that has documented the particularly poor outcomes of graduates from non-english speaking backgrounds and graduates with a disability (brett, 2016; graduate careers australia [gca], 2015; li et al., 2016; mestan & harvey, 2014). student representatives reported that universities did not provide their unions with institutional equity data. furthermore, student unions themselves did not routinely collect data on the extent of equity group involvement in student union positions and activities, often because of a lack of access to institutional data. this lack of data limits the ability to examine whether student unions are adequately catering to diverse student populations. international research has found that black and minority ethnic (bme) students in the uk, mature age students, and women are less likely than others to take up student union positions (brooks et al., 2015a; equality challenge unit, 2007). furthermore, low ses students, ethnic minority students, and mature age students can be less likely to participate in clubs and societies (martin, 2012; walpole, 2013; stuart et al., 2011). equivalent research is needed to determine if these concerning disparities are mirrored in australia. it is worth noting a limitation of the project. the research would have been aided by full participation in the survey across all 43 student unions identified in the desktop review. while responses were obtained from 31 of the 43 student unions (72 per cent), which represents a healthy sample, it is not possible to draw any specific conclusions about the student unions that did not respond to the survey. the desktop review, however, covered the 43 student unions which allowed their structures and activities to be examined. andrewartha, l. & harvey, a. (2017). student voice and influence on employability in australian higher education. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 8(1), 202–214. 212 this research has implications for both universities and student unions. universities and unions could work more collaboratively to ensure there is more student input into the design, implementation, and evaluation of employability strategies. for example, universities could ensure student equity is considered more prominently when forging stronger links with potential employers. there is also a need for further integration of employability into mainstream curricula, so that students who cannot participate in extra-curricular activities are not disadvantaged. both universities and student unions could collect and share more equity data to better monitor and support equity groups. student unions could form tighter links with careers services and direct referrals between these two areas could be promoted. more broadly, this research highlights the need for cultural change to redress unequal graduate outcomes. this change will require greater collaboration between universities, students, and employers to address underlying issues such as unconscious bias and discrimination. as employability is central to the modern mission of higher education, student unions have an increasingly important role to play in supporting a diverse student population into rewarding and sustained employment. acknowledgements the authors wish to acknowledge the general advice given by: dr daniel edwards, principal research fellow, australian council for educational research; professor julia clarke, provice chancellor and dean of faculty of business and law, manchester metropolitan university; and kimberly reyes, center for the study of higher and postsecondary education, university of michigan. funding this article draws on selected findings from a research project funded by the australian government department of education and training through the higher education participation and partnerships program national priorities pool 2015. andrewartha, l. & harvey, a. 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(2017). does it do what it says on the tin? – evaluation of an established uk university employability enhancement award. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 8(1), 152–171. 152 does it do what it says on the tin? – evaluation of an established uk university employability enhancement award toni wright1 and sarah jeffries-watts2 t.wright@newman.ac.uk ; s.jeffries-watts@bham.ac.uk 1 newman university, 2 university of birmingham abstract university employability awards, in the uk particularly, aim to assist students to develop career related skills and attributes and thus increase their potential to achieve graduate level employment. self-report quantitative and qualitative data were collected at intervals via questionnaires, interviews and focus groups from two cohorts (n = 212) of a well-established career development and employability award at a large civic uk university. findings indicated increases in confidence and aspiration, and in the ability to articulate and apply skills and abilities; also that the award may convey similar benefits to work experience. survey data from award completers indicated that they had changed their career related behaviour, and students who have completed the award show a consistent small increase in their level of graduate employment when compared to the graduate employment figure for the university as a whole in the uk university destinations data. employability related values, attitudes and behaviour may all change as a result of award experience. reported changes implied a sense of improved resourcefulness. it is hypothesised that the award may enhance student employability somewhat via development of psychosocial resources, producing a shift in the student’s perception of self and identity. keywords: graduate employability, student award, evaluation introduction definitions of graduate employability have developed over time, changing in line with an increasing emphasis on individualisation, moving from hillage & pollard’s (1998) description of movement through the labour market through yorke’s (2006) set of achievements improving the probability of employment; bridgestock’s (2009) emphasis on adding career management skills and more recently pegg, waldock, hendy-isaac and lawton’s (2012) return to a set of attributes which improve the probability of success in achieving appropriate employment with associated benefits to all stakeholders. however, despite this recent assumption of benefit to stakeholders there appears to be widespread concern that employers are not benefitting from graduate employability: that employer expectations and needs are not being met by graduates (hinchcliffe & jolly, 2010; jackson, 2014; raybould & sheedy, 2005; wilton, 2012). mailto:t.wright@newman.ac.uk mailto:s.jeffries-watts@bham.ac.uk wright, t. & jeffries-watts, s. (2017). does it do what it says on the tin? – evaluation of an established uk university employability enhancement award. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 8(1), 152–171. 153 boden & nedeva (2010) suggest that ‘employability’ in uk higher education (he) is a rebadging of the traditional contributions of the he sector to the skills and knowledge of the population, marking the transfer of authority over what constitutes employability from he to the state, with the associated economic benefits for the state and business of requiring individuals to self-invest in education in order to ensure their individual employability. this state takeover of the employability discourse has led to an increased demand for higher education institutions (heis) to take action to promote the employability of their graduates (department for business innovation & skills (bis), 2009), allied to pressure on heis to identify how they aim to develop the employability of their graduates, and to report on associated activities and their outcomes (bis, 2009). there is evidence that the role of grades and status of the institutions from which qualifications are attained may come into play during recruitment (moreau & leathwood, 2006; tomlinson, 2008) possibly as a means of providing distinction between applicants. indeed tomlinson (2012) suggests that mass higher education, through such distinctions, may now be perpetuating the societal inequalities that it was designed to eliminate. it may therefore, not be unreasonable to speculate whether the role of subject grades and institutional status hold the potential to be replaced to some extent, or at least supplemented, with the arrival of additional indications of graduate employability levels. in addition brooks & everett (2009) note that alongside a widespread pessimism about any relationship between a degree and professional employment, there seemed to be an acceptance among recent graduates that credential inflation was inevitable and that as an individual there was a need to compensate for this by specialising and ‘gaining an edge’ over one’s competitors. these tendencies carry with them a consumer approach to he, and imply an expectation of delivery from uk heis in terms of graduate employment (brooks & everett, 2009), rather more like expectations which may be placed upon institutions outside the uk and europe. for example, there is a service at the university of hong kong called: ‘careers and placement’ which actively assists employers in selecting and recruiting suitable candidates (center of development and resources for students). one way in which heis have responded to these imperatives is to set up student award schemes, the aim of which is to enhance the employability and career development of their graduates. university employability awards are proliferating both in the uk and abroad (university of queensland advantage award; swansea employability award; nottingham advantage award), but a search of the literature appears to show little evidence of their effect, although speight, lackovic and cooker (2012) note the differing understandings of the role of a university award and indeed of student employability between different stakeholders. cleary et al. (2007), writing for the business, industry and higher education collaboration council in australia, noted the lack of objective evidence available in general on the effectiveness of university interventions to equip students to cope with the modern workplace. this may be because of the difficulties inherent in attempting to measure or evaluate human experience. nevertheless, this study is an attempt to evaluate one uk employability award. the award concerned in this study had its first completing cohort in the academic year 2003/4, and represents one large uk civic university’s means of enhancing the employability of graduates enrolled on the award. the personal skills award (psa) is the university of birmingham’s employability award, co-curricular award, or graduate award (nelson, jeffries & mann, 2013); an optional course which works outside the individual’s existing degree to develop their career related skills and attributes. it is a structured program designed for students to develop their skills, to understand and recognise skills they’ve gained from their experiences, and to teach students how to articulate their skills and experiences for the graduate recruitment process and/or application for further study. at the heart of the majority of awards is self-reflection which is crucial in terms of a student’s employability: self-reflection wright, t. & jeffries-watts, s. (2017). does it do what it says on the tin? – evaluation of an established uk university employability enhancement award. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 8(1), 152–171. 154 acts as a vehicle for developing and realising a student’s capabilities from their engagement in extra-curricular activities (thompson, clark, walker, & whyatt, 2013) and within all areas of their life, in preparation for a complex and ever-changing world (jackson, 2011). the personal skills award aims to build a bridge between self-reflection and encouraging students to explore and engage in the opportunities around them, which in turn enhances their student experience at university. the psa does this by formally recognising the learning students derive from hundreds of oncampus extra-curricular activities, from peer mentoring to developing a mobile app; from student society and committee involvement to engaging with a careers mentor. these opportunities encourage the development of new skills, new networks and personal interactions, as well as providing learning experiences for students. sitting alongside the extracurricular activities are taught skills modules, short skill sessions, and online courses, providing opportunities for students to explore skills and abilities in more depth. the compulsory workshop element of the psa assimilates students’ engagement in the classroom and in activities and teaches them the principles of self-reflection; additionally it teaches the ‘language’ of skills so that they can articulate their experiences in a meaningful way to graduate recruiters and for entry into further study. this is the current form of the psa and is referred to in the results section as the ‘activities pathway’. although it is not now available, at the time of the commencement of this study a modular award was also offered where students took modules which taught specific skills as well as reflective practice, referred to in the results section as the ‘modular pathway’. this skills and attributes approach to employability (cbi/ uuk, 2009; diamond, walkley, & scott-davis, 2011) assumes behaviour (performance) is objectively observable and thus may be tested via quantitative methods and this is the starting point for this study. it is important to note, however, issues raised in the literature which may mitigate against the skills and performance approach. it has been suggested that the agenda of skills and employability is not necessarily always fully shared by students; that it takes little account of other ways in which the pedagogical, organisational, cultural and social experience of he can change the lives and values of individuals, contributing in complex ways to their aspirations post-graduation (jary & shah, 2009). alternative views of graduate employability point out that it incorporates an element of interpretation of situation and the potential for practice as well as the understanding of oneself as an individual who engages in practices in a particular context, thus encompassing issues of identity as well as skills and performance. it has been proposed that during their time at university the student develops a situated identity; that of ‘graduate’ which is confirmed by their ability to be recognised as such by significant others, for example, by gaining employment at a graduate level. (holmes, 2001). using this model of graduate employability, it has been suggested that graduates need to think about their values, engagement and intellect as well as performance, thus incorporating potential and the idea of learning as a process of ‘becoming’ (hinchcliffe & jolly, 2010) in order to become more employable. similarly, auburn (2007) noted shifts in student identity related to placement learning and emphasised the need for a developmental understanding of the experiences of the student who becomes the graduate. more recently jackson (2016) presents a case for ‘pre-professional identity’ in graduates, resulting from membership in, and engagement with, multiple communities of practice during their time in he. thus, while this study involves evaluation and measurement of skills and attributes in order to achieve the research aim, it is important to acknowledge the growing literature which suggests that this may be too simplistic and mechanistic an approach to student employability. the aim of this independent evaluation of the psa student award at birmingham university was to explore the extent to which the award fulfils its advertised role as an employability wright, t. & jeffries-watts, s. (2017). does it do what it says on the tin? – evaluation of an established uk university employability enhancement award. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 8(1), 152–171. 155 enhancement intervention for students, adding value in the graduate employability market to the students who undertake it. methodology kirkpatrick’s (1998) model of training evaluation was used as a structure for evaluating the success of the award. the model comprises four levels and data was collected at all four levels. these were mapped onto specific project objectives as shown below: level one participants’ reactions. this level of evaluation focuses on participants’ satisfaction with a training program and informs the next stage of the evaluation process project objective: exploring the effects, in terms of employability skills, of participating in the award as reported retrospectively by students. level two assessing the impact of the course on participants’ learning. this level provides data relating to level one and two of the model project objectives: to explore to what extent, if any, the award increases students’ confidence in terms of aspects of their employability to explore to what extent, if any, the award increases the ability of students to recognise, reflect on and articulate their skills (to employers) level three participants’ behaviour: this level looks at how behaviour has changed in response to training. project objective: to explore to what extent, if any, learning on the award translates to individual behaviour change in terms of job seeking behaviour level four analyse results. this level looks at the outcomes, benefits and results linked to the training. project objective: to explore dlhe (destination of leavers in higher education) outcome data for the cohort of award completers involved in the evaluation project. each level’s objectives were informed by the findings of the previous level, as well as by the evaluation model. mixed methods for each of the first three levels and their corresponding objectives, a separate mixed methodology study was undertaken, collecting both quantitative and qualitative data. the fourth level required interrogation of existing data. in all three studies quantitative data was analysed appropriately for the level and type of data available. qualitative data was analysed using inductive thematic analysis (braun & clark, 2006) the aim of the qualitative data analysis was to explore and describe the impact of the award and therefore a semantic approach was taken to identify themes, focussing on the descriptions and explicit meanings communicated by participants. issues were identified as themes (reported in bold) based on their perceived importance in addressing the research wright, t. & jeffries-watts, s. (2017). does it do what it says on the tin? – evaluation of an established uk university employability enhancement award. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 8(1), 152–171. 156 topic. in all studies, a second researcher confirmed the extracted themes through a second analysis. ethics all participants throughout the evaluation were informed of the independent nature of the research and their ethical rights as outlined in the british psychological society’s ethical guidelines (bps, 2006). written consent was obtained before undertaking questionnaires, and recorded verbal consent was sought immediately prior to interviews and focus groups. all participants were provided with participant information sheets and contact details of the lead researcher. for clarity each study is reported separately below. study 1 design in order to collect quantitative data, a survey was constructed based on the literature and in consultation with the award management team. questions related to program aims as well as staff expectation of the award’s impact. these concerned confidence; ability to define skills; ability to identify skills gaps; ability to fill skills gaps; ability to sell skills to employers; and predicted employer perceptions of the award. as the staff team wished to establish student perceptions of the helpfulness or otherwise of interventions to improving their employability related skills, responses were recorded using the self-report survey with a likert-type scale of 1 to 5 where 1 indicated a perceived decrease in skill or negative perceptions of helpfulness, and 5 indicated a large perceived improvement in skill or positive perception of helpfulness. as numbers in each category were too small to allow for statistical analysis, the likert-type scale categories were then conflated to produce a binary response: reported improvement/no reported improvement. a semi-structured interview design was used to gather qualitative data relating to reactions to the award held by those who had recently completed it. the approach allowed participants to identify important aspects of their employability as it related to the award experience from a phenomenological point of view; in practice this tended to encompass ideas about participant’s employability as a whole rather than just relating to the award. the survey questions were used as the basis for the interviews, rephrased to be open in nature by replacing to what extent… in each question with how… with supplementary open interventions used to encourage exploration of each response. participants a total of 40 individuals who had completed the award the previous academic year were involved in the first study and were recruited via opportunity sampling. this represented 38 per cent of the completers for the award in the academic year 2008/2009. participants numbered 40 in the survey sample and ten in the interview sample, comprising self-selecting survey participants who volunteered to be interviewed. findings quantitative data survey responses indicated that the greatest change was perceived by students in relation to their ability to define their skills and the least change was perceived in relation to their ability to fill skills gaps. the table below shows these results after analysis using a non-parametric wright, t. & jeffries-watts, s. (2017). does it do what it says on the tin? – evaluation of an established uk university employability enhancement award. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 8(1), 152–171. 157 test to test the null hypothesis, that is, that respondents would perceive no significant change in their self-perceived abilities as a result of doing the award. table 1: percentage responses for questions relating to perceived changes as a result of undertaking award question no improvement improvement p change in ability to define skills 12% 89% p<0.001 change in ability to identify gaps in your skills 15% 85% p<0.001 change in ability to ‘sell’ your skills to employers 27% 73% p<0.05 change in confidence in your employability 35% 65% ns change in ability to fill gaps in your skills 42% 57% ns no effect helpful perceived impact of the employability award being on your transcript has on employers’ perceptions of you in terms of your employability 35% 65% ns qualitative data from an analysis of the interviews the following linked main themes were identified: ‘development of skills’ and ‘awareness’. combined, these two themes depict the essential elements of employability and the award as identified by the student sample. wright, t. & jeffries-watts, s. (2017). does it do what it says on the tin? – evaluation of an established uk university employability enhancement award. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 8(1), 152–171. 158 figure 1: thematic diagram depicting study 1 qualitative findings thus employability and the award was perceived in terms of two linked aspects:  skills -both subject specific and transferable linked by  awareness of these skills application to a work setting these main themes incorporate sub themes as shown in figure 1. discussion of findings: study 1 increased awareness can be seen to impact positively on a student’s efficacy beliefs which may then result in higher employment aspirations. work experience and subject knowledge were both seen to feed in to skills development, and the award fed into awareness and application to setting. space precludes detailed discussion of the qualitative findings here, but this may be found in wright and williamson (2010). through a consideration of both sets of data it was possible to identify the role of the award within the development of student employability as defined by knight and yorke’s (2002) usem employability model: the model used by the university careers service at the time (see figure 2). the award can be seen as an addition to the value of a main subject degree. the main degree provides what knight and yorke refer to as ‘understanding of the discipline’ in wright, t. & jeffries-watts, s. (2017). does it do what it says on the tin? – evaluation of an established uk university employability enhancement award. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 8(1), 152–171. 159 addition to more specialised ‘skills’. participants see the award as a means of developing more general attributes rather than acquiring specific skills. overall the results of study 1 suggested that the award’s primary strength in its form at the time, lay in the opportunities and support it offered students during the development of awareness around their existing skills and the application of these skills to the employment setting. this aspect clearly maps onto the ‘meta-cognition’ aspect of the usem module. similarly, this function can also be seen to feed into participants’ self-efficacy, the final component of knight & yorke’s (2002) model. figure 2 shows a visual representation of the award’s role in conjunction with existing experience and the main subject degree of students. figure 2: illustration of the role of the award in the development of employability as defined by the usem model (knight & yorke, 2002) results appeared to show that the award primarily impacted the sample’s ability to define their skills, as opposed to filling any identified skills gap. this finding suggested that comparisons of pre and post award employability would most usefully focus on the meta-cognition and selfefficacy aspects of employability, removing the dimension of ‘skills’ in the evaluation model. this led to the two objectives noted above at the level two stage of the evaluation. study 2 design for study 2 a mixed method, utilising both qualitative (focus groups) and quantitative (psychometric tests) methods was used to collect data about the development of metacognition and self-efficacy in award students. quantitative data collection involved two independent groups, award and non-award students and two administrations with a six month interval between these. this design was intended to identify any significant differences over time on two dependent variables, metacognition and self-efficacy. for numbers in each sample please see table 2. qualitative data collection utilised a focus group method to explore perceived learning and employability development in award students over a six month period. thematic analysis (braun & clarke, 2006) was used to identify themes within the data and any change/ development after the six month period. wright, t. & jeffries-watts, s. (2017). does it do what it says on the tin? – evaluation of an established uk university employability enhancement award. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 8(1), 152–171. 160 participants quantitative data collection an opportunistic sampling method was used to recruit student participants (see table 2 for breakdown of numbers). the control (non-award) sample was drawn from attendees at the award open day who did not enrol on the award, as it was hypothesised that this sample would hold similar characteristics (an awareness of employability issues and some motivation to participate in extracurricular activities) to those who had enrolled in the award. the award sample was recruited through award workshops. follow up questionnaires were distributed six months later via email and at award events/workshops. attrition levels were high, with all sample groups reducing in number by just over 50 per cent due to difficulties in re-engaging students at the six month stage. table 2: breakdown of participation levels for all groups. baseline 6 month follow up control group 112 58 modular pathway 115 50 activities pathway 143 64 the average age of participants for each group was between 18-21 years. the majority of participants (50%) were in their second year of study and this division between year groups was similar for all groups. between 67 per cent and 77 per cent of each group was, or had previously been, in paid employment with the majority completing between one and16 hours per week. qualitative data collection focus group samples were made up of six to ten volunteers attending award workshops. a total of five groups were sampled at enrolment on the award and again after six months. the number and membership of groups were determined by the number of students who volunteered to take part in the research. a total of 71 students took part in the focus groups. 67 per cent of focus group members were female and 33 per cent were male.  materials psychometric tests were administered to assess students’ levels of self-efficacy and metacognition at two time periods. all measures have previously been shown to possess acceptable levels of validity and reliability (hall, 1994; schwarzer & jerusalem, 1995).  metacognition students’ metacognition was assessed via the ‘executive process questionnaire’ (hall, 1994). the questionnaire consists of 40 statements about the participants’ approach to learning. there were four response options: ‘almost never’, ‘seldom’, ‘frequently’ and ‘almost always’. scores range from one to four for each item with a possible overall score of 160. wright, t. & jeffries-watts, s. (2017). does it do what it says on the tin? – evaluation of an established uk university employability enhancement award. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 8(1), 152–171. 161  self-efficacy self-efficacy was measured using the ‘generalised self-efficacy scale’ (schwarzer & jerusalem, 1995). this scale is a ten-item scale consisting of statements regarding the individual’s belief in their ability to respond to a given situation. responses range from ‘not at all true’ to ‘exactly true’. scores range from one to four for each item with an overall possible score of 40. the additional instruction when responding to the below questions please keep in mind issues relating to your employability (e.g. job seeking, interviews) was added in order to assess self-efficacy relating to employability. in addition to the above measures, demographic data relating to year and subject of study, age, gender, previous work experience was collected. this data allowed exploration of possible confounding variables.  focus group questions a question set was developed for the focus group data. this question set consisted of enquiries about current perceived employability; what it means to be employable; what factors would enhance or subtract from employability; and what students hoped to or had got out of the award (in assisting them in this employability development). open questions were used throughout which were based upon both the literature and the phase one data of this research project. questions were reviewed by a second researcher to check relevance. procedure quantitative data collection students were approached by researchers at award workshops and events. before completing the questionnaires participants were provided with an information sheet outlining the nature and purpose of the questions and a consent form, which they were asked to sign once they indicated their full understanding of the research. participants were asked to provide their student number to enable tracking at the second administration point. inferential statistics were performed to investigate any potential relationships or differences between groups. qualitative data collection participants’ were self-selecting volunteers from the quantitative award data set who were informed of the nature and purpose of the research as well as the anonymity and confidential nature of any contributions and their right to withdraw from the process at any point. participants were asked questions about how they perceived their current employability and if/how they expected/found the award to impact this. a number of probe questions were used to clarify and confirm responses. each focus group was recorded with the consent of all participants included in the recording and groups lasted between 15 and 25 minutes. recordings were transcribed and thematic analysis (braun & clarke, 2006), was conducted on the data by two independent researchers in order to identify themes. results quantitative results before looking at comparisons of scores between the three groups, possible confounding variables were explored. wright, t. & jeffries-watts, s. (2017). does it do what it says on the tin? – evaluation of an established uk university employability enhancement award. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 8(1), 152–171. 162  work experience table 3: comparison of mean baseline scores for those with differing levels of hours of work metacognition self-efficacy unemployed 104.61 (9.24) 30.57 (4.55) 1-16 hours 108.09 (8.70) 31.17 (3.73) 16-24 hours 108.91 (11.08) 31.64 (3.83) > 24 hours 107.81 (8.50) 31.15 (4.33) note: standard deviation (sd) in brackets, significant results in bold an independent samples t test was carried out comparing metacognition scores for those who were unemployed (n= 84) and those who worked up to 16 hours per week (n = 153). caution must be exercised when interpreting these results as sample sizes are unequal. results identified a significant difference (t (df235,162)=2.88, p= 0.004) between the groups. findings suggest those not employed score lower in metacognition than those working up to 16 hours per week (x difference = 3.48, ci 1.10 to 5.86).  age an investigation of the metacognition and self-efficacy scores for the three age groups (18-21, 22-29, 30 plus) showed no clear differences between participants of various ages. table 4: age comparisons for mean baseline scores metacognition self-efficacy 18-21 107.23 (9.02) 31.012 (4.13) 22-29 107.45 (12.19) 31.44 (3.23) 30 + 108.00 (8.00) 30.50 (4.04) note: standard deviation (sd) in brackets  baseline skills comparisons an exploration of each group’s mean baseline metacognition and self-efficacy scores indicated little difference between groups at first administration (see table 3) and a mancova controlling for the impact of hours worked confirmed no significant difference between the groups (p=0.165). wright, t. & jeffries-watts, s. (2017). does it do what it says on the tin? – evaluation of an established uk university employability enhancement award. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 8(1), 152–171. 163 pre and post comparisons  work experience and skills comparison the significant difference in metacognition scores between those who worked 16-24hrs and those who did not work, evident in the baseline data, was not evident in the metacognition scores for award participants at the six month administration stage (t (df49,45) =0.76, p=0.47)  pre and post skills comparisons an exploration of each group’s metacognition and self-efficacy scores indicated little difference between groups or scores at the six month administration point (see table 5). table 5: mean scores for psa and control groups at baseline and after 6 months metacognition self efficacy baseline at 6 months baseline at 6 months control group 107.32 (9.80) 110.92 (7.95) 30.59 (3.96) 29.88 (3.68) modular pathway 107.85 (9.14) 107.67 (10.17) 30.72 (4.37) 31.00 (5.67) activity pathway 106.80 (8.95) 107.53 (9.29) 31.64 (3.86) 32.39 (5.61) note: standard deviation (sd) in brackets a 2-way mixed manova confirmed that there were no significant differences between groups or time on either scale (p=0.204) qualitative results figure 3: thematic diagram depicting study 2 qualitative findings on award enrolment wright, t. & jeffries-watts, s. (2017). does it do what it says on the tin? – evaluation of an established uk university employability enhancement award. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 8(1), 152–171. 164 the three main themes above: ‘self-development’, ‘award as asset’, ‘work experience’ were identified as having an impact on students participating in the award. these three themes were all identified as relating to a further theme: ‘employability’. figure 4: thematic diagram depicting study 2 qualitative findings six months after commencing award the three main themes above (‘awareness and communication’ linked by the theme of ‘application to employment setting’, with ‘the award as proof’ of this) were identified as having an impact on award students. the cognitive processes of the ‘strategic application of skills development’, and ‘reflection via self-assessment’, both leading to improved ‘confidence’ were also identified in the data. again space precludes a detailed discussion of the qualitative themes within the data. this can be found in wright (2012) discussion of findings: study 2 the non-significant results over time in the quantitative data from study 2 taken alongside some clear differences over time in the qualitative data suggest that the award, rather than increasing student’s cognitive skills, may be changing their application, and the meaning that is ascribed to their possession by those who undertake the award. the lack of any significant differences over time or group tend to suggest that the award itself has no effect on participant’s metacognition or self-esteem in a quantitative sense. however, the disappearance of the difference in metacognition scores for award participants at the six wright, t. & jeffries-watts, s. (2017). does it do what it says on the tin? – evaluation of an established uk university employability enhancement award. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 8(1), 152–171. 165 month point between those who worked part time and those who did not, suggests that perhaps the award has some effect on metacognitive ability which levels out the advantage conferred by part time work. both sets of qualitative data show that focus group participants were able to demonstrate reflective thinking, but those in the later groups showed a greater degree of discrimination and an awareness of a developmental process which was not present in the themes at enrolment on the award. the comments describing the process of reflection, application of experience to context and a resulting increase in confidence may link to the concept of learning as part of a process of ‘becoming’ (hinchcliffe & jolly, 2010). this complex cognitive process may be difficult to measure, thus we find non-significant quantitative results alongside clear differences in qualitative data. the description of a process, in terms of how award students describe themselves and their ability to learn and grow, may also link to the graduate identity approach to employability as advocated by holmes (2001) or perhaps the award may be considered as a contributing community of practice in jackson’s (2016) pre-professional identity model. study 3 design study 3 involved a survey design, collecting numeric and individual data about job seeking behaviour. a survey was devised, based on the framework suggested in kirkpatrick (1998), to explore changes in job seeking behaviour after undertaking the award. participants an opportunistic sampling method was used to recruit participants from those who had completed the award in the year 2011. a total of 64 students completed surveys, which was 34 per cent of the total number who had completed the award that year. thus the same cohort as was involved in the stage 2 data collection was surveyed at completion of their award. procedure in the first instance all award completers in the academic year 2010/2011 were emailed an electronic copy of the survey with a request to complete and return to the research team by email. to supplement this, participants were recruited at the social event which accompanied the awards ceremony and consenting individuals were asked to complete a paper copy of the survey. the surveys were than analysed via descriptive statistics which were illustrated by the individual data supplied freehand in answer to specific questions about behaviour change. findings eighty-four per cent of respondents said that they were now implementing employability related behaviours that they were not before undertaking the award. when asked to elaborate on these, respondents described reflecting on their skills and experiences; applying skills and attributes to specific situations and contexts; increased ability to articulate skills and attributes, and increased confidence. this is evidenced in the following comments: i have learnt to reflect and expand on previous work/life experiences, which has resulted in enabling me to express/convey myself better. thinking more about how to effectively use my time outside of academic studies to put myself at an advantage over other graduates. also i now feel more confident that i can analyse what i’ve done and how it is relevant to particular positions. wright, t. & jeffries-watts, s. (2017). does it do what it says on the tin? – evaluation of an established uk university employability enhancement award. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 8(1), 152–171. 166 i have learnt more about myself and i’m now trying to "play to my strengths" rather than focus on my weaknesses. this is affecting my career decisions. fifty one per cent of respondents also planned to change their behaviours in the future as reflected in comments such as: tailoring my cv/cover letters to specific jobs. to develop my commercial awareness. be more proactive. further freehand comments were invited in a section which asked respondents if there was anything else they would like to comment on about how the award had altered their behaviour. there were two strands of responses here: a. those who reported specific improvements in attributes directly related to the seeking of employment, who commented, for example: it's been useful for improving my confidence and networking skills. improved my cv and the ability to recognise and develop my transferable skills. b. those who reported somewhat more global effects on the self, such as self-improvement, development; preparedness, growth, with comments such as: the award has prepared me for life beyond my degree. it has helped me grow as a whole in the sense of employability. i learned a lot. i changed my views and thinking. discussion of findings: study 3 the stage 3 results show evidence of behaviour change as a result of learning on the award, but also seem to demonstrate changes in selfconcept in some respondents. the idea of preparedness for the future was mentioned specifically by two respondents and when taken in conjunction with the more numerous comments about feelings of confidence about completers’ abilities to manage future challenges, implies a sense of improved resilience or resourcefulness in respondents. the concept of career adaptability may be helpful here: savickas (1997) notes the complexity of vocational behaviour across a multiplicity of contexts and with diverse groups of people, and defines career adaptability as: the readiness to cope with the predictable tasks of preparing for and participating in the work role and with the unpredictable adjustments prompted by changes in work and working conditions (p.254). adaptability resources are the self-regulation capacities that an individual may draw upon to solve the unfamiliar, complex and ill-defined problems presented by developmental vocational tasks, occupational transitions and work traumas (savickas, 1997). it is therefore possible to conceive of the award as developing the career ‘adapt-abilities’ (savickas & porfeli, 2012) of students, thus enhancing both their readiness and their resources to deal with the changing world of work and to begin to construct their own individual careers. further work in this area would be required, however, to draw any firm conclusions. wright, t. & jeffries-watts, s. (2017). does it do what it says on the tin? – evaluation of an established uk university employability enhancement award. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 8(1), 152–171. 167 study 4 procedure in the uk there is a legal requirement for all heis to collect and report to the uk higher education statistics agency on the number of graduates in graduate level employment six months after graduation. this national survey, the destination of leavers in higher education (dlhe), is published and forms one of the measures used in national league tables which purport to compare the relative merits of different uk universities. it is thus an important performance indicator for uk university careers providers as well as for the universities. the destinations data for award completers was obtained from the university in the study and was compared to the destinations data for the university overall in the same academic year. findings the award cohort (n=188) showed an 86 per cent graduate level of employment as opposed to 82 per cent for the university as a whole (including the award students) in the destinations data for the year in question. discussion of findings: study 4 the data was limited in nature and took some time to obtain, due to restrictions on its usage. thus its usefulness to this study is also somewhat limited as it was not possible to isolate different groups of students from the data set owned by the university in question. the award cohort was smaller by several hundred degrees of magnitude than the comparator figure which was available, therefore direct comparison was not possible. neither is it possible to know whether those who undertook the student award were those who might have achieved graduate level employment within the first six months due to factors other than undertaking the award. however, the limited data available does tentatively suggest that completion of the student award may contribute to a slightly greater probability of gaining graduate employment in the first six months. discussion: project as a whole there were a number of limitations with the studies. in stage 2, due to the data collection methods, a degree of standardisation necessary for optimal use of psychometric testing was absent. this may have impacted adversely on the accuracy of the quantitative data. however, data was collected in the same way at both time points. a further limitation on the quantitative data was the significant attrition rate between the two administrations of the tests, as sample sizes reduced by 50 per cent between tests. similarly, the participants in the stage 2 focus groups were self-selecting rather than being randomly selected. this may impact on the data gathered in that those who volunteer in any setting tend to be those individuals who are most enthusiastic and motivated, thus skewing the data. however, as both sets of focus group participants were self-selected, both sets of data may be equally skewed and it is differences between the groups over time which are reported. at stage 3 a proportion of participants were recruited from the award ceremony, again holding the possibility of a skewed sample of enthusiastic and motivated individuals, producing a picture which does not reflect the award completion group as a whole. however, as the award is a voluntary exercise, all those individuals who complete it could, by definition, be described as motivated and enthusiastic. outcome data was supplied by the university and was very limited due to constraints upon usage of destinations of leavers in higher education data. outcome data was for those who completed the award only. no information was available for a substantial minority who undertook part of the award but did not complete, who presumably would experience some effect, but who were excluded from the data set. however, outcome data for subsequent years wright, t. & jeffries-watts, s. (2017). does it do what it says on the tin? – evaluation of an established uk university employability enhancement award. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 8(1), 152–171. 168 continue to show small differences in employment rates with award completers in the 2014/15 academic year (the most recent year for which figures are available) showing an 87 per cent graduate level employment rate as opposed to 85 per cent for the university as a whole. tymon (2013) suggests that communication skills and self-confidence may be developed as part of the process of undertaking a degree, and this suggestion may go some way towards explaining the lack of difference found in either metacognition or self-esteem scores in study 2. however, the increased aspiration reported in study 1 would seem to imply some change in perceived confidence or competence in award participants which was not measured by the psychometric measures used, but which appeared clearly in the qualitative findings in studies 2 and 3 the disappearance at the six month stage of award study of the difference found in metacognition scores between those who had experience of the workplace and those who did not suggests that there may be a similar advantage conferred by award study to that conferred by experience of the workplace; adams and hancock (2000) noted that relevant work experience predicted greater success at master of business administration study than did any other factor including grade point average. the reported changes in employability related feelings and behaviours throughout the linked studies imply a sense of improved resilience or resourcefulness in respondents. it is therefore hypothesised that the award may enhance student career adaptability (savickas, 1997), via development of their psychosocial resources to negotiate the transitions and challenges of life and work, producing an internal change in the student’s perception of self. it is also possible that the award scheme may encourage a shift in graduate identity which is then confirmed and recognised by the granting of an award by the university, thus enabling the student to more confidently approach an ‘agreed identity’ as explicated in holmes, 2013, or, as proposed earlier, it may contribute to a graduate’s pre-professional identity (jackson, 2016). as tomlinson (2012) notes, how employable a graduate is tends to be subjective and can be dependent on their perception of themselves in relation to the world of work. conclusion overall findings indicate that employability related values, attitudes and behaviour may all change in students as a result of the award’s experience, which tends to suggest a more complex and holistic process takes place over award study than simple skills acquisition. this study suggests that award experience holds the potential to enhance early graduate selfperception in relation to their work related dispositions. further studies across institutions would be helpful to ascertain whether these findings are general, or a function of this particular program. quantitative study of particular cohorts of students in the destination data of universities would help in targeting groups of students who may benefit from award study, and longitudinal study following the lives and careers of award completers would give a clearer indication of any long term benefit. acknowledgements the authors’ thanks and gratitude go to joan cartledge and the psa team. thanks are also due to stella williams for her valuable work in the early stages of the project. wright, t. & jeffries-watts, s. 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(2013). the student perspective on employability. studies in higher education, 38(6), 841–856. doi: 10.1080/03075079.2011.604408 university of queensland advantage award. http://www.uq.edu.au/advantage-award/ wilton, n. (2012). the impact of work placements on skills development and career outcomes for business and management graduates. studies in higher education, 37(5), 603–620. wright, t. (2012). personal skills award evaluation project – stage 2 & 3 report. report for careers network, university of birmingham. wright, t., & williamson, s. (2010). personal skills award evaluation project – stage 1 report. report for careers network, university of birmingham. yorke, m. (2006). employability in higher education: what it is and what it is not. learning and employability guides, uk: hea. http://www.uq.edu.au/advantage-award/ teychenne, m., sahlqvist, s., teychenne,d., macfarlane,s., dawson, p., & costigan, s. (2017). the development of a tailored, career-focused interactive online learning tool for physical activity and health students: a pilot study. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 8(1), p. 60–73. 60 the development of a tailored, career-focused interactive online learning tool for physical activity and health students: a pilot study megan teychenne¹, shannon sahlqvist¹, danielle teychenne3, susie macfarlane4, phillip dawson5, and sarah a costigan2,4 mteych@deakin.edu.au; shannon.sahlqvist@deakin.edu.au; d.teychenne@deakin.edu.au; susie.macfarlane@deakin.edu.au; p.dawson@deakin.edu.au; sarah.costigan@deakin.edu.au) ¹ deakin university, geelong, australia, institute for physical activity and nutrition (ipan), school of exercise and nutrition sciences 2 priority research centre for physical activity and nutrition, university of newcastle, callaghan, nsw, australia 3 deakin learning futures, deakin university, 221 burwood hwy, burwood, vic, 3125, australia 4 school of exercise and nutrition sciences, deakin university, 221 burwood hwy, burwood, vic, 3125, australia 5 centre for research in assessment and digital learning, deakin university, 550 bourke st, melbourne, vic, 3000, australia abstract students enrolled in university courses often lack knowledge of potential jobs and future career paths, which can inhibit their ability to plan, job seek and make decisions about their careers, and negatively impact on their ability to gain employment. to address this problem, a tailored, career-focused interactive online learning tool was developed and piloted for public health and exercise science students, based on the constructs of savickas’ (2005) theory of career construction. this paper reports a mixed-methods study to understand student experiences of using that tool, and their perception of how well it prepared them for career planning. twentytwo second-year students completed an online survey using both qualitative and quantitative methods to assess the perceived feasibility and acceptability of the interactive online learning tool. descriptive (for quantitative data) and inductive content analyses (for qualitative data) were performed. most students (86%) indicated that they would use the tool again. all students reported that the tool was user-friendly, engaging and informative and provided them with information on jobs that matched their personal and work-related skills and strengths. qualitative data reflected these findings and identified seven key themes, including: value, career exploration, design, and tailoring, with themes partly reflecting components of savicka’s theory. the tailored, career-focused interactive online learning tool was perceived to be a feasible and effective strategy to support university students in their career planning and job seeking behaviours prior to graduation. these findings can be used to inform and refine the development of career-focused tools for students undertaking other university courses. keywords: careers, e-learning, higher education, career planning, online learning tools mailto:mteych@deakin.edu.au mailto:shannon.sahlqvist@deakin.edu.au mailto:d.teychenne@deakin.edu.au mailto:susie.macfarlane@deakin.edu.au mailto:p.dawson@deakin.edu.au mailto:sarah.costigan@deakin.edu.au teychenne, m., sahlqvist, s., teychenne,d., macfarlane,s., dawson, p., & costigan, s. (2017). the development of a tailored, career-focused interactive online learning tool for physical activity and health students: a pilot study. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 8(1), p. 60–73. 61 background universities are placing an increasing emphasis on skilling students for entering the workforce after graduation (green, hammer,& star, 2009; kalfa & taksa, 2013; pegg, waldock, hendyisaac, & lawton, 2012). however, students enrolled in broad vocational university degrees often lack knowledge of the potential jobs and career paths they can take, and additionally lack the self-efficacy to successfully seek, find and apply for a job in their field of study after graduation (guan et al., 2013; picard, 2012). the repercussions of this are largely on university retention rates (mcinnis, hartley, polesel, and teese, 2000), and graduate employment outcomes (bridgstock, 2009), as students who lack a sense of realistic career targets or career identity are likely to be less meaningfully engaged with their university course (bridgstock & hearn, 2012; bridgstock, thomas, lyons, carr, & zelenko, 2012). evidence shows that developing proactive career planning behaviours such as exploring career options and career goal setting are important factors for gaining employment (brown, cober, kane, levy, & shalhoop, 2006; saks & ashforth, 1999). further, job search selfefficacy predicts employment status at graduation, as well as preparatory and active job seeking behaviours amongst university graduates (saks & ashforth, 1999), consistent with findings from the general population (eden & aviram, 1993; schmit, amel, & ryan, 1993). job seeking support has been shown to predict job seeking behaviour (wanberg, watt, & rumsey, 1996) that is, identifying a career goal and pursuing that goal (boswell, zimmerman, & swider, 2012). further job seeking behaviour has been positively linked with gaining employment/employment status (kanfer, wanberg, & kantrowitz, 2001). therefore it is important that job seekers, in particular university students seeking employment in their field of study after graduation, are supported in developing practical and effective job planning and seeking behaviours. in the late 1990’s, researchers identified the need for job search training in order to enhance graduates’ job search self-efficacy and sense of control over job search outcomes (saks & ashforth, 1999). thus, it is important that universities provide such training, particularly within more general degrees (i.e. degrees that have broad vocational outcomes) such as exercise and sport science or health science degrees, whereby career paths can be quite diverse and often unclear. this notion is supported by claims that ‘one-size-fits-all’ approaches to building students career management skills may not be effective and rather, discipline-based approaches that are embedded into the curriculum are more likely to be successful (bridgstock, 2009). there are a number of general online job search tools available (e.g., monster [u.s.], simplyhired [u.s.], indeed [u.s], seek [australia], careerone [australia]), and these have the benefit of being easily accessible by students (due to the webbased platform). however, there does not appear to be a resource informed by theory of career construction (savickas, 2005) for job search/application training specifically for those gaining health science or exercise science qualifications, and tailored to students majoring in physical activity and health. the theory of career construction explains why and how people construct their careers (savickas, 2005). the theory posits that constructing a successful career is driven by ones vocational personality (including ones career-related abilities, values and interests), life themes (career choice being an extension of one’s identity) and largely by one’s career adaptability (i.e. the ability to manage/handle real world barriers on career goals) (savickas, 2005). ‘career adaptability’ consists of career planning (e.g. utilising active strategies to achieve one’s career goals), decision-making (e.g. making choices about which career path and jobs to pursue), problem solving/confidence (e.g. self-efficacy to plan, seek and achieve career goals), and exploration (e.g. investigating possible career choices) (stringer, kerpelman, & skorikov, 2011). thus, based on constructs of the theory of career construction, a tailored, interactive online learning tool was developed, predominantly targeting ‘career adaptability’, to provide undergraduate university students studying in the area of physical activity and health with: teychenne, m., sahlqvist, s., teychenne,d., macfarlane,s., dawson, p., & costigan, s. (2017). the development of a tailored, career-focused interactive online learning tool for physical activity and health students: a pilot study. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 8(1), p. 60–73. 62 (a) knowledge of a range of career options in various settings, working with different population groups, suited to their skills and interest areas (targeted at the theoretical constructs of career planning, decision-making, and exploration); (b) knowledge of additional qualifications and skills needed to be successful in selected careers (targeted at the theoretical constructs of career planning, and exploration); and, (c) skills for addressing key selection criteria and responding to job interview questions (targeted at the theoretical constructs of career planning, and problem solving/confidence). this was with the overall purpose of enabling students, majoring in physical activity and health, with the skills and confidence to seek and apply for jobs in a related field after graduation. the aim of this study was to pilot test the perceived feasibility and acceptability of a tailored, career-focused interactive online learning tool for university students studying in the fields of public health and exercise science. it is important that such tools and learning experiences are evaluated in order to inform the development of other career-focused activities and tools for students undertaking similar courses, as well as extending the development of these tools to other courses at other tertiary institutions. thus, this study addresses the research question: how do students perceive a discipline-specific career-focused interactive online learning tool? methods analyses were based on cross-sectional qualitative and quantitative survey data collected in 2015. deakin university students enrolled in one particular physical activity promotion unit in trimester 2 of 2015 were recruited to participate. this study was approved by the human research ethics committee of deakin university (heag-h 99_2015). since no identifying information was requested, participants were informed that completing the survey indicates intended consent. context the physical activity promotion unit (on which this study is based) is taught in the second year of a three-year degree (within either an exercise sports science or health science degree at deakin university). students have a basic understanding of the field having already undertaken two foundation units in first and second year. the unit has a vocational focus, providing students with a number of key skills (e.g. grant writing, team work) required for entering the work force. participants and recruitment participants were recruited from the elected physical activity promotion unit which was taught across three campuses in 2015 via the university’s learning management system, ‘clouddeakin’ which runs on desire2learn. academic staff posted a recruitment notice (poster) on the units’ clouddeakin site during the final two weeks of trimester (weeks 10 and 11), with a link to the plain language statement and online survey. following the dillman protocol (dillman, 1978), potential participants were reminded two weeks later; reminders were sent by email. one hundred and fifty seven students (of a total of 198 students enrolled in the unit) completed the week 11 learning module, and twenty-two of those students completed the survey; a response rate of 14 per cent. intervention during week 11 (the final week of trimester), all students undertaking the elected physical activity promotion unit were required to use an interactive online learning tool which was specifically developed to explore potential career paths and skills in the field of physical activity and health, and provide students with skills for applying for such jobs. the online tool had a teychenne, m., sahlqvist, s., teychenne,d., macfarlane,s., dawson, p., & costigan, s. (2017). the development of a tailored, career-focused interactive online learning tool for physical activity and health students: a pilot study. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 8(1), p. 60–73. 63 number of features, based predominately on the ‘career adaptability’ construct of the theory of career construction (savickas, 2005), which includes career planning, decision-making, problem solving/confidence, and exploration (stringer et al., 2011). features of the tool included:  a ‘choose your own career adventure’ quiz which aligned students with jobs in the area of physical activity and health based on each student’s career interests, workrelated skills and personal attributes (targeted theoretical constructs=vocational personality; career adaptability: career planning, decision-making, exploration).  a detailed overview of a selection of jobs in the area of physical activity and health (targeted theoretical constructs=career adaptability: career planning, exploration).  video interviews with professionals currently holding positions in the area of physical activity and health (targeted theoretical construct=career adaptability: exploration).  a section to complete key selection criteria for each physical activity and health job, which could be printed out and used as notes for future job applications and/or job interview preparation (targeted theoretical construct=career adaptability: problem solving/confidence).  a practice job interview including interview questions specific and tailored to the selected job. students were given three minutes to provide a response to each interview question (targeted theoretical construct=career adaptability: problem solving/confidence). students were provided with instructions and asked to work through the interactive module prior to attending the week 11 seminar, since the seminar included activities directly relating to their experience and knowledge acquired from the interactive online learning tool. development of the tool occupational information was collated over a period of 12 months from job listings published on the australian jobs site seek.com. this data included job descriptions and key selection criteria relating to a number of jobs in the physical activity and health promotion industry. thirteen distinct roles (spread across a wide range of areas and settings) were found to be dominant in the field and were chosen to be the basis of this interactive tool. this was based on the overall consensus of three researchers developing the tool, who coded each job according to job titles and descriptions. after surveying 200 job advertisements, generalisations could be made about the types of areas, settings and population groups these 13 roles worked with. generalisations could also be made about the required work-related skills and personal qualities that each role required applicants to be equipped with. this information was then organised into an excel spread sheet for the interactive media developer to utilise in the creation of the tool. the interactive tool was built using front-end website languages html, css and javascript; and hosted in clouddeakin. the module began on the homepage, which presented the user with an option of either taking a quiz (to narrow down which job is most suited) or browsing all job descriptions. at the beginning of the quiz, students could select which area in which they are most interested in working (e.g. physical activity, sedentary behaviour, evaluation and measurement of physical activity/sedentary behaviour). the tool then directed the user to choose which setting they would like to work in (e.g. education, medical sector or community etc.). the quiz then prompted users to select which population group they would like to work with (e.g. older adults, women, low socioeconomic groups, children etc.). next, users were presented with two checklists in which they could select three to five work related skills (e.g. organised, teamwork, networking, and planning) and three to five personal qualities (e.g. patient, flexible, efficient and dependable etc.) that they believed they were equipped with. after these skills were selected, a list of job titles (tailored to those responses) was shown with a ‘skills score’ next to each role (the highest score indicating which role was most suited to the student, based on their work skills/personal qualities selection). students could then browse each job description teychenne, m., sahlqvist, s., teychenne,d., macfarlane,s., dawson, p., & costigan, s. (2017). the development of a tailored, career-focused interactive online learning tool for physical activity and health students: a pilot study. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 8(1), p. 60–73. 64 (adapted from actual job descriptions provided on the australian jobs site seek.com) and watch a video interview with a professional currently working in the position. once the user had chosen a job that they were most interested in or compatible with, they then could (hypothetically) ‘apply’ for that role. the ‘application’ process involved addressing five key selection criteria questions that were specific to the job. five text boxes with 500 word limits were provided for answers. students were provided with links to key selection criteria resources whilst addressing the criteria. students could save their answers to a pdf file at any time during this section. once this task was completed, students were then required to ‘virtually’ attend a practice job interview. this required practicing to verbally respond to five questions that were specific to the chosen role. students were encouraged to record the practice interview (on their phones or tablets), which could then be viewed again to help refine responses. finally, once the interview had concluded, students were presented with a number of useful web-links to resources on how to build and maintain employability skills. the tool provided the opportunity for students to respond to key selection criteria and job interview questions that were derived directly from real world job advertisements pertaining to each selected job. this targeted approach is likely to be more beneficial than existing systems which tend to relate to more generic key criteria as the tool prompted students to show discipline specific employability evidence, and challenged students with interview questions specific to a particular role in a workplace. the tool was developed by a team including: lecturers and research assistants with expertise in physical activity and health, an expert in teaching excellence and innovation, an e-learning educational developer, an interactive developer and an image designer. industry experts were also interviewed, which informed the tool development. for example, the experts provided in-depth responses to questions related to what their job involves, the biggest challenges in their job, the pathway they took to gaining employment in that job, crucial skills required etc. the tool was piloted by two colleagues in related disciplines prior to implementing it to students. measures the online survey included 13 quantitative items, which examined the perceived feasibility of the tool. items included: “it was a valuable tool for physical activity and health students”, “the tool provided me with an insight into what different jobs involve”, “the tool engaged me in preparing responses to key selection criteria for job applications”. respondents were asked to indicate their agreement with each item using a four-point categorical scale (from “strongly disagree” to “strongly agree”). the usefulness of each specific component of the tool (e.g. matching students work-related skills to possible career options, practicing interview skills using the ‘virtual interviewer’ etc) was assessed using a 7-item checklist, with response options rated on a 4-point categorical scale, ranging from “not at all useful” to “very useful”. further, the perceived feasibility (e.g. the strengths and weaknesses, suitability and the acceptability) of the tool was assessed through a series of short-answer, open ended qualitative questions, evaluating students’ perceived value of the tool including the most useful components and perceived challenges when using the tool. open-ended questions were also posed to identify strategies to improve students’ career planning in the area of physical activity and health. data analysis using stata/se 13, quantitative data was analysed using descriptive statistics to obtain means and standard deviations. qualitative data was analysed using inductive content analysis outlined by elo and kyngäs (2008) in order to address the research question of how students perceive a discipline-specific career-focused interactive online learning tool. this approach was used since it can elicit unanticipated themes (i.e. categories arise from data, rather than data being derived from pre-determined categories) (elo & kyngäs, 2008). after reading all teychenne, m., sahlqvist, s., teychenne,d., macfarlane,s., dawson, p., & costigan, s. (2017). the development of a tailored, career-focused interactive online learning tool for physical activity and health students: a pilot study. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 8(1), p. 60–73. 65 short-answer responses several times, open coding of the survey was conducted by creating and assigning descriptive labels to parts/responses of the text. microsoft excel was used to organise data, facilitate creation of categories and identify relevant quotes. for this study, the coding structure was relatively simple. for each question, categories (nodes) were created through grouping codes with similar contexts. main categories were then identified and named. to ensure results interpretation was not subject to researcher bias, all qualitative questions were independently coded by two authors. authors then met and coding was compared and discussed. no discrepancies in coding or interpretation were observed. written quotes were then selected to illustrate key themes. results system data showed that 157/198 (79%) of students engaged with the online tool. the final sample in this study consisted of 22 students, which was sufficient to achieve data saturation in qualitative analyses. data describing student’s perceptions of the tool are outlined below and shown in figures 1 and 2 (below). overall, respondents rated the tool favourably. most students (86%) reported they would like to use this tool again. all agreed that the career tool was easy to use (50% strongly agree; 50% agree), engaging (19% strongly agree, 81% agree) and informative (36% strongly agree, 64% agree). the majority of participants agreed that the career tool was valuable for physical activity and health students (95%), matched them to appropriate career options (95%), and provided them with an insight into what different jobs involve (95%). similarly, the majority of participants agreed that the tool engaged them in preparing responses to key selection criteria for job applications (95%), preparing for job interviews (95%) and motivated them to reflect on additional qualifications, skills and/or work experience needed to increase competitiveness when applying for a physical activity and/or health job (95%). most participants (82%) reported that the tool inspired them to conduct their own research into potential jobs in the field of physical activity and/or health. teychenne, m., sahlqvist, s., teychenne,d., macfarlane,s., dawson, p., & costigan, s. (2017). the development of a tailored, career-focused interactive online learning tool for physical activity and health students: a pilot study. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 8(1), p. 60–73. 66 figure 1. descriptive data of student perceptions of the tailored, career-focused interactive online learning tool (n=22) ksc: key selection criteria teychenne, m., sahlqvist, s., teychenne,d., macfarlane,s., dawson, p., & costigan, s. (2017). the development of a tailored, career-focused interactive online learning tool for physical activity and health students: a pilot study. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 8(1), p. 60–73. 67 figure 2. descriptive data of student perceptions of the tailored, career-focused interactive online learning tool (n=22) teychenne, m., sahlqvist, s., teychenne,d., macfarlane,s., dawson, p., & costigan, s. (2017). the development of a tailored, career-focused interactive online learning tool for physical activity and health students: a pilot study. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 8(1), p. 60–73. 68 results from qualitative analyses showed that seven key themes emerged from the data, and are described below. value the tool was perceived as valuable by a large proportion of participants. a total of 19/22 (86%) participants reported wanting to use the tool again. the main reasons for this were that: it was useful; it provided insights into career options they would have not otherwise known about; and it was user-friendly. similarly, the majority of students suggested that they would recommend the tool to other students as it provided ideas for potential career pathways for physical activity and health students. other reasons students would recommend the tool to others included: it was informative, user-friendly, provided insights into job interviews, and enabled self-reflection evidenced by comments such as: it was a very helpful and informative way to learn about careers in health and which aspects/job opportunities best suit your needs and attributes. (student #22) overall, the majority of students valued and accepted the interactive career planning tool, suggesting that it was novel, useful, informative, tailored to the individual, and user-friendly as indicated in the following comment: i would [recommend it]. they may be unsure of what they want to go into so having a tool like this would highlight a number of areas they may not know of. (student #13) career exploration although students suggested a number of components of the tool were valuable, which reflected the multiple components of its design, the most common theme was that students felt the tool was particularly valuable for informing and exploring possible career choices and pathways, specifically in the field of public health and exercise science. many students reported having little idea or preference about their future career; commenting for example: going into my course (health sciences) i had no idea what job i wanted to do, just that i wanted to work in the health field. (student #3) other students variously described previously feeling ‘lost’ or finding the array of possible jobs confusing and difficult. they reported that using the tool was useful to alleviate this bewilderment: sometimes searching for jobs is difficult as names and titles are different. [the tool] allowed us to know possible fields to look in. (student #19) design the design of the tool was well received by students with several participants suggesting that they would use the tool again as it was user-friendly (due to its simplicity in presenting large amounts of information), engaging and interactive: it's an interactive way to learn and is very engaging because of the content and its use online. (student #20) the in-class learning activities linked to the tool were also considered by students to be well designed. during week 11, the in-class learning activities were linked to the students’ experience using the interactive career planning tool. for example, students were required to select one job using the online tool, map the key themes from the key selection criteria against the intended learning outcomes of the unit, and then provide evidence for how they have developed each skill. qualitative results showed that all but two students who had completed teychenne, m., sahlqvist, s., teychenne,d., macfarlane,s., dawson, p., & costigan, s. (2017). the development of a tailored, career-focused interactive online learning tool for physical activity and health students: a pilot study. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 8(1), p. 60–73. 69 the questionnaire after attending the class suggested the learning activities were useful and relevant. students felt the in-class activities clearly linked together their learning from the interactive online tool and helped them recognise the skills and attributes required to have a career in the physical activity and health field. tailoring a key theme to emerge included the value of the tool being tailored to the individual, which was done by linking individual students’ personal and work-related strengths/attributes and interests to specific jobs. this tailoring revealed otherwise unknown career options for one student: getting jobs to match your personal skills highlighted jobs i was un-aware of. (student #13) career planning and decision making a small number of students suggested the tool provided them with knowledge and strategies in career planning and helped guide them into making decisions about their career direction. problem solving/confidence students felt the tool provided practical skills for authentically preparing for job seeking and applications. students particularly valued how the tool provided the key selection criteria for each job, and that self-reflection was enabled by working through the tool (i.e. reflect upon which skills or qualifications are needed to be successful). further, a small number students also suggested that putting their job application skills into practice via the virtual interviewer was a valuable strategy for gaining confidence in job interviews. i liked being put on the spot and answering the questions in an interview situation. (student #7) improvements although the majority of responses reflected that students found all aspects of the tool valuable, a small number of students suggested that certain features of the tool could be improved. for example, a couple of students suggested that they would have liked to be able to select a greater number of personal and work-related attributes as only selecting five was quite challenging, and commented: … it made it very difficult to narrow or distinguish between some choices (student #19) further, some students suggested the interview tool could be improved by: enabling a recording feature, providing a text box to write responses in, and reducing the time users had to respond to interview questions. two students suggested that overall the tool could be improved by providing more job options, whilst one student suggested providing examples of how to respond to key selection criteria. discussion this study aimed to explore the perceived feasibility and acceptability of a tailored, careerfocused interactive online learning tool for university students studying in the area of physical activity and health. it was hypothesised that students would perceive the tailored, careerfocused interactive online learning tool as a useful and engaging strategy to assist in career planning, application skill development and career exploration. feasibility studies provide the opportunity to gather valuable formative information to help refine and develop methods and materials prior to undertaking larger and more costly effectiveness trials. teychenne, m., sahlqvist, s., teychenne,d., macfarlane,s., dawson, p., & costigan, s. (2017). the development of a tailored, career-focused interactive online learning tool for physical activity and health students: a pilot study. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 8(1), p. 60–73. 70 the career-focused online learning tool was well accepted by students and perceived as a feasible method of developing important career planning skills targeted to those studying in the area of physical activity and health. most students suggested that they would use the tool again, which may be explained by the fact that (all) students reported that the tool was userfriendly, engaging and informative. the particular design features which created this positive effect include the easy to follow web layout, the personalised and interactive nature of the quiz, the video interviews with professionals, and the fact that large amounts of relevant career information was collated yet presented simply (as mentioned by a number of participants). in particular, students agreed that the tool provided them with insights into what different jobs involve and new information about jobs they would have otherwise not known about. gati, krausz, and osipow (1996) developed a theoretical taxonomy, based on decision theory, which explains the processes and difficulties involved in career decision making. the taxonomy highlights three key constructs that can hinder career decision making, one being ‘lack of information’ (which includes a lack of information about occupations). thus, the results suggest that the career-focused online learning tool is an effective strategy to target this construct (‘lack of information’) in the model (gati et al., 1996) by providing students with a sound knowledge base of potential career options suited to their area of expertise. a common theme to emerge from the qualitative data was students’ appreciation that the career-focused online learning tool was tailored to the individual. this was reflected in the quantitative responses whereby all students suggested the tool was relevant to their needs as a physical activity and health student and provided them with jobs that matched their personal and work-related skills and strengths. these findings partly reflect those of feldman and whitcomb (2005) who suggested that directing students to choose careers based on their skills and abilities, rather than basing decisions purely on personal interests, may be more successful in helping students identify appropriate careers. tailoring information is recognised in other disciplines (e.g. in the health field) as a key behaviour change technique (booth, bauman, owen, & gore, 1997; dijkstra & de vries, 1999), often more successful than a ‘one size fits all’ approach, which may be due to information being more relevant and thus more engaging and/or motivating to the individual. therefore, ensuring students are provided with personally relevant career messages and information is likely to increase the effectiveness for career planning and decision-making. many aspects of the teaching activities linked to using the career-focused online learning tool were designed to be ‘authentic’ (i.e. reflect real-world activities/experiences), with most students recognising that the tool was useful for preparing responses to key selection criteria and for practicing interview skills using the virtual interviewer. authentic learning environments allow students to readily transfer their knowledge and skills into real-world practice (herrington, reeves, & oliver, 2014), increasing the personal relevance of learning tasks for students. thus, the career-focused online learning tool enabled students to practice skills required when job seeking, better preparing them for successful job seeking behaviour. given that effective job seeking behaviours and skills are linked with gaining employment (kanfer et al., 2001), the method in which students are supported in developing these skills whilst at university may be indicative of employment after graduation. hence, for universities to increase the employment success rate of new graduates, it may be useful to provide students with personalised, authentic career learning opportunities such as those outlined in the current study. this is in line with recommendations outlined for the office for learning and teaching (australia), that suggested that all students should explore and apply career-related knowledge as fundamentals of their university program, which is best achieved through authentic learning experiences (bennett, richardson, & mackinnon, 2016). it should be noted that career planning was built into the curriculum (e.g. intended learning outcomes, teaching and learning activities) and assessment within the physical activity promotion unit, based on the premise that one of the key goals of higher education is for students to be employable. this follows the principles of constructive alignment, whereby the design of a curriculum begins with the development of intended learning outcomes for the unit, teychenne, m., sahlqvist, s., teychenne,d., macfarlane,s., dawson, p., & costigan, s. (2017). the development of a tailored, career-focused interactive online learning tool for physical activity and health students: a pilot study. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 8(1), p. 60–73. 71 then aligns teaching and learning activities with these (in order to allow the students to develop the relevant skills and knowledge), and finally the assessment tasks are developed to determine the students level of achievement of the intended learning outcomes (biggs & tang, 2011). since universities are increasingly working to ensure that students are employable after graduation (green et al., 2009; kalfa & taksa, 2013; pegg et al., 2012), this highlights the importance of constructively aligning the curriculum, beginning with the broad goals of higher education, which includes students gaining employment as a result of completing their degree. this study demonstrates the feasibility and user-reported utility of a tailored online career development tool. students self-reported using this tool developed their career planning in areas closely aligned with savickas’ theory of career construction (savickas, 2005). in particular, the component of the theory ‘career adaptability’ (which includes exploration, career planning, problem solving and decision-making (stringer et al., 2011)) was strongly present in the current study. for example, findings from the current study showed that most students reported that the learning activities linked to the tool motivated them to reflect on additional qualifications, skills and/or work experience needed to increase competitiveness when applying for relevant jobs (i.e. problem solving/confidence). furthermore, most students reported that the tool inspired them to conduct their own research into potential physical activity and/or health jobs (i.e. career exploration) and helped guide them make choices about their career direction (decision making). another component of the theory ‘vocational personality’ (which includes ones career-related abilities and interests) (savickas, 2005) was also present in the current study, with students valuing how the tool was tailored to their career or work-related abilities/skills and their areas on interest. however, the final construct of savickas’s theory, ‘life themes’, whereby career choices are viewed as an extension of one’s identity (i.e. the reason/s why one chooses a certain career and the significance of their career to their self-identity and broader society) (savickas, 2005) was not present in either the development of the tool (with ‘career adaptability’ being the key focus), nor the results of the study. this may be another construct to target when refining the tool. for example, including a feature within the tool (or related in-class learning activities) that encourages students to reflect upon the reasons why they are interested in certain jobs/careers and the significance of those careers to their identity and to society, may foster clarity in student’s career decision making. given these findings, it is apparent that the inclusion of similar tailored, career-focused interactive online learning tools within the university curriculum may be an important stepping stone for students (from all courses) career planning prior to graduation. this study follows the important initial step, suggested by bridgstock, to integrate and trial a student career management program into discipline-specific curriculum (bridgstock, 2009), in an effort to advance the university employability agenda. limitations and future directions limitations of the study should be acknowledged. firstly, the response rate was low (14%), which could potentially present bias results since it is unknown whether non-participation in the study was due to the tool lacking usefulness to those students, or other reasons. secondly, participant responses may have been subject to bias due to the subjective nature of assessment. thirdly, the study did not assess whether the tool actually helped students gain a career or whether students actually applied the skills learnt to find work. thus longer-term follow-up studies are needed to determine the effectiveness of the tool for job seeking outcomes. further, this study did not assess whether the tool enhanced job interview and selection criteria writing skills. future studies should consider including methods for evaluating these skills. this may also include the incorporation of peer or teacher evaluation within refinement of the online system. however, a key strength of this study was the mixed methods design which allowed rich insights to be gathered (from qualitative data), to help further refine and develop the tool in future. for example, based on suggestions from participants, the tool may be enhanced to include a recording feature for students to playback their virtual job teychenne, m., sahlqvist, s., teychenne,d., macfarlane,s., dawson, p., & costigan, s. (2017). the development of a tailored, career-focused interactive online learning tool for physical activity and health students: a pilot study. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 8(1), p. 60–73. 72 interview, which provides immediate feedback on their performance. moreover, key aspects of the tool (e.g. key selection criteria and job interview questions) were derived directly from real world job advertisements pertaining to each job, enabling students to develop employability skills specific to particular roles. this ‘tailored’ approach would likely provide additional benefit beyond providing generic key selection criteria (as other existing systems may do) as students reflect and practice articulating how their studies have prepared them for work in their discipline. the involvement of industry experts (both directly and indirectly) in informing the development of the tool was also a key strength. conclusion in conclusion, a tailored, career-focused interactive online learning tool was perceived by students to be a useful, engaging, effective and efficient strategy to support university students in their career planning and job seeking behaviours prior to graduation. the tool could be easily tailored to other courses in other tertiary institutions and thus these findings may inform the development of other career-focussed activities and tools for students undertaking similar courses, as well as extending the development of the career tool to other courses at other universities. acknowledgements the authors gratefully acknowledge maria apostolopoulos, simona cicerale and travis zimmer for their work on the project. teychenne, m., sahlqvist, s., teychenne,d., macfarlane,s., dawson, p., & costigan, s. 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(2017). good wil hunting: building capacity for curriculum re-design. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 8(1), 215–232. 215 good wil hunting: building capacity for curriculum re-design karen young1, stuart palmer2 and malcolm campbell2 k.young@deakin.edu.au; stuart.palmer@deakin.edu.au; malcolm.campbell@deakin.edu.au 1deakin university, melbourne, burwood campus, australia 2deakin university, waurn ponds, australia abstract in response to government, industry, student and central university calls for initiatives to enhance graduate employability as a means for improved employment outcomes, a faculty within an australian university formulated a five-year work integrated learning (wil) strategy (2015-2019). the faculty goal was to re-new, develop, implement and evaluate scalable and sustainable intentional wil-focused authentic curricula across every undergraduate science, technology, engineering and mathematics (stem) course by the end of 2019. a ‘wil leadership framework’ underpinned the whole-of-course team approach. this paper reports on the change-management processes and behaviours necessary to effect change from the bottom-up. fostering academic staff capacity to build course-appropriate wil curriculum has been slow and subtle and yet significant refinements to intentional and embedded wil curriculum have occurred through a series of grounded research studies and curriculum renewal projects. wil champions (the innovators), earmarked as change agents for enabling scalable curriculum transformation and renewal, were ‘hunted-out’ and nurtured. their role was to influence teachers to enact context-specific and discipline-based wil experiences into the curriculum. the main research findings to date reveal that stem-specific wil frameworks, concepts and assessment examples, presented as scholarly curriculum choices by wil experts, and then actively and collegially discussed amongst the wil champions and wil early adopters, has been the most effective process to date for developing a wil centred curriculum. the paper concludes by addressing the current operational goals predicated to have an impact on graduate employment for the faculty. keywords: work integrated learning (wil), leadership, curriculum, employability, capacity building, authentic assessments context the call for educational strategies to equip graduates for the jobs and skills of the future is a key message relating to the future of the australian economy (universities australia, australian chamber of commerce industry, australian industry group, business council of australia, & australian collaborative education network, 2015). high level australian government policy requires the higher education (he) sector to prepare students to transition effectively into these unknown jobs with skills of the future (oliver, 2015). universities are being encouraged to think about the changing landscapes of future employment for graduates and the implications for he that might make students more likely to find and create meaningful paid mailto:k.young@deakin.edu.au mailto:stuart.palmer@deakin.edu.au mailto:malcolm.campbell@deakin.edu.au young, k., palmer, s., & campbell, m. (2017). good wil hunting: building capacity for curriculum re-design. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 8(1), 215–232. 216 and unpaid work that benefits themselves, the workforce, the community and the economy (oliver, 2015, p. 63). work-related, contextualised, authentic learning and assessment activities that enable students to apply their course knowledge and graduate capabilities, preferably at the same time, are found to significantly aid the development of employability skills (billet, 2001; eraut & hirsh, 2007; patrick et al., 2008; yorke, 2006). what is common now is a range of university strategies explicitly marking work integrated learning (wil) programs as a primary driver for achieving the goal of evidencing the employability outcomes for university courses and for developing work-ready graduates. wil is used as the curriculum strategy of preference for producing graduates who are ‘employment ready’ (smith, 2016, p. 345). increasingly, wil and career education activities are earmarked as the silver bullet for improving the employment of graduates; but how does a course endeavour to make a positive impact on employment outcomes? the faculty in which this study took place is setting out to test the hypothesis that curricula focused on providing intentional, scaffolded and applied learning, contextualised to relevant and up to date industry benchmarked skills and knowledge typical in stem settings, will enhance employment for graduates in the sector. furthermore, wil curricula that clearly signposts the transferable nature of employability skills, alongside a shift away from learning focused on knowledge-acquisition (common in stem), will enhance employment for graduates. since 2015 and continuing into 2017, a series of parallel projects and studies have been conducted to provide a scholarly approach to improving wil curricula (campbell, 2016; hainswesson & young, 2017; palmer, tolson, young, & campbell, 2015; tolson & young, 2016; willems, young, cardilini, & teychenne, 2016; young, cardilini, willems, & teychenne, 2016; young, palmer, tolson, & campbell, 2016). this study proposes that the most salient means for developing employability skills within a whole-of-course wil curriculum is through a change management approach. the focus is on preparing and supporting teams of academics, within selected courses, via faculty-wide grounded wil-oriented research projects, to shift understandings and behaviours towards embedded wil curriculum. by building the capacity of academics in this space, some will become better equipped in developing and implementing discipline-based wil curriculum, and others may even assume the informal role of wil champion – both of which are critical for driving enhanced curriculum. this tactic took shape as the best scalable and sustainable approach for ongoing faculty-wide change. the approach supports the research findings of similar employability studies that suggest that academics are instrumental in the enactment of he policies to enable curriculum change (sin & amaral, 2017). this paper details the first phase of the faculty approach for developing and improving curricula. a tactical sequence of events saw traction in the mobilisation of capacity building amongst the undergraduate course teams within the faculty. the completion of the universitywide curriculum enhancement, review of course learning outcomes and the alignment to university graduate learning outcomes made an impact on the faculty approach to addressing graduate outcomes through enhanced wil curricula. first, the faculty established a wil team to drive the strategy for the enhancement of graduate employability outcomes, modelled on the key principles of the wil leadership framework (patrick et al., 2014). the wil team was accountable for ‘shaping the wil vision’ and ‘fostering wil engagement, expertise and student learning’. the intention responds to suggestions that proper preparation and support of academic staff for wil is, in practice, still sometimes missing (abeysekera, 2006). the faculty favoured the formal leadership initiative as best practice for enabling long-term design and delivery of embedded whole-of-course industry-oriented curricula. the faculty practice of ‘good wil hunting’ subsequently inspired the title of this paper. in fact, the methodology of the wil leadership project (patrick et al., 2014), which actively sought wil leaders in specific discipline areas in universities and employer organisations to capture and showcase wil expertise, provided a prototype for enlivening our wil curriculum renewal strategy. from the beginning of 2015, the faculty-based wil team functioned as an internal young, k., palmer, s., & campbell, m. (2017). good wil hunting: building capacity for curriculum re-design. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 8(1), 215–232. 217 change management group, dedicated to providing expert guidance on all wil matters, slowly developing the capacity of wil practitioners to become the growing group of wil champions within the faculty. then, in 2016, the faculty was included as one of the six australian council of deans of science (acds) lighthouse projects lead by johnson (2016), which saw the wil team continue to drive the process of building academic capacity of course teams. in 201718, a faculty wil on campus project drives academics to reimagine, shift and then measure the level of enhanced proximity and authenticity of assessments to meet industry requirements of job-ready-plus graduates. perhaps the best way to explain the approach taken by the faculty to enable wil-lens curricula re-design is to illustrate the narrative used by the wil experts in their goal to build awareness about the possibility of attempting small changes to ‘class-room’ and assessment activities. the main thrust of the rhetoric is that teaching teams should maintain their good practice in effective transferral of discipline-based content, but in addition, layer this with explicit pedagogy that intentionally focuses on contextualised inquiry enacted as the authentic process of the scientist. at the centre are discussions around how to mimic real-world scenarios of science in action, in the classroom. a wil-focused curriculum change across a course is encouraged to allow incremental development of learning, however, we leniently discourage thinking about scaffolding as theory to practice and encourage activities that simultaneously require the active learning of theory with practice. for example, first year practical lab classes are suggested as ideal learning spaces and scenarios for including the context of scientific skill development to an array of real-world applications, underpinned by reflective practice. second year practicals, delivered as half-day labs and designed to build and measure the professional capacity of science students (as opposed to assessing recipe-based and controlled experiment outcomes), with reflective practice, provide a deeper understanding of how to work in a scientific team with wicked problems and work place setting variables. this learning is good practice for preparing students for short-term lab-based placements in industry. both learning activities would prepare students in their final year of study for industry-informed capstone projects. all should involve active and applied theory-practice reflective learning, (i.e. assessments with reflective practice learning outcomes), to intentionally develop and evidence employability skills (i.e. focus on autonomy with collaboration for accountability and contribution to a research team), to improve the possible varied and multiple professional identities of our graduates. re-telling the story of how current discipline-based good practice can be enhanced with simple ideas, as the starting point for considering step-change, was the narrative path chosen to patiently drive improved employability outcomes. two key components relating to capacity building played out during the curriculum renewal projects: improved shared understanding of the faculty wil strategy and definition; and the need for a wil-focused framework for imagining curricula re-design. the first explores the key mechanisms for mobilising the foundations of the wil curriculum change via faculty-centric definitions and practices of wil. this had an impact from the faculty executive leadership group through to the course-team academics. the second reviews the curriculum models prioritised, adopted and then adapted as tools for the design and delivery of a faculty-centric approach to wil curricula. review of literature the discourse in stem around developing work-ready graduates tends to suggest that graduates have acceptable entry-level discipline knowledge and skills, however, it is the transferable contexts to which those knowledge bases and skill sets are applied, that need to be addressed. in stem, henderson, beach and finkelstein (2011) discuss how educational policy makers call for fundamental change in the teaching of stem (p. 953), so that students are ready for the future complex workforces. a wil-lens stem study by edwards, perkins, pearce and hong (2015) suggests that graduates generally have sufficient knowledge and young, k., palmer, s., & campbell, m. (2017). good wil hunting: building capacity for curriculum re-design. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 8(1), 215–232. 218 skills to function at an entry level in the field, although they further clarify that to progress, students need the self-awareness to recognise their strengths, and an interest in learning and strategies to assist them to do so (p. 43). the mapping higher education 2016 report (norton & cakitaki, 2016) presents statistics on australian he in general, and provides a specific analysis of stem student outcomes. the report notes that employment outcomes for science graduates were particularly difficult – only 51 per cent of science graduates looking for work had found it four months after completing their studies – 17 per cent lower than the average for all graduates. science graduates who are successful in finding work are less likely to say that their work is related to their studies – 53 per cent for science graduates, compared to 73 per cent for all graduates. further out from graduation, employment prospects for science graduates improve, but such employment is often outside of science. the underlying message to the course teams in the faculty had to be clear if capacity building was going to be productive current graduate employment outcomes needed to be improved, and the best solution at hand for academics was going to be via a course-wide step change approach to wil-focused curricula. methodology to date, approximately 60 faculty staff have participated in the projects related to this study: comprising six wil experts in the faculty-based wil team; course directors and course team members belonging to the projects; and selected wil champions from across the schools. the projects were configured as research projects to provide grounded research for investigating change-management processes and behaviours. the development and subsequent discussions with course teams of adapted wil curriculum frameworks was a further strategy for effecting change. support for the projects from the heads of the school was critical so that relevant and sustainable wil curricula could cross-fertilise a number of programs in the faculty. as part of the formal projects, ethics approval was obtained so that participants could take part in a series of online surveys. one survey, as part of the wil lighthouse project is complete, and subsequent surveys relating to wil understandings are still underway. to mobilise academic capacity to renew curricula, a fit-for-purpose rigorous context-specific curriculum development framework was essential. three separate employability frameworks were selected: 1). the core skills for work framework (csfw) developed by the department of education and training (2016); 2). an expanded authenticity and proximity framework (eap) by kaider, hains-wesson & young (2017); and 3). an industry-oriented course model (referred to in this paper as io) developed by edwards et al. (2015). while each was somewhat useful for catalysing the review of wil curricula, it became clear that specific elements of each framework would be of greater benefit if re-imagined and integrated into one faculty-centric wil framework. the csfw provided the overarching schema for segmenting curricula needed to enhance jobreadiness from an industry/employer perspective. the essential elements of the csfw are three work-readiness domains: ‘navigating the world of work’; ‘interacting with others’; and ‘getting the work done’ (department of education and training, 2016). the framework was most useful as a 3-tier approach at the course level for planning placement-based wil learning. what was missing in the csfw was a curriculum plan for on-campus wil activity, and furthermore, the scaffolding of authentic and proximal assessment. the eap (see figure 1 below), a familiar framework and tested tool at the university in which this study took place, was a natural choice for adaptation from existing wil assessment young, k., palmer, s., & campbell, m. (2017). good wil hunting: building capacity for curriculum re-design. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 8(1), 215–232. 219 frameworks and typologies (bosco & ferns, 2014; oliver, 2015; rowe, winchester-seeto, & mackaway, 2012) for mapping wil assessments types (kaider et al., 2017). the ‘people’ in the proximity axis highlighted the need for, and the value of, practitioner contributions to enable on-campus and wil-placement curricula. the expanded framework provided more accurate pinpointing and plotting of assessment activities needed for a scalable approach to wil in the faculty. the significance of this framework to the capacity building was as a visual tool for revealing to a course team, the hot spots (and gaps) of wil assessments occurring within the course. figure 1: expanded authenticity-proximity (eap) framework (kaider, hains-wesson & young, 2017) narrowing the scope to a stem approach to wil proved useful. the study by edwards et al. (2015) was fundamental for conceptualising the way in which an entire course could be refocused to cater for industry-orientations to, and for, on-campus wil approaches. the research clearly articulated that wil practice may be real or simulated and can occur in the workplace, at the university, online, face-to-face or any combination of these but that curriculum has to be about developing practical skills in-context (2015, p.6). the io model provided a built-in schematic for nine types of learning experiences: 1. guest lecturers, networking events and field; 2. explicit units in ‘skills for this field’ including problem solving, communication; 3. industry-inspired problems; 4. simulated work environments; 5. industry based projects including placement and/or team projects; 6. units on ‘how to get a job in the field’ based on applying for placements etc.; 7. focus on what it means to work in the field; 8. contextualised learning from the start – learning theory through real problems; 9. industry input into design and evaluation (edwards et al., 2015). young, k., palmer, s., & campbell, m. (2017). good wil hunting: building capacity for curriculum re-design. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 8(1), 215–232. 220 the significance of this model for academics within the faculty was that it enabled conversations to move beyond placement-based wil to embedded, whole-of-course wil. offcampus one-on-one placement models are resource intensive and are therefore not scalable if inclusivity for all students is sought (orrell, 2011; poppins & singh, 2005). the provision of alternatives to work placements is necessary. abeysekera (2006) noted that the success of wil in the curriculum is influenced by how embedded it is, referring to wil becoming part of the ‘hidden curriculum’, becoming part of, …the norms, values and belief systems embedded in the curriculum (p. 11). as useful as edward’s io model was, it lacked much needed exemplars to enliven re-imagined wil assessments at the coalface. we pursued an action-learning scholarly project aimed at integrating and customising a curriculum framework to incorporate and integrate the wil learning activities best suited to stem pedagogies and learning outcomes (see figure 4 for the full version of the framework). the following three adaptations occurred concurrently during the review and integration process. first, expanded definitions of what authentic and proximal learning means within the faculty-context was developed (see figure 2 below). figure 2: defining authenticity and proximity second, these definitions formed a 3x2 criteria system to unpack the three elements of each of authentic and proximal assessment. by way of example, for an assessment task to achieve a ‘dot’ for the ‘aim’ section in the authenticity element, it must intentionally contribute to the host organisational goal(s). third, the addition of exemplars (see figure 3 below) is an obvious inclusion, but when layered with the dots system, it has perhaps been one of the most effective young, k., palmer, s., & campbell, m. (2017). good wil hunting: building capacity for curriculum re-design. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 8(1), 215–232. 221 means to date for enabling unit chairs and course directors to re-imagine their assessments. the fit-for-purpose wil convergence curriculum framework provides an invaluable scholarly resource to support course teams in their discipline-specific wil learning activity choices. figure 3: wedge section of wil: enhancing employ-ability outcomes infographic the scholarly approach to curriculum renewal, supported by dynamic resources, visually reinforce the narrative of why, what and how to change curriculum. it aligns with current thinking that a whole-of-course scaffolding of wil curricula is essential to maximise enhanced employability and employment outcomes (kaider et al., 2017). this harks to the need to shift intentional integration where students have multiple opportunities within a course to work to learn and learn to work (orrell, 2011). the wil convergence curriculum framework (young, 2016) titled, ‘wil: enhancing employability outcomes’ (see figure 4 below), became an instrumental framework to help academics believe in the value of industry-oriented integrated approaches to delivering wil elements in curricula. it functioned as a: multi-dimensional, interdependent representation of authentic and proximal assessment definitions; faculty-centric assessment exemplar resource; and an industry-oriented whole-of-course approach to curriculum. the employability framework provides wil curriculum standards for mapping, review and renewal of whole-of-course approaches to wil curriculum design. young, k., palmer, s., & campbell, m. (2017). good wil hunting: building capacity for curriculum re-design. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 8(1), 215–232. 222 figure 4: wil convergence curriculum framework the infographic (see page 232 for a larger view) intentionally presents the simultaneous interaction of the structure (course) and minutia (assessment) of curricula. it is most useful as a conceptual framework for building the capacity of course teams to re-view their understandings about how curricula can enhance employability by preparing students for the world of work. the examples provide academics who lack current industry experience with ideas for non-traditional assessments. the three tested frameworks provide a scholarly approach to wil needed for a wide-scale adoption of both wil practice and wil scholarship (reeders, 2000). together, the frameworks provide a starting point to imagine industryoriented learning activities linked to assessment ideas. using these converged frameworks for building intentional activities, that apply discipline-specific ‘in-context’ skills and knowledge performed at a graduate level was crucial to meeting industry requirements and to enhancing student employability outcomes. this approach was influenced by a study that prompts the sector for a reduction in the avoidance of wil curricula in mainstream curricula (smith, 2016, p. 347). the central wil team understood, like mcilveen et al. (2008), that there was a need to frame wil as both an accessible and a legitimate aspect of disciplinary scholarship. wil had to be presented and conceived in a way that enabled it to be placed within mainstream curricula, not as a bolt on, and not an extra-curricular activity. the following section discusses the decisions, processes and outcomes relating to the ‘hunting’ and ‘gathering’ of wil champions as the early adopters and thus, first enablers for developing and effecting change in curricula through a wil-lens for the purposes of enhancing graduate employability. young, k., palmer, s., & campbell, m. (2017). good wil hunting: building capacity for curriculum re-design. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 8(1), 215–232. 223 discussion and findings findings from this project reveal that the deliberate decision to build the capacity and capability of course directors and wil champions as the first frontier for continuing course enhancement through a wil-lens proved useful. in particular, the project identified the type of support wil champions and wil followers require in order to effect the types of curriculum changes needed in the faculty to shift the focus in curricula to include scaffolded wil activities. the key items reported by respondents related mainly to a raised awareness of wil ideas and strategies and a deeper understanding of what wil is. one course director illustrated this in their survey response with the realisation that wil was: the embedding and scaffolding of employability skills from year 1-3 in two courses in our school. during the capacity building processes from 2015 to the end of 2016, there were three key challenges identified as obstacles for enabling change in effective wil-focused curricula change. first, academics reported that their understanding of wil and its purposes was still unclear. a seminal report on wil by patrick et al. (2008, p. v5), states that wil is an umbrella term for a range of approaches and strategies that integrate theory with the practice of work within a purposefully designed curriculum. despite the definition being useful when wil education emerged in australian higher education, the nebulous concept did not appear to assist academics in the faculty. the insight gained was that a faculty-centric shared understanding of wil was going to be fundamental to wil curriculum renewal. the flow on effect, and thus the second change-management challenge, related to behavioural aspects around academic workload and recognition. wil capacity and capability building initiatives revealed that academics were behaving as the research indicated – that stem academics tend to focus on their discipline-specific research (and content teaching), and prioritise rigorous discipline-specific research output (national research council, 2003, p. 2). without a significant wil recognition and reward process in place, the onus was on convincing unit chairs in non-placement units, to see the value in, and the role they had to play, in incorporating elements of a wil approach into their units. the insight gained was to connect wil-focused activities to the learning needed to satisfy the overarching course learning outcomes. the third significant challenge was that wil was a ‘hidden curriculum’ in the courses investigated. as part of the acds lighthouse project, the faculty reported that it has had a longstanding curriculum initiative for all undergraduate courses to provide students with a wil opportunity. currently, these student offerings are not coordinated, scaffolded or organised to any large extent in ways that allow students to evidence growth in their learning about work, skills and employment (campbell, 2016, p. 40). this project identified that there are elements of wil that already exist but are not fully realised within a wil framework. the insight gained here was to plan for changes to the documentation and signposting of all wil focused courserelated materials. there were therefore, three key areas that needed to be addressed: limited shared understandings of wil; reluctance by some academics to take on new ways of teaching and assessing in stem to fit with authentic wil frameworks; and shifting wil learning activities from the hidden to the formal curriculum. shared understanding improving the understanding of authentic assessment (given that authenticity is the cornerstone of wil education) was the first project challenge. the faculty identified that the term authentic, like wil, was also nebulous for traditional academics. feedback from academics during the projects revealed the need to unpack the purpose of authentic assessment in a work integrated learning (wil) framework – that being to provide an opportunity for students to acquire relevant employability skills that link theory to practice in work-related contexts. young, k., palmer, s., & campbell, m. (2017). good wil hunting: building capacity for curriculum re-design. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 8(1), 215–232. 224 deakin university has defined wil as any learning task or experience that is authentic (resembling what is expected of new graduates) and/or proximal (in relation to physical or digital workplaces, and professionals), for the development of graduate employability and career transition (deakin university, 2017). while the university is geared to improving employability for all students through wil, each faculty has its own unique approach and thus provides contextualised learning that responds to, and is responsive to, discipline-specific pedagogies and scholarship, as well as the satellite industries underpinning an industryoriented approach to enhancing employability through wil. authentic curricula the preferred definition used to guide wil teaching and assessment practice in the faculty is from gulikers, bastiaens, and kirschner (2004) who argue that the degree of fidelity of the task and the conditions in which the performance takes place is critical. they define authentic assessment as an assessment requiring students to use the same competencies, or combinations of knowledge, skills, and attitudes that they need to apply in the criterion situation in professional life (gulikers et al., 2004, p. 69). the authentic assessment should have relevance to both the student’s learning of their discipline knowledge and also the acquisition of the relevant complimentary graduate capacities. a deliverable of a current research project within the faculty is the further refinement and consensus on what authentic assessment within a wil framework means and how it should be measured in stem disciplines. this points to the slow but significant way in which change management tends to occur. it was necessary for the faculty to adapt a definition to a faculty-oriented and stem-centric definition. the project team chose to base the definition on the deakin university definition given that it used the authenticity/proximity measures that were important in our framework. in stem, wil is assigned as a vehicle for developing students’ work readiness skills to industry standards and enhancing employability (edwards et al., 2015, p. 6). the origins of this type of dialogue are found prior to the turn of this century through the push in higher education for quality assurance measures relating to the outcomes and capabilities of graduates (leathwood & phillips, 2000; smith, 2016). required by successive federal governments since 1998, most he institutions identify a list of expected learning outcomes (historically often referred to as ‘graduate attributes’). in addition, many programs’ accrediting professional bodies also specify a list of graduate outcomes that accredited undergraduate programs must incorporate. for over a decade now, wil has been designated in he as a learning approach for the development of interpreted and contextualised graduate learning outcomes, providing the benefit of authentic exposure to the expectations and unstructured nature of the typical workplace (crebert, bates, bell, patrick, & cragnolini, 2004; hart & stone, 2002). moving from the hidden to the formal curriculum ideas on how to improve wil activity were approached by presenting arguments from the literature on the value of placement alternatives, as well as by providing examples of assessments that demonstrated learning from authentic activity the principles from orrell (2011) relating to ‘learn to work’ concepts were critical. on-campus wil activities, simulated settings and learning scenarios that resemble real-world practices, such as industry-projects and field trips, to name a few (billet, 2010), were explained as useful alternatives and preparations for placement-wil. campbell (2017) developed the wil definition for the faculty which, since 2015, evolved slightly to the final definition used here to ensure that it aligned with the faculty’s strategic focus for increasing the employability and employment outcomes of stem graduates: wil describes the intentional learning activities that expose students to authentic and proximal opportunities to help develop the transferable skills for employment, young, k., palmer, s., & campbell, m. (2017). good wil hunting: building capacity for curriculum re-design. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 8(1), 215–232. 225 further education and active participation in their community. wil activities should seek to provide students with the opportunity to learn how to apply specific discipline knowledge, skills & practice in the workplaces of the future (p. 1). the time dedicated to perfecting the faculty-centric wil definitions, and the broadening of awareness of non-placement wil, was a direct result of the resistance some academics had towards implementing wil during the initial phases of the wil strategy. however, this process contributed significantly to the capacity and capability building of the academics. this enabled the faculty to enliven the wil vision and thus enhance the success of current and subsequent wil projects. consequently, in 2016, the faculty chapter of the lighthouse project focused on the task of good wil hunting and capacity building and has since seen significant cultural shifts. as part of the evaluation undertaken at the close of the lighthouse project (end of 2016), course directors from one of the schools in the faculty were asked a number of open-ended, forwardlooking questions about wil. participants reported that they learned three key aspects through their participation in the wil lighthouse project: 1. wil encompasses a spectrum of learning activities, not just industry placements; 2. many learning activities currently undertaken by students can already be considered as having wil aspects and/or can be adapted in a straightforward manner to do so; and, 3. there is a need for a common understanding of the meaning of wil. to determine whether the intended capacity building during the lighthouse projects would enable the scalable and sustainable approach to wil in the faculty, course directors were asked how they would promote wil and encourage others to develop their understanding and implementation of wil. the following suggestions covered the range from generic to specific:  general encouragement for academic staff to develop wil in courses as a means to improve graduate employability;  providing information to academic staff explaining the different types of wil and how these can be integrated into/across courses coherently;  identifying professional development mechanisms for engaging course teams in wil enhancement, such as course team meetings and workshops. the lighthouse project research findings indicate that while individual academics were indeed working on specific curriculum elements for action to strengthen and highlight wil aspects, more explicit and intentional, purposeful and measured scaffolding of the curriculum design was going to be required to meet the markers for evidence of enhanced employability curriculum initiatives. in summary, the research, review, adaptation and then layering of the three frameworks that resulted in the creation of a fourth framework has helped the uptake of wil within and across the faculty. this is evidenced by all course directors (in three of the four schools) approving the inclusion of a compulsory first year level introductory wil unit for students to complete prior to enrolling in a core placement unit. this means that wil is now core at both the entry and penultimate years of study for the majority of the undergraduate courses (with the fourth school now planning for this school-wide course change to take effect in 2018) in the faculty. the course changes thus provide scope for sequenced and scaffolded on-campus wil to facilitate intentional, scalable and sustainable gateway, cornerstone and capstone wil. furthermore, the bedrock of the faculty’s sustainable and scalable approach to embedding intentional wil curricula, enhancing graduate employability opportunities and improving employment outcomes will take effect in the last half of the strategic plan (2017-2019) through a persistent and even sharper focus on the following curriculum oriented goals: young, k., palmer, s., & campbell, m. (2017). good wil hunting: building capacity for curriculum re-design. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 8(1), 215–232. 226  the first-year introductory wil unit core in every faculty undergraduate course to become a pre-requisite to a core second year unit (as opposed to a later offered placement unit) to ensure wil awareness occurs earlier in a course sequence.  development of wil-specific learning outcomes (sin & amaral, 2017, p.105).  further revision (once tested and evaluated) to the faculty definition of authentic assessment through a wil framework.  use of an authentic and proximal assessment criterion and standards for measuring ‘real-world’ applications of knowledge and skills.  embedding of career education from first year, not as ‘bolt on’ initiatives, but constructively aligned to the course learning outcomes.  case-study exploration of traditional (stem) and non-traditional (non-stem) professional identities for graduates to navigate how to develop, use and discuss their transferable skills to be productive and employable in stem industries and beyond.  signposting within the formal curricula of learning related to future workplace requirements.  ensuring programs provide opportunities, early in a course, for students to develop skill sets for ‘getting the work done’ not just via placement-wil, but also via on-campus wil activities.  opportunities for all students to have a placement experience as part of their course.  multiple and scaffolded opportunities for industry-oriented learning experiences.  consideration of how industry-experts might be best involved in teaching and assessment delivery so that in-class learning is not devoid of in-context learning.  reflective practice as a core requirement of a wil assessment.  replication of the course-wide capacity building approach to every undergraduate course in the faculty.  refinement of documentation processes and policy to improve the quality of wil curriculum renewal (i.e. unit guide, major course review and performance review processes). future directions ongoing research will provide supporting evidence relating to three measurable aspects of the research projects: 1) tools and processes that endorse wil outcomes by aligning authentic and proximal elements of assessment through desk-top audits and course mapping; 2) evidence of intentional scaffolded and embedded wil experiences through major course review submissions and out-of-cycle course plans; 3) longitudinal studies with preparatory studies that consider how to measure the impact of wil on enhanced employability and employment outcomes of graduates. given that both the strategy and related projects are midway through their lifecycle, further exploration of academic perceptions of wil within the faculty will continue. in particular, it will be interesting to note if there are indications of shifts, not just in the shared understandings of wil, but also of the value of wil and the way in which wil will be fit-for-purpose to each course context. desktop audits of assessment and curricula changes that result from the projects are also still underway. the intention is to measure employment outcomes via a student survey instrument derived from the employability modelling exercise reported in smith et al. (2014). the model developed was the result of a large-scale investigation into the impact of wil on undergraduate employability in an australian context. the principal model reported included six dimensions of work readiness (smith et al., 2014, p. 29). as a pragmatic/practical measure of graduate employment, the results of the national graduate outcomes survey (gos) will be significant. these data are useful for program reporting requirements, but they may also be young, k., palmer, s., & campbell, m. (2017). good wil hunting: building capacity for curriculum re-design. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 8(1), 215–232. 227 used as a dependant variable, for which the identity and influence of as many independent variables as possible are sought. a key independent variable is a student’s participation in wil activities, or not. based on the related literature, other potentially important independent variables include prior academic performance, discipline area, gender, age, disability status, nationality and socio-economic status. these data are directly available in, or can be derived from, individual student information records held by the university, and can be matched to the corresponding student responses provided to the gos. conclusion developing a refined faculty-centric definition of wil, which created a shared understanding of wil, has been fundamental to the step-change occurring within the faculty. the discussions created an opportunity for including wil-focused curricula into traditional stem curricula. the process built the capacity of course directors to better understand the different forms of wil available to best deliver critical discipline specific skills and knowledge within an employability framework. the exploration of the possible stem-centric versions and dimensions of wil activity revealed the ‘hidden wil’ aspects of the curriculum, allowing these activities to be more prominent and identifiable. as a result, the construction of the wil convergence curriculum framework provided a slow, subtle yet salient approach for enabling the re-design of whole-of-course embedded wil. the scholarly approach to defining wil and curriculum renewal, supported by dynamic resources visually reinforce the narrative of the ‘why, what and how’ to enable step-change in curriculum development. but overall, the deliberate choice to build the capacity of a faculty-based wil team of experts, and then course directors as the first frontier for enabling a sustainable and scalable faculty-centric and course-wide approach, has been the single most valuable approach taken in the first two years of the five year operational plan. in particular, the findings from the science lighthouse project continue to be instrumental for driving and effecting curriculum change. a number of suggestions from the online survey that participants completed highlight the means through which we will continue to effect and enable change in the understanding and practice of wil: i) continuing to be overt in public forums regarding the promotion of the value and importance of wil; ii) course mapping of authentic assessments (as opposed to wil curriculum more generally) for identifying opportunities to increase intentional wil learning and enhance hidden wil curriculum; iii) bringing in ‘wil experts’, as visitors or permanent members, to course teams, school meetings, etc.; and, iv) running more wil events for school learning and teaching leaders with the aim of promoting and developing wil. in summary, the above are the future enablers for driving intentional, embedded, scaffolded wil approaches. the context-rich integrations of career education and theory-practice pedagogies are our greatest promise to improved graduate outcomes in stem. a whole-ofcourse wil approach to curriculum design whereby course teams align discipline-specific knowledge and skill acquisition to real world scenarios, thus allowing students to connect their learning to the future world of work is our best opportunity to improve employability skills and employment outcomes. while it is too early to draw any conclusions about the impact of re-designed curricula on employment outcomes for graduates of the faculty, the survey data on academics’ perceptions of wil and evidence of core wil unit inclusions indicate that the change management process, enlivened through grounded research projects, is making an impact on wil activity at the undergraduate level. the faculty is confident that the wil leadership approach to building capacity for curriculum re-design is the most sustainable and scalable catalyst for ensuring a course covers both the ‘work to learn and learn to work’ domains young, k., palmer, s., & campbell, m. (2017). good wil hunting: building capacity for curriculum re-design. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 8(1), 215–232. 228 needed for graduates to be more job-ready (orrell, 2011). the faculty can now gain further momentum by relying on a wider and growing group of good-wil champions to be involved in the review, planning and continual renewal of embedded practice-based applications of context-rich discipline-specific knowledge and skill development. young, k., palmer, s., & campbell, m. (2017). good wil hunting: building capacity for curriculum re-design. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 8(1), 215–232. 229 references abeysekera, i. (2006). issues relating to designing a work-integrated learning (wil) program in an undergraduate accounting degree program and its implications for the curriculum. asia-pacific journal of cooperative education, 7(1), 7–15. https://ssrn.com/abstract=2326048 billet, s. 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(2017). good wil hunting: building capacity for curriculum re-design. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 8(1), 215–232. 231 young, k. (2016). wil convergence curriculum framework. sebe. deakin university. victoria, australia. young, k., cardilini, a., willems, & teychenne, s. (2016). stp010/710 – fully flipped. paper presented at the deakin learning futures, deakin university, melbourne, australia. young, k., palmer, s., tolson, m., & campbell, m. (2016). distributed leadership model: enabling faculty-wide enhancement of scaffolded wil. paper presented at the wil 2020: pushing the boundaries – proceedings of the 2016 acen national conference, springvale south, australia. young, k., palmer, s., & campbell, m. (2017). good wil hunting: building capacity for curriculum re-design. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 8(1), 215–232. 232 dollinger, m., & brown, j. (2019). an institutional framework to guide the comparison of work-integrated learning types. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 10(1), 88–100. 88 an institutional framework to guide the comparison of workintegrated learning types mollie dollinger1 and jason brown1 molliedollinger@gmail.com; jason.brown@latrobe.edu.au corresponding author: mollie dollinger 1la trobe university abstract work-based placements, site visits, field trips and embedded industry-informed curriculum are employability strategies frequently applied by universities, and clustered under the umbrella term – work-integrated learning (wil). referring to each of these strategies as wil can complicate comparisons (e.g. long-term placements vs. field trips) and can lead wil related research to diverge in multiple directions. to support comparison and help guide institutional decision-making relating to wil, the positioning of this article aligns with a recent stream of literature that attempts to outline, contrast and differentiate between various activities aimed at enhancing graduate employability. four distinct wil case studies from three australian universities are described in this article: (a) students working in teams with industry partners (n=23), (b) students co-creating learning resources (n=7), (c) a student-staff partnership (n=2), and (d) students acting as peer-learning advisors (n=5). the cases were considered across five key factors: 1) ease of implementation, 2) barriers, 3) scalability, 4) authenticity, and 5) proximity. using empirical data, the findings within the article contribute an institutional framework that highlights the benefits and drawbacks associated with differences across wil types, intended to support good wil practice among administrators, teachers and staff. keywords: work-integrated learning, student employability, higher education, graduate outcomes, work-based learning introduction the australian government recently indicated that it intends to introduce performance measures that will determine partial funding of the higher education sector related to the transparency, accountability, affordability and responsiveness to the aspirations of students and future workforce needs (higher education reform package, 2017). the department of education and training (det) further echoed that university funding will be assessed based on performance objectives such as low attrition, enrolment and completion of students from a low socio economic status (ses), as well as workforce preparedness of graduates (det, 2018). however, the details about how future workforce needs and the workforce preparedness of graduates will be assessed are yet to emerge. will performance measures evaluate university curriculum, co-curricular opportunities, internships, and/or job placements of graduates? furthermore, it is unclear whether performance measures will account for students’ previous work experience or social capital, and whether both domestic and international student workforce preparedness will contribute to the overall assessment. what is clear from the announcement, is that the notion of ‘graduate employability’ and the subsequent mechanisms to measure employability are to grow in prominence and importance. while employability is generally accepted as an integral part of the student experience in higher education (harvey, 2005; morley, 2001), the term has been plagued by issues relating to measurement since its inception. starting in the 1970s, the british higher education system mailto:molliedollinger@gmail.com mailto:jason.brown@latrobe.edu.au dollinger, m., & brown, j. (2019). an institutional framework to guide the comparison of work-integrated learning types. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 10(1), 88–100. 89 frequently relied on league tables to shed insight into graduate employability through measures on first destinations of university graduates (taylor, 1986). yet while this measure is still used today, for example in the graduate outcomes survey (guthrie & edge, 2014; qilt, 2017), there are problems with using first destination as the proxy for employability. for example, non-responders may be significantly different from those graduates that do respond, and short-term ability to gain employment does not necessarily indicate the potential to have long-term job success (taylor, 1986). harvey (2001) writes that while employment rates of graduates are often considered to be the ‘magic bullet’ for measuring employability, they are not appropriate, nor nuanced, measures. this is due to two issues. the first is that the measure of ‘first destination’ does not adequately take into account the responsibilities of the university. for example, the measure does not incorporate the curricular and/or co-curricular interventions that were used to develop students’ employability attributes, such as opportunities for students to participate in work-based learning placements (harvey, 2001). by solely measuring the first destination of the graduate, we overlook that employability is a shared responsibility between the institution and the student/graduate. the second issue is that the measure of first destination does not consider the numerous environmental and contextual factors (e.g. labour markets, location), as well as personal experiences of the student before entering university that are likely to impact the graduate’s first job. this second aspect, rather than highlighting the responsibility of the university, emphasises factors that may be out of the university’s control (oliver, 2015). therefore, taking a step back, we can see that measuring graduate employability is complex terrain. if the government seeks to link funding to the workforce preparedness of graduates, we will first need to better understand what the appropriate measures are for assessing universities’ responsiveness to the aspirations of students and future workforce needs. one area that could be used to understand the university’s specific role in preparing graduates for work is that of work-integrated learning (wil). wil is a broad term that includes various activities or types of wil, such as work-based placements, field trips, and embedded curriculum interventions. consistent across wil types is the intent of the university to support graduate employability through opportunities to develop and apply generic and transferable skills (mclennan & keating, 2008). future measures of workforce preparedness of graduates could measure various indicators relating to wil such as number of students who participated in a wil activity (or type) and students’ perceptions of the quality of the experience. however, alongside these measures, institutions will also need a framework to develop and assess various wil types in relation to their costs and benefits. to address this need, in this article we will introduce an institutional framework to help guide the comparison of wil types across five key factors: 1) ease of implementation, 2) barriers, 3) scalability, 4) authenticity, and 5) proximity. the article aligns with previous research that has aimed to help compare and distinguish various types of wil (e.g. jackson, 2015; oliver, 2015). we will use the framework to compare four distinct case studies of wil to showcase how the framework could help support institutional decision-making across types. case studies include: (a) a wil subject with an industry (i.e. external) placement, (b) a subject where students co-create learning resources to support employability attributes (i.e. no placement), (c) a student-staff cocurricular partnership, and (d) students acting as peer learning advisors (pla) in a cocurricular environment. through the various types, discussion will highlight the different approaches universities can consider when developing or expanding wil opportunities in the future. various types of wil work-integrated learning (wil) is a term used by universities to describe a range of approaches and strategies that integrate theory with practice of work within a purposefully designed curriculum (patrick et al., 2008, p. iv). key in this definition is the emphasis on wil as being designed purposefully by the university. therefore, unlike other indicators of graduate employability (e.g. social capital), wil is something that universities can offer to help students dollinger, m., & brown, j. (2019). an institutional framework to guide the comparison of work-integrated learning types. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 10(1), 88–100. 90 become more workforce ready. while wil is not a new concept in higher education, it is becoming increasingly widespread (brown, 2010; patrick et al., 2008). factors such as the massification of higher education, rising student fees, and growing job automation (gleason, 2018; goldin & katz, 2018; jorre de st jorre & oliver, 2017; mok & neubauer, 2016), has meant that many students are concerned about their employment outcomes (tomlinson, 2008; tymon, 2013). this in turn has led to many universities rethinking how they support employability and the future careers paths of their students (kinash, crane, capper, young, & stark, 2017). wil is one mechanism to achieve this, as it often allows for students to gain experience in the workplace and/or grow networks which they see as important to gaining employment (freudenberg, cameron, & brimble, 2010; harris, jones, & coutts, 2010). the breadth and variety of what encompasses wil is both a strength and a determent to the term. research is far from conclusive on the best approach to embedding employability within the student experience. allowing for a wide range of wil types provides a foundation for future exploration and openness to a range of student (and staff) preferences. however, the fuzziness of the term also means research relating to wil can include various types as diverse as work placements, internships, field work, sandwich year degrees, job shadowing, cooperative education, service learning, embedded curriculum and so on, making the structure, or comparison of wil difficult to assess (kaider, hains-wesson, & young, 2017; von treuer, sturre, keele, & mcleod, 2010). notably, the benefits of many of these wil types are similar, including, for example, student confidence in their workplace capabilities (clinton & thomas, 2011) and a deeper understanding of future job expectations and experiences (wilton, 2012). select research has further found that wil may positively impact a students’ academic performance by instilling motivation and maturity in students (gamble, patrick, & peach, 2010). these positive outcomes, as well as students’ expressed interest in employability, have elevated wil to a new level of importance in many universities and contexts (e.g. see shirley, davies, cockburn, & carver, 2006; staehr, martin, & chan, 2014). yet research has only just begun to try to frame and compare the various types of wil to develop graduate employability (e.g. jackson, 2015; oliver, 2015). this study aimed to compare four types of wil, while recognisng that many other various wil types also exist. to illustrate, placements in industry are a common type of wil (e.g. over the course of semester), but wil can also occur on-campus, either inside (i.e. curricular) or outside of a formal subject (i.e. co-curricular). for example, students can work in partnership with staff (i.e. on-campus placement), students can co-create research and/or resources for the university, and students can work for the university, such as through various peer learning or peer mentoring programs. however, that is not to say that all work and/or volunteer opportunities offered by the university constitute wil. instead, what defines wil is the intentional integration of theory (i.e. what the student has learned) with the practice of work (patrick et al., 2008). therefore, while this article includes two case studies of wil that occur outside of a subject (i.e. co-curricular spaces), in both cases the university supervisor intentionally sought to create a wil experience for students. methodology and sample the data collected for this study was qualitative in nature and was compiled in accordance with ethical standards (1647289.2), obtained through a research-intensive university in australia and extended to include data collection at two other universities. we utilised a grounded theory approach, common in qualitative exploratory studies (glaser & strauss, 2017), as our research perspective was that how wil is perceived by participants (for example, through ease of implementation or barriers) is based on individual perspectives (socially constructed). to explore wil across various types, we used a selective or purposeful sampling method through word of mouth and distributing information about the study to find relevant case studies. once the cases were selected, all involved participants (students and staff) were invited to participate in a qualitative online survey administered through qualtrics dollinger, m., & brown, j. (2019). an institutional framework to guide the comparison of work-integrated learning types. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 10(1), 88–100. 91 and/or an interview with the lead researcher (approximately one hour in duration, with the same interviewer across all interviews). participants were able to elect to have the interview in-person (i.e. face-to-face) or over a recorded video and/or audio chat, with most participants electing recorded video (9 out of 13 interviews). all data was stored anonymously and kept on a password protected hard-drive. to limit subjective interpretations, qualitative data was transcribed and coded by the lead researcher and an external academic. data was thematically coded throughout the study, a process which involved listening to the audio, reading transcripts, comparing to qualitative survey results and re-coding (creswell & creswell, 2017). the co-coder comparison method we used (adopted from hruschka et al., 2004) began with a random sample of responses from participants, followed by independent coding by each coder. as the number of responses was limited, we were unable to run an intercoder reliability test and instead met to discuss our codes and then co-created a codebook for future coding. we then repeated the process until the coding aligned. the four case studies included: (a) a wil industry placement (n=23), (b) students creating learning resources (n=7), (c) a student-staff partnership (n=2), and (d) students serving as peer learning advisors plas (n=5). in each case, one of the research/practice participants was the university staff member supervising and/or teaching the activity. all participants were invited to participate in both the survey and follow-up interview. while all participants chose to participate in the survey (see participation rates above), not all participants volunteered to participate in the interview: wil industry placement (n=3), students creating learning resources (n=5), student-staff partnership (n=2), and students serving as plas (n=3). of the cases, the wil placement and creation of learning resources counted towards course credit while the other two were co-curricular opportunities. students were paid for their work in the student-staff partnership as well as in the plas. important to note, is that the research here presents only one case study within each type of wil and as such, the research should be considered pilot rather than conclusive. further, while all cases included in this research took place in the australian higher education context and all were in research-intensive universities (n=3), future research could test the framework in international contexts and/or in vocational settings (i.e. non-university settings). a summary of each of the cases is presented below. case 1: work-integrated learning subject with industry placement in this example of wil, the subject (unit) was a management consulting subject based within a school of business that was open to business and non-business majors. to enroll in the subject, students were required to submit an application and undergo an interview. the student selection process for the subject was very competitive and each semester roughly three times more students applied than were accepted. once enrolled, students were put into teams of four to five, based on the similarity of their grades from previous semesters. for example, all students averaging a grade of 80 per cent were grouped together and all students averaging 70 per cent were grouped together. students were then assigned industry partners, with major global and local companies participating. the students worked with their coach (i.e. tutor) to help pitch a project to the industry partners, which the industry partners then approved. the teams spent four hours a week at the industry placement (over 11 weeks) and prepared a final report at the end of the semester. case 2: work-integrated learning subject with students creating learning resources in this subject, students could opt for traditional assessment (i.e. an individual report) or choose to be involved in a team-based project aimed to improve the employability of science students. the team-based project required students to create a video communications artifact about a disease for a non-academic audience (in this case, truck drivers). students were from a school of science, but were paired with students from journalism to help complete the project (who also received credit, but in a different subject). students met once a week with academic dollinger, m., & brown, j. (2019). an institutional framework to guide the comparison of work-integrated learning types. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 10(1), 88–100. 92 staff from both science and journalism to check-in and also met up several times a week with each other to complete the project. all students who participated in the video were assessed based on a rubric provided by the lecturer. the project finished post-semester because the students underestimated the amount of time it was needed to complete. case 3: student-staff partnership in program implementation in this case, a phd student studying student partnership and a professional staff member were paired, at the request of the university leadership team, to initiate a student-staff partnership program (i.e. co-curricular internal placement). they each had specific expertise to bring to the project, with the phd student contributing knowledge of pedagogical frameworks and of partnership programs in the sector, and the professional staff member contributing expertise on project management. they worked together to encourage academic staff to design and integrate student partnership projects within their various subjects. both the professional staff member and the phd student were paid for their time. case 4: students as peer learning advisors (plas) this case was a program within a university that hired high-achieving students to serve as plas. these peer mentors were available for students to talk to on a drop-in basis, or students could book an appointment with a mentor based on a specific question or discipline. mentors also ran workshops on specific topics requested by other students. students who had worked as advisors for a long period of time helped manage the other advisors. all students in this program were paid for their time. factors for analysis in this section, we will compare and contrast the four cases of wil across five factors: ease of implementation, barriers, scalability, authenticity and proximity. this analysis builds on the existing work that has posited that wil requires more discernment between various types (see jackson, 2015; oliver, 2015). oliver (2015) argued that as wil is often implemented as a mechanism to enhance employability, two critical factors for the analysis of wil activities are authenticity, or how the activity resembles similar professional level challenges, and proximity, or how closely the context resembles a professional environment. from these factors, oliver maps the indicators along two axes to create four quadrants for assessment: high level wil, moderate level wil, low level wil, and not wil. this work was further expanded with examples mapped within the quadrants by kaider, hains-wesson and young (2017). this made a critical first step towards conceptualising how wil can be compared, and highlighted the various types of wil. however, for wil comparison to develop, factors that help inform an institution’s perspective to initiate wil are also needed (kaider et al., 2017). below, we argue that three other factors (ease of implementation, barriers, and scalability) are also important for assessing wil types to create a total of five factors for analysis. ease of implementation in an educational intervention study, lesaux, kieffer, faller and kelley (2010) defined ease of implementation as the uptake of the activity in addition to the teachers’ insights. as many of the cases included here were voluntary (e.g. subjects were not required), environmental factors (e.g. promotion of the activity) may have skewed participation levels, so we used both student and teachers’ perceptions of uptake ease of implementation to analyse this factor. in all four cases we found that there was some difficulty in implementing the activity both generally and with new students each cycle (varying times across cases). most cases had been running before the data collection for this study began. in all cases, staff said that significant institutional buy-in had been needed to support the programs at first. for example, in the case of the wil subject with an industry placement, the program was spearheaded by a dean who believed this was an important undergraduate experience (they had a similar dollinger, m., & brown, j. (2019). an institutional framework to guide the comparison of work-integrated learning types. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 10(1), 88–100. 93 subject in the master’s program already). the process towards implementation then began with a subject application and approval, as well as approval of companies that could support the students’ placements. similarly, the subject where students created learning resources not only required subject approval, but also research and curriculum design on behalf of the participating staff to support the activity for students. as these staff members did not have any external incentive to add the extra work, the impetus to initiate the activity was internal. they noted that their first attempt at the activity did not succeed and students did not complete the learning resource. in a second attempt (when this study began data collection) staff integrated a more structured approach which was deemed successful. contrary to what the researchers expected, the case with more localised decision making (university deans and/or leadership were less involved) was the hardest on the staff, and thus, resulted in a higher difficulty for implementation. ease of implementation of the co-curricular cases was smoother, but again required institutional buy-in, as budgets had to be approved and programs were tied to specific institutional strategies. from the student perspective, there was a period of confusion in all cases as they adjusted to new expectations and roles. however, confusion did not last, and many students reported feeling comfortable in their roles as time went on. ease of implementation also relates to uptake. as the wil placement subject had a very competitive enrolment application process, uptake was not an issue, rather, staff were concerned about how to expand the subject to allow for more student participation. in the learning resources and the peer-learning cases, staff wanted more diverse groups of students to participate as they acknowledged that most of their participants were already highly engaged students. in the case of student-staff partnership, uptake was not relevant for the initial partnership because the student was selected internally, but participants spoke of the struggle of encouraging others to engage in partnership throughout the university: we sent out emails asking for expressions of interest and we had mixed responses and fairly low responses from staff, but the response from students was overwhelming. [staff said they did not want to participate] primarily due to workload and also not being able to justify their involvement to their bosses and as it was outside of the scope of their job descriptions. (student, student-staff partnership case) this sentiment relates back to the earlier discussion of staff not having an external incentive to take on the extra work that accompanies designing for non-traditional classroom activities (such as students co-creating learning resources). it also signifies that for some, engaging in extra-role behaviour, such as designing a wil-related activity in class, does not garner extra respect or acknowledgement and is considered outside the scope of academic job descriptions. therefore, it makes sense that in the cases where the manager was also the source of encouragement to initiate the project (e.g. for the industry placement subject), the ease of implementation and the corresponding recognition was greater. as such, our analysis of ease of implementation suggests that wil activities may be easiest to implement when they have high-level leadership support and offer financial rewards and/or recognition for students and staff. barriers barriers are a common factor for analysing program interventions or effectiveness (e.g. jamelske, 2009; seidman, 2005). consequently, we have added barriers to help analyse typical challenges or issues that may arise in certain types of wil. barriers could include students’ role confusion, limitations on student or staff time, and/or lack of necessary resources. our analysis suggests that the case with the least barriers detected was the wil industry placement subject. this likely related to the sample of students involved in the subject, who were all high achieving students because of the competitive application process required to enrol in the subject. therefore, in this case, very few students experienced any confusion over their roles and/or the processes needed to complete the task. similarly, the student-staff dollinger, m., & brown, j. (2019). an institutional framework to guide the comparison of work-integrated learning types. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 10(1), 88–100. 94 partnership and the plas also drew from academically high achieving students, and thus resulted in less role confusion. the case that reported the least role clarity for students was that of students creating learning resources. this may be related to this instance encouraging all students, regardless of previous academic performance, to participate. as students were not grouped based on previous academic grades, there tended to be a wide range in selfperformance expectations (the final grade they hoped to achieve from the subject), which appeared to lead to some internal group disagreements. in this case, students were also expected to find times to meet and work together (e.g. at the library) as opposed to have mandated times blocked off in their schedule, such as within the placement subject, which made it harder for students to find mutually acceptable times to meet. as one student noted: the only downside though is [the project] is becoming bigger than ben hur. no one had [any] idea just how big this was going to get. it’s still going. [the] semester is long gone. i’m still mostly motivated but [the] last few weeks we’ve been struggling. after [the] break, it was hard. students here and there had work or study abroad commitments. so we’re just starting to get going again now. (student, learning resources case) notably, despite this apparent lack of role clarity, students were overwhelming positive about their involvement. one student remarked: [in the project] i felt heard, i felt that we could grow in our expression of ideas and creativity, receive constructive feedback and criticism, and get real world training. (student, learning resources case) benefits that were mentioned by students included: opportunity to engage in their subject, experience that pushed them beyond their comfort zone, and confidence to go out into the workforce. one student said that she was now considering becoming an entrepreneur. this highlights that even in cases where substantial barriers may occur, the self-perceived benefits for students often outweigh the challenges. notably, both the student-staff partnership case and the pla case had tensions arise over how best to recruit other students and staff (i.e. encourage students to attend a study skills workshop, encourage staff to host a student partner). this finding may relate to the challenges that occur when designing for scalable wil types (see below). scalability the third factor included within our analysis was scalability. as oliver (2015) noted, it may be unrealistic to require all universities in australia (or globally) to support all students with a placement during their degree. this is because placements often require significant resourcing (i.e. university staff to help support matching processes and oversight) as well as costs related to maintaining formal placement pathways (i.e. compensating local schools who sponsor education students). therefore, our study which included both a traditional placement type of wil and other types of wil provided a diverse sample to consider how some wil types could be more scalable than others. except for the learning resources case, all cases required significant resourcing. in the wil work placement, the department along with the subject coordinator and tutors, employed two professional staff to help organise the placements for students and organise an end of semester showcase event (along with other non-related responsibilities). in the case of the student-staff partnership program and plas, the university was required to budget for both of these programs, as students were paid, as well as employ staff to manage the programs. in the context of declining government funding in higher education, these initiatives might be considered costly. it is likely that the two cases that are the most scalable are the work-integrated industry placement and the learning resources case. for the placement, the two staff had a structured customer management process they employed for recruiting and managing participating dollinger, m., & brown, j. (2019). an institutional framework to guide the comparison of work-integrated learning types. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 10(1), 88–100. 95 companies that they could extend if the subject were to expand. this included templates, contracts and other support documents. additionally, unlike some placements such as those in education and nursing, these external industry placements in business did not require the university to pay the industry partner. the learning resource case could also be scalable, because once the curriculum has been planned and structured, the staff involved could continue to utilise the program every semester, and perhaps extend to it to other subjects by using the curriculum developed as a template. the two cases that may be less scalable included the student-staff partnership program and the plas. this was due to the high costs associated with both programs and perhaps the limitations on the number of students and/or staff who would be interested in these types of activities. further, as the student partnership projected was dependent on academic staff hosting students, if this program would to continue long-term the university would need a formal structure of recognition for staff engaged in the extra-role behaviour (workload allocation models). additionally, as the university paid the student partners, there is obvious cost to this. similarly, for the plas, costs are crucial to the current set-up. there may also be limited scope to hire new students as there are only a set number of student-mentors needed at any given time. as the staff member involved noted: the manager, me, the plas would all like to expand it and we’ve had many discussions about how we could expand it. but we aren’t sure about funding next year and whether it will even exist. and so we aren’t sure… we aren’t overly optimistic about where it will sit. (staff, pla program) notably, none of the cases included in this study had a technology-supported element. however, previous research has found that technology may be key for supporting large-scale co-creation or partnership with students in the future (dollinger, 2018). authenticity the framework also incorporated authenticity and proximity as factors of analysis, as first developed by oliver (2015). oliver defined authenticity as how similar the task and/or activity resembles those required in professional life (p.62). it is important to mention that authenticity is difficult to assess, as even the students themselves do not yet know what careers they will have. however, some cases still displayed a higher degree of authenticity than others. in the case of the student-staff partnership, the authenticity of the task was high, as the student employed in the case sought to hold a similar position post-graduation. in this case, she frequently mentioned that the opportunity was perfectly aligned to her future career aspirations. she said, i’ve never had a job or area of study where i’ve been this passionate… it just puts me over the moon. future research may seek to further explore how internal wil opportunities could allow for students to modify their placements and/or intended tasks to their specific career goals that may not be available through an external placement. another case with relatively high authenticity was the wil industry placement subject, as students were placed with established consulting companies and most students reported hoping to work in, or consult to, such companies. the other cases, including the learning resources and plas, appeared to offer lower levels of authenticity for students. in the learning resources case, few students were interested in working in video production, learning resource production, or marketing. however, all students did report the benefit of the project-based work within a team. similarly, in the pla case, few students saw themselves pursing mentoring and/or teaching work, while recognising their experience as teachers/tutors as more useful than other common student jobs. one student noted: i think the experience has given me a bunch of skills and experience that i’ll be able to go out and look out for jobs within academia or education settings… so i feel like i have these really transferable [skills] that enhance my skill set. like, working in retails gives you dollinger, m., & brown, j. (2019). an institutional framework to guide the comparison of work-integrated learning types. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 10(1), 88–100. 96 experience too, like dealing with customers, but it doesn’t give you the experience of teaching. (student, pla) to match wil activities to meet the needs of students, it is likely that the tasks need to have a degree of flexibility that allow students to modify the activity to suit their interests. notably, for each of the activities, research respondents acknowledged the value of transferable learning opportunities such as teamwork, regardless of the career of the participant, clear communications, and planning and development. proximity the final factor of analysis across wil types was proximity or, in other words, how closely the environment resembles a future workplace (oliver, 2015). in the case of a subject-based activity with no placement component, such as the learning resources case, the proximity is low, as students were still in the traditional environment of a classroom. when students were asked if they learned more about the work environment and staff responsibilities, one student noted, not really, staff roles were briefly discussed during the initial introductions, but i couldn’t actually tell you what most of them do (student, learning resources case). in cases where the activity took place on campus but outside of a classroom, such as the student-staff partnership program and students as plas, the proximity was medium, as the students were outside a classroom, but still within a university environment. for example, one student in the pla program noted, i often have meetings with academic staff. a staff member in the plas also noted that while the students are within the university environment…students still learn a lot about different roles in the teaching and learning components of the university as they work very closely with staff in managing the program. yet, interesting to note is that even in the case where the proximity was the highest (i.e. the industry placement), the benefits echoed by the students were still similar to the other cases. for example, one student in the wil placement subject noted: for me [a benefit] was working in a team environment where the accountability was put on myself, but there wasn’t someone keeping an eye always on what we were doing. the environment was unfamiliar and [we needed to] meet new people and work on a project with a broad scope… it was an opportunity to really develop my analytical and business skills. (student, wil placement subject) as working in a team environment was a benefit reported across all cases, this highlights that much of the reported levels of proximity by students is based on perceptions. to increase proximity in other cases, the activities could be designed where students are treated more similarly to staff (regardless of their location inside a classroom) and where they are asked to then network with others outside of the immediate group. summary of results as shown in table 1, the various cases spanned a spectrum of results from the five selected factors of analysis. from our analysis, it appears that industry placements in subjects has the most reported benefits, with medium ease to implement, low barriers, medium scalability and high authenticity and proximity. in the other subject-based activity, where students co-created learning resources, ease to implement was low and barriers were high. this perhaps related to a lack of an application process and minimal support for staff engaged in the extra-role behaviour. further, as the task was located with a classroom and did not closely resemble real-life work tasks, authenticity and proximity were low. these results may highlight that when embedding wil within a subject, a more structured approach that includes a formal placement may maximise benefits in relation to costs. in the cases outside of the classroom (i.e. co-curricular), results were very similar, with medium ease of implementation and barriers, and low scalability found in both student-staff partnership program and students as plas. the only difference found between these two dollinger, m., & brown, j. (2019). an institutional framework to guide the comparison of work-integrated learning types. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 10(1), 88–100. 97 cases was regarding authenticity, as the student-staff partnership program aligned more closely with future work tasks. yet as noted by participants, teaching, while not necessarily a chosen career path for many of the students, does offer a wide range of skills transferable to other careers. table 1. comparison of wil types type of wil ease of implementation barriers scalability authenticity proximity work-integrated learning subject with industry placement medium low medium high high work-integrated learning subject with students creating learning resources low high medium low low student-staff partnership in program implementation medium medium low high medium students as peer learning advisors medium medium low medium medium discussion and conclusion this article provides a framework to develop and assess the suitability of wil types through the consideration of five factors: ease of implementation, barriers, scalability, authenticity, and proximity. while there is not necessarily one best type of wil to implement at an institution, this framework allows for institutional staff to reflect on what wil factors may take priority. for example, if the aim of the institution is to provide all students with a wil opportunity (i.e. scalability), placements and/or embedded wil projects within a subject could be more desirable options than co-curricular casual work (e.g. plas). notably, none of the four cases from our analysis displayed a high potential for scalability. this aligns with previous research that has questioned how wil variations could be made more scalable, and also more equitable across all diverse student cohorts (peach et al., 2016). one limitation of this study is that we did not investigate each type of wil in regard to the specific financial costs (e.g. cost per student). wil subjects and activities often require academic staff to teach and guide the activity and necessitate professional staff to build relationships with industry (e.g. to identify placement opportunities) and/or manage information technology systems that are often required to keep records for regulatory and compliance purposes. additionally, while the aim of this paper was to explore variations of wil types from an institutional perspective, future work could link how an institutional perspective of wil compares to the student perspective (e.g. their enjoyment from various wil activities, perceptions on how the experience impacted their employability). as noted in the methodology section, we also acknowledge that in this article we have only showcased the usability of the framework in four case studies of wil types. in the future, this framework could be applied to further compare other types of wil as well as explore variations within wil types (e.g. differences in industry placements). the timeliness of this article is significant as there is increasing discussion regarding how australia may implement performance-based funding in higher education and how performance will be determined (i.e. measured). as the introduction of this article explained, the ability to assess graduate employability is a mixture of individual, university, and contextual factors, not all of which can be controlled by the university. it may be inappropriate therefore dollinger, m., & brown, j. (2019). an institutional framework to guide the comparison of work-integrated learning types. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 10(1), 88–100. 98 for the government to use ‘first destination’ as a measure of graduate employability without recognising the significant differences across student cohorts in various universities (i.e. some universities have a much higher proportion of low ses students). instead, it is critical that performance-based funding consider primarily what aspects of employability can be supported through the university, such as through providing students with wil opportunities. if this area was to become a measurable output of performance, university leaders and administrators would need more scholarly work to help inform decision-making about various types of wil. this paper was intended to spark a consideration of these factors and issues. our research results suggest that industry-based placements within formal subjects (i.e. curricular) may be the optimal form of wil as they have relatively lower costs to the university and high benefits for the students. this finding aligns with previous research that has found that work placements (including industry-based placements, internships and practicums) often have the highest levels of authenticity and proximity (kaider, hains-wesson, & young, 2017). future research should continue to unpack this finding, and explore what institutional processes (e.g. leadership, management, evaluation) can further support the wil subjectbased placements. furthermore, future research might continue to explore good practices to support various wil types. this includes making the intended graduate capabilities more transparent and clear to students (kinash et al., 2017; jorre de st jorre & oliver, 2017), adopting systematic approaches throughout the university (jorre de st jorre & oliver, 2017; oliver, 2015) and encouraging students to also take responsibility for their own skill development (bowden, hart, king, trigwell & watts, 2000). dollinger, m., & brown, j. 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(2012). the impact of work placements on skills development and career outcomes for business and management graduates. studies in higher education, 37(5), 603–620. https://eprints.qut.edu.au/98925/1/98925.pdf https://www.qilt.edu.au/docs/default-source/gos-reports/2017/2017_gos_national_report_final_accessiblea45d8791b1e86477b58fff00006709da.pdf https://www.qilt.edu.au/docs/default-source/gos-reports/2017/2017_gos_national_report_final_accessiblea45d8791b1e86477b58fff00006709da.pdf https://www.qilt.edu.au/docs/default-source/gos-reports/2017/2017_gos_national_report_final_accessiblea45d8791b1e86477b58fff00006709da.pdf fraser, c., duignan, g., stewart, d., & rodrigues, a., (2019). overt and covert: strategies for building employability skills of vocational education graduates. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 10(1), 157–172. 157 overt and covert: strategies for building employability skills of vocational education graduates cath jane fraser1, gerard duignan2, deb stewart3 and agustilia rodrigues4 cath.fraser@toiohomai.ac.nz; gerard.duignan@weltec.ac.nz; dstewart@eit.ac.nz; agustilia.rodrigues@whitireia.ac.nz corresponding author: cath fraser 1toi ohomai institute of technology, nz 2the wellington institute of technology, wellington, nz 3eastern institute of technology, nz 4whitiriea polytechnic, nz abstract knowing how well higher education providers prepare learners for the working world is becoming increasingly important at all programme levels, and this is nowhere more apparent than with vocational education training. ensuring our learners can hit the ground running and become immediately productive is essential for the relevance, and probably the survival, of new zealand’s institutes of technology and polytechnics (itps). yet while there is much commentary about the challenges of transitions from tertiary study into employment and the ‘employability skills gap’, there is all too little given to how this is being addressed in teaching. this paper describes the work of an inter-institutional research collaboration into current approaches being used to embed skills that enhance employability. drawing on a number of frameworks and models, the research team selected ten core attributes: positive attitude, communication, teamwork, self-management, willingness to learn, thinking skills, resilience, innovation, entrepreneurship and cultural competence. the team then identified a range of strategies being used by highly commended teachers to enhance the ten employability skills: firstly, by observing classroom and online practices of 23 selected teachers from participating organisations; and secondly through follow-up interviews with the same teachers. the key takeaway of this research is raised awareness and intentionality of the overt and covert approaches vocational educators are using to enhance the employability of their students. key words: employability, skills development, vocational education, workplace transition introduction the higher education sector in new zealand comprises an array of provision and provider models: universities, institutes of technology and polytechnics (itps), private training establishments (ptes), and wānanga (a publicly owned tertiary institution that provides education in a māori cultural context). there are also multiple provider agreements where introductory courses and entry level qualifications from one institute receive credits and ensure enrolment in higher level qualifications awarded by another. there are currently 16 itps across new zealand, all autonomous crown entities (tertiary education commission (tec), 2018). various itps offer qualifications from foundation studies to masters, but for most, their core business is in certificates and diplomas, at sub-degree level. itps are charged with delivering technical, vocational and professional education across the country, and seen as vital in preparing young people for work as well as supporting adults to retrain in a rapidly changing economy (tec, 2018, para. 1), and contributing to their local economies and communities. mailto:cath.fraser@toiohomai.ac.nz mailto:gerard.duignan@weltec.ac.nz mailto:dstewart@eit.ac.nz mailto:agustilia.rodrigues@whitireia.ac.nz fraser, c., duignan, g., stewart, d., & rodrigues, a., (2019). overt and covert: strategies for building employability skills of vocational education graduates. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 10(1), 157–172. 158 it is therefore critical that itps ensure their graduates are well prepared for employment, ongoing professional learning and the challenges of an evolving workplace. in aotearoa new zealand the tertiary education commission te amorangi mātauranga matua (tec) now seeks evidence of the effectiveness of programmes of study in preparing graduates for industry. the tec requires itps to report on employer and graduate satisfaction, and also measures the value of qualifications to inform study choices through online surveys such as rate my qualification (https://myq.co.nz/). such accountability, alongside the desire to maximise the development of employability skills in our learners, were drivers for the research which informs this paper. inspired by a keynote speaker, professor shelley kinash, at the 2016 national tertiary learning and teaching conference, and the australian-based research she shared (kinash, n.d.; kinash, crane, judd, & knight, 2016), a group of delegates from a range of regions, disciplines, qualifications and industry sectors, were keen to progress the ‘employability skills’ conversation. a preliminary overview of the literature related to work readiness and transitions from tertiary study into employment revealed plenty of information about an ‘employability skills gap’, through numerous studies where employers and industry representatives decry new graduates’ lack of ‘can-do’ attributes (e.g. fourie & clokie, 2013; 2014). scott (2015) for example notes the distinction between qualification-assured ‘competence’ (delivering specific job-specific tasks in relatively predictable circumstances), and ‘capability’ (responsiveness, creativity and the ability to deal with particular circumstances or unexpected events). the latter, scott contends, is much more important in almost every work role across the nine professions he studied. this employability skills gap is a concern for teachers, institutions and industry; but what appears to be less well traversed in the literature is the issue of how the skills gap is being addressed in the classroom. twelve staff members representing seven providers, formed a research team with the intention of interrogating how teachers in the itp sector were introducing employability skills into their curriculum delivery. based on the team’s collective experience, the project was conceptualised as fitting within, and complementing frameworks and models already being used by, the higher education sector. the focus area of itp programmes between levels 3 to 5 appeared to offer a natural fit with the recently launched national set of standards, the employability skills framework (careersnz, 2017), which was selected as a benchmark that would make reporting more meaningful to colleagues already familiar with its design. the employability skills framework describes certain skills, which new zealand and international employers tell us … are essential for getting and keeping a job (careersnz, 2017, para. 1), such as, positive attitude, communication, teamwork, self-management, willingness to learn, thinking skills, resilience. recognising that this framework is both generic and oriented towards diverse learners (including those who required academic enrichment), the research team decided to incorporate three other attributes, innovation, entrepreneurship and cultural competence, in the criteria, based on a number of international studies of marketable skills (e.g. gerstein & friedman, 2016; markes, 2006; sarkar, overton, thompson, & rayner, 2016; shivoro, shalyefu, & kadhila, 2017). these 10 selected employability skills were seen as aligning well with a bigger picture of employability skills aimed at preparing learners for employment opportunities ‘at the cutting edge’, for advanced programmes of study, and for employment in roles which as yet do not exist (scott, 2015). the project was guided by the overarching research question: how can teachers in itps embed employability skills into their teaching practices? key project objectives were to:  provide qualitative information from good teachers about the overt and covert strategies they used in the classroom to develop learners’ work-readiness skills, alongside curriculum content;  report this in a framework which aligns to national strategies, such as the ‘employability skills framework’ (careers nz, 2017), and large studies of desirable graduate attributes reported in the literature, such as scott (2008; 2013; 2015); and fraser, c., duignan, g., stewart, d., & rodrigues, a., (2019). overt and covert: strategies for building employability skills of vocational education graduates. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 10(1), 157–172. 159  produce a compilation of guidelines and strategies for colleagues’ immediate use, to be available online through an open source, higher education database. literature review recognition of employability as a measure of efficacy in education outcomes escalated in the late 1990s (lowden, hall, elliot, & lewin, 2011; mclaughlin, 1995) alongside the idea that employment and serving the economy should be a primary outcome of education (lees & benza, 2015). like many other western nations, the new zealand government adopted the concept of employability skills as a set of behaviours, attitudes, beliefs and unique personal qualities that enable a person to gain and maintain employment (ministry of education, n.d.). the tertiary education strategy 2014-2019 (tes) outlines government priorities for tertiary education: of the six priority areas in the strategy, priority 1 delivering skills for industry identifies specific areas of skill shortage and also emphasises that tertiary education should support the development of transferable skills that are needed in all workplaces such as communicating well, processing information effectively, thinking logically and critically and adapting to future change (ministry of education, 2014, para. 7). in 2016, the ministry of education published the ‘youth and transition framework’ (tec, 2016), followed by the ‘employability skills framework’ (tec, n.d.), developed by an advisory group including employer and industry representatives, government agencies and education specialists. it is designed for young people preparing for employment and contains seven characteristics: (1) positive attitude; (2) communication; (3) teamwork; (4) self-management; (5) willingness to learn (6) thinking skills (problem-solving and decision-making; and (7) resilience. as described in the previous section, the research team employed these seven items, adding three other attributes, innovation, entrepreneurship and cultural competence, as a foundation for observations of teachers in practice. that this guiding framework was developed with the input of multiple agencies, including industry, is highly significant. employer voice is critical to any discussion about employability skills as they are the ones who employ new graduates, and also, are frequently a source of critique about the lacks and gaps in their new employees’ skill set (lees, anderson, & avery, 2015). chavan and surve (2014) conducted a survey of human resources (hr) managers across more than 20 companies who identified that the most lacking employability skills among newly recruited employees (from most lacking to least) are, communication … management/prioritizing …, self-confidence … and decision-making … (p.258). the same study identified the most important employability skills (from most important to least) as integrity and honesty, problem-solving, teamwork, self-confidence, communication skills (p.258). such research clearly evidences a need for more attention to the development of employability skills in a tertiary vocational learning context. a recent uk study which focussed on students as stakeholders (lees et al., 2015) concluded that there is a need to reorient student perspectives on employability to encompass a conception which encourages self-reflection and self-development rather than simply viewing the concept as an object they possess upon graduation (p. 257). in applying a lens offered by vygotsky’s zone of proximal development, it becomes clear that working with learners to understand their perception of employability skills is where teaching should start (lievens & wesseling, 2015). the focus on learner understanding suggests that the notion of including employability skills in teaching should be made explicit, or overt, in order to inform students about these critical factors for success in employment. in most courses, employability skills are seen as distinct from the subject matter being taught. at many institutions, employability skills appear in the graduate profile, whereas the subject matter appears in the course learning outcomes where they form the focus of the course work and assessment. gerstein and friedman (2016) criticise this practice of focusing on learning outcomes that shape hard skills – taught skills which are generally quantifiable and specific to each job when the rapidly changing (usa) labour market has a heightened need for fraser, c., duignan, g., stewart, d., & rodrigues, a., (2019). overt and covert: strategies for building employability skills of vocational education graduates. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 10(1), 157–172. 160 disciplinary knowledge plus (employability) skills (p. 114). what is needed instead, suggest green and blaszczynski (2012) is to join the three r's reading, writing, and arithmetic with the four c’s creativity, collaboration, communication, and creative thinking (p. 4). the four c’s are examples of soft skills non-measurable, subjective or self-developed skills that are not specific to one job or career (hendarman & tjakraatmadja, 2012), or what messum, wilkes, peters and jackson (2016) call generic skills (p. 1). most commentators concur that soft skill development should be a continuous process throughout the curriculum rather than a ‘bolted-on’ or ‘one shot’ approach. as mcewen (2010) asserted, soft skills cannot be taught independent of other subject matter but must be regularly integrated into the lessons [and] consistently reinforced (p. 152). in summary, employability skills deserve their place in the classroom; their teaching needs to be visible and it needs to be integrated. how is this best achieved? cranmer (2006) describes three methods of delivering employability skills, two of which have an apparently low impact on the effectiveness on the curriculum and one which appears to have high impact. the methods are:  ‘total embedding’, in which the skills themselves are not made explicit although they are taught. the risk is that the skills become lost in the context the skills are modelled but not examined (low impact);  ‘parallel development’ where employability skills are taught in separate courses, which makes it difficult to contextualise the skills (low impact); and  explicit embedding and integration in which the skills are taught and made overt, including being assessed (high-impact) (cranmer, 2006; green & blaszczynski, 2012). another way of looking at choices in delivery options is through the lens of the ‘hidden curriculum’ which involves the promulgation of often unarticulated and unacknowledged concepts that are never fully explained in class. the debate has both its enthusiasts, and its detractors. for example, students might be working in teams to complete a task, and the focus of the teaching and the assessment is entirely on the content of the task rather than on the process of working in the team. if the teacher does not announce that working in a team is important and it is part of the curriculum, and allocate marks, then the students are unlikely to pay attention to it as part of the learning (bedwell, fiore, & salas, 2014). yet advocates of subconscious, or ‘covert’ learning argue positive influences, in the socio-cultural modelling which occurs, normalising a deliberately fostered culture or way of interacting that can shape future behaviours (alsubaie, 2015). putting this conceptualisation into practice, graduates would take their experience of working in groups out into the workplace, with a more or less instinctive feel about how to manage peer relationships, group dynamics, and teamwork roles. discussions of group work are, in fact, endemic in the literature. for example, green and blaszczynski (2012) describe a series of mostly group-based learning activities that can help students develop employability skills, and that can be adapted to a number of contexts. for these authors, embedding employability skills needs to be a conscious act on the part of the teacher, and the learning of employability skills needs to be a conscious act on the part of the learner. aside from group work, there are numerous other learning approaches well suited to developing employability skills in context with technical skills. these include responsible learning, experiential/authentic learning, cooperative learning and reflective learning (kemmis & hodge, 2014). elements of each of these approaches were evident in the data, and informed the project outputs. data collection and methodology a mixed method, case study methodology was adopted for this research. case studies allow an in-depth examination of topics over time, related to processes and practice (schneider, lobondio-wood, & haber, 2003), and for the purposes of this study, was particularly useful for gathering evidence of how employability skills were being taught in the classroom, and why teachers had adopted their selected approach. fraser, c., duignan, g., stewart, d., & rodrigues, a., (2019). overt and covert: strategies for building employability skills of vocational education graduates. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 10(1), 157–172. 161 the participants included 23 experienced teachers, evenly spread across each of the seven participating institutions, and invited to participate by personal contact from each of the researchers. selection criteria included participants being known by project team members for their good teaching practice, having strong relationships with their employer stakeholder groups, reporting good employment outcomes of their graduates, or having been recognised by the organisation with internal awards or commendations as effective teachers with a strong pedagogical practice. care was taken to ensure as wide a range of disciplines as possible, such as plumbing, nursing, science, accounting, patisserie, electrical, music technology, seafaring, business administration, counselling and te reo māori (māori language). participants were also drawn from a range of demographic categories, aiming for a broadly applicable cross-representation of teaching staff. however it is acknowledged that despite these efforts at achieving a diverse participant profile, the study findings, like those of any qualitative study (ishak & bakar, 2013), cannot be generalized to the wider higher education, or even itp population. ethics approval was gained from each of the seven organisations: wellington institute of technology; whitireia nz; toi ohomai institute of technology; eastern institute of technology; waikato institute of technology; nelson marlborough institute of technology; taratahi agricultural training centre. further demographic details are shown in table 1. table 1: study participants (n=23) years teaching experience < 5 5 10 11 20 > 20 4 9 4 6 employment status full-time part-time 22 1 age < 25 25-44 45-54 55-64 65+ 0 9 6 5 3 teaching sessions observed by qualification level level 3 level 4 level 5 7 8 8 duration of teaching session observed 60 minutes 90 mins 120 mins 20 2 1 ethnic group nz european māori pasifika asian 17 3 1 2 data collection involved two phases: first, a classroom observation with each participant, using a standardised form with a template of the ten employability skills the research team were monitoring. the focus was on identifying strategies and moments when the teacher was embedding skills to enhance employability – whether overt or covert – that is, whether the connection with employment and the workplace was explicitly stated, or not. observed teaching strategies noted by the researcher in the class were sometimes planned and sometimes spontaneous, in response to learners’ comments or behaviours. the second phase involved an interview with the teacher by the researcher-observer, using a semi-structured questionnaire to investigate the teacher’s understanding and ideas about how they embed employability skills into their teaching. an initial pilot of the observation/interview process with two colleagues identified the need for an extended descriptor for each of the ten fraser, c., duignan, g., stewart, d., & rodrigues, a., (2019). overt and covert: strategies for building employability skills of vocational education graduates. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 10(1), 157–172. 162 skills being monitored, which was developed through collaborative team discussions, and shaped by definitions in the wider literature reviewed, and in particular, the work of fourie and clokie (2013; 2014), gerstein and friedman (2016), kemmis et al. (2014), scott (2013; 2014) and scott, coates and anderson (2008). these descriptors (table 2) were subsequently tabled as part of the interviews and referred to when necessary to ensure the researcherobserver and the teacher-participant shared a similar understanding of the skill under discussion. table 2: the ten employability skills employability skill descriptor positive attitude having a ‘can do’ attitude; being optimistic; being honest; being friendly and showing respect; demonstrating motivation to work hard taking initiative; ethical integrity; self-confidence; professionalism. communication being aware of how communication affects others; asking questions; listening actively; showing respect in all communications, oral and written; social skills. teamwork working well with others to complete tasks; contributing to new ideas; working well with others of different gender, culture or beliefs; following the directions of peers and seniors; forming positive relationships; developing leadership ability. self-management arriving at work or class on time; wearing the right clothing and having right equipment; noticing how personal words and actions can affect others; showing commitment and responsibility; being dependable; following instructions and completing tasks; following health and safety guidelines good work habits; planning and organising; showing initiative; emotional intelligence (selfawareness). willingness to learn being willing to learn new tasks, skills and information; being curious and enthusiastic about things; looking for opportunities to improve or to help; accepting advice and learning from feedback. thinking skills (problem solving and decision making) considering all the options before making a decision; seeing problems and trying to solve them; thinking before acting; thinking about consequences before taking action; knowing when to seek help; literacy and numeracy skills; resourcefulness. resilience adapting to new or changing situations; not giving up when there is a setback; getting help when needed it; accepting own mistakes and learning from them; flexibility. innovation shows invention when applying processes; encourages fresh thinking; attempts new ways to solve problems; shows creativity; discusses alternative options; use of and confidence with technology. entrepreneurship a persuasive manner and style; demonstrating ways to find solutions; discussing the effects of alternative approaches; challenging status quo; encouraging buy-in from others to a particular perspective. cultural competence acknowledges differences; attempts to say students’ names correctly; allows for different ways of working; acknowledges and embraces diversity; welcoming contributions of others; invites cultural contributions. in both the observations and the interviews, note was made as to whether the inclusion of employability skills in the teaching session were overt or covert. the research team developed an information sheet with the following description to clarify this distinction for our participants: fraser, c., duignan, g., stewart, d., & rodrigues, a., (2019). overt and covert: strategies for building employability skills of vocational education graduates. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 10(1), 157–172. 163 overt strategies are ones that the teacher designs with a specific purpose that includes the learners consciously and purposefully developing employability skills. an example might be a problem-solving task where the teacher introduces one or more staged models for learners to follow, so that they focus on the process of problem-solving, as well as the outcome. on the other hand, covert strategies are often short-term, and include strategies that have the effect of enhancing employability skills, but may be out of the awareness of both the teacher and the learner. an example might be directing the students to use shared cloud storage sites, or access web databases as part of their teamwork or research, but without drawing their attention to the digital literacy skills they are developing while completing these tasks. once data collection was complete, the researchers undertook a content analysis of the observation forms and transcribed interviews. data from the observation template forms and interview transcripts were compiled according to the employability skill(s) the team deemed the best fit, as outlined in table two. in addition, a distinction was made between strategies to advance employability skills which were overtly displayed during the observations, that is, made explicit to the learners, or the more implicit or covert practices, still intended to promote the employability skills in learners. at times these second practices may even have been less than obvious to the teacher themselves, until reflection prompted by the researcher during the interview; the team attempted to somewhat mitigate the subjective nature of this coding through peer review. please note that the results reported here take account of the inclusion, and frequency, of strategies deemed to support particular skills; however no attempt has been made to compare or contrast strategies for relative efficacy. while this project is more concerned with observation and identification than with any attempt to rank pedagogic strategies, it is noted that in a time-poor, content-dense curriculum, such an issue might become the focus of subsequent inquiry. in the data analysis, the names of participants were not linked to their organisations or to particular responses, and there was no attempt to differentiate, compare or contrast between institutions. to further ensure that interpretation was not biased due to a researcher’s individual knowledge of particular participants as colleagues, multiple team members were assigned particular employability skills to search for and identify within the aggregated dataset. with the team spread across seven institutions and a wide geographic distance, cloud-based files to combine contributions, review each other’s findings and select examples for the planned guidelines resource were used. the following section reports our findings related to the frequency and implementation of the ten employability skills investigated in this study. findings incidence of the ten employability skills in the data from observation records and interview transcripts was variable. the most overtly taught skills were communication, selfmanagement, and thinking skills, with each of these evident in 18 of the 23 observed classroom sessions. the most covertly embedded skills were willingness to learn and positive attitude, which were noted in 12 sessions. the least likely to be observed were innovation and entrepreneurship. figure 1 shows how often the ten skills were 1) evident and demonstrated overtly; or 2) were evident but covert, that is, implicitly demonstrated while embedded in the teaching and learning; or 3) were not evident, or 4) not applicable to the curriculum or level of a particular classroom session. fraser, c., duignan, g., stewart, d., & rodrigues, a., (2019). overt and covert: strategies for building employability skills of vocational education graduates. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 10(1), 157–172. 164 figure 1: employability skills observed as part of a classroom session (n=23) in addition to the incidence of overt and covert references to employability skills observed within the 23 teaching sessions, further findings revealed the ways in which these skills were being fostered. a full account can be found in the project report for the funding agency (https://sites.google.com/view/employabilityskills). core findings related to each of the ten skills are summarised below. 1. positive attitude broadly, teachers were observed by researchers explicitly establishing a positive and productive learning environment, with expectations which align with industry standards. this was also evident in a classroom culture which celebrates learner progress, clarifies gaps and provides feedback and feed forward guidance. some examples observed and reported by researchers include: a marks spreadsheet is maintained so students can appreciate their progress and work on the gaps. students are visited in practice settings three times per year, during which teachers are looking for self-belief and evidence of the learner meeting five specific dimensions of competency. these are made visible to students and if not met, goals are set to support achievement. when prompted to describe how they implicitly foster this skill, teachers said they personally model the diverse elements of ‘positive attitude’ and affirm positive attitude and effort in their learners as evidenced by the following comments from respondents: https://sites.google.com/view/employabilityskills fraser, c., duignan, g., stewart, d., & rodrigues, a., (2019). overt and covert: strategies for building employability skills of vocational education graduates. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 10(1), 157–172. 165 it’s about my attitude … towards the subject, as much as the learners. what messages am i giving them to foster positive attitude, self-belief and professionalism? i keep it friendly and accentuate the positives rather than the negatives. i keep it real. 2. communication teachers were explicitly embedding communication skills by encouraging and responding honestly to questions, involving individuals and groups in class, modelling professionalism and authenticity. as one respondent said: i accept any deficits and use storytelling and share personal experiences. some other examples reported were: being attentive, supportive, acknowledging identity, such as use of learner names, active listening and encouraging feedback. peer mentoring, group work and reporting back. implicit fostering of this skill included teachers demonstrating non-verbal communication, using facial expression, enthusiasm, being a good listener, demonstrating inclusive and affirmative communication. they developed relationships, and used words like ‘please’ and ‘thank you’. also, they managed conflicts and disagreements within teams and were assertive where necessary. 3. teamwork teachers explicitly used exercises to generate ideas, like brainstorming and group discussion. they encouraged learners to ask and answer each other’s questions and problemsolve together. one employed a class brainstorm strategy as a response to an individual’s query. teachers emphasised the value of learning from others and gaining multiple perspectives. they reinforced the concept of synergy – the whole is greater than the parts. one respondent said that he emphasises to his class: be collaborative. speak up. you are really important. you could change the whole way a workplace does things. some examples observed and reported include: using structured activities done in teams, such as role plays. applying the think/pair/share method (beginning thinking alone; sharing with peer and buddy learner; merging responses with others into group(s) and sharing with the whole class). strategies which were implicitly embedded this skill included reminding learners that even in individual tasks, informal collaboration and consultation can still be a part of the development process. encouragement to see peers as a resource additional to the teacher, workbooks or online material, and to seek each other's help first before asking tutor, are also useful approaches. one respondent commented: i highlight and notice good practice team behaviour such as turn-taking, listening and valuing others’ opinions. 4. self-management in the words of one respondent: the boss expects you on time, no excuses. explicit strategies for self-management employed by teachers in the study included developing a course structure and processes to promote self-management; for example, part of a course is selfdirected; late assignments (without approved extensions) are penalised to encourage timeliness and model ‘real world’ implications of late delivery of a project or job. teachers set fraser, c., duignan, g., stewart, d., & rodrigues, a., (2019). overt and covert: strategies for building employability skills of vocational education graduates. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 10(1), 157–172. 166 standards in the classroom to model industry standards and expectations, making these explicit; for example the use of a mind map posted on a wall with content related to positivity, consistency, sincerity, effective time management, organisation and readiness to learn. for example one teacher was observed providing instructions to assist with time management: start from the top, one task at a time, then you’re not running all over the problem. another incorporated question time into lessons, and encouraged discussion in-class about 10 minute routine changes outside class: who read for 10 minutes last night? who got up 10 minutes earlier? when prompted to describe how they implicitly foster this skill, teachers said they build selfmanagement into assessments; for example, a time management assessment is designed to teach prioritisation and task completion skills. one respondent said: i redirect them when necessary, and help them to connect the need to complete the task to workplace realities or to the purpose of the activity. 5. willingness to learn with regard to this skill set, teachers were observed by researchers explicitly encouraging their learners to ask questions instead of giving them answers. they let learners see if they can work it out and/or help each other out. they allowed leaders to emerge. one respondent shared a strategy: i ask learners to rate their personal comfort as we study a given topic, offering them three options: ‘i'm ok i'm swimming i'm drowning’ then adapt my teaching accordingly. when prompted to describe how they implicitly foster this skill, teachers said they recognise that learners have different motivations, so try to make the environment enjoyable. also, they use learner questions as prompts to discuss ‘real world’ scenarios. many teachers shared examples from their own learning experience with learners, saying: this is how i tackled it, or this is why we are doing these tasks in class. this teacher explained that: i take this onto myself because many international learners don’t question why we are doing something. i say ‘you need to be working at this speed because you won’t have the opportunity to do it slowly [in industry]’. 6. thinking skills (problem solving and decision making) members of the research team observed teachers explicitly allowing the use of the internet, industry association databases and commercial catalogues to investigate topics and find solutions. they used case studies and scenario-based learning to encourage learners to draw up solutions or make decisions; for example, a classroom or lab is set up as ‘the business centre’ with a front-of-office/ reception area and a meeting area to simulate the business workplace. the learners role-play the receptionist role and simulate a team meeting every week where they learn front-of-office and meeting management skills. use of project-based teaching and learning was a common strategy. in addition, the teachers used real-life situations where possible, sometimes teaching material that was not in the assessment but that learners would need in real-life employment. one example observed related to helping the learners to understand rules and regulations of a classroom, workshop, or an institution: …learners were given policies and procedures (for example, business attire, health and safety) during simulation exercises for them to understand, reflect on and apply in practice. when prompted to describe how they implicitly foster this skill, teachers said they focus on getting learners to think for themselves, and don’t spoon-feed. one said, they’d rather be fraser, c., duignan, g., stewart, d., & rodrigues, a., (2019). overt and covert: strategies for building employability skills of vocational education graduates. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 10(1), 157–172. 167 known as the tutor who just sits down and waits. instead of answering a question they use prompts to help learners find the answer. another respondent commented: i allow learners to contribute their own strategies for solving problems, for example, throw out challenges rather than instruct. 7. resilience resilience was fostered by teachers in the study explicitly teaching skills for managing conflict by in-depth exploration of causes and approaches to resolution. they used storytelling, sharing experiences (including the tutor’s own) about when things go wrong in the workplace, and drew on others’ experience too, as one respondent commented: i encourage learners to use their own life experiences during the lesson and acknowledge when a ‘good’ question is asked. teachers consciously provide a non-bullying and safe environment for learners where a ‘cando’ attitude can be developed and where making mistakes is part of the learning process. in one setting, a whānau (family) group support process is in place to review assessments and construct individual action plans for learning and assessment success. teachers adopt a ‘warm-but-demanding’ philosophy which helps build trust and resilience in learners, and model looking for solutions, listening and offering suggestions where appropriate. examples reported included: an in-class exercise where learners create a plan for acquiring a job in industry. modelling resilience; teachers taking responsibility for their own mistakes with humour and suggesting learners use an alternative resource to access correct information. when prompted to describe how they implicitly foster this skill, teachers said they continue to encourage a learner who needs multiple attempts to resolve the problem by using different words, and supporting them to keep trying with patience and empathy. for example, encouraging learners having technology difficulties with software to keep working at it. one respondent said: i do not fix the problem for the learner and instead i use the technique: what do you think? why is that the answer? get them to think of alternatives. 8. innovation teachers were observed by researchers explicitly fostering innovation by using case studies from industry and business to share and showcase new ways to address issues in a discussion, prompting learners to provide alternative solutions and be creative. some encouraged discussions of examples from around the world, not just local – how are other countries approaching these issues? what are different perspectives on this issue? one example reported was: this teacher personally assigns learners a mini-teaching session about a topic e.g. a social issue they have investigated, or tables a statement and has students question and discuss their assumptions: ‘doctors are the ambulance at the bottom of the cliff’. ‘plumbers help keep people healthy by creating healthy homes’. when prompted to describe how they implicitly foster this skill, teachers said they show, not tell, the innovation message. they use a range of technologies in classroom activities – not as a feature in itself but as a tool to deliver the learning in an engaging and learner-friendly approach. one respondent said they strive to use ‘outside-the-box’ analogies and associations other than what has been introduced previously; for example, television to explain colour blindness. fraser, c., duignan, g., stewart, d., & rodrigues, a., (2019). overt and covert: strategies for building employability skills of vocational education graduates. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 10(1), 157–172. 168 9. entrepreneurship explicit modelling of persuasiveness and salesmanship by teachers was one of the notable examples of entrepreneurship being embedded in class sessions. teachers were active and applied solutions in practical situations, demonstrated thinking outside the square, met deadlines, and reflected other attributes, for instance, resilience, self-reflection and selfmanagement. they demonstrated knowledge of employability information, used correct terminology, made reference to stakeholders, and held career planning discussions. they prompted questions on further study and career opportunities and understood information related to literacy and numeracy skills. some examples observed included: modelling teamwork and decision making, leadership, and meeting deadlines; modelling roles of supervisors, setting rules and problem solving; and paying attention to individual needs, managing stressful situations, implementing peer learning, officiating groups, and having a sense of humour. when asked to describe how they implicitly foster this skill, teachers said they demonstrate resilience in their own practice, manage stress, encourage others, recognise rules and behaviour, explain, allow mistakes, encourage questions and are active listeners. they use persuasive strategies, seek feedback, ask relevant questions, and they are organised. they role-model communication and professionalism in all interpersonal interactions. 10. cultural competence this attribute is exemplified in one respondent’s statement: i create opportunities and encourage learners to bring their voice and cultural experience to the learning space. diverse cultural perspectives and increased cultural awareness are part of the new zealand landscape – in education and in the workplace. teachers were observed by researchers explicitly validating expectations of cultural competencies for employees in both a new zealand-wide context and an industry-specific context. avenues here included varied teaching and learning strategies to suit a range of learning preferences, guest speakers, role play, visual resources and storytelling. examples of integrating tikanga māori (māori processes) and māori pedagogies into teaching practice were reported, including: use of karakia and waiata (prayer and song); inclusion of whakawhanaungatanga (relationship building); employing poroporoaki (closure and farewell); shared kai (food); and tuakana-teina (peer teaching). when prompted to describe how they implicitly foster this skill, teachers said they validate diverse cultural contexts, engage learners to share their personal stories and experience, and share diverse cultural stories. they use te reo māori (māori language) as a regular part of teaching practice, both for generic language associated with and relevant to teaching and learning; for example, greetings, feedback, ako (learning), korero (dialogue), mahi (work)), and for subject-specific terminology. one respondent commented: i model cultural competence in communications, attitudes, choice of diverse learning activities and resources. i include course content that reflects cultural diversity. discussion in all ten employability skill sets studied, the approach adopted by the 23 teacher-participants was one of integrating soft skill development with subject matter, as advocated by numerous commentators, including mcewen (2010) and cranmer (2006). explicit and deliberate, or overt links were being made by teachers between learning activities and employability, so that recognising and adopting these was a conscious act by the learners, as advocated by green fraser, c., duignan, g., stewart, d., & rodrigues, a., (2019). overt and covert: strategies for building employability skills of vocational education graduates. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 10(1), 157–172. 169 and blaszczynski (2012). in addition to these overt strategies to teach employability skills, teacher-participants were able to describe additional covert strategies, with many of these related to the scaffolding approach advocated by lievens and wesseling (2015), the teacheras-role-model of ‘embedded’ behaviours (cranmer, 2006), and the ‘hidden curriculum’ agenda described by alsubaie (2015) and bedwell et al. (2014). further, the data from observations and collation of respondent feedback from interviews indicated a high level of congruence with the literature in other areas. many of the examples offered in the previous section show the four types of learning approaches which kemmis and hodge (2014) see as best suited for developing employability skills in context with technical skills: responsible learning; experiential learning; cooperative learning; and reflective learning. teachers are applying creative thinking to devise activities and challenges in which employability skills are given value equivalent to that of hard skills (gerstein & friedman, 2016; simona, 2014). they are talking to their students about innovation, entrepreneurship and resilience, and the need to prepare for not only the workplace of today, but also that of tomorrow, or as scott (2013) terms it: ‘work-ready plus’. based on analysis of the observations and interviews carried out, and grounded in key threads identified in the literature, a key output emerging from this research is the guidelines: strategies for teaching employability skills in vocational programmes online resource (https://sites.google.com/view/employabilityskills). this series of transferable strategies is intended as a contribution to colleagues across the vocational education sector, allowing teachers to explore and apply proven strategies currently being employed by good teachers (that is, those recognised in their own institutions as employing sound pedagogic principles and producing strong learner outcomes), in a variety of contexts. for example, the first of the ten skills in the guidelines is ‘positive attitude’, and the first of six associated strategies is establish a positive and productive learning environment which includes standards/expectations which explicitly parallel industry standards, and position learners with professionalism and integrity. while this study offers just a small snapshot of a number of teachers and teaching sessions, many of the general ideas behind the reported practices will be transferable beyond the original context. however, it is acknowledged that data collection was limited to teachers, and what they do. further research could consider students’ perceptions of the effectiveness of explicit and implicit instruction and consciousness-raising about work-readiness skills, both before and after graduation, in first destination employment, or following their progression into higher qualifications. feedback and review from employers would also be highly relevant and extend the value of the results reported here. conclusion in an environment of rapid change – technologically, economically, socially preparing learners for the working world has become a key priority and responsibility for vocational education providers (tec, 2016, 2018; whittle, bodkin-allen, & hoffman, 2015). this paper has described how a sample of experienced teachers in aotearoa new zealand are currently embedding ways of enhancing the employability of their students. by linking the research inquiry to international initiatives (e.g. kinash, 2016), a wide literature about employability, work-readiness and preferred graduate attributes, and existing national skills frameworks (e.g. careersnz, 2017), the study reported here aims to illustrate practical strategies higher education practitioners are using to address the ‘skills gap’ deplored by employers and industry (fourie & clokie, 2013; 2014). by garnering case studies and examples from 23 teachers across seven organisations and multiple disciplines, it is hoped that the recommendations and strategies for good practice are relevant and applicable across the sector. hence, the guidelines resource (https://sites.google.com/view/employabilityskills) offers authentic and transferable teaching ideas to address the development of ten industrybased, and marketable work skills: positive attitude, communication, teamwork, self fraser, c., duignan, g., stewart, d., & rodrigues, a., (2019). overt and covert: strategies for building employability skills of vocational education graduates. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 10(1), 157–172. 170 management, willingness to learn, thinking skills, resilience, innovation, entrepreneurship and cultural competence. the research question which guided this inquiry was: how are teachers in institutes of technology and polytechnics embedding employability skills into their teaching practices? the answer is that they are doing this both overtly and covertly, using a myriad of approaches and strategies which fit seamlessly within their delivery of core curriculum content. further, they are creating activities and developing ideas which in most cases, are readily transferable to other contexts and subject areas. recounting the stories of these experienced teachers was the main objective of this project, but it is not the only positive outcome from this study. a number of future research directions have become apparent, with potential to explore in greater depth ways of teaching and embedding effective teaching practices related to building employability skills in learners – in new disciplinary settings, in different organisations, and across different qualification levels. on a practical level, ongoing discussion amongst the research team community of practice (wenger, trayner, & de laat, 2011) is scoping our possible role in creating future multimedia resources, such as videos of teachers performing an authentic practice that fosters employability. the question of how best to foster employability encompasses a wide field of endeavour as we face an unknown and unknowable world of work; we have only just begun. fraser, c., duignan, g., stewart, d., & rodrigues, a., (2019). overt and covert: strategies for building employability skills of vocational education graduates. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 10(1), 157–172. 171 references alsubaie, m. a. 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(2015). the itp sector collaboration practices report, (april). retrieved from https://www.sit.ac.nz/portals/0/upload/documents/research/collaboration report 2015.pdf http://www.youthguarantee.net.nz/vocational-pathways/employability-skills/employability-skills-framework/ http://www.youthguarantee.net.nz/vocational-pathways/employability-skills/employability-skills-framework/ https://doi.org/10.1016/j.sbspro.2015.02.215 https://www.myq.co.nz/ http://wenger-trayner.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/11-04-wenger_trayner_delaat_value_creation.pdf http://wenger-trayner.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/11-04-wenger_trayner_delaat_value_creation.pdf http://wenger-trayner.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/11-04-wenger_trayner_delaat_value_creation.pdf https://www.sit.ac.nz/portals/0/upload/documents/research/collaboration%20report%202015.pdf young, k., palmer, s., binek, c., tolson, m., & campbell, m., (2019). assessment-led reform: creating a sustainable culture for on and off campus wil. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 10(1), 73–87. 73 assessment-led reform: creating a sustainable culture for wil karen young1, stuart palmer1, clare binek1, mark tolson1 and malcolm campbell1 k.young@deakin.edu.au; stuart.palmer@deakin.edu.au; c.binek@deakin.edu.au; mark.tolson@deakin.edu.au; malcolm.campbell@deakin.edu.au corresponding author: karen young 1deakin university, melbourne, australia abstract this paper describes a process of assessment reform designed to enhance work integrated learning (wil) approaches for two science courses at an australian university. the project used a mixed-method approach involving online surveys, interviews, focus groups and workshops to gather student, industry and course team knowledge and understanding of wil approaches to curricula. the investigation centred on the perceived value of collaborating with industry to facilitate enhancements in authentic assessment and on the barriers to, and challenges in, achieving successful outcomes. the action-research project, wil-on-campus (woc), found that assessments oriented toward the inclusion of authentic tasks and processes, that contribute to the employability learning and job-readiness of students, is deemed important to students, industry and academics. however, reforms to assessment practice and process are required. for greatest impact, this study found that assessment reform processes require two critical interdependent factors: the socialisation of the shared institutional value of embedded wil approaches to assessment, and the provision of top-down support to enable academic course teams to implement the ‘imposed’ changes. further to this, while academics viewed the changes in approach to assessment design as challenging, they also noted that a shift is timely and believed that a course-wide wil approach is possible and advantageous. keywords: wil, scaffolded, assessment, industry, employability, change, curriculum-led reform. introduction this study continues on from a previous mixed-method study investigating science, engineering, technology and mathematics (stem) teachers’ experiences in working with others to undertake authentic assessment-led reform. the previous study found that further exploration of the purpose, the criteria and the collaborative mechanisms for enabling academic teams to work with industry to improve authentic, work-related assessments in stem was needed (hains-wesson, pollard, kaider, & young, 2019). this current study responds to this need through an action-research project aimed at on-campus work integrated learning (wil) reform via an assessment-led approach. the focus of this study is directed at authentic assessments, designed through a wil-lens, that have the intention of enhancing employability learning for students. employability here is understood and agreed to be a set of achievements – skills, understandings and personal attributes – that makes graduates more likely to gain employment and be successful in their chosen occupations, which benefits themselves, the workforce, the community and the economy (yorke, 2006, p. 8). employability is about enabling student learning so that they can mailto:k.young@deakin.edu.au mailto:stuart.palmer@deakin.edu.au mailto:c.binek@deakin.edu.au mailto:mark.tolson@deakin.edu.au mailto:malcolm.campbell@deakin.edu.au young, k., palmer, s., binek, c., tolson, m., & campbell, m., (2019). assessment-led reform: creating a sustainable culture for on and off campus wil. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 10(1), 73–87. 74 discern, acquire, adapt and continually enhance the skills, understandings and personal attributes that make them more likely to find and create meaningful paid and unpaid work (oliver, 2015, p. 59). as such, the study investigates the means by which assessment design could be revised to include an awareness of graduate capabilities important for science graduates, the enhancement of employability learning, and the inclusion of industry perspectives and current practices. central to the study is the argument that science faculties, like all university disciplines today, need to encourage teaching teams to consider employability assessment in their assessment design (jorre de st jorre & oliver, 2018). this study hypothesises that, to make a positive impact on employability learning and outcomes, intentionally scaffolded, whole-of-degree wil-oriented assessment is necessary. the findings gleaned from previous related studies (young, palmer, & campbell, 2017; hainswesson et al., 2019) indicate that transformation of curricula, to incorporate embedded and scaffolded learning associated with enhanced employability skills, is likely to be challenging both in philosophy and practice. science academics, in particular, are being encouraged to move beyond delivering discipline specific knowledge and skills and employ scaffolded applications of discipline content combined with the performance of generic capabilities nested in real-world contexts, across an entire program (lasen, evans, tsey, campbell, & kinchin, 2018). for some years now, the office of the chief scientist (2013) has called for a rethinking of the way in which knowledge and content-heavy material is delivered. an improved, measurable balance between content knowledge transmission and acquisition and workrelevant skills and capabilities (rayner & papakonstantinou, 2015), as well as the design of whole-of-degree curricula to include varied wil experiences (collis, 2010; greenbank, 2002) is a challenge currently facing many institutions. critically however, building the capacity of academics to design and deliver wil assessments that are most likely to positively enhance the graduate employability of undergraduate cohorts is required to measure this desired impact. previous projects (kaider, hains-wesson, & young, 2017) support that an expansive wil model (not just placement-based wil) is necessary. in order to create a sustainable program of employability learning, a mix of on-and off-campus wil is required. the study demonstrates that teaching teams require understanding of a depth and breadth of wil that allows them to collaborate with industry to design and deliver wil assessments in meaningful ways. literature review traditionally, wil has been strongly linked with off-campus work placements (peach & gamble, 2011) but now it commonly includes workplace simulations and project work for industry clients (smith, 2016) in hybrid and on-campus locations (rowe, winchester-seeto, & mackaway, 2012). in some instances, these wil experiences provide the benchmarks and standards necessary for allowing graduates to practice professionally (connor & macfarlane, 2007). this study contributes to the emerging evidence that for the purpose of scale and sustainability, on-campus/classroom-based wil experiences provide viable alternatives to placement-based wil (sachs, rowe, & wilson, 2016). to be most effective, researchers have posited that wil should be embedded and scaffolded across the curriculum using appropriate pedagogical strategies (daniel & shircore, 2012; rowe & zegwaard, 2017). for example, a program could commence with personal, professional and skills development to support wil, incorporate a range of wil activities of increasing sophistication and authenticity in the middle years, and culminate in high-level wil activities in the workplace. additional placement-based wil alternatives, such as a simulated placement or an industry-supplied project topic completed on-campus (peach & gamble, 2011; rae, 2007), or micro-placements, hackathons and consultancy services (kay, ferns, russell, & smith, 2018), to name a few alternatives, should be considered from a whole of program approach to employability learning. however, there are few studies that measure the impact of this whole-of-course approach on graduate and employment outcomes, on course young, k., palmer, s., binek, c., tolson, m., & campbell, m., (2019). assessment-led reform: creating a sustainable culture for on and off campus wil. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 10(1), 73–87. 75 team’s perceptions of the value of wil, and the likely means for which wil can be operationalised across a program. programs that provide a spectrum of on-and-off-campus wil experiences, founded upon purposefully designed curriculum that explicitly integrates theory with work practices (patrick, peach, pocknee, webb, fletcher, & pretto, 2008), are still evolving. in stem, field-based learning scenarios are common, with a recent rise in placement-based wil experiences. however, broader wil approaches (such as applications of classroom-based/on-campus interactions with the people and practices of work) warrant exploration (young et al., 2017). aside from its contribution to theory-practice curricula, wil has been found to be unique in the way it can contribute positively to graduate employability (sachs et al., 2016), to students’ jobreadiness skills (ferns, 2014) and to applying industry standards (edwards, perkins, pearce, & hong, 2015). there has also been a recent push to consider employability not as a product (outcome) but as a process, that needs to be taught and learnt. subsequently, employability learning curriculum frames are needed (smith, bell, bennett, & mcalpine, 2018) as are studies relating to the graduates’ outcomes as a result of employability curriculum initiatives. many universities now include some form of wil experience in their curricula as a response to enhancing graduate employability (rowe & zegwaard, 2017; sachs et al., 2016). the literature points to universities recogising wil and its link to employability as a key strategic concern (senadji, boman, allbutt, & whelan, 2015; oliver, 2015; jorre de st jorre & oliver, 2018), especially at a time when the dramatic expansion of participation in higher education has led to concerns in the sector about graduate employability (rayner & papakonstantinou, 2015). for stem, greater numbers of graduates, changing economic conditions and employment market characteristics have also seen increasing concern about employment prospects for graduates (norton & cakitaki, 2016). for australian science bachelor graduates, prospects for employment, and particularly for employment in a science role, are a concern (palmer, campbell, johnson, & west, 2018). embedding employability learning is not always straightforward. academic staff responsible for core units of discipline-specific content may be reluctant, for varied reasons, to teach and assess employability learning. one common view in the sciences is that it is seen as displacing or reducing the primacy of theoretical content knowledge (abeysekera, 2006); others express a lack of confidence in their ability to competently design and implement employability assessments (kaider et al., 2017). many academic staff, finding themselves with responsibility for wil, need support and professional development to be able to operate effectively in such a role (desha & senadji, 2014; venables & tan, 2009; young, et.al., 2017). likewise, many employer organisations that are new to offering wil placements and projects, will need information and support to understand the key academic purposes and processes of wil, and to be realistic in their expectations of student performance and placement outcomes (buckley & el amoud, 2011; peach & gamble, 2011). there is growing evidence that students want their degree to be strongly linked to ‘industry-readiness’ and for their program to provide career development support. additionally, students would welcome greater involvement of industry/community in the design of their employability learning (jorre de st jorre & oliver, 2018). while students will need support in approaching wil and employability development – as collis (2010) notes, scaffolding will need to be put into place in order to initiate and support all three stakeholder groups involved – students, academic supervisors, and industry partners (p. 8). the findings from jorre de st jorre & oliver (2018) speak to this point: student attitudes towards the involvement of employers, professionals and recent graduates in the design, delivery and assessment of learning suggest that explicit and prominent involvement of these stakeholders will help to make learning and assessment of graduate employability meaningful (p. 55). the central theme of this project was not about specific types of wil assessment. rather, it was about understanding the processes required to productively engage stakeholders in enhancing assessment for wil. however, in all aspects of student learning, including wil and young, k., palmer, s., binek, c., tolson, m., & campbell, m., (2019). assessment-led reform: creating a sustainable culture for on and off campus wil. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 10(1), 73–87. 76 employability studies, assessment is a key driver of student engagement, and an important tool for measuring student achievement. in terms of wil assessment, authenticity refers to the degree to which an assessment resembles relevant professional practice (kaider et al., 2017, p. 158). a useful definition of authentic assessment comes from gulikers, bastiaens and kirschner (2004): an assessment requiring students to use the same competencies, or combinations of knowledge, skills, and attitudes, that they need to apply in the criterion situation in professional life (p. 69). proximity is also a vital consideration in assessment design – it refers to the degree to which an activity and its assessment occur in the workplace or with practitioners (kaider et al., 2017). the case study by jorre de st jorre & oliver (2018) highlights the way in which assessment should be used to ensure students are engaging with their employability learning. research questions this study aims to add to the existing knowledge on assessment design in wil through the following research questions:  what contribution can re-framing traditional assessment profiles to include industryoriented and authentic work-related constructs make to the provision of, and evidence of, employability learning? (r1)  what contribution can a whole-of-program curriculum-led approach, based on scaffolded wil-assessment profiles, make to improved graduate outcomes for scientists? (r2)  what is likely to be an effective enabler for stem academics, particularly those that are novice in wil curriculum development, to take ownership of the re/design and delivery of industry-oriented assessments? (r3) the central purpose of the action-research project was to enliven a process for investigating whether industry-oriented assessments were perceived as important for students, industry and academics. following this, the project needed to investigate if there were indications of importance as translated into the intended and/or actual curriculum. finally, the project was used to ascertain what provisions would enable enhancements to course-wide approaches to wil assessment design. research method rationale one of the faculty’s strategies was to create sustainable and scalable embedded wil approaches to all undergraduate degree programs by 2020. of particular interest was the way in which formative assessments could be designed to include industry perspectives and current practices, with the possibility of highlighting the industry presence on-campus or in simulated ways. this spoke to the overarching aim of the project which was to expand the capacity of teaching teams to strategically involve industry in integrated learning approaches. the driver was to encourage academics to think beyond delivering discipline specific information and skills, to the application of these skills combined with generic capabilities for real-world contexts (lasen et al., 2018, p. 2). an initiative was introduced in 2015 to ensure that all undergraduate degree programs had space in which students could undertake a wil placement. to facilitate this the faculty introduced a core foundational career education unit to prepare all undergraduates for placement. in 2017, 1200 students within the faculty undertook a placement-based wil activity. moving beyond placement-based wil, the faculty aims to use class-based/oncampus interactions with industry/community for enabling a sustainable and scalable wil approach to curriculum that positively impacts the employability of graduates. the faculty goal was for degrees to provide more than just a penultimate placement activity, but rather, young, k., palmer, s., binek, c., tolson, m., & campbell, m., (2019). assessment-led reform: creating a sustainable culture for on and off campus wil. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 10(1), 73–87. 77 purposefully designed scaffolded authentic wil assessments that prepare students for placement, as well as alternative placement-based activities (kay et al., 2018). approach an action-research project process of plan, act, observe, reflect, plan (and repeat) (kemmis & mctaggart, 1988) was used to frame the project research. the approach was based on two rounds of workshops with academic staff in two bachelor of science degree programs, in parallel with the collection of additional rich and diverse data from the wider stakeholder groups (berg, 2004). ethics approval was granted for the mixed-method approach which targeted three key stakeholder groups: academic staff teaching into both degree programs, students undertaking the same degrees, and industry representatives affiliated with the programs and familiar to the degree directors. the ‘plan’ of action was developed with the intention of sharpening faculty-wide understanding of current intentional wil assessment activities and to enhance academic awareness of how to improve on-campus wil. the focus was on developing relevant and contextualised authentic assessments for improving employability outcomes for graduates. the ‘act’ part of the methodology encompassed the collegial nature of the workshops. all workshop participants were encouraged to contribute equally to discussion and activities during the day. the aim of the workshops was to build the capacity of discipline experts to reimagine their own assessments through a wil-lens. the workshops involved a flipped classroom approach to ensure all participants were informed equally about the content, to fasttrack discussions, and develop collaborative active learning activities throughout each workshop. the ‘observe’ phase involved multiple members of the project team taking notes about what was occurring during the workshop, so that layered perspectives could be gathered and considered. these qualitative findings were recounted during the group ‘reflect’ phase which occurred at the conclusion of both workshops. in-situ, on-action reflections formed the ‘plan (and repeat)’ phase of the action-research process. the qualitative findings from the workshops fed into the self-study. here the action-research methodology was used to provide a flexible and buoyant means for gaining an evolving and improved understanding of the academic perceptions of wil assessment. it provided a critical means for investigating the perceptions, interest in, and barriers to, enhancing on-campus assessment activities for students and industry representatives from the two science degrees. the total research data collection inventory included archival, survey, interview and observational data (berg, 2004), and comprised the following elements:  a curriculum mapping audit of both degree programs;  an online survey of students enrolled in both degree programs;  an online survey of teaching staff involved in both degree programs;  in-person interviews with key industry representatives with a relationship to both degree programs;  two teaching team focus groups; and,  two teaching team workshops. additional details for each methodological element follow. curriculum mapping a desk-top audit mapped all final-year units from the two degrees. there were four mapping exercises undertaken to determine the type, level, breadth and depth of authentic wil assessments in each unit. the handbook entry for each program was reviewed via a ‘word young, k., palmer, s., binek, c., tolson, m., & campbell, m., (2019). assessment-led reform: creating a sustainable culture for on and off campus wil. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 10(1), 73–87. 78 matching’ process. keywords were used in the first audit round to determine if the listed assessments were recognisable as wil assessments. this process involved both an inclusion and exclusion word-matching frame. assessments that would be omitted included traditional assessments typically found in science curricula, including exams, tests, essays and scientific reports. keywords used for the first level positive matching included the type of experience (i.e. placement, professional practice, project, internship, fieldwork and case-study), descriptive words explaining the potential engagement with industry (i.e. industry, partner, community, professional, real, real-world), and the learning design (i.e. application, applied, relevant, context, career and reflection/reflective-practice). if the process did not provide direct matches, an appraisal of the unit guide was undertaken to gather more detailed specifics about the assessment type. finally, the unit outline and assessment guides were analysed for keywords that might indicate if the focus of assessment was proximal or authentic to the workplace, using definitions as proposed by kaider et al. (2017). mapping prompted the ‘auditor’ to use a new set of criteria to unpack the authentic nature of the assessment. this involved a three dimensional framework: ‘product, process and performance’ developed specifically for this project. the details of how this three dimensional frame was constructed, as well as the subsequent development of a fit-forpurpose work integrated learning on-campus assessment framework (waf) will be published in a forthcoming paper (young, miller, campbell, & palmer, 2019). relevant to this paper, there were key questions used by the auditor to guide the mapping process. the first question was intended to help the auditor decide on the fidelity of the assessment to real-world tasks: does the assessment submitted look similar to a common work activity that a graduate would need to produce in a workplace /professional context? the second question was intended to help provide clarity on the resemblance concerning the process of completing the assessment: does the assessment provide an opportunity for the professional practices of discipline-specific knowledge and skills to be applied and performed in real-world work-contexts? the third question was intended to ascertain if industry were involved in assessing the standards: is there evidence of a consultation process between academia and industry resulting in a set of standards to judge if the assessment demonstrates the capacity of students to perform to real-world requirements? online survey of students the student survey was designed to seek an understanding of the perceptions of undergraduate students in the two degrees towards the presence and value of non-placement wil activities in their studies. students enrolled in both degrees were invited to complete an online survey, via an email invitation. of the 305 students invited to complete the online survey (degree a n = 92; degree b n = 213), 47 (15.4%) students responded (degree a r = 11; degree b r= 36). the survey was comprised of 14 questions, including likert scale items and free text response items. the survey data were analysed using spss and nvivo to characterise the perceptions of respondents about the presence and value of non-placement wil activities in their studies. online survey of staff fourteen academics across two academic teaching teams were invited to complete an online pre-project survey that sought their perceptions of the value of non-placement wil activities in their programs of study. the survey consisted of 16 questions, with response scale items that produced quantitative data and free text response items for producing qualitative data. due to the small number of staff surveyed, to retain anonymity they were not asked to identify the degree they taught in. of the 14 staff invited to complete the survey, 10 submitted a response. the survey data were analysed using spss and nvivo to characterise the perceptions of the presence and value of non-placement wil activities in the degrees managed by respondents. young, k., palmer, s., binek, c., tolson, m., & campbell, m., (2019). assessment-led reform: creating a sustainable culture for on and off campus wil. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 10(1), 73–87. 79 focus groups with academic staff two focus groups took place, one at the commencement of the project and one at the completion of the project. the aim of the focus groups was to gain a deeper understanding of the academic perspective of the role of wil within the faculty, and how changes could be made to facilitate more wil opportunities for students. in the first focus group, six academics participated. the focus group employed five stimulus prompts relating to: 1. wil assessment; 2. wil curriculum and the scaffolding of wil curriculum; 3. embedded wil; 4. industry engagement and involvement; and 5. understanding our students. eight academics participated in the second focus group. the focus group employed three stimulus prompts derived from reviewing the first focus group questions relating to: 1. authentic wil assessment; 2. signposting the purpose of wil assessment; and 3. benefits of industry engagement and involvement in on-campus wil activities and assessments. interviews with industry representatives in-depth, 45-60 minute individual interviews with eight industry nominees were conducted by the project lead for industry partnerships. the aim was to gain a better understanding of industry’s current perceptions and their potential ‘appetite’ for engaging in future wil oncampus plans. the eight questions posed included provision for industry interviewees to provide their insights and experience relating to the work-readiness skills of new graduates entering the workforce. each interviewee received the questions in advance of the interview to provide context and the opportunity for preparation. the interviews were audio recorded, and transcriptions of the recording were analysed using a combination of thematic content and narrative analysis. workshops two full-day workshops (involving the teaching and project teams) were held during phase one and three of the project. the overarching aim for these was to discuss and introduce possible revisions to assessments to provide stronger signposting of work-context authentic assessments. discussions in the first workshop were pitched at an introductory level to allow for the development of a shared understanding of wil assessment as being more than placement-based wil. for the second workshop, a third teaching team requested to participate. this indicated that the aim of guiding (influencing) and growing the understanding (building professional capacity) of non-placement wil assessment was gaining momentum (young et al., 2017). findings the aim of the action-research project was to investigate academic, student and industry perceptions of wil assessment profiles and then influence how academics might change their practices around designing and delivering wil assessment profiles. critical here was the role of the academic group as a key participant in the action-research change process – in particular, they were privy to the survey and interview findings. the slippages in intentional assessment design were identified during the mapping outcomes presentation as a means to young, k., palmer, s., binek, c., tolson, m., & campbell, m., (2019). assessment-led reform: creating a sustainable culture for on and off campus wil. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 10(1), 73–87. 80 prompt discussions relating to unit data, as well as student and industry perceptions of wil, so that during the workshops, the evidence-based approach could be used to tease out potential reasons for cultural change. this aim of cultural change was seen as being ‘in motion’ during the lifecycle of the action-research project, especially as the first focus group indicated that there was still a gap in understanding the definition of wil. the findings are presented as three themes as they relate to the research questions (r1, r2, r3). the themes are: reframing assessment profiles relates (r1); whole-of-program approach (r2); and enablers of assessment reform (r3). re-framing assessment profiles (r1) as with a similar study by kaider et al. (2017), use of a mapping process as a formal methodological approach was instrumental in providing an evidence-base for discussing the nuances, levels, types and purposes for authentic wil assessments. the desktop audit and curriculum mapping, revealed that the tactic of finding wil assessments by matching words from the current unit documentation to the authentic wil assessment criteria and descriptors meant that the documented curricula of both courses did not meet the 2020 faculty target for authentic assessment. however, this did not necessarily mean that the assessments were not authentic. the first step involved an audit of the assessments documented in the handbook entry. the second level of auditing involved a review of each unit guide. the final step involved reviewing the unit outline and assessment guides. matching current documentation to the mapping criteria required subjective interpretations from the reviewer as to whether the unit could be classified as containing wil approaches to assessment. of note was the consistent lack of evidence in the assessment documentation that industry input for co-created curricula had been sought. in the first workshop, the participants discussed their individual and collective partnering strategies with industry to design assessments. discussions of the data analysis during the workshops proved to be the most valuable aspect of this mapping process. by deliberately linking discussions about changes to process and practice with the mapping outcomes the academics became convinced that, in most instances, the documentation of their curriculum design did not adequately represent the type, level, breadth and depth of authenticity of the assessment tasks. this concurs with a previous study that found mapping can enable shared understandings and lead to increased collegiality and collaboration for assessment change (kaider, et al., 2017). the conclusion from the audit was that assessment design through a wil-lens was at best, ‘hidden’. more importantly though, academics indicated that they were open to receiving assistance to improve their processes for connecting with industry to enhance co-created curricula, that they took accountability for improving their assessment descriptions and that that were beginning to see value in wil approaches to stem curriculum design. the observations of levels of staff participation from the first to the second workshop and the variations in language used from focus group one to two, indicated that a shift to thinking that wil approaches to assessment may be feasible was becoming evident. an early focus group response revealed a possible limitation in academic perceptions of the ability for wil approaches to simultaneously occur alongside traditional assessments: …i suspect we don't see them as wil opportunities. this is supported by data obtained from the academic staff survey. academic staff were asked to rank: discipline knowledge and skills; real-world applications in context; employability skills and reflections of the development of those skills; and demonstration of professional performance in practice, in terms of their importance to a whole-of-program approach to wil. employability/reflective practice and professional practices were perceived as important – in the range of ‘essential’ – with an average score of 4.2. discipline knowledge and skills were seen to be of greater importance (with a mean importance of 4.7/5). the ranked orders within these sections indicates a bias toward discipline knowledge and skills, as opposed to employability and reflective practice. analyses young, k., palmer, s., binek, c., tolson, m., & campbell, m., (2019). assessment-led reform: creating a sustainable culture for on and off campus wil. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 10(1), 73–87. 81 of the transcribed discussions from the first staff focus group revealed that academic staff were still forming their ideas about wil in curricula. the phrase ‘i think that…’ was commonly used. analyses from the second staff focus group revealed that the phrase ‘i think that…’ was used with relatively less frequency and there were positive affirmations relating to the importance of deliberate program planning related to wil. there were granular discussions around the different needs/characteristics of different degrees in relation to wil. for example, the environmental science/management degree discussed the possibilities for clearer applied applications with ‘industry’, with specific reference to waste management, as being important when designing and improving curricula. this revealed that a connection to wil approaches in the lived curricula had been made. the observed positive engagement by academics in workshops also suggested a posiive shift in the shared value of wil. the majority of the time in workshop one was focused on discussing the purpose of wil approaches to stem curricula, the already ‘fairly’ authentic curricula and the student experience and expectation of assessment. an academic noted that students prefer to ‘know the [right] answer’, rather than work with uncertainty. there were useful discussions about core scientific skills and techniques. for example, the difference between traditional lab work where students follow steps and get a result, and open-ended investigations where students have to make a hypothesis, design an experiment, collect data, analyse it, and make inferences from the results. this is noteworthy as wil is often understood as a vehicle to apply learning. however, the other layers of wil approaches, such as industry collaboration for co-created curricula; contextualised concepts and practices; integrative learning; and reflective practices for employability learning) were not found. interestingly, specific discussions on wil approaches that involve industry collaborations, employability skills in context, and reflection were more robustly discussed in workshop two, and therefore appeared to be better understood by most participants by the end of the project. this was evidenced during a practical exercise where academics were asked to judge from a random set of six assessment types where they believed the assessment sat on the traditional versus authentic assessment spectrum. they were then asked to design one of the assessments to align with an enhanced authentic assessment. this task was similar to a practical exercise that the same group participated in during workshop one. of note, was that the interest, enthusiasm and ‘buy-in’ from staff was more evident in workshop two, thus suggesting that academics appeared to open to the prospects of wil approaches to assessment design. a powerful action, geared to re-frame assessments, came from a presentation led by one of the degree directors. their argument was that despite the team thinking their program content was industry-oriented, excerpts from the handbook, unit and assessment documents revealed that the curriculum documentation did not convey the authenticity of the assessment and the depth and breadth of real-world contexts that were being applied to discipline-specific concepts. the director’s message was clear, small changes with potential program-wide significance were needed. the mapping process and the workshops helped to identify where the slippages were occurring. furthermore, observations of participant behaviour and activity at the second workshop suggested that there are influencers and early adopters as part of both course teams likely to continue to re-shape the framing of assessment to be inclusive of a wil frame. whole-of-program approach (r2) the mapping process was also a useful evidence-based approach for showing academics the hotspots of wil activity across their program. the academic staff survey identified that discussions relating to the scaffolding and embedding of wil was in most cases addressed mainly in annual program reviews (n = 4, 40%). the course map therefore provided another layer. the academic (as the agent at the coal-face for enabling assessment change) was seen as pivotal for improved whole-of-program approaches for embedded and scaffolded wil. one young, k., palmer, s., binek, c., tolson, m., & campbell, m., (2019). assessment-led reform: creating a sustainable culture for on and off campus wil. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 10(1), 73–87. 82 academic provided a comment in response to the importance of identifying wil opportunities: i.e. map them and make them clear for staff and students. the academic staff survey identified that mapping employability skills was essential for the success of the students and the degree (n = 5, 50%). the data relating to the student and industry perspectives on embedded and scaffolded wil were hoped to be enablers of attitudinal change, deemed necessary because of a barrier to improved practice expressed in the first staff survey. academics were encouraged to consider their student cohort views from a whole-of-program perspective. the student survey findings, presented to the academic group, revealed that students perceive a greater need for wil education throughout their degrees, especially in the final year. on average, final-year students thought that wil was more important in their degree than secondand first-year students (p<0.05); with more responses of ‘very important’ for the final-year students, to predominant responses of ‘moderately important’ for first-years (n = 8; 57%). first-year students were least able to recall wil having been explicitly mentioned in assessment (including those who were unable to judge) (n = 13, 93%) in comparison to secondand finalyear students (second year n = 7, 44%.; final year n = 11, 65%) (f (2,41) = 5.155, p = 0.01). likewise, short text responses suggested two themes: that greater awareness of wil projects and placements from year one and that wider opportunities to engage with potential employers were needed. when students were asked whether they would value industry professionals grading and providing feedback on some assessments, they indicated this would be useful. the ranking of usefulness increased through the year levels, with 21% (n =3) of first-year students indicating it would be useful, 44% (n = 7) of second-year students, and, final-year students were significantly more likely to indicate that they would find feedback on their assessment most useful (n = 11, 65%, f (2,41) = 3.122, p=0.055). when asked whether they would value firsthand knowledge from industry professionals, students ranked it from moderately to very useful. overall, secondand final-year students ranked first-hand knowledge higher than firstyear students. responses to the question ‘what would you add to your degree to improve your employability?’ varied between cohorts. overall, students indicated they would like more: time out in the field; yearly placements/internships (including international experiences); opportunities for networking; more real-world examples; report writing skills; industry-focused coursework; integrated learning experiences within workplaces; further research opportunities; awareness about searching for work placements; and ways to enhance employability. in summary, the student data demonstrate the value of a whole-of-degree approach to embedding and explicit scaffolding of wil. academics were also encouraged to consider the views from industry on assessment collaboration as well as wil program design. the in-depth industry interviews revealed that there was support by industry for university-based wil or wil on-campus. interviewees from the industry sector perceived the key benefits as completing ‘relevant backburner‘ projects whilst not having to allocate the same level of intensive off-campus resourcing to their engagement amid space and head-count constraints in their organization. all respondents noted that they were ‘resource poor’ (i.e. time, people and financial) and as such, on-campus engagement will need, in the future, to generate positive and demonstrable benefits to their organization. in terms of work-ready skills, there was a clear and consistent voice from industry interviewees – whilst assuming a degree has provided a foundation of fundamental discipline knowledge, strong inter-personal skills are a fundamental recruitment requirement. both the industry participants and the teaching teams agreed that a tool that facilitates an engagement based on a 3 s’s approach for improving industry partnerships for wil on-campus activity would be most useful: synergy of goals; simplicity of engagement; and sustainable relationships. the need for a fit-for-purpose industry engagement framework and methodology for enabling young, k., palmer, s., binek, c., tolson, m., & campbell, m., (2019). assessment-led reform: creating a sustainable culture for on and off campus wil. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 10(1), 73–87. 83 greater depth and breadth of on-campus university-based wil assessment, related learning activities and opportunities for further off-campus and hybrid wil scenarios, is clear. the development of an industry framework was a key wil-on-campus (woc) project deliverable (the data relating to industry connections and the elements curated to become part of the final framework and will be detailed in a future publication). it was presented at the second workshop to propel academic behavioural change towards the involvement of industry in assessment design and delivery. the academics were interested to hear the student and industry stakeholder voice. from the student perspective, their take home message was that students have expressed finding meaning in their curriculum with stronger links between industry and the university. from the industry perspective, their take home message was that industry have a genuine interest in, and support for, stronger and more formal opportunities for university-based wil, especially as a pathway for quality placement-based wil experiences. in short, the staff survey summed up a simple, telling and promising point that most respondents agreed that there could be more done with wil within their program. enablers of assessment-reform (r3) the greatest perceived barriers to assessment reform with a whole-of-program approach were underpinned by matters relating to academic workload and resourcing. one academic commented: authentic wil experiences take time, resourcing and good planning, and at the moment our team is really stretched in the teaching space. we need more staff. as academics are at the coal face of assessment-reform change, our case study argues that the support and enhancement of wil-lens assessments are best enabled by focusing on and resourcing initiatives that enable the wil champions within the course team to influence peers. this study identified the following set of mechanisms which have been and are likely to be of most benefit for continuing reform: 1. instil that the central dimension of core bodies of stem knowledge and skills remain a learning outcome focus of the assessment, but in addition, must be intentionally contextualised to real-world applications and linked to employability learning; 2. aspire for tri-created assessments (student, industry and academic) that are workrelated for employability-relevant learning, not for job/industry-specific contexts; 3. publish the program-specific aim and intended impact of wil approaches to assessment (i.e. enhancing student employability, improving graduate and employment outcomes); 4. institutions to invest in the human element of curriculum reform – the academic as the driver of assessment reform at the coal-face. 5. course-teams to collectively undertake re-imagined assessment design for the purpose of resource sharing as well as sustainable capacity building; 6. consideration of the course team culture for leveraging those resistant to change to be part of a whole-of-program approach to authentic assessments; 7. support individual academics to enable sustainable and scalable connections with industry to enable discussion of, and feedback on, current and context-rich industry oriented assessments; 8. provide a wil assessment framework as a methodological approach to whole-ofprogram curriculum design and renewal that can be fit-for-purpose at the program level; 9. provide course teams with a fit-for-purpose framework for enabling the engagement with industry to simplify and sustain whole-of-program wil approaches in the curricula; young, k., palmer, s., binek, c., tolson, m., & campbell, m., (2019). assessment-led reform: creating a sustainable culture for on and off campus wil. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 10(1), 73–87. 84 10. provide up to date specific student cohort, industry data and sector-wide employment data as an entry point for discussing ‘other’ stakeholder perspectives on the value of wil; 11. develop a set of principles, standards and quality indicators for wil approaches to assessment to enable the benchmarking, assurance and monitoring of program rationale for delivering on the higher education standards (hes); 12. the inclusion of mandated minimum weightings for authentic and highly proximal assessments; 13. assure that the systems for measuring and documenting wil are trusted, easy to follow and enable ‘hidden’ wil to become a useful data source for evaluation and improvement. the overall findings reveal that all stakeholders see the value of assessments that use oncampus locations, that are intentionally embedded and scaffolded across a whole program, and that enable the integration of theory and practice demonstrated through authentic assessment contextualised to stem. in particular for stem, because academic staff consider the development and assessment of discipline skills and knowledge with a program as the priority, we assert that the best current vehicle for enhancing graduate employment outcomes is by assessing discipline specific knowledge and skills in conjunction (not separately) with sub-sets of other employability skills, in-context, using reflective practice approaches focused on professional applications to show integrative learning. this approach still fits with the chief scientist’s five point plan for stem education (finkel, 2018) that stem content (‘hard knowledge’ of concepts, facts and principles) must be taught by expert teachers. conclusion this study concludes that academics acknowledge that wil assessment design is challenging, but accepts evidence from students, industry partners, and the institution, that there is scope and value in including more authentic and proximal elements in assessment design and delivery. project indicators, from workshops and focus groups suggest that socialisation of wil has been a successful outcome of the woc. the project group found that reform of any significant kind cannot begin until teaching teams feel ready, willing and able, so they must be supported to enable change. academics require top down support from their most senior colleagues to enable course teams to identify and understand the opportunities for reform andimplement required changes. socialisation of shared and recognised value of embedded and scaffolded wil assessment methods are also an underpinning requirement. whilst recognising that such curriculum reform is challenging, this study finds that academics accept that such changes are achievable and, indeed, timely. the implication for this study is that a whole-of-program curriculum-led approach, based on scaffolded wil-assessment profiles, is a practical way in which course-based evidence can be collected around employability learning and graduate outcomes. a surprising discovery from this study was that the key to assessment reform may be in the decision to discuss wil as an approach that is no longer perceived as a loss to the core stem disciplinary content. the study found that because current wil approaches to assessment design occur less frequently than the assessment of the core body of science knowledge, for successful wil assessment reform to occur in a stem faculty, the combination of the two factors needs to be actively aligned. this finding therefore makes a significant contribution to the stem sector, as the perceptions of stem academics may be mirrored elsewhere, and thus warrants further investigation. the caveat to this is that the method applied to collecting and analysing academic perceptions of wil assessment reform (in particular, the use of focus groups to provide insight into academic perceptions) has an inevitable limitation – that being that the insights gained might not be representative of the different discipline areas outside of science, or indeed in stem across the faculty. young, k., palmer, s., binek, c., tolson, m., & campbell, m., (2019). assessment-led reform: creating a sustainable culture for on and off campus wil. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 10(1), 73–87. 85 the authors do however consider that the process of unpacking the challenges and enablers of assessment reform design adopted in this study can be extended into further stem courses and within other institutions. in turn, a new depth of understanding across the sector on willens curricula may contribute to the current limited generalizability of this study that found that our students and academics recognise the importance for the inclusion of employability learning. acknowledgments a special thank you to the wil-on-campus (woc) project team members for their enthusiasm and efforts in driving this project as well as contributing to the writing and editing of the woc report (young et al., 2018). thank you also to the associate dean teaching and learning, professor malcolm campbell (science, engineering and built environment) who sponsored this project and to faculty executive who funded the project. declaration of interest statement the authors hereby declare that they have no pecuniary or other personal interest, direct or indirect, in any matter that raises or may raise a conflict of interest in this study with our other roles and duties within the faculty. young, k., palmer, s., binek, c., tolson, m., & campbell, m., (2019). assessment-led reform: creating a sustainable culture for on and off campus wil. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 10(1), 73–87. 86 references abeysekera, i. 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(2019). enhancing learning outcomes from industry engagement in australian engineering education. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 10(1), 101–117. 101 enhancing learning outcomes from industry engagement in australian engineering education sally a. male1 and robin king2 sally.male@uwa.edu.au; robin.king@uts.edu.au corresponding author: sally male 1 school of engineering, the university of western australia, perth, western australia b faculty of engineering and it, university of technology, sydney; australian council of engineering deans abstract industry engagement, commonly implemented as a 12 week industry placement during a vacation towards the end of the degree, has traditionally been a provider-mandated component of externally accredited professional engineering degrees in australia. such placements are intended to bridge knowledge and capability gaps between academic study and engineering employment and contextualise the final phase of academic study. changes in the composition of australia’s engineering industries have made it progressively harder to source such placements. in-curriculum exposure to engineering practice has also been expected, but has been delivered with considerable variability. in 2014 the authors completed a national project, led by the australian council of engineering deans (aced), with peak industry bodies and several partner universities, funded from the commonwealth department of industry workplace innovation program, to explore how improving industry engagement could contribute further to engineering graduates’ learning outcomes and employability. the data collected from the engineering students and employers, reported in this paper, can now be regarded as baseline data on industry engagement, against which subsequent developments can be referenced. for the first time, students’ ratings of the value of different methods for industry engagement are shown to be related to their ‘authenticity’. several industry-inspired in-curriculum interventions were also trialled at partner universities. guidelines for good practice were developed from melding the experiential findings with theoretical perspectives. in the years since completing the project, the accreditation body, engineers australia, has updated and intensified its focus on engagement with practice (including changing its language from ‘exposure’ to ‘engagement’), and many engineering faculties have significantly enhanced their models and requirements for work integrated learning and industry engagement. this paper outlines these changes and examples of new implementations, including virtual and electronically-mediated methods that also reflect ongoing changes in engineering industry practice. keywords: engineering education, work integrated learning, curriculum development, co-op programs, accreditation, internships, work-based learning, employability background and context as for many professional areas, the pathway to independent practice in engineering is a combination of a formative qualification and supervised experience. since 1980, the formative qualification for professional engineering in australia has been a four-year bachelor honours degree, now at level 8 of the australian qualifications framework (aqf), or an ‘entry to practice’ master’s degree at aqf level 9. these qualifications are offered by 35 public mailto:sally.male@uwa.edu.au mailto:robin.king@uts.edu.au male, s.a., & king, r. (2019). enhancing learning outcomes from industry engagement in australian engineering education. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 10(1), 101–117. 102 universities and a very small number of private providers, and are externally accredited by the australian professional organisation, engineers australia (ea). the engineering profession globally has adopted this qualification plus experience model and has formalised standards through international ‘educational accords’ and ‘professional competence agreements’ (international engineering alliance, 2014), of which ea is a foundation member. to maintain its currency and value, engineering education in australia has periodically reviewed itself, in collaboration with its stakeholders, including ea. the most recent national review (king, 2008) recommended focus on improving the ‘authenticity’ of engineering education in terms of best practice curriculum (i.e. emphasis on student-centred, active learning, and alignment of outcomes, pedagogy, and assessment); good quality exposure to engineering practice; and effective delivery by authentic educators who are knowledgeable of educational best-practice and contemporary engineering practice, as well as research in engineering science. engineering graduates, together with those in science, technology, and mathematics, tend to perform well in employers’ assessments of business-critical skills, including active learning, critical thinking, and complex and creative problem solving (prinsley & baranyai, 2015). nevertheless, employers of engineers continue to report gaps between graduates’ capabilities and employers’ expectations, particularly in interpersonal communication and other workplace knowledge and skills. an ea accredited program must deliver graduates with competency in sixteen generic areas of knowledge and basic skills, engineering application ability, and personal and professional attributes (engineers australia, 2013). a key criterion for ea program accreditation is ‘exposure to engineering practice’, intended to ensure that academic knowledge and skills are reinforced and contextualised and to prepare graduates for employment. the current ea guideline (bradley, 2008, p. 18) specifies 13 ways of providing exposure to practice, as listed in table 1. of these, exposure to ethics is mandated, and ‘at least 12 weeks of practical experience in an engineering environment outside the teaching establishment’ is strongly recommended. others come under the broad category of ‘work integrated learning’ (wil). table 1: engineers australia’s listed methodologies and activities for students’ exposure to engineering practice practical experience in an engineering environment outside the teaching establishment study of industry policies, processes, practices and benchmarks mandatory exposure to lectures on professional ethics and conduct direct industry input of data and advice to problem solving, projects and evaluation tasks use of guest presenters industry based investigatory assignments use of staff with industry experience industry research for feasibility studies interviewing engineering professionals electronic links with practising professionals industry visits and inspections case studies industry based final year projects following the ea guideline, for many decades almost all universities have mandated engineering students to complete and report satisfactorily on at least 12 weeks of engineeringrelated work, in order to qualify to graduate. in almost all instances these placements have not been awarded academic credit, and have traditionally been paid. ideally, this industry male, s.a., & king, r. (2019). enhancing learning outcomes from industry engagement in australian engineering education. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 10(1), 101–117. 103 placement would be taken during the vacation before their final year of study and typically would not be tightly structured or overseen by the faculty. making the student largely responsible for acquiring their placement is seen to be part of their capabilities development. a small number of universities also offer industry internships of six months duration within their programs, similar to those that are often expected by employers of engineering graduates in france and germany. in 2017, the australian higher education system graduated approximately 8,000 domestic (15% women) and 4,300 international (20% women) students from accredited bachelor (honours) and ‘entry to practice’ master degree programs in engineering (australian government department of education & training, 2018). facilitating good quality in-industry experience to the increasing number of students presents an increasing challenge. in australia, privatisation of formerly state-owned engineering infrastructure, movement offshore of engineering-based manufacturing, and the rise of contract-based engineering services firms have contributed to a decline in the availability of traditional work experience placements, particularly for international students. it is not uncommon, but is obviously unsatisfactory, for students who have met the academic requirements to graduate, to have to delay their graduation until they have completed the required period of industry experience. simultaneously, the increasing demand for experienced engineers is not satisfied by the flowthrough of new domestic graduates, and experienced engineers make up a significant proportion of inward skilled migration. whilst the industry placement has continued as the main method for student exposure to practice, most faculties have also included several of the other listed wil methodologies and activities. the capacity to design and implement strongly practice-based curricula is, however, limited by the decline in the numbers of academics with recent industry experience, other than in research laboratories. a survey of approximately one-third of australian engineering educators found that few engineering academics had more than four years of industry experience, and that such experience was gained, on average, more than fifteen years previously to the survey (cameron, reidsema, & hadgraft, 2011). in 2012, the combination of increasing demand for engineers, especially for the resources sector, industry concerns about engineering graduates’ employability skills, and governments’ concerns about attrition of students from engineering, led to the australian council of engineering deans (aced) being commissioned by the australian government’s department of industry workplace innovation program to examine the issue of industry engagement of engineering students. the study, completed in 2014 and reported in this paper, reconsidered the use of unstructured industry placements and industry-informed classroom learning and activities, to provide engineering students with improved exposure to practice. since 2014, aced and its members have been revisiting how best to implement industry engagement in their engineering degrees, and ea has revised its guideline on the corresponding accreditation criterion. these developments are described later in the paper. with employers of graduates from all fields of education and their peak bodies expressing concerns about graduates’ skills for employability, in 2015 the higher education and business peak bodies announced a national wil strategy (universities australia, australian chamber of commerce and industry, ai group, business council of australia, & australian collaborative education network, 2015) for all undergraduate degrees. wil activity has increased in many fields. the national quality assurance agency has subsequently produced a guidance note (australian government tertiary education quality and standards agency, 2017) that incorporated experience from the aced community. it is to encourage continuous improvement in the implementation of wil in all fields that we offer the experience of engineering, as discussed in this paper. male, s.a., & king, r. (2019). enhancing learning outcomes from industry engagement in australian engineering education. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 10(1), 101–117. 104 exposure to practice in engineering education: the 2012-14 research study two overarching research questions that framed the 2012-14 national project were: 1. what is the current student experience of engineering practice? 2. what (evidence-based) methods can be used to improve this experience? with human research ethics approval, we used surveys, interviews, and focus groups to explore students’ and industry perceptions of the benefits and challenges of workplace and classroom methods for learning about practice. the project grant also provided seed funding to trial and evaluate a small number of initiatives that brought aspects of contemporary industry practice into engineering classes. the project phases and descriptive results are summarised in previous conference papers (male & king, 2014b; male, king, & hargreaves, 2016), and recommendations based on the project are available in guidelines (male & king, 2014a). in this paper, we first outline our model of engineering education into which exposure to practice fits. the data collection and key findings for each phase are then reported, including new analysis of student perception data that reveals a positive relationship between students’ ratings of the methods used for industry exposure and their authenticity. theoretical framework and model underpinning the research questions is a notion of an ‘ideal’ student experience and transition into engineering employment. the engineering curriculum is the education providers’ expression of the intended student experience, but we recognise that there are inevitably differences between the ‘intended’, ‘enacted’ and ‘experienced’ curriculum (billett, 2011, pp.16-24). the intended engineering curriculum would invariably include good quality (authentic) exposure to practice; how this is experienced is discussed in the paper. well designed and experienced exposure to practice throughout the curriculum would contribute to addressing three issues raised by employers: perceived gaps between the capabilities of engineering graduates and those required for engineering practice; attrition of graduates from the profession; and attrition from study during the engineering degree. we comment briefly on each of these points. graduate capability gaps exhibited by engineers reported by employers in the uk, usa, and australia are most often identified to be in areas of communications and teamwork or social skills (bodmer, leu, mira, & rutter, 2002; nair, patil, & mertova, 2009). in australia, (king, 2008) reported improved oral communication and teamwork, but deficiencies in written communication. skills gaps in practical application of theory and business skills (king, 2008; male, bush, & chapman, 2010; spinks, silburn, & birchall, 2006) have also been identified. these gaps reflect the dominant focus on engineering science and analytical techniques in engineering degrees, from the latter half of the 20th century, and educators’ lack of understanding of engineering practice (trevelyan, 2010) as a socio-technical profession requiring capabilities that are both technical and social in nature (leydens, 2012). investigating the learning of experienced engineers in the workplace, rooney et al. (2012) found that they learned through situated, relational, collective practices engaging with team members who are in diverse roles. in formulating four principles for the redesign of engineering education, sheppard, macatangay, colby, and sullivan (2009) have recommended that engineering practice should be central to engineering education, with their third principle being: integrate identity, knowledge, and skills through approximations to practice (p. 200). our ideal model for good engineering education places socio-technical practice at its core, as described below. the apparent attrition of engineering graduates from the profession is high. trevelyan and tilli (2010, p. 101) reported that approximately 40 per cent of engineering graduates in australia at the time of the 2006 census were not working in engineering-related roles. a similar figure can be deduced from the 2011 census data, if those not working are excluded (palmer, tolson, young, & campbell, 2015). the majority of the ‘others’ are in ‘general management’ roles. male, s.a., & king, r. (2019). enhancing learning outcomes from industry engagement in australian engineering education. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 10(1), 101–117. 105 many of the latter are likely to be in engineering companies and others may be in the finance and services sectors, as engineering degrees provide good routes into quantitative, problem solving and management occupations. nevertheless, one possible cause of graduate engineers leaving engineering is a mismatch between graduates’ expectations of predominantly technical functions – as conveyed by the curriculum and its teachers – and their experiences of engineering practice. faulkner (2007) discusses identity conflict experienced by engineers who felt that social aspects of their work were not ‘real engineering’. student attrition and graduate completion data indicate that at least 65 per cent of australian students commencing a four-year bachelor’s degree in engineering are likely to graduate, some at another institution (australian council of engineering deans, 2017; godfrey & king, 2011). most of the attrition occurs during or after the first or second year of study. amongst the reasons cited by students for early-year attrition is ‘lack of relevance’ of the curriculum to their perception of their future. countering this, early identity formation has been found to be valuable in a french engineering program based on an apprenticeship model (blandin, 2012). a second reason for attrition is failure to master difficult concepts in key engineering subjects. threshold concepts are effectively gateways to students’ progress (meyer & land, 2003). a study using threshold concept theory shed light on the importance of engineering students’ understanding roles of engineers and the value of engineering (male & bennett, 2015). this connection could be supported by more effective exposure to practice. the research cited above, and other literature, indicates the value of participatory or situated learning that is consistent with experience in the workplace. this suggests that effective exposure to practice would be designed such that students participate in various types of engineering practice in interactive ways, using authentic tools and representations, while they develop positive identities as engineering students and subsequently as graduates and professionals. in the participatory framework, reflective practice is a way to build meaning from experiences and thereby construct understanding and identity. reflective practice is necessary both to learn from experience and for lifelong learning and is recommended for work integrated learning (orrell, 2011). the importance of reflective practice in helping engineering students to learn from workplace experiences has been recognised by raelin (2007) and kelly and dansie (2012). this framework provides a rationale for expecting that exposure to practice should help students to: 1. develop more comprehensive and accurate understanding of engineering practice as socio-technical, thereby reducing surprises upon graduation; 2. develop a sense of belonging to the faculty and the profession; 3. develop motivation for learning due to recognition of relevance of the engineering program; and 4. improve learning through understanding context and connections. our model of effective engineering education (figure 1) stresses the importance of reflection on authentic and participative learning tasks. the latter involve exposure to practice that is valued by faculty and students. male, s.a., & king, r. (2019). enhancing learning outcomes from industry engagement in australian engineering education. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 10(1), 101–117. 106 figure 1: model of effective exposure to engineering practice in an engineering degree (male & king, 2014b) the industry perspective we established industry members’ perspectives on students’ exposure to practice and with student engineers through employing students or collaborating with universities, through the steering committee and interviews with 38 selected practicing engineers and engineering professionals (male et al., 2016). the principal benefits and difficulties identified are summarised in table 2. table 2: engineering employers views on engaging with engineering education employers’ views on the benefits of engaging with engineering education employers’ views on difficulties of engaging with engineering education enhancing the organisation’s brand among future engineers improving students’ understanding of working for the organisation prospective recruitment and opportunities to influence the capabilities of future graduates opportunities for professional development for staff appeal to the organisation’s employees and personal satisfaction from teaching social license for the organisation difficulties in engaging with the university perceptions that university people are out of touch with the industry and worlds of work time and inconvenience involved in supervising students on placement industry experience is undervalued in teaching students’ experience of practice: focus groups three student focus groups were held during 2013 to investigate engineering students’ experiences of exposure to practice. we report the characteristics of the groups and the key points raised, using illustrative verbatim quotations. focus groups 1 (n = 6) and 3 (n = 18) were at universities (one group of eight, one australian technology network) that required their engineering students to complete 12 weeks of relevant experience, often as vacation employment. these universities had careers services, but students were generally expected to find their own employment. focus group 2 (n male, s.a., & king, r. (2019). enhancing learning outcomes from industry engagement in australian engineering education. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 10(1), 101–117. 107 = 6) was at a university with a program in which students took 6 or 12 month internships for credit towards their degree. the university supported students to secure the internships. all students were in their final year except for four students in group 3, two of whom had graduated and two of whom were expecting to complete their degrees in 2015. all but one was less than 26 years of age. women were represented in all groups; there were no international students in group 2. the focus group sessions were semi-structured and of 50-70 minutes in duration. all students were asked to identify valuable exposure to engineering practice in their degrees, why it was valuable, what and how they had learned from it, how they changed from the experience, and how the experience could be improved. in focus group 2 the initial questions focused on the extended internships. no tight definition of exposure or value was made; the purpose was to discover the students’ perceptions of these. the model in figure 1 informed the follow-up questions and analysis of the transcribed students’ comments, in which themes consistent with preparation for the transition to the workplace were identified. students reported diverse learning, particularly of non-technical matters, from their workplace experiences. this included understanding that employers do not expect graduates to know everything and that there is more to learn than they imagined. learning professional communications requirements and reporting standards of a professional environment (contrasted with that of the student environment) featured strongly. time management, business dynamics and the value of thinking about money and safety were referred to. such experiences were reported as ‘confidence building’. motivation was identified by a student in focus group 1 in these terms: the way in which the university is taught is quite… separated from what you might physically do in an industry environment. so the experience i’ve got outside put in perspective what i learned in class… having outside experience gives you the motivation to go back into your engineering degree and finish it and come out. in contrast, several students reported that their workplace experiences were boring, thereby risking the company reputation, while others in focus groups 1 and 3 regretted the limited diversity gained from a single experience, considering the many types of engineering roles and employers. in the words of a student in focus group 3: in health faculties they have their pracs…they get a diverse range of opportunities, like geriatrics and paediatrics. whereas in engineering if we do work experience in mining, invariably it’s harder for us to then get into oil and gas as a graduate… it would be good if there was more opportunity for exposure to the different types of industry earlier on in our degrees. students appreciated the support that was available from the university’s internship office to assist them in securing an internship. others reported that it is difficult to secure vacation employment, especially for international students. students indicated that the university-wide support such as careers fairs was not as helpful as events organised by engineering student societies. students in focus group 3 reported that their university offered an alternative to 12 weeks of engineering employment, but they perceived this to be a poor substitute. in the words of two students: you can make it up with …things like going to technical presentations or workshop seminars… so you can… make up your required 12 weeks through no vacation work. but… companies, are going to choose a person that’s done [vacation] work. non-placement exposure to practice can also be authentic and effective. examples of incurriculum exposure to practice included case studies, site visits and student projects. for example, one student declared: the sustainability unit.... taught us how to work in a team. it was about safely moving hazardous waste from different ends of uni, and we wore the actual full gear. the male, s.a., & king, r. (2019). enhancing learning outcomes from industry engagement in australian engineering education. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 10(1), 101–117. 108 second part of the unit was about negotiation … one of us was the [government department] and another group was a company. the experience of a site visit to a substation on campus was transformative in the sense that this student now took the point of view of an engineer, this substation is... here; you don't… think that this is related to you until you get inside… and suddenly you feel like this is what i’m studying. students reported projects as providing valuable exposure to engineering practice, sometimes as part of a course, sometimes in extra-curricular voluntary contexts, and sometimes both. the first example below was undertaken as a project for a unit and also in a club. the second is an extra-curricular student competition. both are socio-technical. what made me want to become an engineer the most was the [recreational disability engineering company] project…. working on a project with a team and delivering… the clients… are the loveliest people in the world and quite severely disabled people and it’s really rewarding... making people want to do engineering and… teaching people what an engineer does. i’ve been doing motorsport…. the… team participates in… an engineering design and build competition… a lot of what that has taught me… is a confidence... we have to discuss what we want with people that operate the machines, the business owners themselves. students in focus group 3 identified valuable exposure to practice from international summer exchanges and international workshops, site visits in units, a design unit in which students worked in groups on industry-based projects, and industry-based assignments and examples used by a lecturer with 15 to 20 years’ experience in industry. benefits of going to site are described below by two students: with site visits… you really see what's happening. you can visualise things… when… you write procedures, at least you know what the procedures are about. like in the textbook a valve is this big [indicating small] and on a [drawing] it’s that big, but in real life [indicating enormous]… until a few months ago and i heard of them for the last four years i couldn’t actually put it in perspective. students identified a unit for elite students taught entirely by a company over seven weeks, mostly on site. they appreciated procedural stuff and then seeing the actual units and what it looks like, what it sounds like, what it smells like. these students enjoyed spending the whole day on site, seeing the physical process plants, wearing safety gear everywhere, and meeting engineers at various levels. a theme in focus groups 1 and 3 was the value of student societies. students reported that networking events organised by engineering student societies helped them secure placements. learning similar to that identified in the workplace was reported by students participating in extra-curricular activities organised through engineering student societies. students felt that the student societies consistently invited high quality industry-based guests, as articulated by one student, it’s a reflection on our club and we all take great pride in our clubs… so we’re not going to… have 100 students walk out of something they’ve voluntarily gone to and go ‘well that was a waste of time’. in contrast, focus group 1 participants reported mixed experiences of guest lectures included in the formal curriculum: [the poor speakers] are the worst because when they come in it just lowers your morale... male, s.a., & king, r. (2019). enhancing learning outcomes from industry engagement in australian engineering education. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 10(1), 101–117. 109 yeah quite depressing when you … just walk out thinking i do not want to work there or i do not want to be that person. but when you get a good teacher or someone who’s very good at presenting it’s very motivating. students’ experience of practice: survey after a survey pilot in 2013, a student survey was conducted by email in march 2014, to quantify the exposure to engineering practice experienced by final-year engineering students from 11 universities. valid responses were received from 215 students, 18.6 per cent of whom were female, and 27.0 per cent international, roughly representative of the national cohort. mechanical engineering students were slightly over-represented in the student sample. two of the universities operate with extended internships, contributing to over-representation of this group, compared with the national average. the content questions were based on the types of industry engagement identified by ea (table 1), with four items added based on findings from the focus groups. students rated the incidence of their experience of each type of exposure to practice and how significantly this had increased their understanding of engineering practice. table 3 provides these results, ordered by their rating of the learning significance of each type. table 3: ratings of experience of exposure to practice by student survey participants (rank ordered by perceived value) (n = 215) type of industry engagement number of responses to relevant question % who experienced engagement at least once of responses to relevant question % rating the engagement type as significantly increasing their understanding of engineering employment experience -engineering internships of 6 months or more 214 39.5 90.6 -12 weeks’ vacation experience or equivalent part time work 211 49.8 88.8 industry-based final year projects 213 64.2 53.6 guest lectures 212 80.9 52.9 industry visits and inspections 212 67.0 41.6 hearing/reading about another student's workplace experience 214 80.5 39.3 teaching by staff with recent, non-research industry experience 213 74.0 38.4 *series of meetings with an industry based mentor 212 39.5 37.7 industry-based case studies 214 67.0 36.9 *units run by one or more engineering employers 212 45.6 35.7 problem solving, projects, or evaluation tasks with direct industry input of data and advice 214 65.6 35.5 *interaction with professional engineers through a student society (e.g. motorsports, ieee, young engineers) 212 47.9 34.0 male, s.a., & king, r. (2019). enhancing learning outcomes from industry engagement in australian engineering education. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 10(1), 101–117. 110 *laboratory sessions in emulated industrial environments (e.g. manufacturing facilities, virtual plants, miniature plants) 212 49.3 28.4 interviewing of engineering professionals 211 52.1 27.6 studies of industry policies, processes, practices, benchmarks 213 62.8 24.4 notes. this analysis includes only the participants in the final year of a bachelor’s degree or in an entry to practice masters. * the engagement types marked * were suggested by the student focus groups. participants selected the number of times they had experienced each type of industry engagement (0, 1, 2, 3 or more times). the figure in the third column is the percent who reported having experienced the type of industry engagement at least once of those who responded to the question. of the 214 students who indicated whether they had completed 12 weeks of vacation engineering employment or equivalent part-time engineering work, or an internship, 62 (29.0%) had neither vacation experience nor an internship. clearly, and not surprisingly, real employment experience rated very highly in adding significant understanding of engineering. most respondents had experience of at least a short placement. however, 62 respondents (29% of the sample) declared that they had not completed either an internship or placement before entering their final year of study. this quantifies the degree of frustration with not being able to gain mandated experience prior to completion of the academic program, as expressed by students in focus group 3. the survey data show that students rated the types of engagement largely by their degree of ‘authenticity’. overall, the less authentic or less explicitly industry-focussed activities were perceived, on average, to add relatively little to understanding of practice. the students’ experience of self-reflection was surveyed in an additional question, with 73.4% of 213 respondents rating agreement below ‘4’ on the five-point scale (1 = strongly disagree; 5 = strongly agree), with the statement that ‘they had tracked their development towards engineering capabilities’. this finding is discussed below. non-placement exposure to practice: trialled initiatives the funded project also explored non-placement exposure to practice, by providing funding to support seven universities to develop, implement, and evaluate industry-inspired initiatives, mostly for large enrolment units in core curriculum areas. their content involved about 30 engineering employers, and the initiatives were experienced by a total of 1,000 students during 2013-14. the trialled initiatives were developed in a relatively short time. the funding allowed for approximately one month of academic support to conceptualise each initiative and develop materials. the initiatives themselves had to fit into the structure and goals of an existing unit, without needing major academic approval; effectively they were industry-explicit interventions in otherwise ‘academically-focussed’ curricula. different types of interventions were trialled. in core engineering units, such as mechanics, dynamics and electrical energy systems, students were provided with real data from the field, and industry standard software from which they were required to devise and test simulated solutions, and compare with implemented solutions. an intervention in the area of engineering project management allowed students to work on parts of a major project design in their city. another had students interviewing practicing engineers to assist them to understand issues in their project work. in a unit on risk management for 200 students, academics developed, in collaboration with the company, a flipped-classroom case study on incident analysis, based on a real industrial accident. this required the engineering students to deal formally with safety protocols and individuals’ actual incident reports, socio-technical dimensions rarely covered in engineering programs, but vital in practice. male, s.a., & king, r. (2019). enhancing learning outcomes from industry engagement in australian engineering education. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 10(1), 101–117. 111 evaluations of these interventions at each institution, and by an independent evaluator, indicated positive impacts on students’ learning, attributed largely to the industrial authenticity of the activities and the personnel involved with their development and delivery. the benefits included deepening of fundamental concepts, the use of industry-standard simulation tools and ‘real’ data, and improved self-reflection. students were also challenged by the uncertainties in tackling genuine open-ended problems. the materials produced for each initiative have been packaged for others to use. discussion the focus group findings and survey results indicated that students learn much from industry placements and other workplace-based activities, including motivation, confidence, recognition of the relevance of their programs, and professional competency development. indeed, placements were perceived by many students to be the only effective exposure to practice in a program perceived as otherwise irrelevant to practice. the study also confirmed that many (approximately 30% in some institutions) students found it difficult or impossible to secure industry placements, while most classroom-situated learning methodologies individually are neither sufficiently reliable nor sufficient in quality and depth to deliver strong exposure to practice. students from one university who were allowed to accumulate exposure to practice through non-placement means perceived this approach to be less beneficial to their career development than a placement. even those who secured placements recognised the limitation of working in one organisation only. furthermore, very few students tracked their personal development of engineering capabilities throughout their programs. although writing a diary of placement activities was routine, requiring reflective tracking was very uncommon in 2013. although workplace learning is clearly valuable and valued, it is not feasible to find or provide good quality 12 week industry placements to all engineering students. the study findings indicate that a well-designed combination of in-curriculum and extra-curricular activities can deliver good exposure to practice. the trialled non-placement initiatives described above provide examples of within-curriculum methods (male & king, 2014b). the data also indicate where improvements can be made. for example, most students experienced the sixth rated item in the survey, ‘hearing or reading about another student’s workplace experience’, informally. given the wide range of placements experienced by a cohort of students, this activity could be usefully formalised and enhanced to encourage and deepen students’ skills of reflection, while assisting them to understand the variety and breadth of engineering practice. guidelines for effective industry engagement from these findings, guidelines (male & king, 2014a) were developed to assist the three key stakeholder groups – the faculties, industry, and government/professional bodies to achieve stronger and more reliable graduate outcomes. the underlying educational model as expressed in figure 1, and in the preamble to the guidelines, is elaborated in two themes: (1) curriculum design and delivery incorporate the spectrum of local and global engineering practice, and (2) engineering education incorporates the students’ whole experience. each of these themes is further elaborated in terms of the engagement of academics and students in the design and delivery of the curriculum. we emphasise the active participation of the students in their development from ‘student engineers’ to becoming competent, motivated, professional graduates and assert the development of their identities and self-efficacy through gaining confidence in the development of their knowledge and skills. this in turn requires an understanding of and confidence in achieving possible future roles, that exposure to practice can convey. male, s.a., & king, r. (2019). enhancing learning outcomes from industry engagement in australian engineering education. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 10(1), 101–117. 112 the guidelines take the form of recommendations, as in table 2. their emphasis is directed towards the faculties, because they are ultimately responsible for leading and implementing improved educational practices (table 4). aced has adopted them as a basis for improvement. each recommendation has an explanatory paragraph, and examples and links to current examples of effective practice. in total, 36 models and examples of effective practice are referenced. table 4: summary of guideline recommendations (male & king, 2014a) recommendations to faculties an engaged faculty will: f1 establish and maintain effective industry engagement as part of faculty culture, with (a) people, processes, and resources to ensure strong relationships with industry; (b) structural and developmental support for academics to engage with industry; (c) employment of engineers with industry experience to facilitate students’ learning; (d) structured and transparent industry consultation. f2 use industry-based assignments in engineering degree programs. f3 provide student engineers with substantial opportunities to work and learn in industry. f4 provide most students with opportunities to undertake industry-based final year (capstone) projects. f5 develop emulated work-integrated learning, as an example of effective industry engagement. f6 encourage students to take responsibility for seeking opportunities in engineering practice. f7 support and recognise industry engagement undertaken by student groups. recommendations for industry establishing and maintaining principles of mutual benefit is paramount. employing organisations should: i1 provide regular and structured student engineer employment. i2 provide support for their engineers to engage with engineering education. i3 provide support for academics to experience industry. recommendations for professional and industry peak bodies, and governments recognising the facilitative role of such bodies: b1 professional and industry peak bodies, universities, student societies, and the australasian association for engineering education, should consider jointly establishing a resource centre to support students’ industry engagement. b2 governments, professional and industry peak bodies, and engineering faculties should consider establishing joint national or state based internship schemes. b3 engineers australia should consider developing an e-portfolio resource for student engineers. b4 industry peak bodies should foster a culture of industry engagement with education. b5 government should consider incentives for employers to support industry engagement in engineering education. b6 engineers australia’s program accreditation criteria and guidelines on exposure to engineering practice should be reviewed to reflect changing employment conditions and other factors. recent changes and new approaches in the four years since these baseline data were collected there has been increasing national attention on employability, and the quality and quantity of work integrated learning. in 2015 the higher education and business peak bodies announced a national wil strategy (universities australia et al., 2015) for all undergraduate degrees. the quality assurance agency has subsequently produced a guidance note (australian government tertiary education quality and standards agency, 2017) that incorporated experience from the aced community, but also challenges the ‘unsupervised’ model of industry placement that has been typical of engineering for many decades. male, s.a., & king, r. (2019). enhancing learning outcomes from industry engagement in australian engineering education. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 10(1), 101–117. 113 the aced community, through its network of associate deans of learning and teaching, has worked with officers of the ea accreditation centre to update its accreditation criterion and guidance on exposure to practice, renamed as ‘engagement with professional practice’. the change of focus from ‘exposure’ to ‘engagement’ is indicative of the importance that the engineering education and professional community sees for this dimension of the engineering qualification. the changes are outlined below. in addition, several faculties have made the traditional form of industry placement optional, and have improved the quality and quantity of non-placement engagement with practice, to ensure compliance with the accreditation requirements, and improve the quality of the curriculum. examples are outlined. ea accreditation changes: engagement with professional practice in support of the engineering education model depicted in figure 1, the revised ea accreditation criterion and guideline (engineers australia accreditation centre, 2019) emphasises that the purpose of epp is to initiate the development of sound engineering judgement and decision-making that conform to ea’s code of ethics, and to embed good work practices and methods that the student will carry beyond their degree program. the revised guideline emphasised that students should learn (experientially) about systems for engineering work management, professional engineering communications, professional behaviour with workmates and clients, the constraints of commerce, and ideally, the disturbances that occur in the professional environment. all of these are very different from the education environment. ea continues to recommend that students have opportunities to undertake formal work placements, and has developed a supporting website and other means to assist students to locate suitable employers. the revised accreditation guideline recommends, however, that ‘formal work placements’ (where implemented) are documented with appropriate intended learning outcomes. most importantly, the revised accreditation guideline expects that graduate capabilities related to professional practice are developed throughout the whole degree program. to support that end, the guideline includes an updated and refined list of activities and methodologies, listed in table 5, to replace those in table 1. through adoption of a good balance of these, all students will have a stronger engagement with professional practice. furthermore, ea specifies that the faculty should adopt systems, such as e-portfolios, for students to record and track their development of their capabilities. table 5: engineers australia’s revised list of methodologies and activities for students’ engagement with professional practice (engineers australia accreditation centre, 2019) systematic contact with practicing professionals, for example, through on-going project reviews, mentoring, or professional society activities engineering information management, especially management of an engineering baseline direct industry input to authentic problem-solving, projects and evaluation tasks industry-based investigations and case studies, including final year projects industrial site visits that contribute to learning outcomes inclusion of staff with industry experience in curriculum delivery guest lectures by industry practitioners application of industry standards, codes, practices and methods structured interviews of engineering professionals male, s.a., & king, r. (2019). enhancing learning outcomes from industry engagement in australian engineering education. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 10(1), 101–117. 114 new approaches to in-curriculum engagement with practice a team is developing and trialling non-placement learning modules in which engineering students engage with workplaces, authentic processes, and/or practitioners using electronic means (male, hargreaves, & pointing, 2017). learning activities include:  electronic interviews of and with engineers;  communications and self-management exercises in authentic engineering scenarios in simulated workplaces and reflection on them electronically with engineers;  authentic safety in design, tendering, or maintenance exercises using a virtual site or virtual reality. elements of the modules have been tested with up to 25 students. a module in which students use an authentic meeting-based process for identifying, analysing and remediating hazards was successfully used with 280 students in two capstone design units (male et al., 2018). many universities have established preparation for placements (jollands, boles, & peterson, 2017), introduced optional credit-bearing placement units, structured non-credit-bearing work integrated learning in all years of the curriculum (kadi & lowe, 2018), and embedded nonplacement work integrated learning across the curriculum. some universities are using agencies to assist students with finding placements and are providing pre-placement training. conclusion the workplace-based means by which engineering students have traditionally been exposed to engineering practice have been increasingly difficult to sustain and deliver due principally to changes in the engineering industry sector and the increasing numbers of engineering students. providing in-curriculum exposure to engineering practice has also been challenged by employing fewer engineering academics with engineering experience outside research. the collaborative study reported here was completed four years ago. it provided evidence of the views of industry and graduating year students on their exposure to practice. industry values having access to students and universities, though may find engagement difficult. students rated the activities and methodologies which aim to convey understanding of engineering practice, roughly in proportion to their authenticity. they rated extended industry placements most highly, but often sought more diversity of experience than one placement can provide. the study revealed that there were many effective, but underutilised, in-curriculum approaches that could be used to improve the exposure of all students to practice throughout their engineering programs. working with industry members, educators could extend practice to the classroom through projects, simulations, case studies, and electronic connection to practicing engineers, bringing people with experience into units in meaningful ways. extracurricular engineering activities, such as those run by student societies, could be better supported. students should also be supported to reflect on and track their learning throughout their programs. taking the theoretically-based perspective that stronger engineering capabilities would be developed by embedding them throughout the curriculum, while the students develop their self-identity and self-efficacy with their chosen field, the study developed guidelines for good practice and recommendations for the engineering faculties, industry partners and external bodies, for improving engagement with practice. many of these recommendations and improvements are now being adopted, often collaboratively. the external accreditation body, engineers australia has revised its criterion and guideline on engagement with professional practice. this will assist providers to improve their delivery of quality engineering education and of graduates who have the capabilities required by contemporary employers. australian universities, in turn, are revising their male, s.a., & king, r. (2019). enhancing learning outcomes from industry engagement in australian engineering education. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 10(1), 101–117. 115 approaches to engineering practice in their own program revisions and new engineering degree proposal. acknowledgements this work was supported by australian government department of industry, workplace innovation program by a grant awarded to the australian council of engineering deans. the authors gratefully acknowledge the volunteer participants; the project work and other contributions by representatives of the partner universities: australian maritime college (university of tasmania), curtin university, deakin university, james cook university, swinburne university of technology, rmit university, the university of melbourne, the university of western australia, queensland university of technology, university of south australia, university of southern queensland, the university of sydney, university of technology sydney; and members of the reference group: tara diamond, australian mines and metals association; peter hoffmann, engineers australia accreditation centre; lindsay le compte, australian constructors association; gavin lind, minerals tertiary education council; stuart payne, worleyparsons; jonathan russell, consult australia; roma sharp, the australian petroleum production & exploration association; and alex sparvell, engineers australia. male, s.a., & king, r. 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(2015). national strategy on work integrated learning in university education. retrieved from http://cdn1.acen.edu.au/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/national-wil-strategy-in-universityeducation-032015.pdf fenta, h., asnakew, z.s., debele, p.k., nigatu, s.t, & muhaba, a.m. (2019). analysis of supply side factors influencing employability of new graduates: a tracer study of bahir dar university graduates. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 10(2), 67–85. 67 the journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability issn: 1838-3815 (online) journal homepage: https://ojs.deakin.edu.au/index.php/jtlge/ analysis of supply side factors influencing employability of new graduates: a tracer study of bahir dar university graduates haile mekonnen fenta1, zeleke siraye asnakew2, petros kibebew debele3, sifelig taye nigatu4 and aragaw mulu muhaba5 corresponding author: haile mekonnenfenta (hailemekonnen@gmail.com) 1college of science, bahir dar university, ethiopia 2college of business and economics, bahir dar university, ethiopia 3 bahir dar institute of technology, bahir dar university, ethiopia 4college of education and behavioral sciences, bahir dar university, ethiopia 5faculty of mechanical and industrial engineering, bahir dar university, ethiopia abstract the purpose of this study was to determine the job placement profiles of the graduates of bahir dar university and the relevance of school-related factors to job placement. the study was conducted at bahir dar university with participants who were first-degree graduates from the 2015 and 2016 cohorts. stratified multistage random sampling was used to select respondents. out of 4208 graduates, 867 graduates were selected to participate in the study. to determine the potential factors for graduate employability in the labour market, both descriptive and inferential statistics were applied. results revealed that 79% percent of surveyed graduates were gainfully employed, with the majority (93%) having their first job related to their completed course. the time taken to find employment was from 1 to 6 months and the overall average duration of unemployment was 5.08 months. sixty five percent of graduates reported that they used a public advertisement to find their first job and 58% reported that their employers used examinations to select potential candidates. a 12% variation in employability was explained by cgpa, preferred field of study, the number of companies contacted and time management skills of graduates. moreover, graduates’ transitional employability has a positive association with cumulative gpa, preferred field of study, and internship practice. it is recommended that sustainable employment of graduates can be secured if the university improves its current curriculum to incorporate more employability skills demanded by the labour market. keywords: employability rate, degreerelevant employment, unemployment duration, job search introduction the problem of graduate unemployment has continued to increase globally and remained extremely high in developing countries despite the concerted efforts by the national and international development agencies to reduce the level of unemployment(galal, 2007; ismail, 2011; nikusekela & pallangyo, 2016; okojie, 2003; simpsons, 2011). particularly in sub-saharan african economies, https://ojs.deakin.edu.au/index.php/jtlge/ mailto:hailemekonnen@gmail.com fenta, h., asnakew, z.s., debele, p.k., nigatu, s.t, & muhaba, a.m. (2019). analysis of supply side factors influencing employability of new graduates: a tracer study of bahir dar university graduates. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 10(2), 67–85. 68 unemployment has maintained a rising trend over the past years and has been recognised as one of the greatest challenges of the region (bello, 2003). most of the higher education new graduates in the subsaharan region have been struggling to secure jobs by either self-employment or gaining employment in government or private organizations. in ethiopia, higher education enrolment increased from around 34,000 in 2000 to almost 900,000 in 2018 (ethiopian ministry of science and higher education, 2018). although the level of enrolment in ethiopia has been accelerating, the labour market can only absorb a limited number of graduates and thereby thousands of young higher education graduates are remaining unemployed (semela, 2011). graduate employability, as defined by coetzee and schreuder (2011) is an individual’s capacity and willingness to become and remain attractive in the labour market (p.77). it is becoming a major concern for governments, development-oriented organisations and higher learning institutions both in developed and developing countries including ethiopia. while the significance of higher education is assessed on its ability to open ways to the graduates for future business and the foundation of their reasonable vocation, the current trend of higher education is not in line with these requirements (broussard, nzinga& tekleselassie, 2012). the major driver of employability is the quality of graduates that a university produces usually recognised in terms of skills and abilities to perform a given task competently. one of the primary objectives of higher education foundation is that graduates may persistently adjust to the necessities of an exceedingly changing labour market. it is imperative for universities to ensure that the skills and competences gained by graduates during their studies fit into the society's labour market demand which looks for qualified employees (altbach, reisberg, & rumbley, 2009; rojas, teresita,& rojas, 2016). it is widely recognized that employment opportunities decrease as the number of graduates increases and that periods of searching for jobs are becoming longer (mugabushaka, schomburg, & teichler, 2007). understanding the employment characteristics and the underlying factors that influence undergraduate students’ successful transition into the labour market is critical, both to reduce the proportion of new graduates who are overqualified for their jobs, and to ensure that employers can recruit graduates who have the skills their organisations need to succeed in the knowledge-based economy (finch, hamilton, baldwin, & zehner, 2013). this study was designed to better understand the employability characteristics and underlying supplyside factors that affect the employability of bachelor degree graduates through a tracer study. more specifically, it sought to determine the job placement profiles of the graduates and the relevance of school-related factors to job placement. it also aimed to identify work-related skills that contribute to meeting the demands of the present job. the prevalence of unemployment and associated factors in ethiopia is not well identified and most of the graduates from higher education take extra time to secure jobs. literature review it is recognised that graduates’ employability is affected by their own particular skills and education (dacre pool & sewell, 2007) as well as by many other factors related to the economic setting and supply side (fox & morrison, 2010; mugabushaka et al., 2011). previous empirical studies revealed that employability factors can be viewed from two levels of skills: field specific skills and soft skills (bhaerman & spill, 1988; finch et al., 2013). the first level of skills is related to specific employability factors including field-specific skills such as listening skills, writing skills, and academic performance usually measured by cumulative grade point average (cgpa). more specifically, under this category, scholars have incorporated basic education skills such as skills of communication, analysis, reasoning and job-specific skills such as entry-level or advanced functional skills of a specific field. effective communication is the lubricant that allows fenta, h., asnakew, z.s., debele, p.k., nigatu, s.t, & muhaba, a.m. (2019). analysis of supply side factors influencing employability of new graduates: a tracer study of bahir dar university graduates. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 10(2), 67–85. 69 organisations to operate smoothly and the payoff for effective communication is that managers and employees who develop strong communication skills are usually strong performers on their job (woods & king, 2002). employers are therefore looking for employees who are good communicators (honaker, 2005). communication skills are thus prominently among the top of the list of qualities employers seek for entry-level jobs including executive and blue-collar positions (mckay, 2005; woods & king, 2002). harvey et al. (1997) also showed that employers want graduates with relevant subject-specific skills, knowledge, and understanding, including job-specific competencies or job-specific technical skills (harveyet al., 1997; rosenberg, heimler, & morote, 2012). these skills are found to be essential when considering an individual’s employability (laker & powell, 2011; redish & smith, 2008). generally speaking, these skills send a signal to employers that a new graduate has mastered the specific proficiencies needed to perform highly on a particular job (bhaerman & spill, 1988). it is important to note that job-specific functional skills are more context-specific than soft-skills, which we define shortly. another factor used to measure graduates’ subject understanding in the selection process for entrylevel employment is the graduate’s academic performance usually measured in terms of the cgpa earned from the university. since the number of job-seekers is usually much higher than the number of vacancies, recruiters often use marks or academic grades or the cumulative grade point aggregate as an elimination criterion when short-listing suitable candidates (dhar, 2012). therefore, we assume that cgpa is one of the factors affecting entry-level employment. the second level of factors for employability is recognized as soft-skills or transferable or generic skills (finch et al., 2013; siraye, abebe, melese, & wale, 2018). according to finch et al. (2012), this higherorder category recognised as ‘meta-skills’ includes specific employability factors such as listening, professionalism, interpersonal skills, time management, and team work skills. several empirical studies on graduate employability have shown that these and similar soft-skills are the employability skills most desired by employers in the workplace(billing, 2003; bridgstock, 2009; heckman & kautz, 2012; robinson, garton, & vaughn, 2007). more recently both educational researchers and employers have given due attention to the importance of soft-skills for employability (andrews & higson, 2008; hogan, chamorro-premuzic, & kaiser, 2013; omar, manaf, mohd, kassim, & aziz, 2012). while disciplinespecific knowledge is typically content-specific, soft-skills are recognised to be non-academic skills that are presumed to be useful in a range of working environments and transferrable from one job to another job (chamorro‐premuzic, arteche, bremner, greven, & furnham, 2010). evidence suggests that soft skills are an important predictor of employability (finch et al., 2013; lievens & sackett, 2012; nickson, warhurst, commander, hurrell, & cullen, 2012; rynes, orlitzky, & bretz jr, 1997). similarly, professionalism has been identified as contributing to employability (ashton, 2011; mat & zabidi, 2010). lastly, scholars have identified interpersonal skills such as the ability to work effectively in teams as an important employability factor (finch et al., 2013; standing & chowdhury, 2008; wellman, 2010). in the modern workplace, teams are fundamental to the success of initiatives, projects, strategies and routine assignments (dunne & rawlins, 2000). it has long been contended that teams are synergistic in nature. the collective benefits and accomplishments of the team are greater than would be the results of individuals’ independent actions (dufrene & lehman, 2015). other researchers have also indicated that other factors like graduates’ pre-job training or internship experience and institutional reputation significantly affect graduates employability. for example, the relationship between pre-graduate experience and employability has been studied extensively (callanan & benzing, 2004; finch et al., 2013; gabris & mitchell, 1989; gault, leach, & duey, 2010; helyer & lee, 2014). pre-graduate work experience may include in-programme experiential learning opportunities like internships or a more informal career-related work experience such as part-time or summer employment. one of the key objectives of an internship is to ensure a smooth transition from student life to the workplace (coco, 2000). scholars claimed that students’ participation in internship programs provide them the opportunity to test their abilities, beliefs, and attitudes pertaining to specific work tasks or career pathways (miller, 1990).similarly it allows the students to close the gap between theories and practices (zopiatis, 2007).thus it follows that university graduates who have fenta, h., asnakew, z.s., debele, p.k., nigatu, s.t, & muhaba, a.m. (2019). analysis of supply side factors influencing employability of new graduates: a tracer study of bahir dar university graduates. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 10(2), 67–85. 70 participated in internship programs prior to the job are more likely to get their transitional employment easily as compared with students who have not completed internships (divine, linrud, miller, & wilson, 2007). finally, some scholars have also indicated that the institution’s academic reputation has a significant impact on a variety of outcomes of interest to employers, policymakers, and academics alike. for instance, researchers have examined how student retention and perceptions are affected by institutional ranking, branding and programme structure which are indicators of reputation (bennett & ali-choudhury, 2009; judson, aurand, gorchels, & gordon, 2008; pampaloni, 2010; sauer & o'donnell, 2006). it is fair to say, however, that comparatively few studies have explored the relationship between the academic reputation of the institution and the graduate’s employability. in summary, it is plausible to assume that successful transition from education to work is influenced by a complex combination of factors including subject specific knowledge, academic performance in general (cumulative grade point average), their soft, transferable or generic skills, and involvement in internship programs prior to graduation. the reputation of the institution may also play a role. and preferred field of study and preferred university (university reputation) have an influence on the employment process. while the scholarship associated with these factors has come from various parts of the world, there is less clarity about the situation in ethiopia. to date there have been very few such studies, a remarkable exception is the study by siraye, abebe, melese and wale (2018) who studied the employability status of business and economics graduates and found out that problem solving skills, information technology skills, adapting to change and risk taking skills were the skills most demanded by employers. hence, in order to help higher education institutions to produce employable graduates, it becomes necessary to examine supply side factors that influence employability of graduates. aim of the study this study is primarily designed to understand the employability characteristics of bachelor’s degree graduates from bahir dar university ethiopia, through a tracer study. specifically, it sought to determine the job placement profile of the graduates and the relevance of school related factors to job placement. research questions we believe that the following research questions need to be addressed in order to empirically investigate the problem. with regard to bachelor degree graduates from bahir dar university in ethiopia:  what are the significant factors affecting their employability?  what is the time between graduation and first graduate employment?  what is the influence of academic grades on employment on employment?  what is the fit between the first employment and the course completed by the graduate? methods and source of population a cross sectional design was used to determine the employment rate of graduates of bahir dar university. the target population of the study consists of two consecutive graduates’ cohorts who had completed their undergraduate or bachelor’s degree in 2015 and 2016 in regular programs. the sampling frame or lists of graduates in 2015 and 2016 was accessed from bahir dar university student information management system (sims) database with the consent of the directorate (see the authorization letter in appendix a). the data were consisted of students’ biographic information and contact address. the total number of graduates during these two years were found to be 4208 (1899 for 2015 and 2309 for 2016) and 867 graduates were selected using the sampling technique suggested by fenta, h., asnakew, z.s., debele, p.k., nigatu, s.t, & muhaba, a.m. (2019). analysis of supply side factors influencing employability of new graduates: a tracer study of bahir dar university graduates. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 10(2), 67–85. 71 (cochran, 1977). the sampled graduates were allocated by a multistage stratified random sampling technique to each department and thus each department in the university were proportionally represented. a questionnaire was used as the main instrument for data collection. the questionnaire was taken from ethiopian ministry of education prepared nationally for all ethiopian universities to conduct tracer studies and slightly modified to this specific study (appendix b). prior to actual data collection, the sampled graduates were contacted by telephone to determine their actual location (region, city and organization in which they work) and to get their consent to participate in the survey. to assist with data collection, a total of 45 faculty members (one from each department) were assigned to carry out the entire data collection supervised by the five members of the research team. the university faculty members were purposely selected as data collectors, rather than outsourcing and hiring data collectors since we believe that our university instructors are much more responsible for collecting reliable data from the field. these faculty members were selected on the recommendation of their respective department heads. finally, graduates were clustered by all geographical regions of ethiopia by supervisors and the 45 faculty members were assigned by considering the distance and number of graduates to collect the necessary information from graduates. we assured the quality of the data by cross-checking graduates who responded to questionnaires using telephone calls by the supervisors during and after the data collection. for example, a sample of five graduates assigned for each faculty members were contacted again through phone calls by supervisors to cross-check their responses. through this process, a total of 715 questionnaires were successfully returned, providing a response rate of 82.5%. of the returned questionnaire responses, 100% of the data were usable. the information deriving from the questionnaires was entered into excel sheets and subsequently transferred into the statistical package for the social sciences (spss vs 21). data analysis the data were analyzed using the statistical package for the social science (spss) and descriptive statistics with chi-square tests were used to test the association between the dependent variable and independent variables. multi-covariate logistic regression modelling was undertaken by entering all variables with 𝑃-value ≤ 0.25 in the bivariate analysis. finally, logistic regression with a forward likelihood selection method with 𝑃-value < 0.05 was undertaken to see the net effects of predictor variables over the current employment status of graduates. results the total population of the study was 4208 graduates (1899 for 2015 and 2309 for 2016) and using the sample size technique stated in the methodology section, a total of 867 graduates were selected as a sample of the study. seven hundred and fifteen (715) questionnaires were returned from this sample of graduates, yielding a response rate of 82.5%. of the returned questionnaire responses, 100% of the data were found to be usable. the result of the study shows the percentage of unemployment and employment of graduates for two consecutive years during the discrete unemployment duration and it was found that almost 80% of graduates obtained their first job within two years and among them 73% were found to be employed professionally. out of these employed within two years, 93% have had degree-relevant employment (related to the course completed), whereas only 7% were employed in jobs not related to their course. however, more than 20% of graduates were still searching for jobs. particularly, the prevalence of the employment status of graduates within a year was 70%. most of the employment occurredbetween1 to 6 months after graduation and the average duration of unemployment in this study was 5.08 months. in addition, the results of the study indicated the prevalence of employment within a discrete time interval after graduation. in terms of the length of time spent job searching, it can be noted that the majority, i.e. 306 (42.7%), of the employed fenta, h., asnakew, z.s., debele, p.k., nigatu, s.t, & muhaba, a.m. (2019). analysis of supply side factors influencing employability of new graduates: a tracer study of bahir dar university graduates. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 10(2), 67–85. 72 respondents obtained their first jobs within 2-6 months, followed by a period of less than one month for 146 (20.4%). on the other hand, 8.7% of graduates found their first jobs in a span of 7–11 months and the other 80% of them took 1 to 2 years for job-hunting (see table 1). table 1: frequency distribution of graduate employment status with discrete time intervals unemploymen t spell (months) employment (n) unemployment (n) employment (%) cumulative employment (%) average duration 0 0 715 0 0 5.08 1 146 569 0.204 0.204 2 3 566 0.004 0.208 3 105 461 0.147 0.355 4 1 460 0.001 0.357 5 64 396 0.090 0.446 6 1 395 0.001 0.448 7 44 351 0.062 0.509 8 1 350 0.001 0.510 9 37 313 0.052 0.562 10 61 252 0.085 0.648 11 23 229 0.032 0.680 12 18 211 0.025 0.705 13 4 207 0.006 0.710 14 13 194 0.018 0.729 15 4 190 0.006 0.734 16 21 169 0.029 0.764 17 3 166 0.004 0.768 18 3 163 0.004 0.772 19 2 161 0.003 0.775 20 4 157 0.006 0.780 20 3 154 0.004 0.785 21 7 147 0.010 0.794 22 2 145 0.003 0.797 23 1 144 0.001 0.799 24 1 143 0.001 0.800 total 591 142 variables category n % present employment status  professionally employed 522 73  self-employed 49 6.9  unemployed 144 20.1 types of job  related to the course completed 522 93  unrelated to the course completed 39 7 length of job search  <= one month 146 20.4  2 to 6 months 306 42.7  7 to 11 months 62 8.7  1 year to 2 years 58 8.1 fenta, h., asnakew, z.s., debele, p.k., nigatu, s.t, & muhaba, a.m. (2019). analysis of supply side factors influencing employability of new graduates: a tracer study of bahir dar university graduates. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 10(2), 67–85. 73  unemployed 144 20.1 preferred work place  yes 627 87.7  no 88 12.3 the survey also looked at the methods that the university graduates used to acquire their first jobs. eleven different mechanisms were used by graduates to secure their first jobs. the findings showed that the majority of graduates had a limited access to job information. sixty-five percent of the respondents had used a public advertisement to find their first jobs, 29% had directly contacted employers and 26% got their job through relations with employers. among all mechanisms, public advertisement (33.6%) is the most important one for graduates to secure their first jobs (table 2) table 2: comparison of job searching methods used by the graduates multiple response variables job searching mechanisms job searching mechanisms number percentage (%) percentage of cases public advertisement 443 33.6 64.4 contacting companies directly 200 15.2 29.1 i checked through the internet 184 14.0 26.7 i was contacted by the company 143 10.9 20.8 i contacted a commercial working agency 62 4.7 9.0 relations (e.g. parents, relatives, friends) 177 13.4 25.7 i established my own business 72 5.5 10.5 others 36 2.7 5.2 total 1317 100 191.4 criteria the employers used to select candidates competition with cgpa 376 24.4 53.9 competition with examination 404 26.2 57.9 competition with written examination 399 25.9 57.2 competition with practical test 217 14.1 31.1 other 145 9.4 20.8 total 100 220.9 around one-third (31.3%) of graduates were females and almost half (48.8%) of the graduates were from the amhara region. most of the graduates (57.3%) were contacted at most three employers to secure their first job and the majority of the sample graduates (59%) had an internship and, further, this internship was mostly used for personal development, followed by the development of entrepreneurial skills. with regard to the educational status of the graduates’ parents, the majority of the parents were not educated, although the educational level of their fathers was better than that of their mothers. the result also shows that males and females have an almost similar employment rate and, relatively speaking, graduates belonging to tigray and southern nations and nationalities regions have better opportunities for securing their jobs,while those in the oromia region have the least. graduates who were enrolled at bahir dar university in their preferred fields of study and with good time management skills have better opportunities to secure their jobs. almost 88% of the respondents were working in the place where they preferred. any variable, whose univariate test (chi-square test of association) with a p-value < 0.25 should be considered as a candidate for inclusion in the multivariable logistic regression analysis to identify the potential factors responsible for the employment status of graduates (mickey & greenland, 1989). fenta, h., asnakew, z.s., debele, p.k., nigatu, s.t, & muhaba, a.m. (2019). analysis of supply side factors influencing employability of new graduates: a tracer study of bahir dar university graduates. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 10(2), 67–85. 74 the results of the study show that variables such as age, cgpa, internship, father’s education, interpersonal skills, time management skills and the like were taken as potential candidates for the multivariable logistic regression analysis (table 3). table 3: socio-demographic characteristics of employees variables status of employment n (%) total n (%) p-value no yes gender male 98(20) 393(80) 491(68.7) 0.859 female 46 (20.5) 178(79.5) 224(31.3) region tigray 5(16.1) 26(83.9) 31(4.3) 0.28 addis ababa 16(16.5) 81(83.5) 97(13.6) amhara 76(21.8) 273(78.2) 349(48.8) oromia 26(25.7) 75(74.3) 101(14.1) snnp 9(12.7) 62(87.3) 71(9.9) others 12(18.2) 54(81.8) 66(9.2) preferred field of study yes 99(18.1) 447(81.9) 546(76.4) 0.016 no 45(26.6) 124(73.4) 169(23.6) preferred university yes 130(19.8) 527(80.2) 657(91.9) 0.428 no 14(24.1) 44(75.9) 58(8.1) father education not educated 66(22.0) 234(78.0) 300(42.0) 0.096 primary school 19(13.6) 121(86.4) 140(19.6) secondary school and above 59(21.5) 216(78.5) 275(38.5) mother education not educated 79(21) 298(79.0) 377(52.7) 0.776 primary school 23(20.5) 89(79.5) 112(15.7) secondary school and above 42(18.6) 184(81.4) 226(31.6) internship yes 50(22.5) 172(77.5) 493(69.0) 0.25 no 94(19.1) 399(80.9) 222(31.0) no. of companies contacted <=3 64(14.2) 387(85.8) 451(63.1) 0<0.001 >3 80(30.3) 184(69.7) 264(36.9) prefer region to work yes 127(20.2) 501(79.8) 87(12.2) 0.882 no 17(19.5) 70(80.5) 628(87.8) computer and internet skills low 15(18.1) 68(81.9) 83(11.6) 0.541 little bit 53(22.5) 183(77.5) 236(33.0) high 76(19.2) 320(80.8) 396(55.4) interpersonal skills low 12(22.2) 42(77.8) 54(7.6) 0.13 little bit 42(25.3) 124(74.7) 166(23.2) high 90(18.2) 405(81.8) 495(69.2) communication skills low 8(29.6) 19(70.4) 27(3.8) 0.23 little bit 48(22.4) 166(77.6) 214(29.9) high 88(18.6) 386(81.4) 474(66.3) time management skills low 12(22.6) 41(77.4) 53(7.4) 0.014 little bit 48(6.7) 127(72.6) 175(24.5) high 144(11.7) 403(82.8) 487(68.1) teamwork ability low 5(14.7) 29(85.3) 34(4.8) 0.252 little bit 38(24.5) 117(75.5) 155(21.7) high 101(19.2) 425(80.8) 526(73.6) preferred work place yes 127(20.1) 501(79.8) 628(87.8) 0.882 no 17(2.4) 70(9.8) 87(12.2) fenta, h., asnakew, z.s., debele, p.k., nigatu, s.t, & muhaba, a.m. (2019). analysis of supply side factors influencing employability of new graduates: a tracer study of bahir dar university graduates. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 10(2), 67–85. 75 binary logistic regression was carried out to identify the effects of candidate variables (p-value<0.25) on the employability status of graduates from higher learning institutions. after adjusting other independent variables, the cgpa of the graduates had significantly affected the employment status. the odds of employment for graduates who studied their preferred fields was 62% more likely than that of graduates who did not study their preferred fields. moreover, contacting a number of companies affects the employment status of graduates, so that the odds of employment status for those graduates who contacted less than three companies was 1.42 times less than that of those graduates who contacted more than 3 companies. the communication skills of graduates were directly related to the employment status, more specifically; graduates with low communication skills were 60% less likely to be employed than graduates with a high level of communication skills. the results showed that employability for graduates has a positive association with cgpa, preferred fields of study and internship practice (even if it is insignificant). time management skills of graduates was significant at p<0.05 and had a positive relationship with the employability of graduates with goodtime management skills having had a better chance for employment. however, the interpersonal skills of graduates was insignificant at p<0.05, although it did have a positive relationship (with a high level extent of skills as reference) to the employability of graduates demonstrating teamwork ability. the nagelkerke correlation coefficient (r2) value of about 12% of the variation of employability is explained by the above mentioned statistically significant variables (table 4). table 4: logistic analysis results with employability as the dependent variable variables categories coefficient standard error wald sig. exp(b) age 0.015 0.035 0.193 0.661 1.02 cgpa 0.640 0.276 5.30 0.02* 1.90 preferred field yes (1) 0.481 0.243 3.92 0.048* 1.62 preferred university yes (1) -0.033 0.393 0.01 0.934 0.968 father’s education not educated (1) 0.769 0.351 4.80 0.028* 2.16 primary school(2) -0.06 0.242 0.06 0.808 0.94 internship yes (1) 0.35 0.225 2.25 0.133 1.42 no. of companies contacted <=3 (1) -0.895 0.223 16.11 <0.001** 0.408 interpersonal skills low (1) -0.079 0.491 0.026 0.873 0.924 little bit(2) -0.425 0.280 2.31 0.128 0.654 communication skills low (1) -0.921 0.656 1.97 0.161 0.398 little bit(2) 0.277 0.275 1.02 0.314 1.320s time management skills low (1) -0.619 0.302 4.193 0.041* 0.822 little bit(2) -0.196 0.542 0.130 0.718 0.539 teamwork ability low (1) 1.113 0.734 2.23 0.130 3.04 little bit(2) 0.239 0.323 0.550 0.458 1.27 nagelkerke r square 0.118 discussion this study showed that graduates’ employment status was 79% and the average length of job searching was 5.08 months. the model implies that graduate employability is a function of cumulative gpa, preferred field of study, father’s education, number of companies he/she had contacted and his/her time management skills in the workplace. the findings of the study are almost similar to the reports by (aquino et al., 2015; guarcello & rosati, 2007; lim, 2011) who specifically investigated the labour market outcomes of young people, key factors influencing employment as well as the length of job search. however, the result of employment status in this study was remarkably different from that of other studies (bewket, 2013; tirussew, alemayehu, fantahun, sewalem, & yirgashewa, 2013), though this difference might result from the differences in the study areas and years of graduation. in this study, there is no relationship between gender and employment status of graduates, and hence this study is in line with a study carried out in china (kong & jiang, 2011), but it contradicted a study fenta, h., asnakew, z.s., debele, p.k., nigatu, s.t, & muhaba, a.m. (2019). analysis of supply side factors influencing employability of new graduates: a tracer study of bahir dar university graduates. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 10(2), 67–85. 76 done in norway which showed that female graduates are more likely to enter the labour market ahead of males (kong, 2013), while in tanzania males are more likely to be employed first (nikusekela & pallangyo, 2016). the result of the study indicated that graduates are predominantly using public advertisement as job-searching method, followed by interpersonal relationship (the help of friends and family) as a major way to search for jobs. this is in line with the results of the study conducted by (bankole, bankole, & brown, 2011) where university graduates have eventually succeeded, in the family or personal connections and in announcements published in newspapers, coming mainly from the private sector. the results also revealed that the majority of graduates were professionally employed, while only a small number of them were self-employed. concerning the length of time in getting transitional employment, the results showed that only a small number of graduates secure their first jobs within one year, while it takes between 1-2 years for the majority of graduates. recommendations and policy implications for the successful transition of graduates to the labour market, universities for their part need to design and implement their programs and curricula in line with the skills discussed in the previous sections of this study. the study showed that apprenticeships and employment status are positively related so that the university in the collaboration with government should encourage each program to have the internship in each department and the university should work to strengthen the communication skills of the graduates. limitations one of the factors responsible for the difficulty in finding employment may be the mismatch between the skills acquired by graduates during while at university and the skills demanded by the industries. this study lacks specific attention to this problem and a future tracer study will focus on these important points. future research implications further study is needed to identify the major challenges of unemployment such as lack of the university-industry linkage at the country level and the discrepancy between the acquisition and utilization of skills. conclusion this study provides an important policy implication for higher education institutions. more, specifically, we confirmed that graduates’ transition from higher education to work is a multidimensional phenomenon which is affected by several parameters including age, cumulative grade point average, and other generic skills (interpersonal skills, communication skills, time management skills, teamwork ability, and internship engagement). we found a statistically significant correlation between all these factors and employability of graduates. ethics approval and consent to participate this study was conducted according to the principles mentioned and expressed in the declaration of bahir dar university, ethiopia. it is approved by the student information system directorate office of the university. participants were made aware in the consent form that the results of the study would be published but that no data would be presented to allow the identification of individuals. competing interests the authors declare that they have no conflict of interests. fenta, h., asnakew, z.s., debele, p.k., nigatu, s.t, & muhaba, a.m. (2019). analysis of supply side factors influencing employability of new graduates: a tracer study of bahir dar university graduates. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 10(2), 67–85. 77 references altbach, p. g., reisberg, l., & 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(2007). hospitality internships in cyprus: a genuine academic experience or a continuing frustration? international journal of contemporary hospitality management, 19(1), 65-77. appendix aletter of authorization to access students’ data fenta, h., asnakew, z.s., debele, p.k., nigatu, s.t, & muhaba, a.m. (2019). analysis of supply side factors influencing employability of new graduates: a tracer study of bahir dar university graduates. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 10(2), 67–85. 80 appendix bsample questionnaire fenta, h., asnakew, z.s., debele, p.k., nigatu, s.t, & muhaba, a.m. (2019). analysis of supply side factors influencing employability of new graduates: a tracer study of bahir dar university graduates. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 10(2), 67–85. 81 fenta, h., asnakew, z.s., debele, p.k., nigatu, s.t, & muhaba, a.m. (2019). analysis of supply side factors influencing employability of new graduates: a tracer study of bahir dar university graduates. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 10(2), 67–85. 82 fenta, h., asnakew, z.s., debele, p.k., nigatu, s.t, & muhaba, a.m. (2019). analysis of supply side factors influencing employability of new graduates: a tracer study of bahir dar university graduates. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 10(2), 67–85. 83 fenta, h., asnakew, z.s., debele, p.k., nigatu, s.t, & muhaba, a.m. (2019). analysis of supply side factors influencing employability of new graduates: a tracer study of bahir dar university graduates. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 10(2), 67–85. 84 fenta, h., asnakew, z.s., debele, p.k., nigatu, s.t, & muhaba, a.m. (2019). analysis of supply side factors influencing employability of new graduates: a tracer study of bahir dar university graduates. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 10(2), 67–85. 85 de blaquière , g.e., nolan, j.e., & wray, k. (2019). joining up the dots: telling the story of employability. how can students in higher education be supported to better understand and articulate their employability? journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 10(2), 15–35. 15 the journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability issn: 1838-3815 (online) journal homepage: https://ojs.deakin.edu.au/index.php/jtlge/ joining up the dots: telling the story of employability. how can students in higher education be supported to better understand and articulate their employability? gail de blaquière1, jane elizabeth nolan1 and katie wray1 corresponding author: jane nolan (jane.nolan@ncl.ac.uk) 1newcastle university, uk abstract employability is a complex, contested concept which has tended to be considered in terms of a dominant discourse of skills. this article argues that employability needs to be thought of more holistically, as ongoing, life-long, situated learning, whilst acknowledging that the contested language of skills and the need to demonstrate competency through examples is embedded in employers’ recruitment processes. therefore the ability to articulate what a graduate can offer to employers, framed in terms of skills and expressed in narratives which provide convincing examples, is important in establishing potential employability. research shows that undergraduate and postgraduate students can find this problematic. in addition, recent scholarship calls for research to create a theoretically informed understanding of why and how interventions aimed at enhancing employability are effective. the authors have researched a diverse range of interventions which have had a positive impact and which are based on the principles of enterprise education and experiential learning. their findings, based on qualitative and quantitative data collected from participants, suggest that experiential learning can be helpful in enabling students to more confidently articulate their employability by providing examples of skilful practices applied in context. it is unusual for undergraduate (ug) and post graduate (pg) student learning experiences to be considered within the same research project however, the correlation of results and outcomes provides valuable points of reflection. the interventions explored provide examples of ways in which a practice architecture based on experiential learning can support understanding, confidence, metacognition and the creation of narratives, enhancing students' capacity to ‘join up the dots’, and tell the story of their employability. keywords: skills, experiential learning, practice architecture, enterprise education, metacognition, narratives of employability introduction the focus of this study is on particular types of intervention used in programmes, schools and modules which have a demonstrable positive impact on participants’ perceptions of their https://ojs.deakin.edu.au/index.php/jtlge/ mailto:(jane.nolan@ncl.ac.uk de blaquière , g.e., nolan, j.e., & wray, k. (2019). joining up the dots: telling the story of employability. how can students in higher education be supported to better understand and articulate their employability? journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 10(2), 15–35. 16 employability skills. evidence of this was provided through project outcomes and reported through feedback. the interventions, which will be detailed later, were varied: co-curricular, extra-curricular and within the curriculum; yet the observations were consistent. they involved students at different levels of study, from undergraduates to taught post-graduates, post-graduate and early career researchers. all interventions were intended to enhance individuals’ employability within academia and beyond, and all were based on the pedagogies of experiential learning and enterprise education. whilst research and reports (bryant, 2005; hea, 2015; knight & yorke, 2004; nolan, 2018) suggest that students can find it difficult to perceive and articulate their employability skills, many participants taking part in the interventions seemed to be able to create narratives which helped to evidence their employability, drawing on examples from their experiences during the programmes, schools and modules under consideration. this raised the questions of why and how this was the case. the inter-disciplinary team who participated in the project have backgrounds in the arts, humanities, engineering and sciences and have adopted research methods which help to validate the data from different epistemological perspectives. the literature and scholarship of employability, experiential learning and enterprise education has been used to theoretically inform, analyse and interpret data and practice. in this study, employability has been approached as a complex and contested concept, which needs to be seen holistically, as life-long, ongoing, situated learning (harvey, 2000; knight & yorke, 2004; wenger, 1998; yorke, 2006). the authors have recognised that whilst the discourse of skills is dominant, there is no shared language of skills and its meaning is unclear (holmes, 2013, 2015; knight & yorke, 2004). despite this, the contested language of skills is embedded in employers’ recruitment practices and the ability to articulate what a graduate can offer to an employer, framed in terms of skills and expressed in narratives which provide convincing examples, is important in establishing potential employability. recent literature in the employability field has suggested that it is important to implement potential employability-related interventions on the basis of research, evidence and theory, to provide an understanding of how they work and identify the elements which make them effective, rather than simply doing what seems to work (holmes, 2017). aims this research project is based on the analyses made by the authors as members of academic staff of extensive data gathered from participants over a number of years, with the aim of gaining a deeper understanding of the outcomes of their practice, as outlined in the introductory paragraph, and to theorise why their interventions performed as they did. the paper seeks to: 1) understand how and why participants engaging in employability-related interventions that are experiential and informed by enterprise education seem to gain valuable insights into what they can offer an employer and create narratives to evidence their potential employability. 2) map participants’ reported skills outcomes to the usem (understanding, skilful practice, efficacy beliefs, metacognition) model of employability (knight & yorke, 2004) in order to investigate whether experiential learning opportunities enable participants to apply skilful practices in context; gain efficacy and confidence through transformative, action based learning; achieve metacognition and self-awareness through reflection, and thus enable convincing, validated claims about their employability to be made. 3) explore the impacts of working across the boundaries of disciplines, academia, communities and business, including the challenges of responding to new and more uncertain learning situations and how this contributes to developing new narratives and constructions of de blaquière , g.e., nolan, j.e., & wray, k. (2019). joining up the dots: telling the story of employability. how can students in higher education be supported to better understand and articulate their employability? journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 10(2), 15–35. 17 participant identity (akkerman & bakker, 2011) which contribute to their understanding of their employability. 4) create an architecture of practice, a framework which might be adopted by others in order to design interventions and which could create the basis for further practitioner research. context of the study the extensive academic literature on employability provides evidence that it is a contested and controversial topic. policy approaches are largely based on human capital and rational action theories (becker, 1975), which neglect crucial aspects of what has been evidenced to be a highly complex and multi-dimensional construct. research has shown that employability in a neoliberal age can overemphasize the agency of individuals, although many factors impinge on the ability to gain employment. they include the availability of graduate jobs in the labour market, the impact of social class, gender, ethnicity, both in terms of their effect on the perceptions and horizons of individuals and the recruitment practices of employers, the capacity of individuals to create the social and cultural capitals which can enhance the degree credential, and the reputational capital associated with the university attended (bathmaker, ingram, & waller, 2013; brown, hesketh, & williams, 2004; mok & wu, 2016; morley, 2007; reay, 1998, 2013; tomlinson, 2007). furthermore, employability is conceptualised in terms of a dominant, but equally contested and imprecise language of skills (holmes, 2013, 2015; knight & yorke, 2004). against this complex backdrop, it is argued that the provision of effective interventions which support participants in developing, understanding, reflecting on and articulating their employability can help individual prospects. principles of the study this study maps employability interventions to the four inter-related components of the usem model (knight & yorke, 2004). usem has been selected because the model offers a way of considering employability as a holistic set of interrelated conceptual ideas which moves beyond the dominant discourse of skills, an approach which the authors consider appropriate to this complex topic. it moves beyond the discourse of skills to suggest that a blend of understanding, skilful practices, efficacy beliefs and metacognition contribute to developing, understanding, reflecting on and articulating employability. figure 1: usem model of employability (the higher education academy, 2013) as knight and yorke have argued, the concept and language of skills, including hard, soft and transferable skills, lacks clarity and has significant shortcomings, since skills are not objects but are related to the person, to situated practice and to performance in context (knight & yorke, 2004, pp. de blaquière , g.e., nolan, j.e., & wray, k. (2019). joining up the dots: telling the story of employability. how can students in higher education be supported to better understand and articulate their employability? journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 10(2), 15–35. 18 32-33). the discourse of skills generally lacks this consideration of practice and performance. the use of skilful practice in the usem model addresses this and situates skills in context. therefore in this study the terms hard, soft and transferable in relation to skills have not been used to try to distinguish between different kinds of skills. instead the term employability skills is used; they are developed and understood through skilful practices as part of an ongoing, situated process of learning throughout life, study and employment. since the interventions considered in this study (see table 1) were aimed at enabling participants to develop their employability through applying skills in context, a number of areas of skilful practice and efficacy beliefs were identified as significant. questions relating to progress against these key areas of skilful practice and efficacy belief have been used in the analysis. they included: selfawareness; self-confidence; communication; creativity; entrepreneurialism and commercial awareness/viability; and group/teamwork. these aspects of employability are also present in significant reports and frameworks and are thus seen as important to a range of stakeholders: the esect team’s 39 aspects of employability, a heuristic created for the skills-plus project to guide the evaluation of curricula (knight & yorke, 2004); the universities uk and cbi future fit report considering graduate employability skills and employers’ requirements (universities uk & cbi); the vitae researcher development framework (reeves, denicolo, metcalfe, & roberts, 2012). the principles of enterprise education, which are a key component of this study, are defined by david rae (2007: p. 611) as ‘the skills, knowledge and attributes needed to apply creative ideas and innovations to practical situations’. recently, enterprise education has been defined by expert contributors, brought together to update the qaa benchmark guidelines for enterprise and entrepreneurship (qaa, 2018) as: the application of creative ideas and innovations to practical situations. this is a generic concept that can be applied across all areas of education. it combines creativity, ideas development and problem solving with expression, communication and practical action. this definition is distinct from the generic use of the word in reference to a project or business venture. enterprise education aims to produce graduates with the mind-set and skills to come up with original ideas in response to identified needs and shortfalls, and the ability to act on them. in short, having an idea and making it happen. enterprise skills include taking the initiative, intuitive decision making, making things happen, networking, identifying opportunities, creative problem solving, innovating, strategic thinking, and personal effectiveness. enterprise education extends beyond knowledge acquisition to a wide range of emotional, intellectual, social, and practical skills (qaa, 2018, p. 7). enterprise education can enhance careers education and student employability by enabling participants to be more opportunity-focussed, self-aware and attuned to the business environment (qaa, 2018). the interventions under consideration have also used experiential learning as a foundational enterprise education pedagogy. using a popular definition from simon fraser university (simon fraser university, 2012), experiential learning is ‘the strategic, active engagement of students in opportunities to learn through doing, and reflection on those activities, which empowers them to apply their theoretical knowledge to practical endeavours in a multitude of settings inside and outside of the classroom.’ in short, students practice skills in context. in a subsequent section, the pedagogical approaches used in the interventions are discussed in more detail. metacognition is defined as an awareness of what one knows and how one learns more (knight & yorke, 2004; marzano, 1998). though metacognition can be seen as a ‘fuzzy concept’ (hacker, dunlosky, & graesser, 1998) rogers has provided a useful analysis of its main dimensions, encompassing learning how to learn, confidence in the capability to learn and that the experience of learning can be meaningful beyond didacticism, to be transformative, changing the student’s conception of herself and her view of the world (rogers, 1969). it is argued that the metacognitive de blaquière , g.e., nolan, j.e., & wray, k. (2019). joining up the dots: telling the story of employability. how can students in higher education be supported to better understand and articulate their employability? journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 10(2), 15–35. 19 dimension of the usem model is essential to draw together experiences through effective reflective practice in order to better understand potential employability. this is especially significant given acknowledgement in the literature of the benefits and challenges of modular degree structures, which may tend to fragment the educational experience, rather than enabling students to connect different aspects of their learning (french, 2015). ongoing doctoral research suggests that this metacognitive level of learning, which it is argued is crucial to understanding and articulating employability skills, may be proving harder to achieve within the episodic nature of learning in modular degree structures (nolan, 2018). narratives are seen as significant in articulating employability to potential employers. the usem model emphasises that evidencing employability involves making convincing claims under each of the four dimensions (knight & yorke, 2004, p. 7). holmes (2013, 2015) has argued the formation of a graduate identity which can be validated within the workplace through performance of skills, is significant in becoming employable. narratives of employability are defined in this study as the articulation of skilful practices which demonstrate competent performance of skills in context, thus storying employability and supporting the development of a sense of identity as an employable graduate who perceives what she can offer to an employer expressed in terms an employer will understand. furthermore, narratives are fundamental to identity construction (lawler, 2002, 2014), to understanding how individual experiences cohere as part of a whole and the way that we understand ourselves and the world (polkinghorne, 1988). graduates need to be able to develop coherent narratives which are grounded in an understanding of their employability and to articulate this effectively in order to validate their identity as graduates and have the best chances for their futures after graduation. in addition, when graduates move from their university careers into the world of work, they cross socio-cultural boundaries, which create discontinuities, in which they need to learn about changes in rules, context, language and expectations (akkerman & bakker, 2011). vertical learning is required to gain the specific knowledge for a role and workplace, but in addition horizontal learning, that is the learning across domains, for example from the graduates’ discipline, extra-curricular experience, work experience and wider social and cultural worlds, is also needed to support the transition (akkerman & bakker, 2011). the interventions under consideration in this article use real life issues and offer the opportunity to work across the boundaries of disciplines, of academia, business and community, to enable participants to apply and reflect on their knowledge, skills and confidence and their application in a range of contexts, thus making them meaningful in terms of daily lives and concerns and expanding traditional notions of learning beyond single domains (akkerman & van eijck, 2013). research methodology the authors collected data from participants in a number of interventions, a series of modules and programmes at a russell group university and an international school. details of the enterprise programme, modules, pgr development school and business start-up accelerator project under consideration, and the data collected, are provided in table 1. all the interventions were aimed at enhancing employability through experiential learning and took place over a period of six years (2010-2016). the sources of data were both quantitative (skills perception inventories, questionnaires) and qualitative (reflective activity, module feedback, feedback forms). the data gathered in each case included questions about skills and competency outcomes (see figures 2-5 for the specific questions). in some cases both preand post-programme data was collected (enterprise programme, pgr development school and business start-up accelerator project) and compared. participants were asked a series of questions using variations of the skills inventory perception (skipi) method (alpay & walsh, 2008). additional data was collected five months after the pgr development school to identify longer term outcomes. all participants across all the interventions de blaquière , g.e., nolan, j.e., & wray, k. (2019). joining up the dots: telling the story of employability. how can students in higher education be supported to better understand and articulate their employability? journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 10(2), 15–35. 20 were invited to contribute to the data. university ethical approval was obtained, and data has been used with the agreement of the participants and has been anonymised. the original intention was to evaluate the effectiveness of each individual learning and teaching intervention as perceived by the participants. however, as has been outlined in the introduction, the apparent effectiveness of these interventions, as evidenced by the testimony of the participants, led the authors to another phase of analysis. baseline data for comparison has been drawn from a quantitative analysis of a postgraduate researcher development workshop series, which includes experiential and non-experiential educational and training activities, and which has been consistently evaluated using vitae’s researcher development framework (reeves et al., 2012) over five years (2010-2015). the postgraduate researcher development workshops cover all four domains of the vitae researcher development framework which is well-embedded and accepted within researcher development programmes nationally and internationally: knowledge and intellectual abilities, personal effectiveness, research governance and organisation and engagement, influence and impact. these workshops were of differing structures and length but none were longer than two days. this data gives a comparison between active experiential learning and lecture-based or knowledge-centred non-experiential activities. although each of the experiential interventions(enterprise programme, pgr development school and business start-up accelerator project) were different in terms of duration, chronology and participant stage of study, analysis using the theory of practice architectures (akkerman & bakker, 2011; kemmis & mctaggart, 1982) has established that the underlying architecture is similar. each takes a real world problem, issue or project and asks the participants to learn actively, experientially and, at varying levels, reflectively. each intervention involves providing an appropriately supportive learning environment, knowledge for addressing the task, establishing trust and enabling people to step out of their comfort zones to learn actively and experientially. the scope of the study was broadened to look at activities undertaken by undergraduate students (ug), postgraduate taught students (pgt), postgraduate research students (pgr), graduates and staff researchers in both curricular and extra-curricular interventions with the intention of testing these against the baseline findings. in addition to the similarity in architecture of these interventions, all of them have an overarching practice of enterprise education (as previously defined), which is informed by the theory and practice of experiential learning. the difference in maturity between postgraduate and undergraduate students is acknowledged, however the data from each group provides valuable points of reflection. ‘confidence’ and ‘skills awareness’ were identified as the two key dimensions, based on the hypothesis that experiential learning interventions, during which participants practice skills in context, increase a sense of self-efficacy and enable participants to achieve metacognition of their skills through effective reflective practice. these key dimensions of confidence and skills awareness (see figures 2-5 for the detailed questions selected as representative of these two dimensions) were mapped to the ‘efficacy beliefs’ and ‘skilful practices’ aspects of the usem model (knight & yorke, 2004). a likert scale was used to score participants’ attitudes to the questions on their efficacy beliefs and skilful practice. parametric statistical analysis was carried out on the responses (see figures 2-5). the capacity for articulation of their skills through the provision of examples in the form of narratives was analysed as a potential indicator of whether metacognition had been achieved by individual participants. a strength of this methodology is its use of different epistemological approaches, both quantitative and qualitative, to establish a robust body of data whilst also coming to a deeper understanding from the perspective of the participants themselves (bryman, 2008; cresswell, 2014; yin, 2003). the study is replicable by ensuring that both preand postprogramme data is gathered and compared. this should include the opportunity for discursive feedback from participants and where possible a follow up five to six months later should be made. de blaquière , g.e., nolan, j.e., & wray, k. (2019). joining up the dots: telling the story of employability. how can students in higher education be supported to better understand and articulate their employability? journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 10(2), 15–35. 21 table 1: interventions analysed in this study intervention duration participants aims and approaches comparison data pgr development workshops (single institution) (extra-curricular) figure 2 annual series pgr students aimed at developing the skills and experience uk research councils expect researchers to have, across the 4 domains and 12 sub-domains of the researcher development framework (reeves et al., 2012). delivery: generally workshop-based but includes lecture based sessions and technical training. experiential options may be with or without reflective elements. efficacy belief question: this course has increased my knowledge and/or improved my skills in the relevant rdf subdomains skilful practice question: the skills learned will improve my transferable/employment skills. 77 workshops which did not include any experiential element are compared with 87 workshops which had an experiential element (see figure 2). number of participants: c3700 attendees across the whole programme with an average 60% feedback per workshop enterprise programme (single institution) (extra-curricular) figure 3 9 months postgraduate research students and early-career researchers aimed at enabling participants to develop their entrepreneurial skills and develop inter-disciplinary solutions to real societal challenges. delivery: workshop-based, interactive; participants engage in learning through developing their solution as a business concept; fully experiential with reflection. the questions in the skipi were designed to gauge confidence levels in three skills areas covered in the enterprise programme (communication, group work, creativity and entrepreneurial skills/ commercial). researchers were asked to rate their level of confidence with a series of situations or issues. a four point scale was used to score participants’ perceptions (with a score of 1 for very uncomfortable to 4 representing very comfortable). efficacy belief questions: communication and group work control group: skills inventory perception method (skipi) responses from pgrs/ecrs who did not participate in the programme. these were not significantly different to the pre-workshop responses. sample size (n= 21 pre-workshop and n=17 post-workshop). number of participants: 23 de blaquière , g.e., nolan, j.e., & wray, k. (2019). joining up the dots: telling the story of employability. how can students in higher education be supported to better understand and articulate their employability? journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 10(2), 15–35. 22 skilful practice questions: creativity and entrepreneurial skills pgr development school (across 11 institutions) (extra-curricular) figure 4 6 months postgraduate research students and early-career researchers from 6 uk and 5 overseas universities aimed at developing future research leaders with the skills to lead collaborations between different disciplines and cultures including academia and business. delivery: workshop-based interactive, 2 intensive 2 week schools and 5 months team working remotely in between; participants developed solutions to issues identified in response to real societal challenges working in interdisciplinary teams; fully experiential with reflection. efficacy beliefs question: how confident do you feel you can effectively communicate with people in different organisations? efficacy beliefs question: confidence in developing collaborative relationships skilful practice question: how confident do you feel in taking creative and innovative approaches to your work? a skills perception inventory (skipi) was carried out prior to the first two week school and just after the second two week school had concluded 6 months later. further qualitative data gathered 5 months after the end of the whole programme to assess ongoing impact. sample size (n= 22 pre-workshop and n=20 post-workshop). number of participants: 22 business start-up preaccelerator (single institution) (extra-curricular) figure 5 6 months graduate entrepreneur aimed at enabling graduate entrepreneurs to take forward their businesses. delivery: practical support and mentoring; fully experiential with reflection. current level of comfort/confidence in the following area: efficacy belief question: belief in my own ability skilful practice question: awareness of my strengths observation of start-up client progress without this intervention, alongside feedback of programme clients. a skills perception inventory (skipi) was carried out prior to the programme and one month after the programme had concluded. sample size (n=7) number of participants: 7 modules (single institution) (curricular) 3-9 months undergraduate aimed at embedding the development of knowledge and skills in appropriate curricula within a school including skilful practice: effective team working efficacy beliefs: confidence, self-awareness, entrepreneurial skills including commercial awareness. ethnographic research data including interviews with students who have not engaged with these modules showing lack of coherent narratives about skills and employability. de blaquière , g.e., nolan, j.e., & wray, k. (2019). joining up the dots: telling the story of employability. how can students in higher education be supported to better understand and articulate their employability? journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 10(2), 15–35. 23 delivery: blended learning, experiential and reflective activities. e.g. ug student teams develop event concepts, put on events for the public and reflect on the learning, skills and experience applied. number of participants: 127 over 4 years; responses and feedback gathered: 91 modules (single institution) (curricular) 3-9 months postgraduate taught aimed at embedding the development of knowledge and skills in appropriate curricula within schools including skilful practice: effective team working efficacy beliefs: confidence, self-awareness, entrepreneurial skills including commercial awareness delivery: blended learning, experiential and reflective activities e.g. developing a business proposal for a new idea through 2 intensive teaching weeks and independent working. qualitative data taken from open questions on module evaluation forms for both optional and compulsory modules. number of participants: 140 over 3 years; responses and feedback gathered: 70 de blaquière , g.e., nolan, j.e., & wray, k. (2019). joining up the dots: telling the story of employability. how can students in higher education be supported to better understand and articulate their employability? journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 10(2), 15–35. 24 analysis experiential learning in practice the value of an experiential approach to learning is confirmed by scholarship (biggs, 2011; gibbs, 1988; vyakarnam & hartman, 2011). participants need to work with and apply knowledge in order to achieve deep learning, building on solid foundations of declarative knowledge, to use functioning knowledge to learn experientially and arrive at threshold concepts, where they have new levels of understanding, reflecting on and evaluating outcomes, re-conceptualizing their knowledge, and seeing it in a new light (angelo, 1993; biggs & tang, 2011). for example, a pgr development school participant reconceptualised their knowledge and arrived at a new understanding: i always thought, because of my niche background (philosophy) that i was destined for a life of solitary work and limited opportunity. i learned that i have more to offer than that, and learned the real meaning of transferable skills (phd student, 2013). metacognition and reflective learning the significance of active, reflective learning is emphasized in the seminal work of biggs and tang as a means of achieving deeper learning and the performance of understanding (biggs & tang, 2011) through working with knowledge towards solving novel problems. they identify that problem based learning (pbl), a form of experiential learning, has scope to support employability, since if students graduate with functioning knowledge, their induction into real life professional practice will be quicker (biggs & tang, 2011, p. 187). the following quote from pgt module feedback contributes to unpacking this: this module provided the opportunity to push yourself out of your comfort zone and engage with a different form of learning. at first i was incredibly dubious as it seemed very far removed from what i was studying for my degree. however, after the business plan was re-worked from the feedback given i became very excited about both the new business idea and what i was learning from it, at this point i grasped the ‘why’ learning outcome! (msc student, 2016). using the lens of the usem framework in the design of appropriate pedagogies and curricula (knight & yorke, 2004) understanding is addressed by designing and planning the learning and development activities to introduce participants to relevant knowledge and provide opportunities to learn actively and experientially by doing a series of practical activities. skilful practices, skills understood as situated practices, are applied in the context of the real life project or problem being addressed. experiential learning through the practical application of knowledge, skills and attributes is a core principle of enterprise education; participants apply the skills, knowledge and attributes needed to apply creative ideas and innovations to practical situations, including initiative, independence, creativity, problem solving, identifying and working on opportunities, leadership, acting resourcefully and responding to challenges (rae, 2007). this develops efficacy beliefs and confidence through having the experience, learning by doing and engaging in situated practice (bandura, 1977, 1997; vyakarnam & hartman, 2011). metacognition is achieved through reflection on the learning and the process of learning. reflection is encouraged as a key way of supporting learning in the programmes under consideration, typically prompted by a series of reflective questions drawn from the work of gibbs (gibbs, 1988). it is essential to create an appropriate learning environment when new learning experiences and approaches are to be engaged with, which mean that participants’ comfort zones are to be disrupted (belluigi, 2013; boler, 1999; vyakarnam & hartman, 2011); an environment which needs to be hospitable, creates a sense of safety and solidarity and offers the possibility for participants to take some responsibility for their own learning: de blaquière , g.e., nolan, j.e., & wray, k. (2019). joining up the dots: telling the story of employability. how can students in higher education be supported to better understand and articulate their employability? journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 10(2), 15–35. 25 throughout the enterprise programme, i have developed and demonstrated sustainable enterprising skills; to adopt an active and creative approach to problem solving often under minimum supervision (enterprise programme participant, 2011). a facilitative approach to delivery is required to support participants both in formal and informal environments, for example making the potentially formal setting of a training session into a more active learning space through small group activities, practicing and experimenting in the safety of the classroom with support before applying the knowledge and skills “for real” in the process, in this case, of researching and developing a hypothetical business or project. this approach invites learners to step outside their comfort zones and to establish relationships and trust through practical hands on interactions. working with others is noted by participants in their feedback: engaging with a team with a wide variety of personalities and science backgrounds is a challenging but rewarding task (enterprise programme participant, 2011). to create the scaffolding to help participants engage with enterprise and move into the more uncertain experiential avenues for their learning (belluigi, 2013) participants are invited to consider the philosophical aspects, their personal values and the capacity of using an enterprising approach and an entrepreneurial mind-set as a way to enable them to enhance impact were explored: it has really challenged my ideas around the role of research and inspired me both about the value of collaborating across cultures and disciplines, as well as the potential for creating impacts with spin out activities from my research (pgr development school participant, 2013). the curriculum should be challenging and the relationships which sustain the learning should be receptive, supportive and dynamic (belluigi, 2013). each of the examples under consideration aimed to establish this type of environment and this in turn enabled participants to accept some uncertainty and even anxiety as part of their transformative learning; people were willing to step out of their comfort zones (belluigi, 2013; boler, 1999). stepping out of your comfort zone and learning, learning, learning (enterprise programme participant, 2012). these pedagogical considerations informed the architecture of practice (kemmis & mctaggart, 1982) which has been used in all the interventions under consideration. findings analysis of the data is provided in figures 2 to 5. the analysis of the comparative pgr development workshops baseline data found that where experiential workshops are evaluated, the mean agreement scores increase for both the efficacy beliefs (confidence) question and the development of skilful practice question, regardless of the subject content. figure 2 analyses the confidence levels and skills development in 77 workshops which did not include any experiential element compared to 87 workshops which had an experiential element. a significant increase in mean agreement scores for both areas was demonstrated in the experiential workshops. de blaquière , g.e., nolan, j.e., & wray, k. (2019). joining up the dots: telling the story of employability. how can students in higher education be supported to better understand and articulate their employability? journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 10(2), 15–35. 26 figure 2: postgraduate researcher development workshop series 2015-16 a four point likert scale was used to score participants’ agreement with statements on their efficacy beliefs and skilful practice (with a score of 1 for strongly disagree to 4 representing strongly agree) with the following: efficacy belief: this course has increased my knowledge and/or improved my skills in the relevant rdf sub-domains. skilful practice: the skills learned will improve my transferable/employment skills. parametric statistical analysis was then carried out on the responses using 2 sample t tests and results are displayed as mean +/standard error (p<0.001). sample size (n=77 workshop instances for nonexperiential and n=87 for experiential). quantitative analysis of more detailed data from the enterprise programme, pgr development school and business start-up pre-accelerator project demonstrates that a significant increase in confidence levels and greater understanding of skills can be achieved through experiential interventions. figures 3 and 4 illustrate this with results for specific questions on communication, group/team work and creativity for the enterprise programme and pgr development school. this is reinforced by the following qualitative comments from the participants: being an enterprise programme participant is learning to utilise resources in the right manner. it is a joy to be able to work with people from different disciplines (enterprise programme participant, 2012). …the skills i learned on the pgr development school helped me to have the confidence to go up and talk to keynote speakers at a conference. as a result i have created contacts which i have been able to use in research interviews and workshops (pgr development school participant, 2014). the design of the business start-up pre accelerator project feedback allowed quantitative analysis of the responses on an individual basis, with each person surveyed pre and post programme, compared to the anonymous feedback analysed previously (figure 5). the mean agreement score with the efficacy belief question increased by 18% overall post programme. statistical analysis of the matched pairs using paired t-tests showed this was a significant increase (p<0.05). the 9% increase in the mean agreement score with the efficacy belief question was not statistically significant, possibly due to the small numbers on the programme, but still indicates a gain in awareness post-programme. de blaquière , g.e., nolan, j.e., & wray, k. (2019). joining up the dots: telling the story of employability. how can students in higher education be supported to better understand and articulate their employability? journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 10(2), 15–35. 27 figure 3: enterprise programme a skills perception inventory (skipi) was carried out prior to the enterprise programme and after the first two day workshop had concluded. the questions in the skipi were designed to gauge confidence levels in three skills areas covered in the enterprise programme: communication, group work, creativity and entrepreneurial. researchers were asked to rate their level of confidence with a series of situations or issues. a four point scale was used to score participants’ perceptions (with a score of 1 for very uncomfortable to 4 representing very comfortable) for the following: efficacy belief questions: communication and group work skilful practice questions: creativity and entrepreneurial skills. data reduction: principle components analysis for each of the question groupings led to solutions with one dominant component confirming that each set of questions act as a consistent measure of a single underlying dimension. differences between the combined responses for each grouping were measured using anova and results are displayed as mean +/standard error (p<0.05 communication; p<0.01 group work; p<0.001 creativity). sample size (n= 21 pre-workshop and n=17 post-workshop). de blaquière , g.e., nolan, j.e., & wray, k. (2019). joining up the dots: telling the story of employability. how can students in higher education be supported to better understand and articulate their employability? journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 10(2), 15–35. 28 figure 4: pgr development school a skills perception inventory (skipi) was carried out prior to the first two week school and just after the second two week school had concluded six months later. researchers were asked to rate their level of confidence. a six point scale was used to score participants’ perceptions (with a score of 1 for not at all confident to 6 representing very confident) on the following: efficacy belief: communication and group work communication question: how confident do you feel you can effectively communicate with people in different organisations? group work question: confidence in developing collaborative relationships skilful practice: creativity and entrepreneurial skills creativity question: how confident do you feel in taking creative and innovative approaches to your work? differences between the combined responses for each grouping were measured using 2 sample t-tests and results are displayed as mean +/standard error (p<0.006 communication; p<0.1 group work; p<0.03 creativity). sample size (n= 22 pre-workshop and n=20 post-workshop). de blaquière , g.e., nolan, j.e., & wray, k. (2019). joining up the dots: telling the story of employability. how can students in higher education be supported to better understand and articulate their employability? journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 10(2), 15–35. 29 figure 5: business start-up pre-accelerator a skills perception inventory (skipi) was carried out at the prior to the programme and one month after the programme had concluded. researchers were asked to rate their level of confidence with a series of situations or issues. a four point scale was used to score participants’ perceptions (with a score of 1 for very uncomfortable to 4 representing very comfortable) of the current level of comfort/confidence in the following area: efficacy belief question: belief in my own ability skilful practice question: awareness of my strengths differences between the combined responses for each grouping were measured using paired t-tests (one tail) and results are displayed as mean +/standard error (p<0.05 efficacy belief). sample size (n= 7). discussion the above findings suggest that the experiential forms of learning used in the interventions under consideration resulted in greater increases in confidence (efficacy beliefs) and skills awareness (skilful practices) as compared with non-experiential forms of learning. analysis of both the quantitative data and the rich qualitative feedback has included reflection on the narratives which participants have created following their experiential learning during these interventions, which it is argued, suggests that metacognition has been achieved as a result of their participation in the interventions. in their reflections, the participants articulate the application of their skills and confidence, giving examples of how their skills have been put into practice. there is evidence of reflection and transformational learning, where people have come to a new understanding of what they can offer in terms of their employability skills. the development of narratives is being encouraged, by raising the level of consciousness of skilful practices through good reflective practice, which can enable participants to achieve metacognition and allowing space for those narratives to speak. this is crucial to validating their identities as employable graduates and provides resources for future job applications and interviews. the data shows that even short interventions can have an impact, though longer interventions relating to a real life challenge provide greater space and opportunity for narrative development. de blaquière , g.e., nolan, j.e., & wray, k. (2019). joining up the dots: telling the story of employability. how can students in higher education be supported to better understand and articulate their employability? journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 10(2), 15–35. 30 the narratives quoted in this article are a small sample of an extensive body of data and are considered as representative. whilst it is acknowledged that these narratives are self-reported and not verifiable, it is significant that the participants are drawing on their perceptions of how their employability skills, such as self-confidence, self-awareness, creativity, entrepreneurialism, commercial awareness, communication and teamwork have increased; their perceptions are important to their sense of identity and of being employable. they also suggest that horizontal learning (akkerman & bakker, 2011) which helps to prepare participants for transitions into the workplace may be occurring. one attendee at a postgraduate researcher development workshop which includes experiential learning evidenced their perceptions as follows: this workshop has provided me with techniques that i have already put into practice and seen an almost immediate beneficial impact on my work. my productivity has more than doubled and i have increased self-confidence as a result (phd student, 2016). an enterprise programme 2011 participant spoke about their increased commercial awareness: i have experienced the business-side of scientific research, which is important for all scientists to understand and this is something i can apply to my doctorate and in my future career. the feedback from the pgr development school included much testimony about the huge amount of learning, personal and professional development from it, recognising the tangible benefits created both inside and outside academia, with recognition by the participants that the experience had stretched them and provided transformative learning: it made me very keen to pursue more collaborative projects because it is remarkable how much these types of projects can push you to your limits and really bring out the best in you (phd student, 2013). drawing on a survey five months after the pgr development school, in answer to the questions ‘what do you think you gained from the experience, as both a researcher and an individual?’ and ‘do you have any examples of specific things that you have been able to do or achieved as a result of participating in the programme?’ participants responded with extended narratives which indicate their metacognition and reflective learning, for example: during my job interview, i had to give a 40 minutes presentation. i considered the diverse backgrounds of the researchers and provided an interesting and impactful overview with visually appealing slides to attract the attention of the audience. this has received lot of attention and was helpful in bringing audience engagement. this can be directly attributed to some of the training i got from the school. this experience has encouraged me to think of the cultural differences in student group when i was planning talk for students undertaking a masters module and also to present in a way to encourage discussion. i have become more open towards collaboration and willing to work in different cultures than before (phd student, 2014). i'm helping my supervisor to coordinate an international research project which has collaboration partners from all over the world. i have also taken part in other international research projects/activities as a representative of my research group, department or university. i have been awarded funding for a two-year international collaboration project as a coapplicant, and i'm applying [for] more funding to initiate even more international collaboration projects from various funding bodies. all training and experience from the enterprise programme help me to handle these jobs much better and more confidently (phd student, 2014). a response from the business start-up pre-accelerator intervention indicates skills learnt for continued development in the future: de blaquière , g.e., nolan, j.e., & wray, k. (2019). joining up the dots: telling the story of employability. how can students in higher education be supported to better understand and articulate their employability? journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 10(2), 15–35. 31 it gave us the time, space and support to grow a concept into a prototype business, which we have continued to iterate on. it was the first step on an amazing journey (graduate, 2016). feedback from an ug module has also shown the understanding of the skills actively and experientially applied in context and how they contribute to employability, which involves understanding, reflection and metacognition in order for participants to be able to articulate their skills: the elements of the module that have been valuable to me were hearing about the real life experiences of the music industry, when speakers offered advice and shared their experiences; creating, managing and delivering a musical event, and having complete creative control; learning about and actually doing event planning and management, promotion, marketing design, social media, finance and budgeting, negotiation and networking. the presentation assessment was very helpful in gaining skills and experience for presentation planning and design, teamwork and communication. the module gave the opportunity to develop essential “soft skills” that employers look for, with the vital evidence and experience to support it, including communication, making decisions, showing commitment, flexibility, time management, leadership skills, creative and problem solving skills, being a team player, accepting responsibility and an ability to work under pressure. the module has allowed me to develop the skills needed to gain an internship placement at an arts venue, where i am using the transferable skills from the module. it also gave me the commercial awareness i needed to achieve my goals within the internship (ug student, 2015). conclusions this study has considered data collected from a variety of interventions in a uk higher education setting and made comparisons of preand postintervention participant perceptions. it has considered qualitative data provided by participants and has mapped this against a theoretical framework (usem model) and pedagogical research, in order to achieve the aims of the study. from this analysis of a rich data set from both undergraduate and postgraduate taught and research programmes and modules, across different schools and through different interventions, the findings of this study have enabled the authors to propose a theoretically-informed practice architecture based on their practitioner experience (figure 6) which can be applied to curricular, extra-curricular and training development activities. it is argued that this architecture would facilitate reflection and metacognition, resulting in the understanding and articulation of skills-in-context and the development of new narratives which can evidence employability. this practice architecture provides applied and practical experiential opportunities for disciplinary study, interdisciplinary work (extra and co-curricular) and active learning, working across boundaries such as disciplines, the academy, communities and business which are likely to challenge the participants through their unfamiliarity, which together can contribute to the horizontal learning which helps to support the transition into the workplace (akkerman & bakker, 2011). de blaquière , g.e., nolan, j.e., & wray, k. (2019). joining up the dots: telling the story of employability. how can students in higher education be supported to better understand and articulate their employability? journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 10(2), 15–35. 32 student engagement and disciplinary knowledge authentic and challenging problem/issue active experiential learning develop viable solutions, interdisciplinary team working reflective practice awareness of employability skills metacognition narratives of employability supportive learning environment to enable disruption of comfort zones facilitative teaching provision of specialist knowledge (eg about the challenge, business knowledge) mentoring and feedback encouraging reflection ongoing development in the light of participant feedback and practitioner experience figure 6: creating the practice architecture to apply the practice architecture in figure 6, practitioners need to create a supportive learning environment which enables participants to step out of their comfort zones and facilitates their independent, active learning. they need to provide any specialist knowledge about the authentic and challenging problem or issue which their participants will address. they also need to provide mentoring, formative feedback and encourage reflection on experience. participants need to be engaged with the challenging problem or issue, bring their disciplinary knowledge into an inter-disciplinary team and engage in active, experiential learning and work across boundaries such as the academy, business and community, to develop, research and present viable solutions to the problems under consideration. reflective practice is essential to achieving metacognition; the perception of skills which have been applied and how the experience can be used as examples in coherent narratives of employability, which evidence what the participant can offer. the principles shown in figure 6 are offered as an architecture that might be used by other practitioners, though these are not seen uncritically or as a black box solution. a new definition is suggested here for experiential learning as ‘those activities which require participants to become part of a real-life context or challenge, rather than knowledge/information transfer activities which do not ‘do’ or have a reflection on ‘doing’’. this, along with the reflection inherent and actively encouraged in the learning environment may help participants to learn from and cope with the discontinuities associated with working across boundaries or in new territories in the future, such as the workplace. to work across boundaries, participants encounter different languages, expectations and rules, enabling them to learn through applying skills in context, and in turn develop their confidence, understand their employability skills and articulate them in new narratives. this study has argued that space is needed within he programmes of study for metacognition to be achieved, if students and graduates are to understand and articulate their employability. an approach to doing this has been outlined, evidenced by extensive data and with reference to knight and yorke’s usem model (knight & yorke, 2004). participants have been able to achieve metacognition, develop coherent narratives and new constructions of identity as a result of their experiential learning through working across boundaries and responding to real-life challenges, enabling them to ‘join up the dots’ and tell the story of their employability. de blaquière , g.e., nolan, j.e., & wray, k. (2019). joining up the dots: telling the story of employability. how can students in higher education be supported to better understand and articulate their employability? journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 10(2), 15–35. 33 the authors intend to undertake further research and make recommendations based on their research and experience about embedding these architectures of practice into future curricula, including extra-, coand core curricula, to support the creation of coherent narratives of employability and to help students prepare for their transition into life after graduation. acknowledgement this research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial, or not-forprofit sectors. the authors would like to thank the equate team at newcastle university for their encouragement, guidance and the opportunity to undertake this research project, and the inaugural international researcher development school project team for permission to use project data. references akkerman, s. f., & bakker, a. 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(2006). employability in higher education: what it is, what it is not. york: higher education academy. i editorial welcome to volume 10 of the journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability. this is a momentous year for the journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability – having started from scratch in 2010, this journal was established as an outcome of curtin university’s ‘curriculum 2010’ curriculum renewal initiative, particularly to create a forum where teaching academics might engage in scholarly reflection and research associated with graduate employability, a relatively new field in australia at that time. in 2010, we welcomed contributions about any aspect of higher education teaching and learning which related to the broad topic of graduate employability, including but not limited to:  graduate employability and how it can be measured;  the relationship between graduate employability and the achievement of graduate attributes, employability skills and preparation for global citizenship;  teaching and learning experiences, resources and assessments which enhance graduate employability;  industry partnerships and perspectives;  life-long learning. as we go forward, it is appropriate to note our achievements to date: this year, the journal will have been publishing for ten consecutive years: we published sixty-four peer-reviewed articles by may 2019, and ten editorials, and we have just published our first special issue (with plans for more). we are all interested not just in publications, but their impact. citations clearly take time to build so focussing on our first six years (2010 to 2016) our thirty-three peer-reviewed articles were cited (in total) 570 times, and five articles were cited more than 40 times (to may 2019). our most highly cited article to date – with 78 citations – is catherine caballero and arlene walker’s “work readiness in graduate recruitment and selection: a review of current assessment methods”. since 2010, employability is mentioned in just about every jurisdiction and sector, and includes comments related to undergraduate and postgraduate learning, domestic and international students – onsite, online or both. student success is now a fruitful topic, and there is some crossover with employability. even though policy makers and practitioners frequently conflate employability with employment (and often the thing that occurs at the end of the degree something this journal has attempted to define and clarify), it appears that “employability” is now writ large in the minds of sector leaders across the globe. it is front and centre of commentary about the sector particularly in the united states (zemsky 2009) in policy initiatives such as the recent augar review in the united kingdom (augar 2019), the review of performance-based funding in australia (commonwealth of australia 2018) where graduate employment has been a standard measure associated with national quality indicators for teaching and learning for some time (qilt.edu.au). we are also acutely aware that the emphasis on employability and employment is likely to become more intense as the fourth industrial revolution and the digital economy unfold, and require new skills (world economic forum 2016, schwab 2017), including the ability to work with machines (aoun 2017). in australia and overseas, discussions regarding microcredentials are gaining momentum in relation to the future of work, lifelong learning and the tertiary education sector (fain 2018, gallagher 2018). the review of the australian qualifications framework is contemplating whether micro-credentials might be regulated (aqf review panel 2018). as the name suggests micro credentials are certifications which are gaining in popularity since they deliver industry or profession-specific qualifications in a ii relatively short time, sometimes at lower cost to learners, to meet particular needs and skills gaps. a recent report from the foundation for young australians (foundation for young australians 2016) called the new work order similarly highlights the importance of opportunities for value-add credentials, citing the impact of the rapid growth of technology on the shelf-life of skills gained during a three year university degree. while it is not possible for working learners of all ages to combine work and further study, the “pincer movement” of more casual and short term work in the gig economy (ernst & young 2019) as well as the need to upskill for a very different future of work may mean that micro credentials are an idea whose time has come. it remains to be seen how higher education providers will respond to the conversations around micro credentials, but given their commitment to graduate employability, it would appear to be an initiative of great value to future and past graduates. our current issue the second issue of the jtlge for 2019 opens with four studies reporting a range of initiatives designed to improve graduate employability. the first paper investigates the use of reflection to promote the awareness and development of graduate attributes. author julie dunne found that by framing experiences both in terms of graduate attributes and core theoretical knowledge, there was a substantial increase in the breadth of attributes being reflected upon by students. the second paper by gail de blaquière, jane nolan and katie wray argues that the ability to articulate what a graduate can offer to employers, framed in terms of skills and expressed in narratives which provide convincing examples, is important in establishing potential employability. the paper provides examples of ways in which architecture education based on experiential learning can support understanding, confidence, metacognition and the creation of narratives, enhancing students' capacity to ‘join up the dots’, and tell the story of their employability. the third paper looks at the threshold learning outcomes for australian bachelor degree graduates in environment and sustainability, and more specifically graduate competency levels. michael whelan and amanda reichelt-brushett surveyed students, work placement hosts and teaching staff to enable comparisons between the performance expected of a new graduate by employers with the level of performance students achieved while on placement. the fourth paper by joanne hart evaluates the effectiveness of interdisciplinary project-based learning in science programs, and their effectiveness in developing discipline knowledge and employability skills. projects with wide interdisciplinarity were significantly associated with perceived gains in interdisciplinary effectiveness and more likely to have perceived gains in communication and teamwork skills than projects with a narrow discipline focus. on behalf of the editorial committee, we thank you for your continued support of the journal, and we commend this volume to you. we invite you to engage with the forthcoming papers throughout the year as we seek to promote scholarly communication and debate in the increasingly wide range of topics associated with graduate employability. beverley oliver and beatrice tucker (editor and deputy editor) references aoun, j. e. (2017). robot-proof: higher education in the age of artificial intelligence, mit press. aqf review panel (2018). incorporating shorter form credentials into the aqf. canberra, commonwealth of australia. augar, p. (2019). independent panel report: review of post-18 education and funding. london, secretary of state for education. commonwealth of australia (2018). performance-based funding for the commonwealth grant scheme – discussion paper., department of education. ernst & young (2019). the future of work and workers. melbourne. iii fain, p. (2018). on-ramps and off-ramps: alternative credentials and emerging pathways between education and work, inside higher ed. foundation for young australians (2016). the new work order. new work order. melbourne, foundation for young australians,. gallagher, s. r. (2018). educational credentials come of age: a survey on the use and value of educational credentials in hiring. boston. schwab, k. (2017). the fourth industrial revolution. geneva, portfolio: penguin. world economic forum (2016). the future of jobs: employment, skills and workforce strategy for the fourth industrial revolution. geneva, switzerland. zemsky, r. (2009). making reform work: the case for transforming american higher education, rutgers university press. jorre de st jorre, t., elliott, j., johnson, e.d., & bisset, s. (2019). science students’ conceptions of factors that will differentiate them in the graduate employment market. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 10(1), 27– 41. 27 science students’ conceptions of factors that will differentiate them in the graduate employment market trina jorre de st jorre1, joanne elliott2, elizabeth d. johnson3, stewart bisset4 trina.j@deakin.edu.au; joanne.elliott@deakin.edu.au; liz.johnson@deakin.edu.au; stewart.bisset@deakin.edu.au corresponding author: trina jorre de st jorre 1 senior lecturer, student achievement, deakin learning futures, deakin university, geelong, australia. orcid: 0000-0001-7848-0305 2lecturer, digital innovation, deakin learning futures, deakin university, geelong, australia. orcid: 0000-0003-4923-0432 3 deputy vice-chancellor education, deakin university, geelong, australia. orcid: 0000-0002-79295272 4 research assistant, deakin learning futures, deakin university, geelong, australia. abstract to gain employment and a fulfilling career, students need to understand the skills and knowledge that are important and how to articulate and evidence their employability. this paper reports on research investigating science students’ priorities related to immediate employment versus long-term employability and the factors that students perceive as important to these. interviews with 138 science students from four australian universities revealed that they were most focused on immediate employment. students were keen to participate in opportunities to ‘value add’ to their degree, especially those that might help them to gain relevant work experience and professional networks. however, students’ understanding of the relative importance of experiences and skills that would enhance their employability was variable, as was their understanding of the career pathways that they might pursue. the data analysis highlights the importance of explicitly designing curriculum to help students understand the career opportunities available; the skills and abilities needed for diverse careers; and the experiences through which they might develop and evidence these. furthermore, to engage students, we need to help them to address their greatest and most immediate concerns about gaining employment at graduation, while also setting them up for successful and fulfilling careers. keywords: employability, work-integrated learning, student voice, student engagement, career development, curriculum introduction globalisation, rise of the share economy and rapid advances in technology (from robotics and artificial intelligence to nanoand bio-technology, amongst others) have changed patterns of consumption, production and employment across the world (world economic forum, 2016). as a result, the world of work and jobs ‘on offer’ are rapidly changing: many of the occupations or specialisations that are currently in demand did not exist ten or even five years ago, while others have become obsolete or are threatened by redundancy (world economic forum, 2016). the concept of a ‘career’ has also evolved and individuals now more frequently move between disciplines or industries, either out of necessity, to accommodate new interests, or to gain better opportunities (world economic forum, 2016). meanwhile the skills required for mailto:trina.j@deakin.edu.au mailto:joanne.elliott@deakin.edu.au mailto:liz.johnson@deakin.edu.au jorre de st jorre, t., elliott, j., johnson, e.d., & bisset, s. (2019). science students’ conceptions of factors that will differentiate them in the graduate employment market. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 10(1), 27– 41. 28 existing jobs are changing and the skills gap has widened (alphabeta, 2016; world economic forum, 2016). employers are increasingly looking for graduates with evidence of transferable skills that are important in any workplace (the australian industry group, 2018). an investigation of more than 6000 websites and 4.2 million job advertisements over three years (2012-2015) showed that transferable or ‘enterprise’ skills are increasingly demanded in early-career job advertisements, and are now more frequently required than discipline-specific skills (defined as those associated with a specific task, role or industry: alphabeta, 2016). furthermore, jobs that demand those skills, especially highly sought-after skills such as advanced communication skills and digital literacy, are associated with a higher rate of pay than those that do not stipulate that requirement (alphabeta, 2016). simultaneously in australia, participation in higher education has been rising, making completion of a university degree less distinctive in the labour market. graduates are faced with two challenges: they need to recognise and adapt to rapidly changing career opportunities, and distinguish themselves from their peers to secure those opportunities (oliver & jorre de st jorre, 2018; tomlinson, 2008). institutions responsible for education and training need to assist students by emphasising the development of transferable skills and knowledge that are relevant to graduates creating and finding work (oliver & jorre de st jorre, 2018). these challenges are particularly acute for generalist degrees, like science, that are associated with diverse career pathways (palmer, campbell, johnson, & west, 2017). one way in which universities and discipline groups are ensuring that curriculum reflects learning that will be valuable in the workplace, is through seeking input from industry and professional groups and including more opportunities for ‘work-integrated learning’ (acen, 2015; johnson & rice, 2016; sachs & rowe, 2016). ‘work-integrated learning’ is a term commonly used to describe a broad range of activities that help students to integrate theory with the practice of work, including experiences situated in a workplace (such as internships, placements, field trips or job shadowing) as well as other experiences that happen on campus but are authentic to the workplace (such as case studies, simulations or other workplace tasks) (orrell, 2011; patrick et al., 2009). work-integrated learning (wil) has received sector and government recognition, as a way of helping students to orientate to the workplace and develop skills and attributes that are important to obtaining jobs, adapting to changing job roles, and performing well in the workplace (atkinson, misko, & stanwick, 2015; jackson, 2015; patrick et al., 2009). although the term (wil) itself is not commonly used amongst employers, industry are increasingly linking with universities to provide work placements, talks, tours and opportunities for job shadowing (the australian industry group, 2018). work experience is a selection criteria often used in the recruitment of graduates, and placements are a common graduate recruitment pathway in some industries (australian association of graduate employers, 2018). it is therefore not surprising that graduates that participate in wil, such as placements, tend to gain employment more quickly after graduation (ferns, campbell, & zegwaard, 2014). however, in addition to providing students with wil opportunities in the curriculum, it is also important that universities help students to understand how they leverage those opportunities to build personal capability and manage their careers. the value gained through wil and subsequent experiences is dependent on student engagement and action. this raises the question, do students have realistic beliefs about the long-term goal of ongoing employability as well as the immediate problem of employment? and are those perceptions aligned with those of industry and educators? graduate employability has been defined and conceptualised in numerous ways (curtis & mckenzie, 2001; oliver, 2015; tomlinson, 2012; yorke, 2006). there is general agreement that it derives from complex learning and requires a wide range of transferable skills beyond jorre de st jorre, t., elliott, j., johnson, e.d., & bisset, s. (2019). science students’ conceptions of factors that will differentiate them in the graduate employment market. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 10(1), 27– 41. 29 the ‘core’ knowledge and skills required for specific disciplines (yorke, 2006). it is distinct from measures of graduate employment which are affected by a range of social, personal and economic factors (tymon, 2013). in this paper, the popular definition of graduate employability first articulated by mantz yorke (2006) and re-defined by oliver (2015) is adopted: employability means that students and graduates can discern, acquire, adapt and continually enhance the skills, understandings and personal attributes that make them more likely to find and create meaningful paid and unpaid work that benefits themselves, the workforce, the community and the economy (p.59). in comparison to those investigating the views of other stakeholders (e.g. higher education personnel or employers), student conceptions of employability have only been explored by a small number of studies. most of these have focussed on the skills or attributes that students perceive as important to employability or where students perceive these to be developed in their degree (hill, overton, thompson, kitson, & coppo, 2018; jackson, 2014; 2015; jorre de st jorre & oliver, 2018; kavanagh & drennan, 2008; sakar, overton, thompson, & rayner, 2016; tymon, 2013). other studies have investigated student perceptions of the value of a degree to their employability, and have shown that students perceive higher education as necessary for gaining access to a wider range of jobs, higher pay and a more enjoyable career. however, students also perceive the value of a degree as declining and understand that extracurricular experiences and development of broader skills are integral to competing in the labour market at graduation (tomlinson, 2008; tymon, 2013), and further into the future (glover, sue, & youngman, 2002). few studies have specifically investigated the experiences that students perceive as important. those that have, tend to focus on students’ experience of university curriculum and services, rather than on students’ broader understanding of the experiences, behaviours or other factors that might influence their employment or career prospects. however, we found three studies that provide some insight into student perceptions of actions that improve employability and employment outcomes. it is noteworthy that all three of these studies found that direct experience of workplaces through placement was the opportunity most valued by students. the first study investigated students’ understanding of employability and related skills, their perceptions of its importance and university support for its development (tymon, 2013). focus groups and a questionnaire were used to collect the views of over 400 undergraduates in first, second and third-year business degrees (business studies/administration, human resources and marketing) at a single university in the uk. all year groups perceived placements as the most valuable opportunity to develop employability at university. students also highly valued careers support (e.g. support for resume writing and job or placement seeking) and mentioned embedded activities, such as presentations, group work and meeting deadlines, designed to develop skills/attributes such as communications, confidence, team-work and selfmanagement (p. 851). few students mentioned student-driven activities, such as societies, volunteering and other extra-curricular opportunities, and tymon suggests this reflects a lower perception of value. however, an alternative interpretation is that it might reflect the framing of questions. students were specifically asked about support expected from or provided by their university, and may not have perceived these ‘student-driven’ activities as being supported or provided by their institution. although some students also perceived grades to be important, less than 40 percent of students connected qualifications or grades to employability. in a second study, a survey was used to investigate factors that contribute to students’ confidence in their employability. students were asked to report their confidence related to employability and other potentially related variables (qenani, macdougall, & sexton, 2014). the students surveyed were engineering and agriculture, food and environmental science students at a single university in the usa (n = 978). the most influential factor on students’ self-confidence in employability was participation in a placement (internship) experience jorre de st jorre, t., elliott, j., johnson, e.d., & bisset, s. (2019). science students’ conceptions of factors that will differentiate them in the graduate employment market. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 10(1), 27– 41. 30 during their academic studies. students who had participated in a placement were 2.5 times more likely to be confident in their employability than those who had not (controlling for other factors). other factors that contributed to confidence included self-management of career behaviours (those that proactively aligned their academic experience with career goals through choosing particular courses, consulting with faculty, attending career fairs, etc.) and college reputation. academic factors, such as grade point average, class standing and choice of major had some influence on confidence, but less than the factors already mentioned. there was also some positive correlation between self-reported employability and reported skills preparation (critical thinking, communication and discipline-specific skills) and personal characteristics (outgoing or trustworthy). finally, in a third study from australia, surveys were used to investigate students’ self-reported use of twelve strategies linked to improved employability (kinash, crane, judd, & knight, 2016). similar surveys were sent to graduates, employers and higher education personnel. students (n = 442) and graduates (n = 102 ) were asked to report on the strategies that they were or had used, whereas employers (n = 53) were asked to report on the strategies that their organisation valued in the recruitment of graduates, and higher education personnel (n = 108) were asked to report on the strategies that they provided. the strategy most often selected by students (74%), graduates (74%) and employers (87%) was: work experience, internships and placements, whereas these were only provided by 40 percent of higher education personnel. other strategies selected by more than 40 percent of students were career advice (59%), part-time work (53%), networking (49%), extracurricular activities (48%), and volunteering (47%). where students choose to invest time and effort speaks to value, although all of that value is not necessarily attributable to employability. for example, students engage in part-time work to earn money, not just to improve their employability. the opportunities that students have to participate in different activities is also variable and will of course influence use. however, for so many students to engage in work experience, placements or internships, speaks strongly to the value that students place on these experiences, especially given that only 40 percent of higher education personnel reported providing these opportunities. these three studies, spanning three international contexts, suggest that students have variable understanding of what promotes employability, but agree that placements are an important opportunity. however, all of these investigations have focussed on students’ perceptions of specified strategies, or opportunities and support provided by universities. here we build on that understanding by taking a broader approach to investigating what science students do to make themselves employable and to differentiate themselves from other graduates, with focus on the following research questions: 1. do students prioritise gaining employment or long-term employability for future careers and performing well in the workplace? 2. what do students believe will help them gain employment or develop employability? this research was conducted through secondary analysis of interviews primarily investigating science students’ perceptions and experience of work-integrated learning at four australian universities. while much of that discussed pertained to students’ experience of the curriculum, students were first asked more broad questions about their career intentions, confidence and behaviours related to employability, and it is from those responses that we are able to extract a broader understanding of students’ conceptions of employability and factors that will differentiate them in the graduate employment market. we necessarily describe both the primary data collection and subsequent data analysis. primary research and student demographic as part of a national project, funded by the australian office for learning and teaching, with support from the australian council of deans of science (johnson et al., in press), semi jorre de st jorre, t., elliott, j., johnson, e.d., & bisset, s. (2019). science students’ conceptions of factors that will differentiate them in the graduate employment market. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 10(1), 27– 41. 31 structured focus groups and individual interviews were used to investigate science students’ perceptions and experience of work-integrated learning at four australian universities. the objective of that project was to investigate student engagement with work-integrated learning in science, with emphasis on factors that encourage or discourage science students from participating in, and making meaning from, work-integrated learning. in total, 138 undergraduate students participated across 27 focus groups and nine individual interviews. all secondand third-year science students at the four universities were invited to register their interest in participating through direct emails and promotion of the opportunity by teaching staff in core science units. a registration survey was used to collect demographic information and to identify participants’ employment status, intent to seek new opportunities and interest and confidence related to employment. 187 eligible students registered their interest and participants were selected to maximise the representation of students enrolled in difference science disciplines at each university. of those who participated, 80 students were enrolled in a bachelor of science, 12 were enrolled in an advanced (four-year) bachelor of science, 17 were enrolled in a double degree combining a bachelor of science with another course (including engineering, psychology, commerce, education, journalism, and international studies) and the remaining 29 students were enrolled in more discipline-specific science courses (including biomedical science, environmental science and forensic science). participants ranged in age from 18 to 43, with a median age of 21. two-thirds of the participants indicated that they were female, 88 percent were domestic students and 91 percent were enrolled in full-time study. none were employed full-time, but 55 percent were employed casually (43%) or part-time (12%), and only 41 percent were unemployed. semi-structured focus groups were used because group interaction encourages elaboration of concepts and allows analysis of what participants know, as well as how they understand and conceptualise the issue under discussion (wibeck, dahlgren, & öberg, 2007). these data were supplemented with individual interviews to enable participation where students could not attend a scheduled group. both focus group and individual interviews allowed for in-depth exploration of students’ perceptions and experiences. students’ understanding of the term ‘work-integrated learning’ was explored before a definition and examples of work-integrated learning (wil) were provided to ensure consistent framing of subsequent questions. wil was defined to participants as ‘learning activities that incorporate work, employment and careers and help students develop the capabilities required for the workplace’. examples included experiences situated in a workplace, such as internships or placements, as well as other experiences that are authentic to the workplace but happen on campus, such as case studies, simulations, complex laboratory classes or other authentic workplace tasks. this research was carried out in accordance with the national statement on ethical conduct in human research and was approved by the deakin faculty of arts & education human ethics advisory group (hae-17-013). secondary analysis in order to specifically investigate students’ understanding and priorities related to employment and employability, relevant data was first extracted from the larger data set. the data analysed included student responses to the following questions: 1. what would you like to do with your science degree and how confident are you that you will get that opportunity? 2. what do you do to try and make yourself more employable, and how would you differentiate yourself from other science graduates? all other excerpts of dialogue in which students referred to their beliefs, behaviours or intentions related to employment and employability were also included in the analysis. this jorre de st jorre, t., elliott, j., johnson, e.d., & bisset, s. (2019). science students’ conceptions of factors that will differentiate them in the graduate employment market. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 10(1), 27– 41. 32 included any discussion about obtaining employment, workplace performance, capabilities or experiences linked to each of these, and the steps that students had taken or intended to take to gain opportunities, improve themselves or differentiate themselves from others. data was then subject to qualitative analysis to identify recurring themes (miles, huberman, & saldana, 2014). findings students were more focused on employment than on employability. they had a nuanced understanding of what promotes employment, however, their conceptions varied and were likely influenced by both their experience and their aspirations. below we share key findings emerging from the survey and interviews. survey results responses to the registration survey confirmed perceptions that were prominent in interviews. almost all students (96%) reported that they thought about their employment prospects often. most students (81%) intended to seek new employment at graduation, while 15 percent were not sure and one student indicated that they did not intend to seek new employment (four did not respond). however, only 59 percent indicated that they knew what job or career they would seek after graduation (figure 1). the majority of students (76%) were unsure whether they would get their preferred job at graduation and 53 percent were not confident that they would get a job at all. despite this, 62 percent were confident that they would be able to differentiate themselves from other graduates and 79 percent were confident in their ability to succeed in their workplace of choice. figure 1: student agreement (%) with statements about employment prospects and planning. interview findings 1. students were more focused on employment than employability students were most concerned about immediate employment and focussed on things that would improve their chances of gaining a job. they frequently expressed concerns about competition for jobs and the limited availability of positions in their field. many were not confident about obtaining employment after graduation and this was exacerbated where they were uncertain about the jobs or careers that their degree would qualify them to pursue. some 0 20 40 60 80 100 i am confident that i will be able to differentiate myself from other graduates i am confident that i have the ability to succeed in my workplace of choice i am confident that i will get the job i want after graduation i am confident that i will get a job after graduation i know what job or career i will seek after i graduate i think about my employment prospects often strongly agree agree unsure disagree strongly disagree jorre de st jorre, t., elliott, j., johnson, e.d., & bisset, s. (2019). science students’ conceptions of factors that will differentiate them in the graduate employment market. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 10(1), 27– 41. 33 students were concerned about gaining a specific job or career. others were primarily concerned with gaining full-time employment and were prepared to compromise on the type of job, often out of necessity: i’m at that point where i don’t care if it’s a chem[istry] lab, i need a job that’s full-time. for other students, there was less urgency because they perceived themselves as having plenty of time before they graduated or needed to join the workforce. others dismissed concerns because they had wide career interests: i’m really interested in conservation work, so anything from park ranger to conservation research would make me happy. i think because i’ve got such a wide range of what i want to do, i’ll get there eventually. there’s a lot of options in there. students were most focused on gaining employment, but some also emphasised the importance of being able to perform well in the workplace. these students wanted to be able to “hit the ground running” and were interested in understanding the types of tasks they would encounter so that they could develop competencies in those areas and demonstrate their value to colleagues or organisations. 2. student perceptions of factors that promote employment were nuanced, but varied with the experience and aspirations of the individual most students agreed that their degree alone was not sufficient assurance for gaining a job or career. however, the factors that they thought would make a difference were variable, as were their motivations and degree of engagement in behaviours that they believed would enhance their degree. students spoke about numerous ways in which they had, could or should enhance their employability, but most students perceived gaining work experience and developing networks as most important. where students referred to factors that might help them to develop or gain opportunities, it was often not clear whether students were talking about employment or employability or conflating these closely related concepts, so we have not attempted to differentiate between these in our analysis. there was also overlap between the factors described. for example, students valued work experience itself, as well as its impact on gaining skills and networks. a) work experience (including that gained through employment or placements) the importance of work experience was raised in every interview (group or individual). here we cluster work experience gained through placements, employment, or volunteering, because work experience was often discussed by students in general terms and was inclusive of experience gained through all of these. however, when we provided students with a definition and examples of work-integrated learning and asked students what was most valuable, most students chose placements above on-campus learning opportunities, because they perceived these to be an opportunity to gain work experience. students valued work experience because they saw it as something that was desired or required by employers. they also saw it as an opportunity to gain important networks, to develop personally and professionally, and to gain evidence of what they were capable of. as indicate din the following comment: i think they want someone to show that they’ve done that in the past and they can prove that, they want people to show that they’re able to do the job. so i think the way that you can improve your employability is by having real world experience and examples in the past you can point to show that you are able to do this job. in terms of their own development, students spoke about work experience being an opportunity to develop important skills and understanding: including both discipline-specific and transferable skills; understanding of their discipline, workplaces and roles in industry; and professional expectations. jorre de st jorre, t., elliott, j., johnson, e.d., & bisset, s. (2019). science students’ conceptions of factors that will differentiate them in the graduate employment market. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 10(1), 27– 41. 34 students were most interested in work experience related to their discipline or career interests. students that had gained relevant work experience tended to be more confident about their career prospects than students that had not and linked their confidence to those experiences: i’ve worked full time for the last two years in conservation, i have a really good network. i've met a lot of people in councils and things so i'm very confident that if i go for any grad positions or possibly even council positions because i know people there, i've worked in the industry, that that's what will get me the work. i see my degree as a requirement but it's not the thing that gets me the job, it's my actual work experience. conversely, students that lacked work experience often discussed this in relation to their lack of confidence: …it’s that fear of going into a job and going, i have no clue what i’m doing and basically failing. just rocking up and them going, ‘can you do this for us?’ and you’re going, ‘i have no clue what i’m going to do’, like not knowing where to start. students were less certain about whether unrelated work experience gained through part-time or casual jobs, previous careers or placements had value. some students appreciated this experience as an opportunity to develop transferable skills and professional understanding, especially where they had broad career interests. however, others questioned the value of unrelated work experience: …going for a science job is quite different in comparison to going to a facilities management job. i'm actually getting anxious just thinking about it, to be quite honest. some students were adamant that placements needed to be closely tied to their career interests to be worthwhile, especially where they were already having difficulty juggling study with paid employment or other commitments, where they were most interested in using the work experience opportunity to develop discipline-specific technical skills and networks, or where they had extensive professional experience. others were more open to broad placement experiences. b) networks the perceived value of networks was also very prominent. students commonly believed that knowing people within an industry would be important to finding and gaining employment, and would help them to develop a reputation and relationships within industries. students frequently spoke about work-integrated learning or extra-curricular activities related to their study, being valuable opportunities to build a network of professionals who might hire or recommend them. some stressed that networks were even more important than capabilities or knowledge: i don’t think it’s based now on what you know, but i think it’s about who you know. so networking is a huge thing that you got to do, but i think also getting yourselves in internships so you get to know employers and employers get to know you so they have a face to the name… i think that also helps [with] employability. some students emphasised the importance of placements and other experiences for providing the opportunity to showcase capabilities or personal attributes that might lead to additional opportunities: if you do the work placement and you’re known by a company to not be a bumbling idiot then you tend to do better in general, because one company talks to another company and that one talks to the next one. jorre de st jorre, t., elliott, j., johnson, e.d., & bisset, s. (2019). science students’ conceptions of factors that will differentiate them in the graduate employment market. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 10(1), 27– 41. 35 students that were not confident about their employment prospects sometimes spoke about concerns over having no professional networks in their industry of choice, whereas others were confident because of their networks: i really appreciate the networks that i [have] built as well as the mentorship that’s available in terms of an industry expert helping you along the way in the project that you’re doing, specific to the work that you’re doing, in whatever company it is but also in your progression through your degree and past that, how would you get past all the obstacles that come your way. and, having a mentor who has gone through that, or has had a similar experience, and their advice makes it a lot easier and less threatening. c) extra-curricular activities students perceived extracurricular activities as beneficial for developing skills and knowledge, developing their networks and reputation, as experience or achievements that they could list on their resumes, and for demonstrating and developing their interest in the field. while some extra-curricular opportunities were valued because they provided work experience, students spoke about a wide variety of other activities, including attending industry events, participating in industry associations and committees, attending networking events, involvement in student clubs and committees, and tutoring. students reported that they participated in these kinds of activities to make their “resume look good”, in the hope that it would help to distinguish them from other graduates: i have a lot of pastoral care mentoring roles and organisational, event management sort of things that i am part of. i think that develops quite a different set of skills to what a science degree does. the analytical thinking and the problem solving of science is fantastic, but it's very different from some of the communication and organisational skills you develop [from mentoring or as a research assistant]. i think that those things that i'm involved in, as well as being part of social clubs and societies, is hopefully going to get me a little bit ahead of the crowd. d) transferable vs. discipline-specific or technical skills students’ perceptions regarding skills, and in particular the types of skills that are important to employers, were variable and sometimes at conflict. some students thought that technical or discipline-specific skills would be most important to gaining employment and transitioning into the workplace, whereas others thought that transferable skills would be more important and emphasised the importance of these for success across different roles, workplaces and industries. many students emphasised both and some were unsure. students spoke about the importance of skills for gaining jobs, transitioning into and performing well in the workplace. many students were concerned that they had been given insufficient opportunity to develop necessary discipline-specific or technical skills within their degree structure. these students suggested that their studies provided a foundational, broad knowledge and basic skills, but lacked appropriate training in discipline-specific technical skills that would enable them to ‘step into’ a workplace role: …a lot of degrees nowadays have become much more holistic which is great but, at the same time, it does mean that a lot of information and a lot of technical expertise is lost as a result, the more intricacies of particular disciplines get removed. for a vocational science such as geology where it is important to have these technical skills and expertise in order to be in a position of consulting or expertise, technical expertise, it is a big detriment to students nowadays. in contrast, other students were concerned that their degree was overly technical and would not prepare them for alternative career options: jorre de st jorre, t., elliott, j., johnson, e.d., & bisset, s. (2019). science students’ conceptions of factors that will differentiate them in the graduate employment market. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 10(1), 27– 41. 36 my line of study is a little bit more specific, i’m studying atmospheric science, so there isn’t a lot of employ[ment] options when you leave uni[versity]. there’s really one main place where you can go, so it is a little bit worrying, because there’s going to be a lot of competition and if you don’t get in it’s like, what do you do? students also discussed the importance of being able to effectively evidence their skills: …a lot of the lab[oratory] work has been very helpful and it allows me to put down the skills on my resume saying that i’m proficient in this, this and this and i’ve had so many hours working in the lab some students discussed this as a difficulty and expressed concern over their ability to provide meaningful examples to employers. one of the reasons why students valued work experience (including placements) so much was because they saw it as an opportunity to evidence their skills in ways that would be valued by employers. students spoke about other learning or assessment in their course, that had helped them to develop or reflect on their skills, but they rarely discussed these in relation to evidencing their skills to employers. some students specifically questioned whether employers would value experience gained in a university context as much as that gained in the workplace, although some acknowledged that projects or work completed for an industry partner would be more valuable evidence of their experience and capabilities. 3. choice of degree, subjects or specialisation a small proportion of students spoke about their choice of degree, subjects or specialisation being relevant to employment. some of these students thought that the mix of study areas they had chosen would be beneficial to gaining a diverse range of experiences, skills and understanding. these students spoke about roles requiring expertise across multiple disciplines, the importance of being able to work with people from other industries, and diverse experiences that they thought would broaden the types of positions that they could apply for: i’ve got other degrees and other skills and other workplace skills to bring so you just have to be really broad i guess. you can’t just be one anymore, not anymore. you used to be able to just specialise but now you have to be able to have other skills as well. others suggested that having completed units in subjects that few other graduates in their discipline were likely to have studied would set them apart. likewise some students were completing a double degree and thought that this would help to differentiate them from other science graduates. a) further education some students felt it was ‘necessary to have a postgraduate degree’ to find relevant employment. several students intended to pursue further education to specialise, further develop knowledge and skills or make themselves more employable: i probably want to get into a food science industry. i've had a look at graduate jobs at the moment but it seems like i need to do some sort of postgrad stuff to get in the industry. while some students perceived further study to be a requirement for future employment, either as the next logical step in their pathway to getting a specific job, or as a likely necessary step for further career progression, others considered it a fall-back option if they were unable to secure a job once graduated: [i’m trying to] keep up my grades to keep honours and masters open as an option at the end of my degree. if that's what the job market is looking for, people with honours, then i'll pursue that. jorre de st jorre, t., elliott, j., johnson, e.d., & bisset, s. (2019). science students’ conceptions of factors that will differentiate them in the graduate employment market. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 10(1), 27– 41. 37 b) academic achievement with the exception of students who required particular grades for further study, grades were not perceived as being particularly influential. most students agreed that experience balanced or outweighed grades, as long as the grades obtained were sufficient to pass. some had even made a conscious decision to pursue other experiences at the expense of study time and grades: they’re focussed on grades not [practical experience] – whereas i’ve let a few grades slip so that i can get in … some practical experience. c) personal characteristics the impact of personal characteristics on employment was only occasionally discussed. however, several international students raised concerns about domestic students being preferred: [i’m] not that confident to be honest, not because of my abilities, but just because of the position i’m in because i’m not a citizen, so that kind of… means a little bit of a disadvantage because most graduate programs hire citizens. so it’s a bit of work to go through which organisations and companies will accept you and which won’t. students also referred to personality traits such as persistence, determination, passion, common-sense and work ethic in relation to their belief that they would (eventually) gain employment. discussion the students in this study recognised that having a degree is not sufficient to guarantee graduate employment. consequently, most students had, or were keen to participate in, opportunities that would allow them to ‘value add’ to their degree. these perceptions are not unique to australian or science students; they closely reflect those reported for students from other disciplines and international contexts (glover, sue, & youngman, 2002; tomlinson, 2008; tymon, 2013). students also recognised that employability is complex and influenced by many factors. however, their understanding of those factors and their relative importance was variable, as was their understanding of the career pathways that they might pursue. this reflects a concerning gap in the curriculum, because graduates need to evidence and articulate their own employability to gain opportunities (oliver, 2015); and being able to identify opportunities, and represent skills in a way that is relevant to employers and roles, is vital to career management (bridgstock, 2009). several studies have highlighted the importance of student-focussed communication and assessment to ensure that students actually recognise the skills that they are developing (hill et al., 2018; jorre de st jorre & oliver, 2018). in addition to that, the analysis of the findings of this study highlights the importance of explicitly designing curriculum to help students to understand the career opportunities that they might pursue relative to their specific degree; the skills and abilities that are needed for these; and the experiences through which they might develop and evidence these. furthermore, to engage students, we need to help them to address their greatest and most immediate concerns about gaining employment at graduation, while also setting them up for successful and fulfilling careers in the longer term. the largest area of inconsistency was in students’ conceptions of the relative importance of transferable and discipline-specific skills. many students perceived both skill sets as important, however, some seemed overly concerned with discipline-specific, and especially technical skills such as laboratory techniques and practices. this likely reflects a lack of appreciation for the importance of transferable skills to science-trained professionals (harris, 2012) and employers of science, technology, engineering and mathematics (stem) graduates (coll & zegwaard, 2006; deloitte, 2014; sarkar et al., 2016). with the fast rate of change in stemrelated industries, many of the technical skills learned at university become obsolete, or are jorre de st jorre, t., elliott, j., johnson, e.d., & bisset, s. (2019). science students’ conceptions of factors that will differentiate them in the graduate employment market. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 10(1), 27– 41. 38 less important than the ability to learn and adapt to change (deloitte, 2014; innovation and science australia, 2016). furthermore, science graduates attain diverse careers beyond science, research and technology, and in many of these, technical skills are not important at all (harris, 2012; palmer, campbell, johnson, & west, 2017). that is not to say that disciplinespecific skills and understanding are not important, especially for students seeking technical positions. however, employers are clear that it is broader transferable skills that will distinguish preferred applicants (alphabeta, 2016; sarkar et al., 2016). some students were very proactive about seeking opportunities (in or beyond their degree) to add value or fill perceived gaps in their skills development, networks or experience. however, students’ understanding of the opportunities that would be most valuable, and that were available, were variable. in fact, students who participated in the focus groups often learned about new opportunities by comparing experiences with other students. students did agree that relevant work experience and networks are of most use to gaining employment. students’ perceptions of the advantages of work experience, in particular placements, is consistent with other studies (kinash et al., 2016; qenani et al., 2014; sarkar et al., 2016; tymon, 2013). however, because of the broader framing of our questions, students in our study often spoke about work experience in general terms, and were conscious of and interested in gaining experience not only through placements, but also through paid employment or volunteering. students’ perception of the importance of networks seems to be more prominent in our study than in the previous studies, although kinash et al. (2016) did report that 49 percent of students used networking as a strategy. this is likely because students in our study were invited to talk about their personal actions. they appreciated opportunities provided by their university to expand their networks, such as industry events and placements, but they also discussed strengths and weaknesses in their own personal or professional networks and ways in which they had sought to add to these beyond opportunities provided by their institution. student perceptions about the importance of work experience and networks are consistent with employer and educator perspectives (bridgstock, 2016). employers report that providing work-integrated learning opportunities, in particular placements and projects, is a key recruitment strategy as it provides access to a pool of talent that they can screen for employment (atkinson et al., 2015; awpa, 2014; phillipskpa, 2014); but they also viewed provision of industry experiences to students as a way to contribute to their industry’s future (atkinson et al., 2015). further, employers often think that placements help students become better prepared for the workplace (coll et al., 2009). the opportunity to demonstrate their capabilities and build their professional network prior to graduation, rather than needing to build this from scratch upon graduation, is highly beneficial for students (bridgstock, 2016). these factors likely explain, at least in part, why students who have participated in wil activities tend to gain employment more quickly after graduation than students without wil experience (ferns et al., 2014). students were most interested in pursuing work experience and networks that they perceived as relevant to gaining a job. however, some students were not sure what jobs or careers they could actually pursue, and it is likely that many students were not aware of the breadth of careers that science professionals experience. it is likely that many students overlook opportunities that would help them to gain experience and networks, as well as skills and understanding that are relevant to them (and to employers). active intervention to help students appreciate the diversity of careers available and the range of relevant skills and experience, would help to address student concerns about employment opportunities, and provide them with more options for gaining helpful experience during study. this is highly relevant to students in science, who have poorer full-time employment outcomes immediately following graduation than their peers in more vocational disciplines (qilt, 2018). interestingly, some students in other studies afforded considerable importance to grades, with some students seeing these as instrumental to positioning themselves above their competitors in the graduate labour market (qenani et al., 2014; tomlinson, 2008; tymon, 2013). in jorre de st jorre, t., elliott, j., johnson, e.d., & bisset, s. (2019). science students’ conceptions of factors that will differentiate them in the graduate employment market. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 10(1), 27– 41. 39 contrast, grades and assessment were rarely discussed by students who participated in our study, and students even spoke about prioritising activities that would help them to gain experience or networks, despite likely negative impacts on their academic achievement. conclusion this study has shown that students appreciate the importance of gaining experience and skills beyond those provided by the formal curriculum. students did not isolate experiences in the taught curriculum from other experiences that develop employability. they also grasped the importance of industry relevance and looked for opportunities to develop and highlight their capabilities in what they perceived as a very competitive employment market. however, students’ understanding of the relative importance of experiences and skills that would enhance their employability was variable, as was their understanding of the career pathways that they might pursue. thus our analysis highlights the importance of explicitly designing curriculum to help students understand: the career opportunities available; the skills and abilities needed for diverse careers; and the experiences through which they might develop and evidence these. furthermore, students were most concerned with initial employment at graduation, and are likely to be more engaged if we help them to address these immediate concerns while also developing their appreciation for longer-term career development needs. jorre de st jorre, t., elliott, j., johnson, e.d., & bisset, s. 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(2006). employability in higher education: what it is what it is not. learning and employability, series 1. uk: higher education academy. i editorial welcome to volume 11 of the journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability. 2020 promises to be a significant year for the journal. in the coming months we will launch a new look for the journal as we update to the newest version of ojs. this is a timely development as the journal, now indexed in the scopus, informit, eric and crossref databases, continues to provide a scholarly forum for research which furthers our understanding of the issues surrounding graduate employability. we are also pleased to announce that a second volume for this year will be a special issue on micro-credentials and qualifications for future work and learning. for more information please see the announcements section on the journal home page. while the discourse around graduate employability frequently focuses on the employability competencies and capabilities required by graduates, the recent qs ranking of university graduates’ employability is a reminder that there are complementary initiatives that universities can undertake to enhance the employability of their graduates. the qs ranking of the top 500 universities for promoting employability of their graduates uses five factors to determine the ranking. two of these are partnerships with employers and employer student connections. partnerships with employers looks at which universities are collaborating with companies to produce research which will result in changes in knowledge and understandings, while the employer student connection factor is determined by examining the number of employers who have attended a university’s campus over the previous twelve months. this provides an opportunity for motivated students to network and acquire career related information, and to participate in career-launching internships and research opportunities. these activities also provide much needed opportunities to clarify professional expectations of graduates. the first paper published this year, future-proofing accounting professionals: ensuring graduate employability and future readiness by marcus bowles, samrat ghosh and lisa thomas reports on a collaborative research project between a professional body and a university in response to the dilemma of how best to ensure graduates choosing a professional career that the skills from accounting education would not only secure a job but also create a sustainable career pathway. the input from the professionals who contributed to the research provides an insightful way forward for educators of current and future generations of accountants. on behalf of the editorial committee, we commend this paper to you and thank you for your continued support of the journal. we invite you to engage with the forthcoming papers throughout the year, to submit a paper or to register as a reviewer and participate in the scholarly debate around the increasingly wide range of topics associated with graduate employability. emeritus professor beverley oliver (editor) dr beatrice tucker (deputy editor) oraison, h., konjarski, l., & howe, s. (2019). does university prepare students for employment? alignment between graduate attributes, accreditation requirements and industry employability criteria. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 10(1), 173–194. 173 does university prepare students for employment? alignment between graduate attributes, accreditation requirements and industry employability criteria humberto oraison1, loretta konjarski1 and samuel howe1 bert.oraison@vu.edu.au; loretta.konjarski@vu.edu.au; samuel.howe@vu.edu.au corresponding author: bert oraison 1victoria university abstract one of the primary goals of tertiary education is to prepare students for employment. there is debate as to whether university courses adequately provide students with 21st century workplace skills (kaminski, switzer, & gloeckner, 2009; kivunja, 2014). in a rapidly changing workforce, institutions must constantly adapt to maintain the practical utility of their courses. a thematic analysis was conducted to explore the degree of alignment between graduate attributes, accreditation requirements and industry employability criteria in nursing, psychology and education courses at an australian university. graduate attributes were obtained from the course approval and management system. relevant accreditation requirements were sourced from the respective bodies. a search of advertised job positions for the three discipline fields was conducted from a popular job-search engine (seek) to ascertain employability criteria. this analysis identified clear alignment between the university’s graduate attributes and the standards articulated by accreditation bodies for psychology, nursing and education. however, there were differences between graduate attributes and the employability criteria identified by job searches across the three disciplines. analysis of the employability criteria suggest that employers seek and prioritise graduates who possess practical competencies and 21st century skills such as problem solving and communication. however, there was little to no mention of cultural understandings and attitudes towards inclusion and diversity, both a core graduate attribute and an aspect of professional accreditation. the findings of this study may inform the development of future graduate attributes that better reflect preparedness for the workforce. alternatively, a reflection on graduate attributes and professional accreditation criteria might produce job advertisements that better reflect work contexts in an increasingly diverse society. keywords: employability, graduate attributes, accreditation, employment, psychology, nursing, education. introduction universities globally are progressively shifting their core business from knowledge transfer towards a more practical and employment-focused curricula that prepares students for professional careers and employment (martin, milne-home, barrett, spalding, & jones, 2000; moore & morton, 2015). university graduate attributes are designed to reflect student outcomes in regards to 21st century skills and capabilities keeping in mind the profession and the professional standards of the industry. graduate attributes should reflect both the requirements of the accreditation standards and the industry needs. these attributes include both academic and generic skills required for participation/work in a particular profession. it is mailto:bert.oraison@vu.edu.au mailto:loretta.konjarski@vu.edu.au mailto:samuel.howe@vu.edu.au oraison, h., konjarski, l., & howe, s. (2019). does university prepare students for employment? alignment between graduate attributes, accreditation requirements and industry employability criteria. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 10(1), 173–194. 174 clear that students need a variety of skills to be prepared for the unpredictable and ever changing nature of the workplace. gaps have been identified in europe with graduates from 13 countries expressing dissatisfaction with their tertiary education training (fernandez, lopez-miguens, & lampon, 2014). more than 40,000 students from the united kingdom, france, italy and spain are reported to lack the required job skills and the skills they have acquired at university are believed to be of limited practical workplace use (aneca, 2007). furthermore, spanish employers stated that university training offered poor resemblance to industry requirements. the employers gave a rating of 5.5 out of 10 for the quality of university graduates’ training when commencing work (fernandez et al., 2014). similarly, jackson (2012) analysed the concerns of us, uk and australian employers in relation to graduates’ skill-gaps, reporting deficiencies within the graduates’ skill-sets by identifying unmet industry requirements such as team working and communication. whilst curricula and graduate attributes are often developed with industry involvement that endeavours to address the gap between previous academic goals and industry needs (gill, 2018), the research findings above suggest that the gaps still exist. the present investigation will focus on analysing the alignment between graduate attributes of three university courses, graduate attributes articulated by the accreditation bodies and the industry requirements reflected in online employment advertising. the underpinning orientation of this research is to determine whether the existing gaps are the result of the assignment of graduate attributes by universities and accrediting bodies that have goals different to those of employers. literature review the australian federal government announced the creation of the tertiary education quality standards authority (teqsa) in 2009 to audit tertiary education institutions against five sets of standards, including standards for graduate learning outcomes (kelder & jones, 2015). these general or threshold standards reflect minimal requirements and quality expectations for australian tertiary education institutions (teqsa, 2015). in addition to the national standards, universities formulate a series of graduate attributes for each of their courses. in addition to this, universities seek feedback about their courses, from industry advisory groups and accrediting bodies, through course monitoring and benchmarking, to ensure that essential knowledge is relevant and current and addresses changes in industry standards. australian universities have adopted a series of generic skills as a component of their graduate attributes. these are lists of ‘attributes, or competencies’ that graduates should acquire in completing their courses (oliver, 2011; jorre de st jorre & oliver, 2018). in a good practice report commissioned by the learning and teaching council (oliver, 2011) an examination of australian university websites revealed consistency in the categorization of graduate attributes. the categories included: written and oral communication, critical and analytical thinking, problem-solving, information literacy, learning and working independently /collaboratively, ethical and inclusive engagement with communities, cultures and nations. graduate attributes include both the knowledge (conceptual knowledge) and know-how (procedural knowledge) as they are deemed equally important in the process of learning (hart, bowden, & watters, 1999). employers value basic skills such as literacy and numeracy but also others such as teamwork, relationship building and problem solving. in addition, while academic writing skills are highly desired by university courses, some industry and employers indicated that academic writing skills do not appear to be a priority (hart et al., 1999). accreditation of allied health courses is an essential requirement that ensures educational effectiveness, quality assurance and ongoing enhancement in tertiary education levels that is maintained through annual course monitoring (mcallister & nagarajan, 2015). this process is a structured method for universities to demonstrate accountability for the quality of their oraison, h., konjarski, l., & howe, s. (2019). does university prepare students for employment? alignment between graduate attributes, accreditation requirements and industry employability criteria. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 10(1), 173–194. 175 courses. this accountability extends to students, other universities, professional bodies, employer groups, the public and government by setting the minimal standards to uphold the integrity of the profession. accreditation requires programs to demonstrate attainment of objectives related to the preparation of students for employment, and to include reasonable quality assurance standards in term of competencies (mcallister & nagarajan, 2015). traditional models of accreditation are compliance-driven and require documentation as evidence of the professional attributes of graduates. accreditation bodies then audit universities collecting additional evidence and cross-reference data from multiple sources such as academics, students, clinical supervisors and employers (mcallister & nagarajan, 2015). accreditation has often focused on educational inputs and resources, but in recent times there has been a shift in this focus with an increased emphasis being placed on student learning outcomes, attainment of competencies and 21st century skills (camacho & cayetano, 2012). this shift in emphasis is linked to changes such as enhanced curricular coherence (health workforce australia, 2011), more efficient preparation of the health workforce, and enhanced public accountability for investments in health professional education (ahpra, 2013; health workforce australia, 2011). the graduate attributes created by universities and graduate attributes created by the accreditation bodies are most likely to align given the regulatory nature of the latter. however, the challenge is to identify the alignment between these two sets of attributes and the demands of the industry. one of the important aspects of tertiary education is to endeavour to provide students with learning outcomes to gain access to a complex and global job market (harrison & grant, 2016). these learning outcomes should consider industry demands and standards to facilitate transition to employment. while accreditation standards are essential to accredited courses, other ‘must-have’ essential skills must also inform the structure of courses, learning and assessments methods in an ongoing communication between universities and industry groups (camacho & cayetano, 2012; messum, wilkes, peters, & jackson, 2016). many terms are used to describe practical and ‘work-ready’ skills, including generic skills, essential skills, soft skills, key competencies, transferable skills, enterprise skills and 21st century skills. these skills and attributes are required to enable employees to effectively participate in the workforce (cranmer, 2006; messum et al., 2016). the frameworks that include these skills are also broader than just those relevant to employment and may include attributes that can be described as life skills or graduate attributes (bridgstock, 2009). caballero, walker and fuller-tyszkiewicz (2011,) defined work readiness as the extent to which graduates are perceived to possess the attitudes and attributes that make them prepared or ready for success in the work environment (p. 42). yorke (2004) defined employability as a series of attributes that make graduates more likely to secure and maintain employment in their chosen occupations. yorke (22004), and shivoro, shalyefu and kadhila, (2018) further believe that these skills and attributes should be incorporated into the tertiary education curriculum. fernandez, lopez-miguens and lampon (2014) emphasised the importance of universities as links between the training received and the demands of the business world. smith and bath (2006) stated that these outcomes typically include a combination of qualities such as: critical thinking, intellectual curiosity, problem-solving, logical and independent thought, communication and information management skills, intellectual rigour, creativity and imagination, ethical practice, integrity and tolerance. desirable graduate attributes across the australian university sector are predominantly consistent with accreditation requirements and industry needs (hajkowicz et al., 2016). although there is consistency in the desired graduate attributes across institutions, accreditation bodies and industry, the degree of alignment between the three sectors is pivotal for graduates to attain employment and warrants further investigation. hart and colleagues (1999), stated that: oraison, h., konjarski, l., & howe, s. (2019). does university prepare students for employment? alignment between graduate attributes, accreditation requirements and industry employability criteria. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 10(1), 173–194. 176 …only when there are explicit links between university – and professionally defined graduate competencies, students learning objectives, learning opportunities and assessment strategies will there be confidence in the quality of the programme as a preparation for professional practice (p. 307). the present investigation aimed to ascertain the degree of alignment between the graduate attributes of courses at an australian university, graduate attributes from accreditation bodies and the industry requirements reflected in online employment advertising. job advertisements reflect the skills and personal attributes that are sought by employers and provide a platform for understanding employers’ needs (arcodia & barker, 2008).two questions underpinned this research: 1. does university prepare students for employment? 2. do graduate attributes, accreditation requirements and industry employability criteria align? methodology data collection graduate attributes were obtained from the course approval and management system. course learning outcomes were also available, but for the purpose of this paper were not included in the analysis. the following graduate attributes are common to all courses offered by the university in question: 1. adaptable and capable 21st century citizens who can communicate effectively, work collaboratively, think critically and solve complex problems. 2. confident, creative lifelong learners who can use their understanding of themselves and others to achieve their goals in work and learning. 3. responsible and ethical citizens who use their intercultural understanding to contribute to their local and global communities. relevant accreditation requirements were sourced from the respective bodies. the australian psychology accreditation council is an independent quality and standards organisation, appointed as an external accreditation entity for the psychology profession in australia (burton, westen, & kowalski, 2015). data was sourced from the rules for accreditation and accreditation standards for psychology courses (apac, 2010). the australian nursing and midwifery accreditation council (anmac) is the accrediting authority for nursing and midwifery programs of study (ralph, birks, & chapman, 2015). data was sourced from the registered nurse accreditation standards (anmac, 2012). finally, the australian institute for teaching and school leadership (aitsl) is the organisation for maintaining the accreditation standards in relation to education (temperley, 2011). data was sourced from the guidelines for the accreditation of initial teacher education programs in australia (aitsl, 2016). a search of advertised job positions for the three discipline fields was conducted using the popular job-search engine (seek) to ascertain employability criteria. seek is considered one of the most used job-search engines in australia (australian business report, 2017). the specific keyword and classification search criteria for each profession are provided below in table 1. to remove any potential researcher bias, the first three jobs the seek search produced were selected, except when; advertisements provided too little information about the job to glean useful information; advertisements were for senior positions not suitable to entry-level university graduates; advertisements were for jobs that had very specific roles within one of the professions; or if the three selected advertisements were repetitious. oraison, h., konjarski, l., & howe, s. (2019). does university prepare students for employment? alignment between graduate attributes, accreditation requirements and industry employability criteria. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 10(1), 173–194. 177 table 1: seek (https://www.seek.com.au/) job search criteria, listings and selections by discipline. psychology nursing education keyword search psychologist nurse teacher classification healthcare and medical, selected: psychology, counselling and social work healthcare and medical, selected: nursing – a&e, critical care & icu, nursing – aged care, nursing – community, maternal & child health, nursing –general medical and surgical, nursing – high acuity, nursing – midwifery, neo-natal, scn & nicu, nursing – paediatric and picu, nursing – psych, forensic & correctional health & nursing – theatre & recovery. education & training, selected: teaching – primary (471 jobs) and teaching – secondary (808 jobs) where australia australia australia work types all work types all work types all work types income none selected ($0-200k+) none selected ($0-200k+) none selected ($0-200k+) listed any time any time any time jobs found (as of 10th oct, 2018) 594 4388 1279 (471 primary teacher & 808 secondary teacher) https://www.seek.com.au/ oraison, h., konjarski, l., & howe, s. (2019). does university prepare students for employment? alignment between graduate attributes, accreditation requirements and industry employability criteria. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 10(1), 173–194. 178 study design and analysis analysis was conducted to explore the degree of alignment between graduate attributes, accreditation requirements and industry employability criteria in nursing, psychology and education courses. thematic analysis techniques were deemed as the most appropriate in order to identify themes and patterns within the data from different sources (braun & clarke, 2006). following a combined theoretical and inductive approach, the themes were identified and aligned from different data sources (braun & clarke, 2006). document analyses yielded data—excerpts, quotations, or entire passages—that were then organised into major themes, categories, and case examples through content analysis (bowen, 2009). a systematic review of the documents focussed on identifying the common themes between the sources of data aiming to align key words/concepts (bowen, 2009; braun & clarke, 2006). following bowen’s recommendation for qualitative research the researchers determined the authenticity and usefulness of the sources, taking into account the original purpose of each document, the context in which it was produced, and the intended audience. results the tables below are designed to explore the alignment between graduate attributes, industry accreditation standards and online industry job advertisements across the three disciplines. blank table cells indicate no alignment between one or more of the data sources. a systematic content review indicated that the three course specific graduate attributes (csga) capture the six graduate attributes (ga) required for accreditation in the psychology course. the second part of this ga is well and clearly aligned to csga 1 (b). the ga3 refers to critical thinking and this is aligned with csga 1 (a). however, the second and third qualifiers for the ga appear vague and there is no clear alignment with the csgas. gas four and five are also well aligned to csga3 and csga1(c) respectively. finally, the alignment of ga 6 appears to be less defined as the language contained in the qualifiers is not always reflected within the csgas. oraison, h., konjarski, l., & howe, s. (2019). does university prepare students for employment? alignment between graduate attributes, accreditation requirements and industry employability criteria. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 10(1), 173–194. 179 table 2: comparison of themes for abpc bachelor of psychology (honours) course. course specific graduate attributes (csga) the australian psychology accreditation council graduate attributes (ga) seek job advertisement requirements (s1, s2, s3) csga1: a) identifying, anticipating and solving problems ranging from simple to important, complex and unpredictable problems ga4 evaluate psychologists behaviour in psychological research and other professional contexts in relation to the australian psychological society “code of ethics” and the complementary “ethical guidelines”, as well as the australian “national practice standards for the mental health workforce” s1 a dedication to self-reflection and professional development. s2 exceptional clinical skills. s3 helping families and carers to identify causes of behaviour. s3 effective problem solving skills s3 identify and implement supports and strategies that make sense for the client and their individual environments. s3 working with clients and their supporters to reduce the impact of mental health concerns such as anxiety and depression by using individualised, systemic or group programs. b) accessing, evaluating and analysing information ga2 conduct basic studies to address psychological questions: frame research questions; undertake literature searches; critically analyse theoretical and empirical studies; s3 in depth knowledge and experience in implementing the service requirements for people with disabilities. c) effective communication using known and yet to be developed tools in many contexts ga5 communication skills write a standard research report using american psychological association (apa) structure and formatting conventions demonstrate effective oral communication skills in various formats (e.g., debate, group discussion, presentation) and for various purposes s1 good communication and rapport building skills. s2 ability to foster positive relationships. s3 – excellent written and verbal communication skills, including a demonstrated ability to communicate across all levels of the organisation, with clients and their families, and other external parties. oraison, h., konjarski, l., & howe, s. (2019). does university prepare students for employment? alignment between graduate attributes, accreditation requirements and industry employability criteria. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 10(1), 173–194. 180 d) using effective interpersonal skills, collaborate with and influence, their personal, work, and community networks locally and globally ga5 demonstrate effective oral communication skills in various formats (e.g., debate, group discussion, presentation) and for various purposes write a standard research report using american psychological association (apa) structure and formatting conventions s1 a willingness to work with a diverse client case load. s2 – ability to foster positive relationships across the entire organisation and especially with patients/clients. s2 – leading by example. csga 2: a) understanding of the role of culture, values and dispositions in affecting achievement of goals ga1 social psychology history and philosophy of psychology intercultural diversity and indigenous psychology b) understanding how to initiate and develop new ideas ga2 design and conduct basic studies to address psychological questions: frame research questions; s1 a dedication to self-reflection and professional development. s2 identifying opportunities for continual improvement. c) planning and organising self and others ga2 research methods in psychology formulate testable hypotheses; operationalise variables; choose an appropriate methodology; s1 an ability to work autonomously and to be reliable. s1 the ability to self-manage case notes, letters to referrers and report writing in accordance with good practice procedures. s2 ability to work unsupervised. d) decision-making ga2 design and conduct basic studies to address psychological questions: frame research questions; undertake literature searches; critically analyse theoretical and empirical studies; formulate testable hypotheses; operationalise variables; choose an appropriate methodology; make valid and reliable measurements; analyse data and interpret results; and write research reports oraison, h., konjarski, l., & howe, s. (2019). does university prepare students for employment? alignment between graduate attributes, accreditation requirements and industry employability criteria. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 10(1), 173–194. 181 csga 3: a) respecting and valuing diversity ga1 social psychology history and philosophy of psychology intercultural diversity and indigenous psychology s1 a willingness to work with a diverse client case load. b) developing capacities required to contribute to a more equitable and sustainable world, including courage and resilience ga6 learning and the application of psychology c) understanding the workings of local and global communities and individuals' responsibilities within these ga3 critical thinking skills question claims that arise from myth, stereotype, pseudoscience or untested assumptions recognise and defend against the major fallacies of human thinking d) understanding the intricacies of balancing individual and public good ga4 values, research and professional ethics evaluate psychologists‟ behaviour in psychological research and other professional contexts in relation to the australian psychological society “code of ethics” and the complementary “ethical guidelines”, as well as the australian “national practice standards for the mental health workforce” use information in an ethical manner (e.g., acknowledge and respect work and intellectual property rights of others through appropriate citations in oral and written communication) table 3 demonstrates an alignment as standard 1 contains requirements relating to the course provider and standard 2 is captured in csga1. there is definitely alignment between standards 4 and 8 and the csgas. standards 5, 7 and 9 refer to pre-admission requirements and resources for the course and quality improvement/risk management respectively. however, csga3 does not appear to be explicitly related to industry requirements for the bachelor of midwifery/bachelor of nursing. the bachelor of midwifery/bachelor of nursing graduate attributes, accreditation standards and industry requirements were substantially aligned in relation to practical skills. these skills included: oraison, h., konjarski, l., & howe, s. (2019). does university prepare students for employment? alignment between graduate attributes, accreditation requirements and industry employability criteria. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 10(1), 173–194. 182 problem solving, critical thinking, written and oral communication, working collaboratively and independently, leadership and decision making amongst others. table 3: comparison of themes for hbma bachelor of midwifery/bachelor of nursing. course specific graduate attributes (csga) anmac standards (s) seek job advertisement requirements (s1, s2, s3) csga 1: the units of study focus on students developing critical thinking and problem solving skills. students are expected to access, evaluate, synthesise and analyse information to assist knowledge development and in completing assessment tasks. s4: program content 4.2 the central focus of the program is nursing practice, comprising core health professional knowledge and skills and specific nursing practice knowledge and skills that are evidence based, applied across the human lifespan and incorporate national and regional health priorities, health research, health policy and reform.4.3 nursing research and evidence-based inquiry underpins all elements of curriculum content and delivery. 4.4 program content supports the development and application of knowledge and skills in: a. critical thinking, analysis and problem solving b. quality improvement methodologies c. research appreciation and translation d. legal and ethical issues in health care and research e. health informatics and health technology. s1 outstanding clinical skills. s1 ability to deliver quality clinical assessments for residents through a comprehensive assessment process. s1 managing medication in accordance with resident needs and legislative requirements. s2 good critical thinking attributes. s2 good judgement and decision making attributes. students work to develop theoretical knowledge applied to clinical practice in all units of study. s2: curriculum conceptual framework 2.1 a clearly documented and explained conceptual framework for the program, including the educational s1 knowledge of aged care legislation, accreditation, and acfi. oraison, h., konjarski, l., & howe, s. (2019). does university prepare students for employment? alignment between graduate attributes, accreditation requirements and industry employability criteria. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 10(1), 173–194. 183 and professional nursing philosophies underpinning its curriculum. 2.2 the incorporation of contemporary australian and international best practice teaching, learning and assessment methodologies and technologies to enhance the delivery of curriculum content, stimulate student engagement and promote understanding. 2.3 a program of study that is congruent with contemporary and evidence-based approaches to professional nursing practice and education. s1 understanding of whs responsibilities, including manual handling principles. s2 knowledge of accreditation processes. effective communication and interpersonal skills are required in developing their role to become graduate health professionals through presenting material and meeting competencies commensurate with being a 21st century citizen. s2: curriculum conceptual framework 2.4 teaching and learning approaches that: i. promote emotional intelligence, communication, collaboration, cultural safety, ethical practice and leadership skills expected of registered nurses j. incorporate an understanding of, and engagement with, intraprofessional and interprofessional learning for collaborative practice. s1 excellent verbal and written communication skills. s1 outstanding people skills with ability to build rapport with residents and families. s1 leading and supporting care staff in the delivery of person-centered care. s2 be a team player. s2 great communication skills. s3 excellent communication and interpersonal skills. csga 2: students will develop an understanding of themselves relating to others using a cultural-awareness approach throughout their course s4: program content 4.5 inclusion of subject matter that gives students an appreciation of the diversity of australian culture, develops their knowledge of cultural respect and safety, and engenders the appropriate skills and attitudes s2 motivation and enthusiasm for learning. major pieces of assessment require students to embrace diversity in the context of australian health care and associated systems using an individualised-approach to s4: program content 4.6 inclusion of a discrete subject specifically addressing aboriginal and torres strait islander peoples’ history, health, wellness and culture. health conditions prevalent among aboriginal and torres strait islander peoples are also appropriately embedded into other subjects within the curriculum. oraison, h., konjarski, l., & howe, s. (2019). does university prepare students for employment? alignment between graduate attributes, accreditation requirements and industry employability criteria. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 10(1), 173–194. 184 interacting effectively and meaningfully with people. collaborative learning and assessment requires students to organise themselves and others. s3: program development and structure 3.1 consultative and collaborative approaches to curriculum design and program organisation between academic staff, those working in health disciplines, students, consumers and other key stakeholders including aboriginal and torres strait islander health professionals. s1 demonstrated ability to operate independently and professionally. s1 ability to delegate duties. s1 demonstrated leadership skills. s3 ability to prioritise your workload and confidence in working autonomously csga 3: the bachelor of midwifery/bachelor of nursing dual degree provides students with the opportunity to develop their intercultural understanding by respecting and valuing diversity amongst peers, other health professionals and most significantly, the women and clients, midwives and nurses care for. s8: management of workplace experience each student is provided with a variety of workplace experiences reflecting the major health priorities and broad landscape of nursing practice. opportunities are provided for intraprofessional and interprofessional learning and the development of knowledge, skills and behaviours for collaborative practice. students develop capacities to understand the broad concepts of health when applied to their local community, health agencies and broader australian society, with links to the international community. such an approach provides opportunities to contribute to a more equitable and sustainable world. s4: program content 4.2 the central focus of the program is nursing practice, comprising core health professional knowledge and skills and specific nursing practice knowledge and skills that are evidence based, applied across the human lifespan and incorporate national and regional health priorities, health research, health policy and reform. 4.3 nursing research and evidence-based inquiry underpins all elements of curriculum content and delivery. oraison, h., konjarski, l., & howe, s. (2019). does university prepare students for employment? alignment between graduate attributes, accreditation requirements and industry employability criteria. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 10(1), 173–194. 185 4.4 program content supports the development and application of knowledge and skills in: a. critical thinking, analysis and problem solving b. quality improvement methodologies c. research appreciation and translation d. legal and ethical issues in health care and research e. health informatics and health technology. table 4 shows results for education. there was a substantial level of alignment between csga1 and csga2 and the content of advertisements when compared to csga3, which appears poorly aligned (see table 4). the industry requires the applicants to be caring, considerate, and compassionate with a commitment to equal opportunity and work safety, indicating alignment to csga3 and standard 4 (table 4). there are elements of csga3 relating to multiculturalism, inclusion and diversity that are not explicitly mentioned in the job advertisements table 4: comparison of themes for ebed bachelor of education (p-12) course. course specific graduate attributes (csga) aitsl standards (s) seek job advertisement requirements (s1, s2, s3) csga 1: students work collaboratively in teams and engage with academics, peers and school colleagues to interpret curriculum and explore school students’ knowledge, interests and lives, to plan learning experiences for learners in a range of contexts and settings and from diverse backgrounds facing uncertain futures. standard 2 – know the content and how to teach it 2.1 content and teaching strategies of the teaching area demonstrate knowledge and understanding of the concepts, substance and structure of the content and teaching strategies of the teaching area. 2.2 content selection and organisation organise content into an effective learning and teaching sequence. s1 able to engage students through stimulating lesson delivery. s1 capable of building a positive rapport with students, staff and parents. s1 willing to develop and participate in the college’s cocurricular program. s3 have the desire and skills to participate in the school's pastoral care program. s3 have the desire and skills to participate in the college's co-curricular program. oraison, h., konjarski, l., & howe, s. (2019). does university prepare students for employment? alignment between graduate attributes, accreditation requirements and industry employability criteria. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 10(1), 173–194. 186 students develop a critical understanding of the changing nature of society (technological, economic, environmental and cultural) and its implications for education, with particular emphasis on the developments associated with the global knowledge economy and society standard 4 – create and maintain supportive and safe learning environments 4.5 use ict safely, responsibly and ethically demonstrate an understanding of the relevant issues and the strategies available to support the safe, responsible and ethical use of ict in learning and teaching s1 open to new ideas, innovations and use of emerging technologies. as a result they develop personal and social attributes needed to communicate in a variety of contexts and modes. standard 3 – plan for and implement effective teaching and learning 3.6 evaluate and improve teaching programs demonstrate broad knowledge of strategies that can be used to evaluate teaching programs to improve student learning. s1 capable of building a positive rapport with students, staff and parents. s2 excellent interpersonal and communication skills. s2 proven ability to build and maintain positive relationships. s3 ability to communicate effectively with a wide range of people both verbally and in writing. csga 2: be active and reflective practitioners, equipped with the critical awareness, teaching competence, knowledge and attitudes to teach young people in schools in the twenty-first century. standard 2 – know the content and how to teach it 2.1 content and teaching strategies of the teaching area demonstrate knowledge and understanding of the concepts, substance and structure of the content and teaching strategies of the teaching area. s1 able to use feedback and reflection to improve their practise. s3 be passionate about understanding how learning occurs and teaching pedagogies suitable for junior secondary aged students. s3 be able to respond positively to the pressures of a modern classroom. s3 be able to set high standards for student learning and their own performance. students develop curriculum, organise classrooms and use teaching strategies across all learning areas including literacy, numeracy and the application of information communication technology (ict), which include all 2.5 literacy and numeracy strategies know and understand literacy and numeracy teaching strategies and their application in teaching areas. 2.6 information and communication technology (ict) s1 willing to develop and participate in the college’s cocurricular program. s1 able to engage students through stimulating lesson delivery. s2 effective planning and organisational skills. s2 strong curriculum knowledge would be highly regarded. oraison, h., konjarski, l., & howe, s. (2019). does university prepare students for employment? alignment between graduate attributes, accreditation requirements and industry employability criteria. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 10(1), 173–194. 187 school students in learning. in addition students work both autonomously and collaboratively to develop an understanding of what it means to be a learner in a changing world implement teaching strategies for using ict to expand curriculum learning opportunities for students. s2 proven competence with the use of technology in a learning environment. develop an understanding of the complex relationships between learning identities (gendered, social, cultural, ethnic and linguistic), disability, values, attitudes, behaviours and schooling success. these experiences continue to build students' capacity for lifelong learning, problem solving and goal achievement. standard 1 – know students and how they learn 1.3 students with diverse linguistic, cultural, religious and socioeconomic backgrounds demonstrate knowledge of teaching strategies that are responsive to the learning strengths and needs of students from diverse linguistic, cultural, religious and socioeconomic backgrounds 1.4 strategies for teaching aboriginal and torres strait islander students demonstrate broad knowledge and understanding of the impact of culture, cultural identity and linguistic background on the education of students from aboriginal and torres strait islander backgrounds. s1 able to engage students through stimulating lesson delivery. s1 keen to reach every student through use of effective differentiation and care. s3 be able to respond positively to the pressures of a modern classroom. csga 3: develop democratic and inclusive teaching and learning practices that value intercultural understanding and difference. standard 4 – create and maintain supportive and safe learning environments 4.1 support student participation identify strategies to support inclusive student participation and engagement in classroom activities. s1 keen to reach every student through use of effective differentiation and care. s1 committed to managing the class with consideration and compassion. s3 knowledge of and a commitment to the principles of equal opportunity and work safety. develop knowledge of indigenous communities and develop resources to teach indigenous students. in addition they develop teaching and learning portfolios that examine ethical and standard 2 – know the content and how to teach it 2.4 understand and respect aboriginal and torres strait islander people to promote reconciliation between indigenous and non-indigenous australians oraison, h., konjarski, l., & howe, s. (2019). does university prepare students for employment? alignment between graduate attributes, accreditation requirements and industry employability criteria. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 10(1), 173–194. 188 professional codes of conduct when working with school communities. demonstrate broad knowledge of, understanding of and respect for aboriginal and torres strait islander histories, cultures and languages develop the capacity to understand local and global education issues through unit content and practicum experience and work towards to a more equitable and sustainable world through research and knowledge exchange. during their time in educational settings students work with diverse learners and are aware of the need to be respectful of cultural, linguistic and religious diversity. exposure to different teaching situations allows students to be aware of different classroom climates, alternative teaching styles and curriculum design that leads to a building of cross-cultural knowledge standard 6 – engage in professional learning 6.2 engage in professional learning and improve practice understand the relevant and appropriate sources of professional learning for teachers. 6.3 engage with colleagues and improve practice seek and apply constructive feedback from supervisors and teachers to improve teaching practices. 6.4 apply professional learning and improve student learning demonstrate an understanding of the rationale for continued professional learning and the implications for improved student learning. oraison, h., konjarski, l., & howe, s. (2019). does university prepare students for employment? alignment between graduate attributes, accreditation requirements and industry employability criteria. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 10(1), 173–194. 189 discussion the present investigation explored alignment between the course specific graduate attributes of an australian university, the graduate attributes required by accreditation bodies in three disciplines and the industry requirements reflected in online employment advertising for those disciplines. the key and novel findings of the present investigation were: 1. greater alignment between university graduate attributes and accreditation requirements in comparison to industry employability criteria from job advertisements. 2. employers sought and prioritised graduates who possess practical competencies and 21st century skills such as problem solving and communication, with little to no mention of cultural understandings and attitudes towards inclusion and diversity. in order to ascertain whether universities prepare students for the workforce it is necessary to discuss the degree of alignment between what universities offer and what is required to obtain employment (camacho & cayetano, 2012; fernandez, lopez-miguens, & lampon, 2014; harrison & grant, 2016, messum et al., 2016). results indicated that there is substantial alignment which would satisfy the traditional employability definitions (caballero et al., 2011; gill, 2018). the results coincide with bath, smith, stein and swann, (2004) as the alignment was present in relation to critical and logical thinking, intellectual curiosity, problem solving, communication and creativity skills, ethical practice, integrity and tolerance. this alignment also concurs with other studies (oliver, 2011; oliver, 2015; jorre de st jorre, & oliver, 2018) in regards to the previously mentioned skills. however, there is limited alignment in relation to inclusive engagement with communities, cultures and nations (oliver, 2015). universities have included cultural understanding and inclusion and diversity in their graduate and course specific attributes as demonstrated in the tables above. industry values these attributes as they have strategic policies regarding culture, inclusion and diversity but they are not always able to demonstrate how these policies would work on the ground (pless & maak, 2004). this may explain why specific reference to these attributes is missing in the job advertisements. in relation to the psychology course, the first identifiable misalignment refers to understanding the role of culture, values and dispositions (see table 2). universities and accreditation bodies place high importance on cultural, social and environmental issues (oliver 2015), whilst industry does not according to the online employability criteria analysed in this study. course accreditation processes appear to be more stringent when crossreferencing current university standards and less successful at auditing rapidly evolving industry needs and subsequently relaying these to the university sector to ensure graduates are employable in the 21st century (mcallister & nagarjan, 2015). accrediting bodies and universities must acknowledge that technological advances and data analytics are impacting and shaping the jobs of the future and orient graduate attributes accordingly (e.g. develop technological literacies).the new version of the australian psychology accreditation council standards effective from 01/01/2019 appear to be written from a more pragmatic perspective instead of a philosophical or academic approach. the focus of the new standards appears to be around the practice placements in what represents a shift towards a closer connection to the practice of professional psychology in the workforce. indeed, some of the previous language appears to be vague, including words such myths, pseudoscience and fallacies of human kind. the results from the present investigation concur with those of arcodia and barker (2008) and bath, smith, stein and swann, (2004), who identified key skills sought by employers of nurses and allied health workers such as: organisation, people and problem oraison, h., konjarski, l., & howe, s. (2019). does university prepare students for employment? alignment between graduate attributes, accreditation requirements and industry employability criteria. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 10(1), 173–194. 190 solving skills. these results differ from oliver (2015) as the industry requirements for nursing do not include diversity and cultural demands for graduates. the majority of australian universities listed culture awareness and diversity within their graduate attributes (oliver, 2015). this was the case for this university and the nursing accreditation body (anmac) in the current study. similarly to the psychology course, cultural awareness does not appear to be explicitly related to industry requirements. in addition, the graduate attributes had a significant focus in making a contribution to a more equitable and sustainable world. this focus was not present in the industry job requirements. the industry requirements articulated in job advertisements appear to focus on knowledge and content for all three disciplines. like both the psychology and midwife/nursing courses, the industry requirements for education appeared to be focused around knowledge and content reflected in skill sets (hart et al., 1999). employers desired candidates with excellent communication, planning and organisational skills. these skills and attributes are consistent with previous literature (cranmer, 2006; messum et al., 2016) outlining industry demands for employees to be effective in the workforce. educational institutions also sought graduates who were passionate, compassionate, engaging, adaptive and reflective. the aforementioned personal attributes were only partially mentioned within the graduate attributes and accreditation standards for education (aitsl). in contrast, both attributes and standards described in detail cultural awareness, values, beliefs and diversity yet were not explicitly stated within job advertisements. the divergent levels of alignment between pragmatic knowledge and ethical themes may be due to the former relating to industry related skills and competencies as opposed to the latter which refer to attitudes, values and beliefs that are rarely mentioned within job advertisements, but may be a part of broader workplace culture documents. in the 21st century there is a possibility that employers within a market-driven environment prioritise employees who possess productivity-related attributes above ethical and cultural awareness, because of a lack of recognition of the relationship between workplace culture and productivity. another possible rationale for why industry employment criteria did not align with graduate attributes or accreditation standards when referring to cultural beliefs, values and dispositions may be that employers implicitly or inherently expect potential job candidates to possess certain values and attributes as university trained professionals, and thereby do not list them within online advertisements. industry needs to clearly articulate their requirements to enable universities to design their curricula and convey these expectations explicitly to students in an attempt to address the skills gaps (jackson, 2009). in order for this to occur it would require clearer communication between industry and universities to address the attributes that are key to the specific industry. it is evident that the universities curricula does address the industry knowledge and skill requirements in most cases, but what is missing is the explicit reference to the attributes of cultural awareness, values, beliefs and diversity. industry has policies to suggest these are important and so must ensure that these attributes are communicated to universities and students alike. universities have csga and ga as they are not only developing industry ready graduates but also graduates who are completing courses that are not industry specific. universities are a place of learning about content knowledge, and the process of learning itself and would be compromised if they only developed key competencies for industry specific means. each university has an obligation to the students they teach to develop attributes that would serve them in this current climate. oraison, h., konjarski, l., & howe, s. (2019). does university prepare students for employment? alignment between graduate attributes, accreditation requirements and industry employability criteria. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 10(1), 173–194. 191 strengths and limitations conducting a systematic thematic analysis by collating and comparing data from three different sources (university, accreditation bodies and industry advertisements) identified clear patterns between the sources (i.e. alignment or misalignment). consistent findings across multiple disciplines validates the stringent methodology of this study. a small sample of advertisements were utilised from one recruitment platform (seek) which is a limitation of this study that may have biased the findings. this research present an early understanding of the alignment between universities accrediting bodies and industry requirements. while this study did not explore the course learning outcomes or individual unit learning outcomes which may have provided further insight into the degree of alignment between the three sectors it has provided an insight into the differences between three sources. practical applications and future directions the findings of this study may inform the development of future graduate attributes that better reflect preparedness for the workforce. further research will benefit from interviewing industry leaders in order to obtain a richer understanding of their expectations in relation to prospective employees. given the findings of the present study, further investigation of the degree of alignment between the three sectors and other discipline courses is warranted. in addition, the alignment between course learning outcomes and australian government guidelines such job outlook (https://joboutlook.gov.au/) should also be considered and explored. conclusion thematic analysis identified clear alignment between an australian university’s graduate attributes and the accreditation bodies standards for psychology, nursing and education. this may come as no surprise as these standards drive course design, course content and further the development of graduate attributes within each course. the differences in specific criteria and language may be explained by an understanding of graduate attributes as wider reaching statements that include an alignment with the values of the universities and the cohorts they serve. job searches across the three disciplines indicated that employers are seeking and prioritising graduates who possess practical competencies and 21st century skills such as problem solving and communication with little mention of cultural understandings and attitudes. the findings of this study may inform the development of future graduate attributes that better reflect preparedness for the workforce. alternatively, they may inform workplaces about the increasing need for entry-level positions to require an understanding of, and capacity to work within, an increasingly diverse society https://joboutlook.gov.au/ oraison, h., konjarski, l., & howe, s. 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(2019). does university prepare students for employment? alignment between graduate attributes, accreditation requirements and industry employability criteria. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 10(1), 173–194. 194 timperley, h (2011). a background paper to inform the development of a national professional development framework for teachers and school leaders. melbourne, victoria: australian institute for teaching and school leadership. available from: https://enable.eq.edu.au/supportandresources/formsanddocuments/documents/background -paper.pdf yorke, m. 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(2019) research into the diversification of university careers in learning and teaching and intentionally closing-the-loop on graduate employability. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 10(1), 195–212. 195 research into the diversification of university careers in learning and teaching and intentionally closing-the-loop on graduate employability james arvanitakis1, madelaine-marie judd2, shelley kinash3, trina jorre de st jorre4 and trish mccluskey5 j.arvanitakis@westernsydney.edu.au; m.judd@uq.edu.au; shelley.kinash@usq.edu.au; trina.j@deakin.edu.au; trish.mccluskey@vu.edu.au corresponding author: madelaine-marie judd 1pro vice-chancellor (research and graduate studies studies), western sydney university, penrith, australia orcid: 0000-0002-7413-0110 2student partners advisor, student employability centre, building 87,the university of queensland, st lucia, queensland, australia, 4072. orcid: 0000-0002-5631-1882 3director, advancement of learning and teaching, university of southern queensland, toowoomba, australia. orcid: 0000-0002-5631-1882. 4senior lecturer, student achievement, deakin university, melbourne, australia. orcid: 0000-0001-7848-0305 5trish mccluskey, director, connected learning, victoria university. abstract universities are both a source of employable graduates and careers. this paper examines universities as developers and employers of their own graduates from the perspective of employees and recruited positions. research questions were: what do learning and teaching careers look like at universities, and; what are the occupational patterns, satisfactions and concerns of the staff in those careers? an autoethnographic account of employees’ career journeys (all of whom were employed in learning and teaching or closely related areas) from five different universities were shared, compared and contrasted. two of these universities are profiled as having a large proportion of students from target equity groups and therefore have intentionally recruited learning and teaching staff to widen student participation. a desktop review of six months of university employment vacancies from these two universities was conducted. a consistent theme across the autoethnographic stories was a feeling of being an outsider. the authors’ hypothesis is that this is related to haphazard preparation for learning and teaching positions. of the 322 university vacancies, 84% were for professional staff, 23% of which were in learning and teaching, with the most prevalent role being coordinator. fourteen per cent were for academic staff, 64% of which involved learning and teaching, and the most prevalent title was lecturer/senior lecturer. key takeaways include recommendations for universities to intentionally enhance the employability of graduates who pursue learning and teaching positions within universities, and for prospective university learning and teaching staff to enhance their employability. keywords: graduate employability, careers, universities, higher education, academics, professionals, learning, teaching mailto:j.arvanitakis@westernsydney.edu.au mailto:m.judd@uq.edu.au mailto:shelley.kinash@usq.edu.au mailto:trina.j@deakin.edu.au mailto:trish.mccluskey@vu.edu.au arvanitakis, j., judd, m-m., kinash, s., jorre de st jorre, t., & mccluskey, t. (2019) research into the diversification of university careers in learning and teaching and intentionally closing-the-loop on graduate employability. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 10(1), 195–212. 196 introduction while one of the primary purposes of higher education is to foster and develop future leaders, universities also serve as large organisations that employ a vast range of staff with unique skills and expertise. in other words, universities serve as gateways to employment and as employers. recent statistics indicated that over 120,000 staff are formally employed across australian universities (the department of education, 2017). employment within universities is also the aim of many of our graduates, particularly those completing doctorates, who are often driven by aspirations of a career in research and education. the size of universities brings complexity, including salient tensions and divides that can be classified as within-role, between-roles and out-of-role (chubb, watermeyer, & wakeling, 2017; mcalpine & åkerlind, 2010; taylor, 2008). such tensions are often driven by hierarchies (both real and imagined), that have come to shape the structures and employment within universities. within-role tensions within the roles of academics, one of the most talked-about tensions is that of balancing teaching, research and service (brew, boud, lucas, & crawford, 2018; seldin, 2004; taylor, 2008). teaching and research have become so polarised, that even 15 years ago, knight (2002) characterised them as ferrets in a sack (p. 3). many academics have axiological convictions over whether teaching or researching are nobler roles. while teaching tends to win the social justice competition (i.e. for the good of the students), research-active academics appear to more frequently win the career advancements game, including academic promotions. as such, seldin (2004) wrote, for years, professors were hired to teach, but were rewarded for research and publication (p. 2). as further testament, academics often use awarded grant money to buy-out their teaching, but it is unheard of to buy-out research. key evidence of the unequal divide is that when the australian government abolished the national office for learning and teaching, they simultaneously put more money into research (kinash, & judd, 2018). brew, boud, lucas and crawford (2018) challenge whether this simple operational definition of academics as teaching and/or research active and accomplished captures the complex nature of these roles. if teaching and research are the metaphorical ferrets, then service is the sack that should wrap both together, but instead, gets tossed aside. macfarlane (2007) wrote that service gets forgotten in academe and that a dire consequence is that the fundamental academic role and responsibility – to students – is repositioned as burden rather than mission: …student service, the most disesteemed element of service, needs to be re-valued both as a moral imperative and as a pragmatic measure to combat the increasing alienation of students in mass systems of modern higher education (p. 6). what macfarlane calls ‘service’ can be conceptualised as the learning function, or in other words, ensuring that universities recognise that student academic success often requires more intervention, than that of traditional teaching activities. for example, boud and brew (2013) wrote about the roles of academic developers, in recognition of the need for ‘specialist knowledge and skills’ to enhance learning processes. between-role tensions teaching is one of the key roles and responsibilities of academic staff (probert, 2013), but many student-directed learning functions are performed by professional staff. the privileging of academic roles within higher education is so pervasive that many universities, and thereby arvanitakis, j., judd, m-m., kinash, s., jorre de st jorre, t., & mccluskey, t. (2019) research into the diversification of university careers in learning and teaching and intentionally closing-the-loop on graduate employability. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 10(1), 195–212. 197 publications, talk about academic and non-academic jobs (collinson, 2006; mcalpine & åkerlind, 2010). in 2017, academic staff members consisted of 45 percent of australian university staff, with the other 55 percent classified as non-academic (the department of education, 2017). simply put, more than half of university occupations are reduced to a nomenclature that defines what they are not. another common term for these staff is ‘professional’, but staff in these positions rarely receive the esteem, recognition or status afforded to professionals in other sectors, such as engineers or accountants. furthermore, while the academic voice is robust in the literature, and many articles have been written by and about academic roles, identities and issues, the voice and perspectives of professional staff are rarely heard. out-of-role tensions higher education is experiencing workforce transformation, which includes the emergence of a new role, or third space, which might be conceptualised as ‘out-of-role’, because it does not fit current classifications of academic or non-academic. whitchurch (2015) describes the third space as those who do not fit conventional binary descriptors such as those enshrined in ‘academic’ or ‘non-academic’ employment categories (p. 1). the work that goes on in universities is far more complex than that captured by normative lists of learning and teaching related roles, including, lecturing, facilitating tutorials and labs, giving and marking assignments and tests, timetabling and other administration of these educational tasks. calling the additional, more hidden, tasks ‘backstage work’, knight (2002) listed examples, including, course and programme design, assessment plans, module evaluation arrangements, resource decisions, admissions and teaching policies (p. 1). if an academic role is defined, at least in part, by roles in learning and teaching, then knight’s examples cannot be considered ‘non-academic’. boud and brew (2013) describe the emergence of a distinct subset of the academic profession (p. 208), academic developers, who may or may not be academics themselves, and whose role it is to support academics to practice learning and teaching. increasingly, these ‘backstage’ roles are conducted by specialised university staff who are not classified as academics, but perform work requiring extensive expertise in learning and teaching. these are not administrative, support or managerial roles. there appears to be no standard or universally-understood classification for this increasingly common positioning, nor empirical work researching this phenomenon. this overlooked and misunderstood identity may contribute to why, authors such as barnett and di napoli (2008), knight (2002), macfarlane (2007), seldin (2004) and whitchurch (2015) characterise university workforces as troubled and stressful. despite these stress-factors, universities continue to attract an abundance of employees, and many staff are compelled to undertake roles for the furtherance of learning and teaching. as expressed by chubb, watermeyer, and wakeling (2017), the emotional ties to academic labour are binding (p. 556). thus, learning and teaching may explain the preponderance of universities as employers, in that many staff seem to be compelled by what might be called citizen scholarship. macfarlane (2007) characterised academic citizenship, in part, as to take responsibility for the welfare and development of students, colleagues and fellow professionals (p. 3). arvanitakis and hornsby (2016) expanded the notions of citizenship wellbeyond academics to include the broader university (including students). they wrote that a citizen scholar does: arvanitakis, j., judd, m-m., kinash, s., jorre de st jorre, t., & mccluskey, t. (2019) research into the diversification of university careers in learning and teaching and intentionally closing-the-loop on graduate employability. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 10(1), 195–212. 198 …not only care about gaining information and generating knowledge but is also rooted in the reality of their context, problem-oriented and interested in applying their knowledge for the betterment of a society (p. 1). this description aptly fits university scholars who tirelessly progress excellence in the overall educative experience, regardless of their positioning. there is a growing body of literature that examines whether academics should be engaged in teaching, research or a combination of the two (e.g. hajdarpasic, brew, & popenici, 2015). arguably the most seminal, yet contemporary, discussion paper on the teaching focus of australian universities was authored by probert for the australian government, office for learning and teaching. probert (2013) analysed university uptake of teaching-only academic positions, alongside the rationales, emergent benefits and contraindications. probert wrote that there is increasing differentiation within the academic workforce and one of the driving forces is an explicit desire to raise the status of teaching and develop teaching-focused career paths (p. 2). notably, probert’s research focuses on one side of two paradigmatic couples in higher education. whereas the words, teaching and learning are seldom used in isolation in contemporary higher education literature (e.g. biggs & tang, 2011; ramsden, 2008), probert’s analysis focussed on teaching roles and functions, and did not investigate the counterpart services and supports to assure that students learn. probert also focussed on the academic career, and did not investigate the role of professional staff in learning and teaching. before proceeding, it is important, as authors of this paper, we acknowledge the importance of academic roles, but argue that they are not the defining or pinnacle role or experience of higher education. the argument of this paper is with university careers in the area of learning and teaching becoming increasingly diversified, universities need to implement explicit and targeted strategies for sustaining and developing their own future workforce, especially with respect to roles and pathways in teaching and learning. review of empirical studies some empirical studies have investigated the university workforce, but these have primarily focussed on academic roles and perspectives. for example, acker and haque (2010) presented a thematic analysis of in-depth interviews with 11 doctoral students nearing dissertation completion and five who had recently graduated, all of whom aspired to be academics. students and graduates were from the faculty of education at a canadian university. their comments indicated that they did not have a developed awareness of what an academic career would entail, nor strategic ways and means of building their employability for that career. analysis offered two, possibly interactive, reasons for their lack of clarity. first, most students did not have financial independence and needed to balance their survival needs (including working multiple jobs) with degree completion. second, abstracting from the experiences of students, career supports, strategies and counselling were lacking from the graduate program, including absence from supervisory relationships. students who were teaching (on a casual basis) appeared to commonly perceive this as just-another-part-time-job and cheap labour for their university, as opposed to offering experiences, apprenticeship and development as future university teachers. bosanquet, mailey, matthews, and lodge (2017), situated their research further along the academic career trajectory to early career academics. they analysed five narratives and survey data from 522 early career academics, from three australian universities, to reconsider current career definitions and classifications. they concluded that the academic workforce is highly variable and characterised by diverse pathways, timeframes and accomplishments. arvanitakis, j., judd, m-m., kinash, s., jorre de st jorre, t., & mccluskey, t. (2019) research into the diversification of university careers in learning and teaching and intentionally closing-the-loop on graduate employability. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 10(1), 195–212. 199 they did not directly address the blurring of academic classification and workload, but acknowledged this as a secondary finding from their research: the academic role itself is in a state of flux. traditionally academic work is being reassigned to ‘third space’ non-academic staff such as learning designers with implications for the scholarly aspects of their work (p. 900). notably, these researchers focussed their inquiry on academics and identified others as nonacademic staff. clegg (2008) explored the journeys and identities of academics through interviews with 13 academics (7 women, 6 men) at an urban university in the north of england. she sought participation from academics with variable experience (in terms of time) and roles, including those concentrated on teaching and/or research. academics brought numerous other life roles into the conversation, such as parenthood. conversations uncovered diverse conflictual spaces (p. 336) such as the oblique nature of university life, as compared to industry, gender and a hierarchy of esteem. some academics commented that a commonly held perception is that academics are defined by the discipline they teach, but suggested that the role of the academic is far more complex and is actively transforming. clegg wrote: …some universities are responding to a more diverse student population, and government policies on employability, by creating courses which cannot be simply defined in terms of discipline or traditional profession. one interesting speculation from the data is that, for some individuals at least, less prestigious places in terms of the league tables of universities might actually allow for the emergence of new, secure, hybridised identities that are not as hampered by the overweening pressure of research productivity (p. 341). this passage points to variation in pressures and identity influencers based on the ranking of the university’s research output. clegg suggests that the identity of the academic is also influenced by their faculty, school, discipline, and their personal goals. clegg concluded that the identities of academics are expanding and proliferating and that amidst the change, academics appear able to define themselves, and act in ways that are consistent with their values, including the priority many assign to students and their learning (p. 343). a final study by chubb, watermeyer and wakeling (2017), was conducted in the context of an impact agenda, broadly defined as a new requirement that academics, with grant-funding, provide evidence of research impact beyond higher education. the researchers used in-depth interviews with mid-career and senior academics (30 in the united kingdom and 21 in australia) to investigate how academics ‘felt’ about the impact agenda. the main finding was that the research participants were highly emotive about their research work and its perceived impact. the authors wrote, for many of our interviewees, impact was seen as critical to their agency and identity; for others, it had the potential to threaten the very nature of what they do (p. 559). those who expressed the latter perspective tended to talk about managerialism, constraint and loss of trust and power. inclusion of academics’ emotional responses is a strength and unique contribution of this study; however, only academic roles and the research facet of those roles were considered. this brief review of empirical literature reveals three main gaps: (1) research appears to focus almost exclusively on academic roles; (2) methodologies have been only minimally expanded beyond personal stories to include other data sources; and, (3) research designs have been cross-sectional, as opposed to longitudinal. in order to contribute to resolving these research gaps, this study was designed such that: (1) positions classified as academic and professional were included; (2) the methodology included personal stories of those working in learning and teaching (or a closely related area) and a high level quantitative dimension was added by analysing university job advertisements; and (3) personal stories were written in a longitudinal arvanitakis, j., judd, m-m., kinash, s., jorre de st jorre, t., & mccluskey, t. (2019) research into the diversification of university careers in learning and teaching and intentionally closing-the-loop on graduate employability. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 10(1), 195–212. 200 manner, taking career trajectories into account. the two research questions pursued were: (1) what do learning and teaching careers look like at universities, and; (2) what are the occupational patterns, satisfactions and concerns of the staff in those careers? research aims and methodology this research was designed to empirically investigate the trends, patterns and themes within the context of university learning and teaching (or closely related) roles, from the situated perspectives of employees and recruited positions. two approaches were taken to investigate the research questions. first, five authors, from different australian universities, at different phases of their career journeys, wrote narratives depicting their career stories. authors were invited to tell their stories of university employment, with willing self-consent to vulnerability, and each with an eye to the themes of learning, teaching and research, and of their identities as academic and professional staff. the twists and turns of these stories were then compared and contrasted to reflect-outwards, applying the methodology of autoethnography. reed-danahay (1997), described the essential element of autoethnography as shifting identities, in which the autoethnographer is a boundary-crosser, and the role can be characterized as that of a dual identity (p. 3). as applied to this particular study, the authors are all working in a space between that of academics and professionals, whereby their students are mostly teachers (making them atypical academics) and much of their work is executive leadership and change agentry (their work crosses boundaries, in that much of the content is learning, teaching and research). for boundary crossers (aka: the authors), these conditions create a state that reed-danahay described as ‘displacement’, provoking the authors to inquire into the need for a new category in university employment. autoethnography makes three theoretical propositions regarding ontology and epistemology: (1) that group members write their own research stories; (2) that the chosen stories represent the views of contextual minorities, in other words, representing challenging rather than dominant voices; and, (3) that personal reflections and emotional responses are welcomed as part of the text (reed-danahay, 1997). in direct application of these propositions to the research presented in this paper: the five authors each wrote their own stories; these particular authors came together, as atypical university employees, in that none progressed through the typical academic pathway (as depicted by bosanquet, mailey, matthews, & lodge, 2017); and the authors committed to personal vulnerability through sharing emotionally-laden incidents, as assurance to readers that they are not alone in their confronting experiences. the first method was an inquiry into what university learning and teaching careers look and feel like for the people in those positions, and the journeys that brought them to this point. the second research method was to broaden the inquiry and look to positions themselves. the selected sample was the full set of university positions advertised (by two of the five universities) across the first six months of 2018. the rationale for choosing the two universities was that both have comparatively high proportions of students from designated equity groups, and have thus put intentional learning and teaching services (and thus positions) in place to achieve widening participation and supporting success. applying the methodology of manual thematic analysis, a classification grid was created and populated to inquire into: the proportion of academic to professional (or unspecified positions); the extent to which learning and teaching, and conversely research, were key components of the roles; and whether they were short-term contract or continuing positions. as described by pole and morrison (2003), this is also a form of ethnography, whereby researchers seek to locate [social] interaction within a wider context which takes account not only of individual agency but also of social structures (p. 47). as such, the authors reached beyond their own stories to investigate some structural indicators of the state of play in regards to universities as employers and university arvanitakis, j., judd, m-m., kinash, s., jorre de st jorre, t., & mccluskey, t. (2019) research into the diversification of university careers in learning and teaching and intentionally closing-the-loop on graduate employability. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 10(1), 195–212. 201 staff as employees. the chosen data set was therefore recent job advertisements to inquire into how universities conduct business as employers. analysis of data from both parts of the study was conducted by coding, theming, tabulating, comparing and contrasting. pole and morrison (2003) identified the steps of analysis as concurrence, overlaps, sequence, proximity and precedence (p. 95). in alignment with this approach, analysis of the authors’ stories inquired into: the parts of the stories that concurred in regard to employment patterns and situations; overlap or commonality, within and between the stories; whether the events happened in similar or different orders for the various authors; how closely each social situation appeared to impact self-identity; and whether the storied events indicated or determined an overall culture. similarly, these analytic steps informed the unpacking of the job advertisements. thematic analysis was applied to identifying key words (themes) in the positions’ selection criteria, deriving analytic tables for academic and professional positions. coding was used to reveal trends in response to the research questions (and compared and contrasted with the findings of the reviewed literature). two of the co-authors separately aggregated and analysed the university job postings. the primary themes (words) they would use for manual analysis were clear and pre-determined. this meant that there was little discrepancy between the two sets of results. where discrepancy did occur, they discussed the results and made a joint decision. an excel spreadsheet was created, with the top column representing the various coding fields (e.g. learning and teaching, research, role type, contract type, duration) and the rows representing individual advertisements. results auto-ethnographical accounts: our lived experiences in the following section, you will encounter five stories – the lived experiences of university staff in various roles at different universities. as articulated by mills (2010), the changing political economy of academic life becomes meaningful through individual accounts and experiences (p. 74). three of the stories are told from the perspectives of academic staff who hold phds, and two from professional staff, one of whom is in an executive position, and the other of whom is about to undertake a phd. from finance to education: the journey of an activist-educator professor james arvanitakis i am currently the pro vice-chancellor (research and graduate studies) at western sydney university. despite a dozen books (authored and edited) and over 100 publications, i still struggle with the term academic and wrestle with imposter syndrome. i am the first member in my family to attend a higher education institution, and thus lack the university-based cultural capital that many of my contemporaries have always possessed. my student journey was not smooth through my undergraduate degree. i struggled with what i found to be unclearly defined and unfocussed learning and teaching. i had to come face-toface with the dean at one point for ‘failing too many units’. my postgraduate program in financial markets, on the other hand, helped me to re-imagine and experience what education can be. those leading the classes were professionals who challenged us to solve the same problems they were confronting. as such, i learned that education could be a living journey, as opposed to dealing with decade-old case studies. still, i never intended on being an academic. after completing a science-based degree focussed on economics, i commenced a finance career. i was initially passionate about arvanitakis, j., judd, m-m., kinash, s., jorre de st jorre, t., & mccluskey, t. (2019) research into the diversification of university careers in learning and teaching and intentionally closing-the-loop on graduate employability. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 10(1), 195–212. 202 gathering, interpreting, analysing and curating economic research to assist decision-makers in setting strategy. i liked applying creative skills to unpack the challenges and re-imagine the questions that we, as an economic forecasting and research team, had to confront. despite a successful career in finance, i left the sector for personal and professional reasons: the news-stories from the current royal commission in the finance sector provide some insights into some of the complexities i was dealing with on a personal level. my ‘second career’ was working in human rights and environmental justice across australia, asia, europe and the pacific. drawing on my financial background, i worked on issues of fair trade, the re-building of post-war economic structures and the politics of foreign aid. during this time, i also began some additional postgraduate coursework focusing on environmental policy. this experience, combined with a realisation that education is the most powerful tool for both social change and justice, i decided to pursue an emerging interest in becoming an educator – and it was this decision that led me to beginning my phd. my current research is focussed on cultures of citizenship: understanding why some communities are resilient, active, empowered and engaged, and why others are not. i have translated this into the ‘classroom’ of the university. all of the innovations i have introduced into curriculum and pedagogy are framed in a philosophy that the education journey should be one of both engagement and empowerment – ensuring our students are active citizens with a sense of control over their lives and the shape of their communities (i.e. citizen scholarship). we must remember that our students do not care about our school, faculty or university organisational chart; they only care about their experience. as educators, it is vital that we make that experience one of learning, curiosity, being challenged, self-identity and empowerment. navigating rocky terrains: madelaine-marie judd’s journey as a professional educator i am currently the student partners adviser at the university of queensland. i have the opportunity to engage with staff and students from diverse backgrounds who are collaboratively exploring new and innovative ways to enhance curriculum, learning and teaching and the broader student experience. long before university, i dreamt about undertaking, and later commenced, a dual degree in law/political science and international relations. in my first year, i achieved career goal clarity, determining that i did not want to become a lawyer and would drop the law component. i changed universities and degrees, provoking criticism from some family members who said, i would ‘never get a job from this degree’. in spite of, and with a fuelled stubborn resolve, i made the change and have not regretted pursuing my passions, as cultural curiosity serves as my constant navigational career force. i am still not sure whether accident or fate brought me to pedagogical work. my first graduate job as project manager of multiple national olt grants gave me the opportunity to travel throughout australia and england, meeting passionate fellow staff, students and graduates. the disbanding of the national olt reinforced my decision to take a job outside of the higher education sector. beyond that closure, i was dismayed by the confronting experience of nervously moving from contract to contract, with no certainty as to whether the next one would come around. however, by stepping away, i realised how much i loved the higher education sector. i ultimately decided (reminiscent of swapping my university and degree) that i would follow my career passion, knowing that the terrain would continue to be rocky. i accepted yet another contract in another university’s learning and teaching unit. the pressure to produce was immense and the time limits short, but once again i had the opportunity to follow my passions and thereby contribute to university-wide employability. the cycle repeated with yet another restructure. restructure – adapt repeat. despite producing high quality outcomes, developing and fostering collaborations across faculties and central units, and arvanitakis, j., judd, m-m., kinash, s., jorre de st jorre, t., & mccluskey, t. (2019) research into the diversification of university careers in learning and teaching and intentionally closing-the-loop on graduate employability. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 10(1), 195–212. 203 continuing to research and publish in high-ranking journals, i have come to believe that, without the qualifications of phd, i am seen as disposable in uncertain times. research will not save me as a professional staff member. at a recent conference, the keynote speaker talked about recurrent patterns of university restructures and the resulting exodus of professional staff members (thought of as expendable and replaceable administrators) through redundancies. disenchantment with the higher education sector hit me like a fist. i too have encountered these implicit, and at times explicit, attitudinal and structural power and status imbalances between professional and academic staff. i take hope from the many academic educators who do not see these class distinctions, but rather empower those in professional roles. i believe that with time, we will see a new sector era comprised of empowered educators, each with unique experiences and expertise, but there for the common purpose of enhancing the student experience. an educator from the gut: professor shelley kinash’s misunderstood research about learning and teaching i am currently director (advancement of learning and teaching) at the university of southern queensland. in australia, i have directed learning and teaching units, across two universities, for over ten years, which alongside my faculty of education-based experience (mostly in canada) – adds-up-to over twenty-five years as a university academic. my preuniversity careers were in enabling and supporting inclusion, social justice and community living and contribution for people with disabling conditions. my phd is in educational technology and my dissertation research was about blind online learners. i have never liked the term work-life balance, partly because my passion and enthusiasm for most everything i do means that balance is unachievable, but also because i am not happy unless there is work in my life and lots of meaningful life in my work. part of my life-world is a bad gut which occasionally interferes, in a quite literal way, with my work – such as once, when i had to step-off the stage while giving a keynote address and ask the audience to ‘talk amongst themselves’ until i arrived back. it also means that i have deeply contemplated what it means to have a gut-level reaction. what matters to me in higher education (from the gut) is that students and staff have a positive experience marked by care – care for, and about, one another, care about learning and knowledge, and care about the world in which we live. my conviction to excellence in the student learning experience (not only for students at my own university, but across higher education), means that learning and teaching is closely aligned-to my value-base and identity. this means that failures and rejections hit hard. failures are also experientially interwoven with, and exacerbated by, working in the realm of university learning and teaching. for example, for me, academic promotion was not a smooth upward progression to my current classification of professor. some panellists argued that because my research was about learning and teaching, it did not count as research. others argued that because i teach academics, and not traditional university students, my accomplishments did not count as learning and teaching. this has provoked repeated executive discussions about whether i was an academic at all, or should be reclassified as a professional. furthermore, my research grant success was frequently misunderstood (and reduced) by virtue of the field of research (i.e. education). for example, i led teams to be awarded three national research grants on the topics of graduate employability, student experience and closing-the-loop on student evaluation of courses and teaching. the research grants were classified as category one and the success rate was 7 percent (applications to awards). in response, multiple colleagues and senior university executives said now that i had this experience, i could try my hand at applying for a ‘real’ australian research council (arc) grant. in other words, the implication is that learning and teaching grants (as applied work) are pilots or practice for worthier research endeavours. arvanitakis, j., judd, m-m., kinash, s., jorre de st jorre, t., & mccluskey, t. (2019) research into the diversification of university careers in learning and teaching and intentionally closing-the-loop on graduate employability. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 10(1), 195–212. 204 a passionate educator: dr trina jorre de st jorre’s haphazard journey from science to education i am currently senior lecturer (student achievement) at deakin university. my focus is on assuring graduate capabilities, improving the employment outcomes of students and incorporating the student voice into curriculum development. i am grateful to have an academic career and all of the privileges that come with it, although my path here has been a haphazard one. i was the first person in my family to attend university. school success came easy, so everyone assumed i would do a degree. my favourite subjects were art and literature, but my family encouraged me to pursue a ‘safer career path’ leading me to a bachelor of animal science. at first, i did not enjoy the degree and became selective about attendance, taking into account factors like subject interest, first impressions of teachers, time of day and ease of parking. a motivational turning-point was a compelling research project, leading to a phd in reproductive biology. i worked throughout and in between both degrees, gaining experience across a wide range of roles and industries: from hospitality to government departments, an automotive collective and the mining industry, to numerous roles at the university itself, including research, administrative and sessional teaching roles. another turning point, was a postgraduate teaching internship, through which i gained professional development in university teaching, taught and developed curriculum across a wide range of subjects, and completed my first research project in teaching and learning. most importantly, i was introduced to a valuable mentor, an academic focussed on university teaching and learning, who continues to be an important influence and friend. when i finished my phd i was interested in pursuing an academic career, but intent on remaining in my home city. for a while, i accepted sessional and part-time contracts, often concurrently and across different parts of the university. work was inconsistent and often reduced between teaching periods. i often worked beyond paid hours to meet the needs of my students. feeling undervalued, and knowing that sessional teaching rarely leads to an academic career, i left the university sector to pursue more regular hours and income. working for large organisations in different sectors (especially the mining industry) was an invaluable experience – teaching me new skills, but more importantly, confirming the career paths i did not want to follow. so when i was offered the consistent hours and stability i had been seeking, i instead accepted a two month contract at a university teaching and learning centre. this led to further work and opportunities to collaborate with learning and teaching leaders across australia. equally enjoyable, was the opportunity to contribute to the support and development of emerging academics and sessional teachers. when the centre was restructured, i made a conscious decision to seek positions in teaching and learning instead of science, leading me to my current career. i still love science, and enjoy opportunities to work with science faculties to improve undergraduate learning experiences, but have no regrets about ending up where i am now, or the haphazard pathway that got me here. journey of an accidental educator: trish mccluskey my current position is director (connected learning) at victoria university. i am fortunate to lead a team of 40 staff who are all engaged and passionate about supporting learning and teaching design. most are employed as professional staff and all have postgraduate qualifications, including phds. i have a pervasive secret angst about getting found out – specifically about people discovering that i really do not belong. my culturally ascribed belief that ‘people like me’ do not usually arvanitakis, j., judd, m-m., kinash, s., jorre de st jorre, t., & mccluskey, t. (2019) research into the diversification of university careers in learning and teaching and intentionally closing-the-loop on graduate employability. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 10(1), 195–212. 205 achieve this level of career success is ingrained in my psyche. as an irish catholic, growing up in the 1970s in the troubled borderlands of northern ireland, my expected life trajectory was to leave school, work in the domestic/secretarial/service sector for a few years, then get married, have the obligatory dozen kids and live happily ever after in domestic, family and community servitude. i applied for every job and apprenticeship in the newspaper and finally got accepted into a nursing school in belfast. big city, bright lights, bombs and riots, were just what i needed to launch me into an alternative reality and possible future. after a couple of years, this led to an opportunity to move to new zealand with the promise of a one year all expenses paid nursing contract. i never used the return ticket. while undertaking a health management course at my local university, i was invited to apply for a teaching position. i raided the library shelves to find books on how to teach and discovered carl rogers, who outlined principles of learning that have shaped my practice in teaching and management ever since. i found particular resonance with his propositions of having unconditional positive regard for students and creating meaningful learning experiences. while teaching nursing, i pursued part-time studies towards an undergraduate degree in education and came to understand the cultural and institutional barriers that had prevented me from attending university earlier in my life. i am now a passionate advocate of open access to education for everyone, regardless of their background. i subsequently completed a master’s degree in education and have dropped in and out of phd studies which i might one day get around to completing. i moved to melbourne in 2003 and since that time have worked in both the tafe and higher education sectors, across a range of professional and academic roles including, chair of academic board, university council member and the director of a learning and teaching centre. i have been able to successfully navigate the many structural barriers and interprofessional dynamics and tensions that exist in tertiary education in australia. however, i believe the time is right to evolve a new classification of higher education worker who is recognised for their learning and teaching design expertise. my university is currently exploring the creation of such a role and having it recognised in the enterprise agreement. job advertisement classification the second approach informing this paper was an analysis of 322 job advertisements, representing all jobs posted by two australian universities over a six-month period. in total, 84 percent (270 positions) of the positions advertised were for professional staff, in contrast to 14 percent (44 positions) for academic staff. two percent (8 positions) of the advertisements were for executive staff, with one advertisement for a research assistant. each of the job postings were analysed to identify the occurrence of learning or teaching (combined), and research, as components of positions. as depicted in figure 1, 64 percent of academic roles included components of learning and teaching. this contrasted with 23 percent of professional roles. a greater divide was evidenced with respect to research, with 79 percent of academic roles including research as a component of the role, versus 7 percent for professional positions. arvanitakis, j., judd, m-m., kinash, s., jorre de st jorre, t., & mccluskey, t. (2019) research into the diversification of university careers in learning and teaching and intentionally closing-the-loop on graduate employability. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 10(1), 195–212. 206 figure 1: percentage of academic and professional roles that include learning and teaching or research. analysis of position titles revealed that the most common title of academic positions was lecturer / senior lecturer (indicating the most common entry route into academic streams), and that the most common title of professional positions was coordinator (sometimes, but not always in roles and teams related to learning and teaching). further analysis of the selection criteria for position descriptions found 119 unique requirements for professional staff and 100 criteria for academic staff. among selection criteria for professional staff positions, ‘managing’ and ‘communicate’ were the most frequently appearing terms, contrasting with ‘research’ and ‘collaborative’ for academic positions. of significance, 12 of the top 20 criteria appeared across both professional and academic staff classification types, indicating common skill sets required for both roles. the final element addressed in this classification was duration of contract (i.e. fixed term or continuing appointment). approximately half of both academic and professional roles were continuing (50 percent and 51 percent respectively). of the academic positions that were not continuing, the average duration was 3 years. the modal duration was 3.5 years. the average duration of the professional positions was 1.5 years. the modal duration was 6 months. discussion a key theme emerging across all author depictions was the sense of feeling like an imposter and not quite belonging. this was presented in different ways, but each author struggled with their journey, their titles and their fit within university culture. each authoethnographic authors’ interweaving of an outsider characterisation with a haphazard journey to a university career in learning and teaching (or closely related area) led the authors to hypothesise that these two facets of the stories were interrelated. in other words, the authors hypothesised (for further research) that if universities provided intentional and strategic pathways and graduate employability supports for university learning and teaching careers, people in these careers would feel better prepared, established and credentialed. a second recurrent theme was that despite the broad-based perspective on careers, the authors all described being deeply impacted by people, experiences, attitudes, culture and context beyond the workplace. it appears that these backgrounds can also lead to insecurities and feeling like an outsider. in spite of the haphazard and sometimes uncertain nature of arvanitakis, j., judd, m-m., kinash, s., jorre de st jorre, t., & mccluskey, t. (2019) research into the diversification of university careers in learning and teaching and intentionally closing-the-loop on graduate employability. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 10(1), 195–212. 207 university careers, each author described finding themselves (mostly) happily engaged at universities – grateful for the ability to contribute to the learning and teaching environment, and for having a part in the impact that higher education can have on the lives of students and graduates. six propositions about university staff, working in the area of learning and teaching (or closely related areas), can be extrapolated from the narratives of the five authors. 1. passionate educators have a well-defined philosophy of learning and teaching and refuse to act in ways that contravene their value-driven principles. 2. there are valid and fulfilling pedagogical roles beyond university faculties. 3. boundaries blur and overlap between the categories of: (a) learning and teaching, (b) research, and (c) service. the total of the whole educator role is greater than the sum of its parts. 4. universities can provide diverse opportunities for fulfilling, high-impact work. 5. career trajectories, within higher education, are seldom linear and structured. instead, they are marked and altered by critical incidents, and they loop, tangle and vary. 6. self-doubt, fraught relationships and the continual need for reflection and prioritisation do not decrease (and perhaps increase) as one moves up the higher education career ladder. these propositions were reconsidered alongside the thematic clustering of terms used in the selection criteria from advertised university vacancies. only the propositions that were directly supported, or disputed, by the classification data were included below. 1. the words ‘teaching and learning’ occurred as a sub-theme (indicating that only some selection criteria included these words) in academic position descriptions. this may indicate that this is an assumed, rather than explicitly highlighted role in higher education. the words ‘teaching and learning’ were not a prevalent theme across the selection criteria of professional positions. this may indicate that higher education, as a sector, has not reflected on, and explicitly mapped the growing role (and selection criteria) of professional staff in learning and teaching. 2. the word ‘research’ was the most common theme across the academic positions. this confronting finding indicates that ‘research’ skills and experience continue to be the highest sought selection criteria across the analysed academic positions. this is particularly notable in the context of the point above, that ‘teaching and learning’ was a small sub-theme in academic positions and did not frequently appear in the selection criteria of professional positions. this is also despite neither of the universities examined being profiled as research-intensive institutions. this finding appears to further support the proposition that universities continue to prioritise research over learning and teaching. 3. the word ‘managing’ ties for the largest theme (alongside ‘communicate’) across professional selection criteria. this indicates that universities have numerous management positions, and that these positions are usually classified as professional. 4. the word ‘phd’ is the third largest theme (after ‘research’ and ‘collaborative’) across academic selection criteria. this reinforces the autoethnographic comments of this paper’s authors that phds are high collateral for university employment (in this case, for academic positions). arvanitakis, j., judd, m-m., kinash, s., jorre de st jorre, t., & mccluskey, t. (2019) research into the diversification of university careers in learning and teaching and intentionally closing-the-loop on graduate employability. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 10(1), 195–212. 208 findings this section of the paper specifically summarises responses to the two research questions, as informed by the results of this study, alongside findings from the reviewed literature. 1. what do learning and teaching careers look like at universities? it is no wonder that the doctoral students in acker and haque’s (2010) research had only the vaguest idea about what a university career would look like. both the autoethnographic descriptions and job analysis data confirmed that learning and teaching careers are diverse and highly variable. this concurs with previous work by bosanquet, mailey, matthews and lodge (2017). another finding also noted by these authors, is that learning and teaching roles and responsibilities are increasingly being managed and conducted by university staff in nonacademic roles. it is therefore not a given that universities assign, nor staff look to, academic roles in order to play a significant role in advancing student learning, and in significant related functions such as fostering graduate employability. 2. what are the occupational patterns, satisfactions and concerns of the staff in these careers? the research of clegg (2008) and chubb, watermeyer and wakeling (2017) emphasised that identities and career trajectories of academics are complex and often vexed, but at the same time, value-driven. furthermore, academics and their identities are impacted by the changing nature of universities. the research presented in this paper confirms these findings, and notably adds that this is also true of non-academic staff in learning and teaching (and closely related) roles. implications how universities can improve graduate employability for university learning and teaching positions a common thread amongst the personal accounts, was that each author talked about education, learning and teaching as an opportunity, with the potential to transform lives. however, all of the authors also describe risk and struggles; their pathways were not easy or straight-forward. as a result, the following recommendations are made to universities as future employers of their graduates. in other words, these recommendations are for improving graduate employability for learning and teaching positions: 1. create a map of human resources to assure that learning and teaching needs match the positioning of jobs, in situated cultural contexts. 2. increase the explicit and transparent identification of career opportunities, selection criteria, and promotional or developmental pathways. 3. move beyond a simplistic nomenclature of careers into academic versus nonacademic. consider the inclusion of additional categories into human resource position classifications (which move beyond the binary classification of positions into academic and non-academic). 4. design graduate apprenticeships, formal learning and teaching inductions, and structured mentorships to develop and sustain the future higher education workforce in the context of learning and teaching. arvanitakis, j., judd, m-m., kinash, s., jorre de st jorre, t., & mccluskey, t. (2019) research into the diversification of university careers in learning and teaching and intentionally closing-the-loop on graduate employability. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 10(1), 195–212. 209 how students and graduates can improve their own employability for university learning and teaching positions the following recommendations are for existing university staff or those aspiring to university careers in learning and teaching, as informed by the authors’ lived experiences. 1. reflect on the journey, culture and context that brought you to this current place in your career. consider and rise above self-imposed limits. pursue your passions. 2. do not pitch yourself too narrowly. there are a diverse range of career options in higher education, and multiple means of attaining and demonstrating your match with selection criteria. 3. do not restrict yourself to either academic or professional positions in that there is a large degree of overlap between these positions and rewarding careers in both. 4. if you are passionate about learning and teaching, develop your skill sets in the associated roles and responsibilities. this is a growing domain, and thereby source, of fulfilling university careers. 5. allow yourself to explore, discover and learn throughout your university career journey. be open to new possibilities and opportunities. 6. read broadly, understand and articulate your philosophy of learning and teaching and share your distinctive value-proposition and personal brand in higher education. 7. be discriminating in where you extend your efforts and energies. choose the initiatives, the colleagues, and the research endeavours that will have the most impact on students, graduates and our overall world. conclusion universities are major and diverse employers. analysis of job vacancies from two australian universities indicated that career opportunities are numerous and varied. however, developmental and transitional support for learning and teaching positions appears to be ad hoc, accidental and piecemeal, as opposed to strategic, transparent, and aligned with ontological, epistemological and axiological propositions. this means that there are seldom cohesive and efficacious strategies to ensure that graduates are employable within universities. universities appear to reactively create new positions as department needs arise, or fill vacant positions without strategic purpose, without consideration of career gateways or pathways. the current primary nomenclature of positions is a simplistic division into academic and nonacademic, but this structure no longer appears to be functional, and limits opportunities for graduates. across 322 advertised positions, 84 percent were classified as non-academic (mostly called professional). within these positions, 23 percent explicitly included learning and teaching functions, and 7 percent identified research obligations. by current working definitions, these positions should be classified as academic. the learning and teaching functions of universities have become sophisticated and complex, requiring specialised expertise beyond lecturing. this study provided introductory evidence that at least some elements of the treatment of academic and professional staff are equivalent, in that 50 per cent of jobs in both categories were continuing. however, of the academic positions that were not continuing, the average and modal duration were 3 and 3.5 years respectively. the contractual terms were much worse for professional staff at 1.5 years and 6 months respectively. arvanitakis, j., judd, m-m., kinash, s., jorre de st jorre, t., & mccluskey, t. (2019) research into the diversification of university careers in learning and teaching and intentionally closing-the-loop on graduate employability. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 10(1), 195–212. 210 the stories of the five authors (all of whom are university graduates and working within different universities), confirmed the findings of the job analysis. all five made their way to their current careers through tangled webs of incremental experiences. none had experienced structured, intentional strategies to prepare them for university employment, such as career apprenticeships or progressive ladders. all five experienced (and continue to experience) angst as to their personal places. however, all also remain committed and passionate, experiencing university work as a calling, motivated primarily by a love for learning and students. the authors do not wish to diminish the importance of personal learning journeys and career-oriented agency: they are unanimous in the belief that universities would thrive through a more coherent, transparent and supportive human resource system and employment strategy that specifically addresses learning and teaching. the main contribution of this paper is providing evidence for the proposition that the explicit identification of themes has the potential to move universities from a human resource process that is ad hoc and mostly considers one position at a time, to a strategy that creates the momentum to enact each university’s mission and goals. this has the potential to achieve intentional, purposeful hires and efficacious university graduate employability supports for our own industry. the main limitation of this study was that only the job advertisements of two universities were analysed, thus limiting the sample size and diversity. a recommendation for future research is to analyse a larger sample size of advertisements across university-type. furthermore, it is recommended that the analysis of university positions is expanded to include other indicators that focus on learning, such as the words students and enabling. arvanitakis, j., judd, m-m., kinash, s., jorre de st jorre, t., & mccluskey, t. 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(2008). being an academic today. in r. barnett, & r. di napoli (eds.), changing identities in higher education: voicing perspectives (pp.27–39). abingdon, oxon: routledge. arvanitakis, j., judd, m-m., kinash, s., jorre de st jorre, t., & mccluskey, t. (2019) research into the diversification of university careers in learning and teaching and intentionally closing-the-loop on graduate employability. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 10(1), 195–212. 212 the department of education. (2017, 15 december). 2017 staff numbers. retrieved from https://docs.education.gov.au/node/46141 whitchurch, c. (2015). the rise of third space professionals: paradoxes and dilemmas. in u. teichler & w.k. cummings (eds), forming, recruiting and managing the academic profession (79–99). dordrecht: springer. https://docs.education.gov.au/node/46141 greenbank, p. (2014). competing in the graduate labour market: student perspectives on (not) participating in extra-curricular activities. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 5(1), 63–79. 63 competing in the graduate labour market: student perspectives on (not) participating in extra-curricular activities paul greenbank1 greenbap@edgehill.ac.uk 1edge hill university abstract in order to be able to compete in an increasingly competitive graduate labour market students need to develop their ‘personal capital’. participation in a range of relevant extracurricular activities (ecas) is a key element to the development of personal capital. this paper carried out in-depth interviews with undergraduates in the first and final years of their studies in order to understand the factors influencing their level of participation in ecas. the research found that participation in ecas was generally limited (with little change occurring during the three years of their degree), particularly in relation to year-long work placements, volunteering and sporting and cultural activities. students often engaged in part-time working, but this was for financial reasons, with few students regarding part-time working as a way of developing their employability. the students underlying values, especially their present-time orientation, and the desire to enjoy a particular student life-style, acted as barriers to engaging in the type of ecas that would help them to develop their personal capital. this paper suggests that higher education institutions may be able to motivate students to participate in ecas by encouraging them to be future-orientated, less risk averse and willing to adopt a more strategic (i.e. ‘player’) approach to developing their personal capital. the paper proposes that this can be achieved by encouraging students to write about their future possible selves and asking them to undertake research into the different career options open to them. keywords: employability, personal capital, extra-curricular activities, graduate labour market, future possible selves, risk introduction the rise of mass higher education (he) in many countries of the world, including the uk, has resulted in increased competition for graduate jobs (defined as professional or high level managerial positions by the uk’s destinations of leavers from higher education institutions (dlhe) survey).1 it must, however, be appreciated as brown and hesketh (2004) and roulin and bangerter (2013) have pointed out that there is considerable variation in the quality of graduate jobs, in terms of pay and other conditions of employment. brown and hesketh (2004, argue that mass he has attracted many more contestants but [this] has not been accompanied by a commensurate expansion in the number of high-quality professional and managerial jobs (p.12). moreover, as a result of the global economic downturn the competition for jobs has intensified in recent years so that: mailto:greenbap@edgehill.ac.uk greenbank, p. (2014). competing in the graduate labour market: student perspectives on (not) participating in extra-curricular activities. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 5(1), 63–79. 64 [n]ever before in the field of higher education have so many graduates, from so many universities, competed with each other for so few jobs. never before have the rewards for those who succeed been so great, nor the risks for those who don’t been so costly (redmond, 2010, p.3). the evidence suggests (see for example blasko, 2002; chia, 2005; tchibozo, 2007; hinchliffe & jolly, 2011; cbi/edi, 2011) that in order to be able to compete in the graduate labour market, especially for the ‘better’ jobs, students need to develop and package what brown and hesketh (2004, p.34) refer to as ‘personal capital’ in a way that is attractive to employers. personal capital comprises of ‘soft currencies’ and ‘hard currencies’ and can be used by students to construct a narrative of their productive potential to perspective employers (see figure 1 below). figure 1: conceptualising the construction of personal capital soft currencies are the skills, values and personality traits that graduate employers are seeking. according to maher and graves (2008, pp.16-17) – who used five key research studies on what employers are looking for to draw up a list of skills and attributes these include skills (such as problem-solving, team working, communication and selfmanagement) and values and personality traits (such as commitment, flexibility, selfconfidence and the ability to work under pressure). students also need to provide evidence – what brown and hesketh (2004) refer to as ‘hard currencies’ – to demonstrate they possess the skills, values and personality traits that employers are looking for. these hard currencies consist of credentials, such as the student’s degree and other qualifications gained at school, college and elsewhere. credentials are used as a heuristic device, enabling an employer to simplify their decisionmaking by making assumptions about the attributes graduates are likely to possess if they have certain qualifications. therefore, employers may ask for certain minimum grades from colleges and universities (tomlinson, 2008; redmond, 2010). however, employers also want students to provide concrete evidence, through their participation in both curricular and extra-curricular activities (ecas), of the soft currencies they possess (brown & hesketh, 2004; hinchliffe & jolly, 2011). as a result, students need to be able to provide examples of how their studies and ecas demonstrate they possess particular skills, values and soft currencies skills values personality traits hard currencies evidence from curricular and extracurricular activities personal capital narrative of employability greenbank, p. (2014). competing in the graduate labour market: student perspectives on (not) participating in extra-curricular activities. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 5(1), 63–79. 65 personality traits; and they need to be able to present this in a ‘narrative’ that demonstrates their productive potential. as brown and hesketh (2004) state: the value employers attach to both hard and soft currencies depends on how they are packaged as a narrative of employability. this involves being able to present one’s experiences, character, and accomplishments in ways that conform to the competence profiles scrutinized by employers (p.36). graduate employers are taking greater account of student participation in ecas because mass he means there are significantly more job applicants with similar credentials and organisations have to find ways of differentiating between them (brown & hesketh, 2004; tomlinson, 2008). this is not to say that credentials are unimportant, but these need to be supplemented by appropriate forms of eca (tomlinson, 2008). indeed, the evidence from quantitative studies indicates a positive correlation exists between engagement in ecas and successful labour market outcomes (blasko, 2002; chia, 2005; tchibozo, 2007). it is, however, not only the level of participation that is significant to graduate recruiters, but also the relevance of the skills and attributes developed and utilised in ecas (blasko, 2002; tchibozo 2007; hinchliffe & jolly, 2009). the evidence suggests that employers favour graduates who have engaged in a wide range of activities (hinchliffe & jolly, 2009). there have been relatively few studies into student engagement in ecas in higher education (lehmann, 2012; roulin & bangerter, 2013). this paper concentrates on the extent to which students participate in ecas in order to develop their personal capital and the rationale they provide for their level of engagement (or non-engagement) in such activities. the paper will begin by discussing the methodological approach adopted in this study. next, the extent to which the students in this study participated in ecas will be examined. the factors influencing the students’ engagement in ecas will then be analysed. finally, the implications of the findings for higher education institutions (heis) will be discussed. research design and characteristics of the sample this paper focuses on a sample of full-time accounting, business and management and computing undergraduates in a business school at a ‘new’ university in england.2 the fulltime undergraduates in the business school completed a questionnaire and were asked if they would be willing to be interviewed. a cross-section of students (in terms of age, gender and degree studied), who agreed to participate, were selected for interview. these students were interviewed at the beginning of their degree and then re-interviewed in their final year, just weeks before they graduated. this made it possible to identify any changes in attitude the students had towards ecas during the period they were studying for their degree. the research was ethically approved by the business school under the aegis of the university’s research ethics framework. the interviews utilised a semi-structured format that enabled important topics to be explored in depth. there is precedence for such an approach. for example, tomlinson’s (2008) study involved semi-structured interviews with 53 final year students. similarly, lehmann’s (2012) longitudinal study examined the factors influencing participation in ecas by students from working class backgrounds using interviews. all the interviews for this study were recorded and later transcribed. the data was analysed and the key factors influencing the students’ participation in ecas were identified using matrices and cognitive maps (see easterby-smith, thorpe, & jackson, 2012; thomas, 2013). thirty-four students were interviewed in their first year and 21 of these re-interviewed in their third year. the decline in the number of interviews arose because some students had withdrawn from their degree programmes (usually because they had failed modules); whilst others (a small minority) did not wish to be interviewed a second time. greenbank, p. (2014). competing in the graduate labour market: student perspectives on (not) participating in extra-curricular activities. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 5(1), 63–79. 66 this study concentrates on the 21 undergraduates who were interviewed in both their first and third year of study. the characteristics of these students in terms of age, gender and degree programme was broadly representative of the type of students in the business school. as can be seen from table 1 the majority of the students were 20 years of age or under when they started their degrees. the sample had slightly more female students than male students. although three students failed to complete their degree within the ‘normal’ three-year period of study, the remainder of the students in this study were relatively high academic performers with over 80 per cent of them achieving either an upper-second class honours degree or a first class honours degree. as such, it is recognised that this aspect of the sample is not representative of the business school. however, it is worth noting that despite these good degree classifications, only five of these students had secured a graduate job six months after graduation (see table 1 below). table 1: characteristics of the sample code1 age2 gender degree classification3 career destination4 a1 18 male referred not applicable a3 19 female 1st non-graduate job a6 18 male 2.2 graduate job b2 19 female 2.2 non-graduate job b4 20 female 2.2 not known b5 19 female 2.1 unemployed b6 19 male 2.1 non-graduate job b8 19 female 2.1 graduate job b9 40 female referred not applicable b12 18 female 2.1 graduate job b15 20 male 1st not known b16 18 male 2.1 unemployed b17 18 female 2.1 non-graduate job b20 22 female 2.1 non-graduate job b21 18 female 2.1 non-graduate job b22 18 female 2.1 not known c1 24 male 1st graduate job c2 24 male 1st not known c3 20 female referred not applicable c4 21 male 2.1 travelling c5 29 male 1st graduate job notes 1. a = accounting student, b = business & management student, c = computing student. only students who were interviewed in their first and third years are included in table 2 which is why some numbers are missing. 2. this is the age of the student at the beginning of their degree. 3. the uk system divides honours degrees into four classifications: first class (1st), upper-second class (2.1), lower-second class (2.2) and third class (3rd). the students who are referred have not completed their degrees because they still have to pass one or more of their modules. 4. this refers to the occupational status of students six months after graduation. students were contacted by telephone and they were classified using the standard occupational classification (soc) framework. in this occupations are defined as graduate if they are professional or managerial and normally require a degree. see: http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/guidemethod/classifications/current-standard-classifications/soc2010/soc2010-volume-1-structure-and-descriptions-of-unitgroups/index.html#4 (accessed 10/2/12) http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/guide-method/classifications/current-standard-classifications/soc2010/soc2010-volume-1-structure-and-descriptions-of-unit-groups/index.html#4 http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/guide-method/classifications/current-standard-classifications/soc2010/soc2010-volume-1-structure-and-descriptions-of-unit-groups/index.html#4 http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/guide-method/classifications/current-standard-classifications/soc2010/soc2010-volume-1-structure-and-descriptions-of-unit-groups/index.html#4 greenbank, p. (2014). competing in the graduate labour market: student perspectives on (not) participating in extra-curricular activities. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 5(1), 63–79. 67 student engagement in extra-curricular activities for this research a wide definition of what constitutes ecas was adopted. the definition used incorporated all activities undertaken outside the formal university curriculum and included part-time employment, volunteering, sporting and cultural activities and engagement in work placements that are optional and additional to a student’s degree. heis have recognised the need to encourage student engagement in ecas. as a result, there has been an increasing trend towards offering awards recognising student participation in ecas (see cbi/nus, 2001; pegg, waldock, hendy-isaac, & lawton, 2012; qaa, 2013). for example, the qaa (2013), in a survey involving 69 heis in the uk, found that 75 per cent of institutions offered some form of award scheme for student engagement in ecas, with 84 per cent of these awards being initiated in the last five years. at the time the research for this paper was undertaken the university that was the subject of this study did not have awards for student participation in ecas, but they did advertise and promote opportunities to engage in various types of eca. table 2 (below) summarises the ecas students in this study were involved in during their time at university. table 2: involvement in extra-curricular activities part-time employment volunteering sporting/cultural activities sandwich placements a1  bar/office work    a3  bar work    a6  sales assistant   gym  b2  carer  st john ambulance   b4     b5   charity fund raising   b6  sales assistant    b8  sales assistant    b9  sales assistant    b12  sales assistant receptionist   dancing gym  b15  sales assistant team leader project coordinator   gym  b16    music  b17  sales assistant  charity work  football  b20  sales assistant  charity fund raising  jogging swimming music  b21   police (administrative support)  music gym  b22  sales assistant team leader    c1  bar work   football music  c2  bar work   football  greenbank, p. (2014). competing in the graduate labour market: student perspectives on (not) participating in extra-curricular activities. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 5(1), 63–79. 68 c3  sales assistant    c4  sales assistant  police (special constable) camp america  rock climbing kiting  c5  website organiser   photography  part-time working as can be seen from table 2, all but four students were engaged in part-time working (for at least some of their time at university). this is not surprising given the extent of part-time working amongst students in higher education (see curtis & williams, 2002; curtis & shani, 2002; bradley, 2006; richardson, gbadamosi & evans, 2009; robotham, 2012). the students indicated that they were working, not because they needed to (in order to cover essential living costs or because they wished to avoid accumulating debt), but because they wanted to be able to enjoy an active social life and maintain a particular (but not necessarily excessive) consumer life-style (see hodgson & spours, 2001; brooks, 2006; richardson et al., 2009; robotham, 2013 for similar findings). for example, in robotham’s (2013) study students were working part-time in order to be able to have an active social life, run a car and purchase items such satellite television. the students in this study made similar comments. this is not to deny that some students for instance, the students in moreau and leathwood’s (2006) study may face financial hardship and need to work in order to stay at university, but this did not appear to be the case for the students in this study. it is also important to note that a number of students gave up their part-time jobs in their second or third year of study. these students said they did this because they were focused on obtaining a good degree. as c2 (who was in his early twenties) said: some of the younger ones come for more of a laugh and a giggle whereas i’ve done all that … getting a good degree is more, you know, important to me. it’s what i’m here for. similarly, the students who did not work at all during their degree emphasised their desire to concentrate on their studies and obtain a good degree classification. this is reflected in b4’s comments: i want to concentrate on university, therefore i don’t want to work as it will take up my time. i don’t want to spend a lot of time doing a job and not getting a good degree. volunteering students can also develop their personal capital by engaging in unpaid ecas such as volunteering. table 2 demonstrates that only six of the 21 students in this study engaged in volunteering during their time at university. some of these activities involved a long-term commitment, such as working as a volunteer for st. john ambulance3 or working as a special constable for the police; whilst other volunteering activities involved a short-term commitment such as charity fund-raising. what is important, is that despite being encouraged to volunteer in order to improve their personal capital through careers input and modules such as personal development planning (pdp)4 the students were not increasing their level of volunteering during their time at university. indeed, the students involved in volunteering (especially those engaged in long-term volunteering), were often continuing something they were participating in prior to coming to university and usually because of the influence of their parents. for example, b17 was engaged in charitable work organised by her mother and b2 was involved with the greenbank, p. (2014). competing in the graduate labour market: student perspectives on (not) participating in extra-curricular activities. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 5(1), 63–79. 69 st. john ambulance with her parents. roulin and bangerter (2013) also point out that the students in their study were often continuing with ecas they had begun as children. when the students involved in volunteering were questioned about why they were participating in such activities they emphasised interest and enjoyment rather than a desire to develop their employability. for example, b2 who was involved with st john ambulance said: i suppose it might help when i go for a job, but i don’t do it for that reason. i’ve always done it. i mean since a young age with my mum and dad. and i enjoy it (laughs) and have friends and that there so i keep doing it. i enjoy it and that, it’s a laugh and that. sporting and cultural activities table 2 also indicates that over half the students were engaged in sporting or cultural activities. the interviews revealed that the sporting and cultural activities the students were participating in mainly involved weight training in the gym, often to pursue a particular body image rather than to keep fit; playing non-competitive football with friends; and playing a musical instrument (usually a guitar) for fun. the students would, therefore, generally find it difficult to use their participation in sporting and cultural activities to demonstrate they possessed the type of skills (e.g. communication, team working, problem-solving, etc.) and values and personality traits (e.g. commitment, confidence, etc.) that graduate employers are looking for (see maher & graves, 2008; redmond, 2010). placements the undergraduate programmes in the business school all offered students the opportunity to apply for a year-long sandwich placement between years 2 and 3 of their degrees. yet as table 2 illustrates, no student in this sample undertook such a placement. this is significant because the evidence suggests that work experience, especially those involving lengthy placements, are highly valued by prospective employers and make a valuable contribution to improving graduate employability (blasko, 2002; bis, 2011; lowden, hall, elliot & lewin, 2011; cbi/edi, 2011; wilson, 2012; pegg et al., 2012). for example, blasko (2002) found work placements had a beneficial impact on employment outcomes (in terms of obtaining graduate jobs, higher salaries and greater job satisfaction), particularly those placements lasting more than eight months. in their first year interviews more than half the students indicated that they were interested in undertaking a year-long placement. the decline in interest may, in part, be due to the accounting and business and management students being given the opportunity to undertake a short-term (4 week) placement as part of their degree programme. however, the students said the most important reason for not going on a year-long placement was a desire to remain with their own cohort of students, particularly their friends. in addition, many students feared losing their part-time jobs. (these issues are discussed in more detail in the next section of the paper). barriers to the development of personal capital it can be seen, that despite opportunities to engage in ecas (including opportunities promoted by the university) the students in this study did not make extensive use of ecas in order to develop their personal capital. the study found that there were three key factors influencing the extent to which students participated in ecas. each of these will be discussed below. greenbank, p. (2014). competing in the graduate labour market: student perspectives on (not) participating in extra-curricular activities. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 5(1), 63–79. 70 lack of a future-orientation individuals exhibiting a future-orientation plan for the long-term and engage in activities that involve making sacrifices in order to reap benefits in the future (zimbardo & boyd, 1999; fried, grant, levi, hadani & slowik, 2007). the interviews indicate that the vast majority of students in this study were not thinking of the future and even those who were, did so infrequently and in little depth. this lack of a future-orientation is significant because it means students focus on the present and activities that will provide them with satisfaction immediately or in the very near future. for most students this necessitates combining study with part-time work in order to maintain a particular ‘student life style’. as well as providing an income to fund their life-style, part-time work provides an opportunity for students to develop the type of skills and attributes that graduate employers are seeking (bowlby, evans & roche, 2000; curtis & shani, 2002; manthei & gilmore, 2005; robotham, 2012). davies (2000) also suggests that having experience in more than one part-time job helps to develop a greater range of skills; whilst cranmer (2006) emphasises the importance of students obtaining work experience relevant to the career path they wish to pursue. the students in this study were aware of the benefits of part-time work through careers input and modules such as pdp. as a result, many students indicated in their first year interviews that they would try and obtain different part-time jobs to the ones they currently had. however, the third year interviews revealed that the vast majority of the students had remained in the same part-time job throughout their degree. this was because their jobs met their immediate needs. for example, b6 had worked for a large retailer as a customer adviser since he was 17 years-old. in his first year interview he said he did not want to work in retail and would find a part-time job that was more relevant to his career aspirations. yet when he was reinterviewed in his final year of study he was still in the same job. b6 justified this with the following comment: i suppose i am just a bit comfortable with having a regular income and working somewhere i know and have got used to. i know the job and the people and everything. a number of students gave similar rationales for remaining in their current jobs. they also frequently emphasised that their part-time job had to be compatible with the demands of student life, with factors such as hours, shift patterns and the physical and psychological burden of the work they were doing, being mentioned by interviewees. for example, a6, did not want to take on a supervisory role in his part-time job, even though this would enhance his personal capital (especially as he was aiming to obtain a job in management), because he wanted to be able to avoid stress and concentrate on his studies: last year they said do you want to be a supervisor? but i said like it’ll give me more responsibility, but it’s just more pressure for me you know, opening times, making sure i’ve got the keys, sorting out rotas and stuff. i don’t need [capital letters are used when the interviewee emphasises a word] to do that, i just need to come into work, do what i need to do and just get out. the fact that students like a6 make their academic work a priority might of course be seen as a rational decision given evidence to suggest that engaging in ecas can have a negative effect on student learning, particularly where students are engaged in excessive amounts of part-time working (barke et al., 2000; curtis & shani, 2002; curtis & williams, 2002; metcalf, 2003; humphrey, 2006). however, as table 2 illustrates, it is generally not part-time working that is being sacrificed, but other non-paid (and arguably more important) forms of eca. as discussed above, this appears to occur because most students focus on their immediate futures and they need their part-time job to maintain their student life-style. this also means that any thought of substituting unpaid for paid ecas was something students were, in the main, unwilling to contemplate. as already mentioned, the risk of losing greenbank, p. (2014). competing in the graduate labour market: student perspectives on (not) participating in extra-curricular activities. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 5(1), 63–79. 71 their part-time jobs was a significant barrier to engaging in a year-long placement. for example, b17 admitted she did not want to risk her part-time job by going on a work placement because, it’s hard to find one round here because of all the students. similarly, b6 had concerns about the effect of a work placement on his part-time job: i thought about doing internships and stuff like that. one of my friends did an internship in london. it was with [names a bank]. he was telling me about that and it sounded really good and i was thinking maybe that’s something i’ll do. but i thought, if i’m doing that, would that clash with what i was doing there? [in his part-time job]. b6 was asked about engaging in non-paid ecas, such as volunteering, in order to enhance his employability, but he said he did not have time for such things. however, b6 admitted that during the summer months, when he would have the time, he worked 40 hours a week in his job for, as he put it, purely financial reasons. other students also blamed their non-engagement with unpaid ecas on a lack of time. but when it was pointed out to them that they could participate in such activities during the summer months, when they were not at university, they agreed this was a possibility. however, many of the students still felt they needed the summer to recuperate from the intensity of university life. as a6 said: i suppose i could [engage in ecas] in the summer. yes, i know what you’re saying. i think the thing is after all your university work, the eight months or whatever it is you are here, i think you do just want a break, you know what i mean? i think you just don’t want to make time over the summer. if you were going to try and find time now, because you’re busy, you just don’t have the time. but when you’ve got the time you don’t want to find it; i don’t want to do it now, i’m tired. i know like you have a massive break but like you need it. b21 also acknowledged that she could have engaged in ecas over the summer months, but she did not because i need a rest after all the assignments and exams and that. it takes so much out of you. she also said: the summer is the time i can do nothing. i’ve got until i’m sixty-five to work. i go to the gym, have a night out, do whatever i want. purist orientation brown and hesketh (2004) differentiate between ‘players’ and ‘purists’ and argue that they should be conceptualised as two extreme types of orientation along a continuum. players are students who understand what employers are looking for and are willing to engage in ecas with the expressed aim of enhancing their personal capital in order to meet the requirements of graduate recruiters. in contrast, purists prefer to present the ‘real’ or authentic self to potential employers and would be unwilling to engage in ecas with the sole purpose of enhancing their personal capital. the implication is that students with a player orientation are likely to perform better in the graduate labour market. when they were presented with the player-purist categorisation in their first year interviews students expressing a player orientation (about a quarter of those interviewed) often did so in pragmatic terms. for example c4 said he would operate as a player because that’s the way of the world. in contrast, purists (nearly half the sample) said they would not engage in ecas with the sole purpose of enhancing their personal capital. as c5 said, i would only really be interested in doing things that i enjoy. similarly, b17 said, i think for it to be volunteering without pay it has to be something that really grabs you. the students often stressed that they were morally opposed to packaging themselves in a way that was not authentic; and some were uncomfortable with the idea of competing in the greenbank, p. (2014). competing in the graduate labour market: student perspectives on (not) participating in extra-curricular activities. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 5(1), 63–79. 72 labour market through the development of personal capital. for example, b5 believed that engaging in activities in order to enhance personal capital was like lying on your cv. similarly, b2 said, i’d feel uncomfortable making myself look good for others. it’s like i would be putting someone else out of a job who really wants it and me taking it off them. brown and hesketh (2004) classified about one-third of the students as operating with a blend of both player and purist approaches. roulin and bangerter (2013, p.43) also found students adopting what they refer to as a ‘mixed strategy’, with students sometimes adopting a player orientation and at other times a purist-orientation. the difference is that roulin and bangerter (2013) found most students adopted a mixed strategy. in this study about a quarter of the students interviewed in their first year had, not a mixed or blended approach, but a more ambiguous orientation. they said they wanted to be players, but they admitted they did not have the motivation to engage in the type of ecas that employers valued. these students said that they had other more pressing objectives relating to the fact that they had a present, rather than a future, time orientation. when the students were re-interviewed in their final year very few students had shifted along the continuum to be more player orientated and the students who indicated a desire to be player orientated had not acted upon this. this is reflected in the lack of engagement in career enhancing ecas (see table 2). in the third year interviews there was, however, some regret amongst students that they had not engaged in more ecas. they were aware that they had disadvantaged themselves positionally vis-à-vis other students in the graduate labour market. as a3 said: i wish i had hobbies and interests, i do because it would make my cv look better. and just like the social aspects as well i think, i think it would have been good. but mainly like it means others will be going for jobs and they will look better than me even if they aren’t because they have done things to make them look good and that. risk aversity the students in this study tended to be risk averse. this can be seen as problematic because graduate employers are often seeking graduates who, to use the words of hinchliffe and jolly (2009, p.20), are prepared to step outside the familiar and the comfortable. students were, however, often unwilling to do this because of what zeelenberg (1999) refers to as ‘anticipatory regret’ and the fact that people are often heavily influenced by a desire to avoid the cost of making a bad decision (diamond, vorley, roberts & jones, 2012). this is exemplified by the comments of b8, who in her first year interview indicated a reluctance to engage in ecas in case it proved to be something that graduate recruiters did not value. if this proved to be the case it would mean she had invested time (which represents a cost) in something without benefit. as she said, i could do something and it may not even be relevant and then waste all that time. b8 subsequently had the opportunity to undertake a year-long placement with a large company, but she did not attend the interview because she was uncertain of the benefits of undertaking a placement; and she also feared that after taking a year out she would have to join a cohort of students on her degree that she did not know. this was something b8 regretted when she was reinterviewed in her third year: i wished i’d gone now, but i never went because i thought when i get back to uni i won’t know anyone. i just bottled it really (laughs). i had the opportunity but i thought i wouldn’t know anyone when i got back. the fact that the students would be with a different cohort of students when they returned from a year-long placement was a key factor in many of them not taking this option up. as another student (b17) commented, you come back and you’re in a whole different year without your friends. everything you’re familiar with goes. as already discussed, the greenbank, p. (2014). competing in the graduate labour market: student perspectives on (not) participating in extra-curricular activities. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 5(1), 63–79. 73 students were also concerned about the risk of losing their part-time job if they went on a placement. risk aversity is also linked to the students’ lack of confidence. tomlinson (2007) found that a number of students in his study were apprehensive about engaging in ecas because they did not believe they had the cultural capital to enable them do this effectively. similarly, in this study some of the students commented on how they were aware of opportunities to volunteer from the university’s website, but they did not feel they had the personality or skills to engage in such activities. the emotions students feel are well represented by the comments of b4 who said: i don’t know if i could do this [volunteering]. i’m not that kind of person. you know, would i be good at it sort of thing? it would be good if you could do it with your friends or with your lecturers, kind of thing or something. it’s scary (laughs). the students also commented on not wanting to take a risk with their degree. for example, c1 was reluctant to engage in ecas in case it jeopardised his aim of achieving a first class honours degree. similarly, a6 feared that participating in ecas would have a detrimental effect on his degree and ‘without your degree you’re not going to get a good job anyway’. discussion and implications this study has demonstrated that the students were not making extensive use of ecas to develop their personal capital. the factors influencing the extent to which the students in this study engaged in ecas can be conceptualised as values along a continuum (see figure 2 below), with values to the left of the continuum acting as barriers to participating in ecas and values to the right facilitating engagement in ecas. barriers facilitators present orientation future-orientation risk aversity risk taking ‘purist’ orientation ‘player’ orientation figure 2: factors influencing student engagement in extra-curricular activities if this university wants these students to participate in ecas there is, therefore, a need to shift the students to the right of the continuum so they become more future-orientated; have a greater willingness to take risks; and begin to act more like ‘players’. there may, however, be concerns about attempting to promote such changes. it may, for example, be argued (as many of the students in this study did) that they do not want to be future-orientated, as this is likely to be their one opportunity to be a full-time student and as such, their only chance to enjoy a ‘student-life style’. on the other hand, in the second interviews which took place just before they graduated, many students indicated regret at not having engaged with ecas. this was not only because they believed this had adversely affected their employability, but also because they felt that they may have enjoyed engaging in certain ecas. this is noteworthy, as students in the first year interviews often regarded ecas (especially unpaid ecas) negatively because they could not see any immediate benefits to be gained from participating in them. however, as gilovich and medvec (1995) have found, whilst the failure greenbank, p. (2014). competing in the graduate labour market: student perspectives on (not) participating in extra-curricular activities. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 5(1), 63–79. 74 to act on something (i.e. ‘the road not taken’) may not produce regret in the short-term, it often does in the longer-term. it might also be argued that the university should not be encouraging students to take risks. this paper is, however, suggesting that the students’ decision-making is biased by their risk aversity and linked to this a desire to avoid uncertainty. this risk aversity arises because the students in this study tended to focus on costs rather than benefits; and the short-term rather than the longer-term. for example, the students often did not want to participate in unpaid ecas because of the ‘cost’ in time and their inability to recognise the short-term benefits associated with engaging in ecas (for example the chance to make new friends and be exposed to new, and potentially enjoyable, experiences). this is exacerbated by the fact that the longer-term benefits are uncertain, whereas the short-term benefits of using this time to participate in other activities, such as paid employment, are more immediate and tangible. as bazerman (2006, p.65) states the vividness of the present is a very powerful influence. this paper is, therefore, not arguing that students should become risk takers, only that they become less risk averse. this can be achieved by encouraging students to focus on both the costs and benefits of engaging in different ecas and asking them to consider the long-term, as well of the short-term, costs and benefits when making decisions. there might also be objections to promoting a player orientation amongst students. it is suggested that encouraging students to engage in ecas, because it will enhance their employability, may be seen as encouraging inauthenticity (greenbank, 2013). there will, however, be students operating as ‘players’ (see brown & hesketh, 2004; roulin & bangerter, 2013) and the students in this study will have to compete against them for jobs. moreover, if students are engaged in ecas they are not committed to, this may be seen as unfair to the organisations where these ecas are undertaken, especially if it involves charities. on the other hand, if students engage in ecas for personal gain, this does not mean that there will be no third-party benefit to their participation. furthermore, a student may engage in a particular eca for what might be seen as inappropriate reasons, but it may result in positive changes to their personality and values. it is clearly not possible to say whether other students (for example those studying different subjects and/or attending other heis) would exhibit the same type of behaviour, and be influenced by similar values, to the students in this study. there is, therefore, a need to be cautious about making generalisations from this research. with this proviso in place, it is nevertheless useful to consider how the reluctance of students to engage in ecas can be addressed. this research found that the tendency for students to adopt a present, rather than a future, time orientation was the most important factor influencing student participation in ecas. this is because a present time orientation not only prevents students considering the longer-term benefits of engaging in ecas, but it also (as this paper has demonstrated) contributes to the creation of other barriers to participating in ecas, such as risk aversity and a reluctance to adopt a player orientation. one way of helping students to shift to a future-orientation is to encourage them to think and write about their ‘future possible selves’, both frequently and in depth. leondari (2007) defines future possible selves as representing [t]hose selves that a person could become, would like to become, or is afraid of becoming ... they encompass both hoped-for and feared images of the self (p.8). similarly, plimmer and schmidt (2007, p.64) state that, [p]ossible selves can be positive (hopes) or negative (fears). for students, therefore, it could be the negative image of being unemployed or having to continue to work in their part-time jobs after graduation; and the positive image of pursuing a career that offers extrinsic rewards (e.g. a good salary) and intrinsic rewards (e.g. job satisfaction) that greenbank, p. (2014). competing in the graduate labour market: student perspectives on (not) participating in extra-curricular activities. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 5(1), 63–79. 75 provides the motivation they need to participate in ecas. these images of the future can be instrumental in motivating behaviour and shaping aspirations, especially if they are considered frequently and in-depth (markus & nurius, 1986; segal, demeis, wood & smith, 2001; rossiter, 2007). as rossiter (2007, p.90) contends: [p]eople are more likely to take action … if they have a well developed possible self … if an individual really cannot envision herself or himself doing something, it is unlikely that behaviour will be directed towards that end. however, stevenson and clegg (2011) point out that students can only include possible selves that they know about and can envisage. it is, therefore, important for students to be aware of the various career opportunities available. this can be achieved through careers talks which identify different possibilities and by lecturers discussing employment with their students, although on their own these are liable to lead to a relatively limited selection of career options. as such, students should be encouraged to research possible career routes for themselves. the added advantage of this is that the students will be able to identify careers that match their personal aspirations (both extrinsic and intrinsic) and their strengths (in terms of skills, values and personalities traits). research indicates that individuals do not tend to reflect, in any depth, on the values underpinning their behaviour (maio & olson, 1998; bardi & goodwin, 2011). by encouraging students to consider their future possible selves, and by asking them to research different career options, they will be required to systematically and rigorously reflect on the values influencing their attitude to participating in ecas. as this paper has pointed out risk aversion tends to arise because students often focus on the short-term costs involved in participating in ecas. encouraging students to both reflect on their future possible selves and to undertake research into the advantages and disadvantages of different career options, will help move them away from a risk averse bias that acts as a barrier to engaging in ecas. the combination of a future-orientation and a debiased approach to risk taking should also help students become more player orientated and therefore willing to engage in ecas. as part of an action research project the author of this paper has already introduced interventions that have influenced student attitudes towards ecas (see for example greenbank, 2010, 2011). these interventions include encouraging students to collect information about different career options. the author has also been working with students who are writing about their future possible selves (hoped-for and feared). this exercise has been well received by students who have indicated that it has made them think more seriously about engaging in ecas. however, this feedback has, to date, only been collected informally through class feedback and there has been no attempt to monitor student participation in ecas following this exercise. there is, therefore, a need to evaluate more rigorously the effectiveness of asking students to write about their future possible selves, which will include monitoring how they subsequently perform in the graduate labour market. greenbank, p. (2014). competing in the graduate labour market: student perspectives on (not) participating in extra-curricular activities. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 5(1), 63–79. 76 notes 1. see ‘sources of employment data’ on: https://unistats.direct.gov.uk/find-out-more/about-thedata/ [accessed 31/7/14]. 2. institutions that obtained university status after 1992 are referred to as ‘new’ universities. in contrast, universities that were formed prior to 1992 are referred to as ‘old’ universities. 3. st. john ambulance is a charity that supplies first aid and training in health and safety. 4. for the pdp module students reflect on their learning and achievements by completing progress files which are then used to plan their personal, educational and career development (see ward and watts, 2009). https://unistats.direct.gov.uk/find-out-more/about-the-data/ https://unistats.direct.gov.uk/find-out-more/about-the-data/ greenbank, p. 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(2012). a review of business-university collaboration. london: department for business, innovation and skills. zeelenberg, m. (1999). anticipated regret, expected feedback and behavioral decisionmaking. journal of behavioral decision making, 12(2), 93–106. zimbardo, p.g & j.n. boyd, j.n. (1999). putting time in perspective: a valid, reliable individual-differences metric. journal of personality and social psychology, 77, 1271-88 pham, t., saito, e., bao, d., & chowdhury, r. (2018). employability of international students: strategies to enhance their experience on work integrated learning (wil) programs. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 9(1), 62–83. 62 employability of international students: strategies to enhance their experience on work-integrated learning (wil) programs thanh pham1a, eisuke saito1b, dat bao1, raqib chowdhury1 thanh.t.pham@monash.edu; eisuke.saito@monash.edu; dat.bao@monash.edu; raqib.chowdhury@monash.edu 1faculty of education, monash university ahttps://orcid.org/0000-0001-7001-5011 ; bhttps://orcid.org/0000-0002-1689-1210 abstract this paper presents a systematic qualitative review of relevant literature, documents and reports, and critically discusses issues facing international students undertaking workintegrated learning (wil) activities as part of their higher education in australia. initiatives utilised to better support international students on these wil placements are described. based on an evaluation of the data reviewed, the discussion highlights two main challenges to international students’ employment experiences: a limited competence in english communication, and a limited understanding of the local working context. in seeking explanations for the above, the authors identified factors such as inadequate student-entry procedures, limited opportunities for socialisation, limited input in cultural protocols, and the lack of soft-skills training. the recommended solutions include more uniformity between government and employer sectors, increased acceptance and support for multicultural diversity, an openness towards diverse ways of thinking, and an enhancement of training in diverse communication styles. keywords: work-integrated learning, employability, international students, australia, higher education introduction although australia is striving to build a knowledge-based economy founded on a highly skilled workforce (minister for innovation, industry, science and research, 2011), the domestic workforce remains insufficient to meet the demand for skilled labour in a number of areas. for instance, australia has a significant shortage of stem graduates. the proportion of australia university students graduating with stem qualifications is 16 per cent (abc news, 2015), which is significantly lower than in other nations such as singapore and china which have about 50 per cent of their students graduating from various stem fields (abc news, 2015). australia also has a high demand for teachers, especially when the number of students is predicted to increase by 26 per cent by 2022 (school governance, 2016). to fill these gaps, the skilled migration policy was launched in 2009 to attract skilled workers from overseas to australia. despite this, it has been reported that a large percentage of newly arrived immigrants have not been able to find suitable jobs after settling in australia. roddick (2014), for example, reported that 40 per cent of overseas teachers experienced significant periods of unemployment since their arrival, although it is unclear if this percentage includes those who are waiting for their overseas qualifications to be recognised in australia. the main mailto:thanh.t.pham@monash.edu mailto:eisuke.saito@monash.edu mailto:dat.bao@monash.edu mailto:raqib.chowdhury@monash.edu https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7001-5011 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1689-1210 pham, t., saito, e., bao, d., & chowdhury, r. (2018). employability of international students: strategies to enhance their experience on work integrated learning (wil) programs. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 9(1), 62–83. 63 reason contributing to their difficulty in finding a job was that their home education, skills and experiences were not recognised and rewarded adequately in australia (teacher, 2014). a more effective strategy to fill this shortage of teachers would be to employ international graduates of australian universities which comprise over 24 per cent of australian universities’ student population (australian universities, 2017). when employed, these international graduates are known to demonstrate a range of valued qualities including domestically relevant educational qualifications and skills, locally recognised credentials, familiarity with the host culture, as well as host-country language ability (hawthorne, 2014). indeed, these factors can advantage international graduates in being successful in their employment in australia over recently arrived migrants without local education and/or qualifications. a landmark shift in australia’s policy in recognising the role of international students in the australian workforce occurred with the introduction of the national strategy for international education 2025, launched by the australian government in april 2016. the main focus of this strategy was to propose approaches for maintaining and developing the reputation of international education. the strategy highlighted the need for higher education providers to enhance the employability of graduates because australia’s reputation for providing highquality, world-class education rested on the quality and employability of graduates; and that relevant local community and industry needed to be more engaged in supporting the fieldwork experiences of international students. more specifically, the strategy acknowledged the need to expand the potential, scale and breadth of relevant wil opportunities for international students and graduates (det 2015, p. 42). in australian higher education, wil is currently the main avenue for students to gain hands-on experiences. tran and soejatminah (2016) reported that wil has increasingly become an important component of institutions’ strategies in positioning themselves in the competitive international education market. the following sections present a brief history of wil and discuss the need to understand and improve international students’ engagement with and in wil. understanding wil work-integrated learning (wil) is not a new concept. historically, various wil models have been developed to respond to the demands of the labour market. prior to the 1960s, the ‘apprenticeship model’ was used to illustrate the relationship between academic institutions and the workplace (bines & watson, 1992; humphreys, greenan, & mcilveen, 1997). according to this model, intellectual and theoretical frameworks were counted as the university’s responsibility, whereas the workplace was responsible for training employees to apply what they had learned at university. however, this model resulted in a scant approach to addressing unemployment with graduates obtaining only theoretical knowledge, leading to their inability to handle their work, giving the university a poor reputation amongst employers (steedman, gospel, ryan, & apprenticeship, 1998). to improve this situation, a ‘technocratic model’ was introduced which emphasised a combination of a knowledge base provided by a university with the application of that knowledge base supervised in the workplace (bines & watson, 1992). after the birth of this model, academic institutions actively looked for and partnered with industries to provide training for students prior to graduation. in the last two decades, and in response to rapid changes in today’s global workplaces and the increased emphasis on independent, active and critical learning, a new ‘post-technocratic’ model has emerged (castle, holloway, & race, 1998). the key aspect of this model is to require graduates to develop critical and reflective skills, and then develop their own practices to respond to constant changes. universities worldwide are currently applying both the ‘technocratic’’ and ‘post-technocratic’ models to different degrees. in practice, wil is offered as a component of a course, most commonly in the form of placement and placement-related activities. raelin (2010) argues that wil incorporates two fundamental dimensions: theory and practice modes of learning, and explicit and tacit forms of knowledge (p.13). while the structure of wil programs does vary, they mainly include activities such as industry-based projects, placements, internships, pham, t., saito, e., bao, d., & chowdhury, r. (2018). employability of international students: strategies to enhance their experience on work integrated learning (wil) programs. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 9(1), 62–83. 64 and service learning, organised both locally and internationally. the length and scope of these activities vary amongst institutions, disciplines and year levels. the main purpose of these activities is to create opportunities for students to gain hands-on experience in a real-world environment (tran & soejatminah, 2016, p. 341). in wil programs students have opportunities to obtain and enrich their insights into the real world within the scope of their disciplines. gribble (2014) claims that wil activities benefit students in various areas because the students can practise their technical and non-technical skills in an approved setting which provides a suite of offerings, including career-management provision, employability skilldevelopment, and the cultivation of life skills and civic responsibility, which are designed to enhance graduate employability (cited in jackson, 2016, p. 39). there is a plethora of research on the nature of wil and issues facing students when participating in such activities. a large volume of research has reported various benefits of students when participating in wil. for instance, crebert, bates, bell, patrick and cragnolini (2004) and ryan, toohey and hughes (1996) clearly evidenced that wil could enhance students’ employability because they could obtain a set of ‘real world’ skills. nicol (2013), little and harvey (2006), anderson and green (2006), barton et al. (2017), nicholls and walsh (2007) and gribble and mcrae (2015) similarly reported a wide range of non-technical skills that students could achieve through wil. these included active listening and reasoning skills, maturity, emotional intelligence, team-building, negotiation, communication and interpersonal skills. hattie, marsh, neill and richards (1997) further claimed that experiences obtained in wil in turn helped students to learn more effectively in their disciplines because they could become more critical with their learning based on problem solving and analysing skills obtained in the real world. reddy and moores (2012) confirmed that these academic benefits can be seen regardless of course subject, gender, ethnicity and socioeconomic status. all of these technical and non-technical knowledge and skills have been identified as important drivers of employability (griffiths & guile, 2003). by contrast, very little has been known about the role of international students in wil (gribble & blackmore, 2012; orrell, 2011; patrick, peach, pocknee, webb, fletcher, & pretto, 2008). the main reason contributing to this is that this cohort has historically been seen as those coming to australia for education, but not necessarily to become integrated into the workforce. as discussed above, the national strategy has marked a significant shift in recognising the important role of international students in australia’s workforce. there is, therefore, a need for further investigation of international students’ engagement in wil and what can be done to help this cohort overcome existing problems. by providing a systematic review of research on international students’ wil experiences, the discussion teases out a number of language and cultural problems, which are the two major issues facing this particular cohort. the paper also discusses possible solutions as joint efforts of various stakeholders – a perspective hitherto not commonly discussed in the literature. research method the qualitative research method adopted in this study was that of document analysis. this is an invaluable research approach as it allows researchers to determine convergence of issues and themes and seek validation through different data sources (bowen, 2009). cresswell (1998) suggests that extensive data collection from multiple sources is the backbone of qualitative research and enables triangulation or cross validating of information (p.19). underpinning the selection of documents were the following research questions:  what are the issues which face international students participating in wil?  what initiatives are used to support international students during wil placements?  what are the barriers to employment for international students in australia?  what measures might mitigate the difficulties encountered? pham, t., saito, e., bao, d., & chowdhury, r. (2018). employability of international students: strategies to enhance their experience on work integrated learning (wil) programs. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 9(1), 62–83. 65 data collection and analysis a systematic qualitative review of the research literature, relevant documents and reports published after 1999 was conducted with a focus on asian international students participating in wil organised in english-speaking settings. as discussed above, for this research, the concept of wil refers to programs where international students practice their working skills and receive training from prospective employers. relevant scholarly journal articles were identified through a thorough search of electronic databases, including educational resources information centre (eric), psychological abstracts (pa), dissertation abstracts international (dai), and the social sciences citation index (ssci). to ensure high-quality resources and a sharp focus, the search primarily targeted peer-refereed journal articles, using the combination of the following keywords: ‘australia’, ‘asian international students’, ‘work-based learning’, ‘work-integrated learning’, ‘employability’, ‘university’, ‘higher education’, ‘placement’ and ‘internship’. the exclusion criteria for this review included: studies of western students in asian settings, research on students on exchange programs and research without empirical data. the review consisted of two stages. first, a total of 50 journal publications were identified within the subject area and 14 articles were identified as having met the inclusion criteria. these publications were interrogated. an inductive approach was applied to analyse the data to find problems facing international students on wil. first, the researchers read and re-read the findings of the reviewed studies to identify and group problems that international students faced into themes. then, themes that referred to the same problem were grouped into a bigger theme. after categorizing all problems and grouping them in themes, a list of themes referring to various problems facing international students emerged. however, within the scope of this paper, only the two biggest themes referring to two major issues facing international students were reported: language barriers and the lack of local culture understanding. in addition to the review of scholarly journal articles, a search of media stories, surveys and interviews with academics and employers published in reputed newspapers and websites such as the australian broadcasting corporation (abc) was undertaken. the authors considered these data credible and valid because these online newspapers and websites rely on well-accepted ethical journalistic procedures and multi-source fact-checking to judge the information and examine for correspondent integrity prior to publication and public dissemination. results table 1 presents the studies chronologically by year of publication. this table includes study names of researchers, year of study, title of the report, discipline(s), research approaches used to collect data and main findings. pham, t., saito, e., bao, d., & chowdhury, r. (2018). employability of international students: strategies to enhance their experience on work integrated learning (wil) programs. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 9(1), 62–83. 66 table 1: fourteen studies on experiences of international students on wil no authors & year title of publication discipline(s) data collection method main findings 1 barton, g., hartwig, k., bennett, d., cain, m., campbell, m., ferns, s., jones, l., joseph, d., kavanagh, m., kelly, a., larkin, i., o’connor, e., podorova, a., tangen, d., & westerveld, m. (2015) work placement for international student programs (wisp): a model of effective practice psychology and education semistructured interviews this research reported two case studies in which two international students struggled on placements in areas of writing, competencies to run lessons and self-reflection to make improvement. the study applied a model of effective practice identifying these areas and provided strategies for the students to navigate and improve the problems. the study emphasised the roles of both the students and the mentors in collaboratively solving the problems. for the students, they needed to use selfreflection as the main tool to reflect on their work experiences in order to reconstruct their professional practice. for the mentors, they needed to recognise the strengths of the students and provide constructive feedback to them. 2 o’reilly, s. l., & milner, j. (2015) supporting culturally and linguistically diverse students during clinical placement: strategies from both sides of the table. medical semistructured interviews the research explored challenges of students on clinical placements as a core component of most health care degrees. semi-structured focus groups with healthcare students (n = 13) and clinical placement supervisors (n = 12) were employed. the research reported cultural and language issues as one of the three main barriers facing international students. strategies proposed to solve these issues were to: build language and practical approaches for communication, raise awareness of the healthcare system (how it interacts with healthcare professions and how patients access it), and initiate mentoring programs. pham, t., saito, e., bao, d., & chowdhury, r. (2018). employability of international students: strategies to enhance their experience on work integrated learning (wil) programs. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 9(1), 62–83. 67 3 gribble, c., & mcrae, n. (2015) creating a climate for global wil: barriers to participation and strategies for enhancing international students’ involvement in wil in canada and australia engineering, information technology, business and economics and health sciences semistructured interviews this study investigated barriers and challenges related to international students’ experiences in australia (and canada). the study interviewed 10 students (4 in canada and 6 in australia) and found that wil helped international students get exposed to local work culture, workplace etiquette and behaviours. however, international students faced challenges including english language proficiency, inadequate understanding of the attitudes of employers and their expectations. this study also found that international students could negotiate the diversity of cultural values, power relations and norms at workplace if they possessed an agentic disposition. in contrast, if international students did not have this quality, they tended to encounter difficulties in obtaining a placement and deriving the maximum benefit from their wil experience. 4 jackling, b., & natoli, r. (2015) employability skills of international accounting graduates: internship providers’ perspectives. accounting semistructured interviews the research reported the perceptions of internship providers with respect to the employability skills of international accounting graduates using a survey. almost half of the respondents expressed their concerns about the capacity of international students to be ‘work ready’ with respect to business acculturation, capacity to handle unfamiliar problems and communication skills. 5 jackson, d. (2016) deepening industry engagement with international students through work-integrated learning business semistructured interviews this research explored employer, academic, and student perspectives on the barriers experienced by international students in gaining exposure to wil. the findings reported that international students gained potential benefits including cultural insights and linguistic expertise. for employers, they could potentially deepen existing collaborative global partnerships through the placement of participating international students. however, a large number of industries expressed their reluctance in hosting international students. concerns were often related to perceived weak oral and (or) written communication skills, which pham, t., saito, e., bao, d., & chowdhury, r. (2018). employability of international students: strategies to enhance their experience on work integrated learning (wil) programs. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 9(1), 62–83. 68 may affect discussions with clients and when writing emails or documents. there were also concerns for cultural differences between the home and host countries that may lead to clients’ complaints. 7 tran, t. l., & soejatminah, s. (2016) ‘get foot in the door’: international students’ perceptions of work integrated learning vet in various disciplines including hospitality, nursing, business, community welfare, building and carpentry semistructured interviews this paper explored perceptions of international students towards benefits they gained on in vet. although international students experienced linguistic and cultural challenges, the study showed that wil was seen to not only add value to student learning, career aspiration and employability but also transform and enhance their symbolic and social capitals. wil was perceived by those international students as a valuable pathway to developing knowledge and skills related to their vocational study. wil was emphasised as enabling personal learning in addition to professional learning 8 tangen, d., & campbell, m. (2017) who fails whom? a case study exploration of factors leading to unsuccessful international preservice teachers’ work placements education semistructured interviews the study explored factors leading to unsuccessful field placements of four international students. these students were classified as domestic because they completed their final high school years in australia. however, they lacked an understanding of schooling in australia and a less than ideal level of english language proficiency for teaching in australian schools. they therefore encountered various problems on placement. the case studies showed that both individual and systemic considerations needed to be taken into account in order to attain success. better relationships between the international student, their mentor and the university site were recommended. 9 barton, g., hartwig, k., joseph, d., & podorova, a. (2017) practicum for international students in teacher education programs: education semistructured interviews the study presented case studies from three university sites that offered international students initial teacher education programs. the findings revealed that english proficiency was the main issue facing international students on practicum (placement) and this pham, t., saito, e., bao, d., & chowdhury, r. (2018). employability of international students: strategies to enhance their experience on work integrated learning (wil) programs. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 9(1), 62–83. 69 an investigation of three university sites through multisocialisation, interculturalisation and reflection limitation had severe impacts on classroom practice. besides, the students also faced contextual factors, that is, the differences in the programs and universities. this had significant impacts on the outcomes for international students. 10 jones, l., o’connor, e., boaghodgson, c. (2017) enhancing workplace learning for international students in psychology: learning from students’ and supervisors’ perspectives psychology semistructured interviews the study conducted interviews with 10 psychology students from various asian countries and their supervisors. these students came to placement with a particular life history that engendered particular identities to be salient, as well as particular subjectivities, that can be termed as potential strengths and vulnerabilities. their strengths were their knowledge in intercultural, personal qualities and transition experiences, while their vulnerabilities were lack of english competency and communication, australian culture, australian workplaces and work experience. to support these students, the study recommended that both the students and workplaces needed to make efforts and adjustments. 11 bennett, d., & ferns, s. (2017) functional and cognitive aspects of employability: implications for international students therapy semistructured interviews the study analysed data from three occupational therapy international students across a number of work placements. these students were aware of their weaknesses such as english proficiency, shortage of local working culture and conventions. feedback and support from workplace supervisors featured as a key component of a quality experience for these international students, who particularly valued mentors who provided constructive feedback. when mentors were supportive, the students made good progress and the outcomes included acknowledging the need for individual autonomy and reflective behaviour as critical indicators of learner development. pham, t., saito, e., bao, d., & chowdhury, r. (2018). employability of international students: strategies to enhance their experience on work integrated learning (wil) programs. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 9(1), 62–83. 70 12 sonnenschein, k., barker, m., hibbins, r., & cain, m. (2017) practical experience is really important: perceptions of chinese international students about the benefits of work integrated learning in their australian tourism and hospitality degrees tourism & hospitability semistructured interviews the study included an analysis of 19 semi-structured interviews with chinese international students all enrolled in one university in australia to examine their experience in the tourism and hospitality industries. the students acknowledged industry experience was important but about half of them considered it a challenge to find an internship in australia because of their limited english skills and because competition for internships was intense. eventually, many of them chose internship back in china. 13 kelly, a. (2017) transforming challenges into opportunities: a work placement model to help international students become employable education semistructured interviews this research presented the perspectives of 37 students participating in a large-scope research project on the linguistic and cultural challenges they faced in their work placements. a range of english problems facing international students were reported. some of these were the shortage of terminology, unclear communication and writing and the lack of understanding in local working culture. the study recommended that staff needed to be more supportive and flexible so that the students could use their agency on placement. the study also concluded that international students’ challenges can also be viewed as opportunities and strengths with further intercultural understanding. once this approach was taken, it could ensure that all involved had more positive experiences. 14 jackson, d. (2017) exploring the challenges experienced by international students during work-integrated business semistructured interviews and survey this study explores the challenges experienced by international students during wil. data were gathered from employers (97), academics (15) and students (n=56). the results reported that all stakeholders identified a number of challenges which impacted on student performance and the success of their wil experiences. cultural differences and relatively weak language skills were seen pham, t., saito, e., bao, d., & chowdhury, r. (2018). employability of international students: strategies to enhance their experience on work integrated learning (wil) programs. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 9(1), 62–83. 71 learning in australia. as major issues facing international students on wil. several strategies were proposed to improve the situation amongst which preparation in identifying and managing certain cultural differences and educating international students on what to expect from the australian work setting appeared critical, and providing language support from academics when students were on was strongly recommended. pham, t., saito, e., bao, d., & chowdhury, r. (2018). employability of international students: strategies to enhance their experience on work integrated learning (wil) programs. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 9(1), 62–83. 72 themes and findings the findings of the studies in table 1 clearly show various issues faced by international students in relation to wil. amongst a wide range of problems, language barriers and limited understanding of local culture emerged as the two common major issues in all the studies reviewed. these have been widely acknowledged as areas in which international students need additional assistance in order to excel in their studies and to gain the most of their australian study experiences (briguglio & smith, 2012; graduate careers australia, 2014). in fact, australian universities have recently been called upon to provide urgent responses to these areas of concern (ieaa, 2016). the section below elaborates on the main issues and discusses initiatives that have been taken as possible solutions. language and communication skills needless to say, communication is an important functioning tool in the workplace, especially in today’s world when connectivity is growing as a key for success in various areas (martin & rizvi, 2014), creating stronger demands for both teamwork and collaboration. this explains why communication has often been ranked as the top employability skill required by employers (pham & saito, 2018; blackmore, gribble & rahimi, 2017). unfortunately, all of the studies reported in table 1 have evidenced that international students had an inadequate proficiency in english language which caused confusion, miscommunication and incorrect interpretation of mentor’s and supervisors’ instructions in the workplace (birrell, healy, & kinnaird, 2007). consequently, employers have often expressed reluctance in hosting and employing international students (jackson, 2017). below are the main linguistic weaknesses of international students in this area. it is worth noting that information reported in the reviewed studies was not comprehensive. to provide further insights about linguistic weaknesses, this paper also draws on evidence provided in studies that were not reviewed in this paper. ‘heavy’ accents ‘different’ and ‘heavy’ accents have been reported as an obstacle for international students in communicating with employers and mentors on wil (kelly, 2017). international students tend to have problems with pronouncing sounds and phonemes that do not exist in their language. for instance, asian students from certain regions often have difficulty with, and inaccurate pronunciation of ‘r’, ‘th’, and ‘w’ sounds. some students have been seen to have an ‘awkward’ accent which can be hard to understand (barton et al., 2017). howells, westerveld and garvis (2017) provided an example illustrating how even english-speaking students had a problem with understanding some australians who had an accented way of pronouncing certain vowels. although debatable, it is commonly agreed that british and american english are the most preferable because these accents are reported as ‘clear’, ‘intelligible’ and representative of ‘world standards’ (ngoc, 2016). consequently, research on employment of native and nonnative speakers by ngoc (2016) found that employers, learners and academics presented a similar concern that graduates with an accent unfamiliar to british and american english speakers were found to experience difficulties in the workplace. in elt, teachers who spoke ‘non-standard’ or ‘localised english’ were found to have slower promotions on their job (ngoc, 2016). writing and technical terminology gribble and mcrae (2015) and kelly (2017) reported that a significant majority of employers and working supervisors noted written communication and understanding technical pham, t., saito, e., bao, d., & chowdhury, r. (2018). employability of international students: strategies to enhance their experience on work integrated learning (wil) programs. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 9(1), 62–83. 73 terminology as two big challenges facing international students. in kelly’s (2017) research, an international student explained that her english was generally seen as ‘really good’ and ‘sufficient’, however she lost confidence when writing a proper formal letter or report of a coronial inquest. acknowledging the existence of such problems, barton et al. (2017), in a large-scale study with relevant stakeholders including students, supervisors, and international careers and employment officers, attempted to organise extra services and activities for international students to learn commonly used slangs in australian schools such as ‘grab a cuppa’, ‘calling the roll’ and ‘put your hands up’. limitations of local culture historically, international students have been seen as inferior others (leask, 2004, p. 186) and a plethora of research has reported on the so-called cultural issues of international students in relation to the various pedagogical practices teachers need to adopt and the supporting services to help them integrate in and adapt to the australian society (magyar & robinson-pant, 2011; sancho, 2008; barton & hartwig, 2017). when international students participated in wil, jackson (2017) found that they lacked familiarity with the australian culture, work practices, and expectations of different professions. this was evident in their weak understanding of the expected conduct, behaviours, norms and values endemic to the professional setting such as expectations of employers, established workplace processes, and the hierarchical structure. jackson (2017) also found that international students in the health sciences were not familiar with local jargon, undertaking activities and tasks considered taboo in their own culture, and not fully understanding management hierarchy and organisational structures, leading to confusion and angst among students, clients, and hosts (p.351). in business courses, students also complained of a lack of appreciation of the funding, logistics, and characteristics of the sector within which they were based, particularly the not-for-profit sector (jackson, 2017). jackson further found that a lack of local knowledge among engineering students raised concerns about expected protocols regarding workplace safety and risk management. from the employer’s perspective, there was a reluctance to host international students due to a bias amongst management who may have had preconceptions or previous experiences of their workplace performance – for instance, a male student’s reluctance to accept and respect a female manager (jackson, 2017). in various studies reported in table 1 (i.e., barton et al., 2017; gribble & mcrae, 2015), international students admitted that adjusting to the australian work setting – particularly during the early stages of their placement – was challenging. more than half of the international students in a study conducted by gribble, blackmore and rahimi (2015) identified as their first priority, the need for further preparation prior to their placement, relating to professional codes of conduct, workplace ethics, and business etiquette in the australian workplace. the researchers further suggested that international students should be more versed in the expectations, behaviours, and customs of the australian workplace and the broader society prior to attending placement. discussion who is responsible for addressing international students’ language barriers? the language problems of international students have commonly been seen as a consequence of their low english entry level to higher education. the australian universities quality agency (auqa), which develops english language standards for higher education, has therefore warned that providers need to ensure that students are sufficiently proficient in pham, t., saito, e., bao, d., & chowdhury, r. (2018). employability of international students: strategies to enhance their experience on work integrated learning (wil) programs. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 9(1), 62–83. 74 english to participate effectively in their higher education studies upon commencement of their studies (leask, 2004). however, rochecouste oliver, mulligan and davies (2010), dunworth (2013) and wingate (2015) found that admission requirements in themselves were not sufficient to account for proficient communication skills of international students upon completion. a placement officer in a study by barton et al. (2017) concluded that satisfactory ielts test scores did not guarantee effective and smooth communication on placement. in fact, if students are well supported by the university, and they demonstrate a strong personal commitment to improvement, lower-entry level students could improve english faster and more naturally than their higher-entry level counterparts. other research has shown that international students’ poor language is heavily influenced by their lack of efforts in socialising and making friends with local students, leading to their lack of understanding of language protocols and cultural norms and expectations. one explanation for this is that international students are shy, which means they often tend to group together (sancho, 2008) thereby avoiding opportunities for interaction with ‘local’ students. in fact, according to volet and ang (1998), the lack of interaction between australian and international students from asian backgrounds is one of the most disturbing aspects of the internationalisation of australian university campuses. colvin, volet and fozdar (2014) conducted a series of research studies on improving the interactions of domestic and international students at australian universities. they found that it was not the international students who could determine the interactions with domestic students, but rather, that the willingness and openness of domestic students played a key role in meaningful interactions between the two parties. the researchers called for the development and utilisation of pedagogical practices that could enhance mutual interactions of international and local students. the cultural orientations in which minority groups like international students are excluded, have been structurally observed to be white, middle-class and male (read, archer, & leathwood, 2003, p. 271). although diversity has been advocated as an indispensable element in australian universities, such discrepant cultural habits have remained prevalent. initiatives utilised to support international students improve english proficiency to support international students in addressing their language barriers, the common practice that has been widely adopted at australian universities is providing english language support services (barton et al., 2017). however, murray and arkoudis (2013) found that there is very little evidence about the effectiveness of these services. there are various reasons contributing to this. first, academics or content teachers do not pay enough attention to supporting students because they consider teaching communication skills to be outside both their area of expertise and job description (dunworth & briguglio, 2011). second, students themselves tend not to attend these extra services because they are busy enough with their disciplinary studies. the discussion above makes it clear that it is not sufficient for higher education institutions to leave this task to international students alone. a small but increasing number of studies have argued that skills in english as a second or additional language (esl/eal) need to be developed through student effort and/or deliberate intervention in teaching and learning (murray, 2010; volet & ang, 2012, bretag, 2007). the literature is unequivocal in arguing that high impact student learning occurs when communication skills are integrated and embedded within disciplinary learning and assessment (arkoudis, baik, & richardson, 2012; dunworth, 2013; wingate, 2015). there are a number of studies that provide evidence to support the move in this direction (see for example, arkoudis, 2014; briguglio, 2014; dunworth 2014; murray & nallaya, 2014; fenton-smith, humphreys, walkinshaw, michael, & lobo, 2015). one strategy would be to embed common vocabularies or terminologies in the field into the pham, t., saito, e., bao, d., & chowdhury, r. (2018). employability of international students: strategies to enhance their experience on work integrated learning (wil) programs. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 9(1), 62–83. 75 courses and units. at this stage, briguglio (2014) is the only research that has recommended the embedding of referencing conventions and vocabularies into disciplinary/content studies. howells et al. (2017) claimed that at a program level, at no point are the linguistic differences (e.g. vowels) explicitly discussed with international students during their study program. it seems that australia has claimed to be preparing international students for employability a little late, especially when compared with the uk and north america where international students have been found to have better preparation for employability and better dialogues with employers (auidf, 2013). the lack of early preparation suggests a disadvantage for international students studying in australian universities who may not be able to benefit from the positive impacts of professional placement programs like wil which have been reported to reduce the achievement gaps for minority students in the uk (moores, birdi, & higson, 2017). if at all, communication and writing skills tend to be only emphasised in later years years 3 & 4 (mercer-mapstone & matthews, 2017). knight (2001) argues that to enable students to develop communication skills, there is a need for long-term planning in which the curriculum needs to be designed with an integration of multiple, consistent and developmental activities that could enable students to practise over time. as such, a more effective strategy would be the design of a comprehensive curriculum that could facilitate students at their very early stage in year 1 to develop both required technical and non-technical skills. such a curriculum essentially requires the involvement of both disciplinary academics and as well as experts in relevant areas. where do cultural issues come from? international students have been reported as having limited understanding of local culture. australian universities have therefore attempted to address this by embedding work conduct and ethics into their programs. however, two questions that need further discussion and more attention are: (1) why are only international students blamed for these problems? is this because historically international students have been largely seen as inferior others (leask, 2004, p. 186) who need to be filled with euro-american knowledge (sancho, 2008), or ‘complex others’ who have their own identities but still need to assimilate in the australian academic conventions (magyar & robinson-pant, 2011)? if this is the case, international students tend to be expected to adjust themselves to fit the conventions on programs; (2) how much can be solved if only international students make efforts? below is an example illustrating the need for more critical thought about these two questions. common comments about international, especially asian, students on wil are that they are ‘not active’, ‘unconfident’ and ‘not critical’. specifically, howells et al. (2017) found that workplace supervisors complained that international students, particularly those from asia, were disengaged because they did not ask questions. this is because asking questions has been considered as an indicator of being critical in western classrooms (ryan & louie, 2006). the industry has a strong desire for emerging professionals to be critical practitioners who question current practices and challenge the status quo to generate newer ways of thinking, and international students had difficulty engaging with this process in the workplace (clements & cord, 2013). this emerging requirement has actually created an additional challenge for international students because they often struggle with being self-critical and reflecting on personal experience (campbell & zegwaard, 2011). strategies to help international students overcome the shortage of local working culture supervisors and industries may interpret asian students as lacking engagement or interest in what they are doing when they do not ask questions. in fact, this is more related to their cultural pham, t., saito, e., bao, d., & chowdhury, r. (2018). employability of international students: strategies to enhance their experience on work integrated learning (wil) programs. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 9(1), 62–83. 76 norms. asian students consider asking their supervisor a question as an act of challenging them and a lack of deference to authority (elliott & reynolds, 2014). in fact, the concepts of ‘active’, ‘passive’, and ‘critical’ have attracted lots of attention from researchers. jin and cortazzi (1995) point out that these terms are often interpreted differently, depending on the expectations of the ‘culture of learning’ into which one has been socialised. in recent times the idea of using vygotskian notions of language as the tool for thought has become very popular, especially in western discourses. in western classrooms, talk or verbal participation are seen as pathways to a critical questioning approach (ryan & louie, 2006) and ‘learner-centred’ pedagogies are designed to encourage students to ‘learn by participating, through talking and active involvement’ (jin & cortazzi, 1995, p. 6). this explains why western employers have implicit and explicit preferences for these activities and expect their employees to actively engage in these practices. if students and employees are not verbally participatory, they are very likely to be seen as problematic. such a view of ‘effective’ learning contrasts with the more cognitive-centred, learning–listening approach that is largely favoured by asian learners (jin & cortazzi, 1995, p. 744). within this tradition, being ‘active’ suggests cognitive involvement, lesson preparation, reflection and review, thinking, memorisation and self-study (cortazzi & jin, 1996, p. 71). therefore, littlewood (2000) claims that asian classrooms may indeed appear relatively ‘static’ in comparison to those of the anglophone west. however just because the students operate in a receptive mode does not imply that they are any less engaged. conversely, just because students in anglophone western classrooms are seen to be verbally participatory, this does not necessarily guarantee that learning is actually taking place. for instance, in their study volet and kee (1993) reported that asian students found it astonishing and culturally inappropriate when australian students interrupted someone who was talking to make a point or asking very simple questions when they could just have kept quiet and found out from their classmates at a later time. as such, it appears that each specific learning context has its own explicit and tacit rules to define what should be called ‘active’, ‘critical’, and ‘confident’. in the long run, there is an urgent need for australian higher education to embed such diverse perspectives into disciplinary programs so that all graduates, and later future employers have a better understanding about how non-technical skills are perceived in various contexts. undertaking a commitment to internationlising the curriculum may enable this goal to be achieved. in australia, a wide range of strategies (i.e., student mobility, strengthening domestic-international student interactions) have developed to diversify and internationalise higher education curricula and pedagogies (nagaraja & mcallister, 2015). however, the internationalisation of education in australia should not only stop at introducing cultural topics such as foods and clothes to domestic students, but needs to embed intellectual resources of other countries (i.e., concepts, ideologies) in their current pedagogies and curricula (kapoor, 2010; goody, 2010; singh, 2009). scholarly literature has documented several forms of pedagogies related to legitimatising marginalised knowledge. for example, moll, amanti, neff and gonzalez (1992) developed the ‘funds of knowledge’ approach requiring teachers to bring minority students’ prior knowledge into the mainstream curriculum. other researchers, by using the socio-cultural perspective, further argue for the deployment of culturally appropriate pedagogies to transfer new knowledges into the existing curriculum (e.g., pham, 2014; zipin, 2005). several studies reviewed in this research (i.e., o’reilly & milner, 2015; tangen & campbell, 2017; jones et al., 2017) have evidenced that when mentors and employers were open to accepting and supporting diversity, international students were encouraged to complete their placement successfully. in return, industries also had greater potential to develop their businesses globally (sonnenschein et al., 2017). pham, t., saito, e., bao, d., & chowdhury, r. (2018). employability of international students: strategies to enhance their experience on work integrated learning (wil) programs. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 9(1), 62–83. 77 conclusion this paper has contributed to an understanding of the issues facing international students during their wil placements and in their endeavours to find employment. this issue has gathered attention since the australian government changed its migration policy to address a skills shortage over the last two decades. the process started with the liberalisation of the study-migration pathway in late 1990s with the intention of allowing international students to apply for permanent residency if they obtained a local qualification. however, a large number of international students failed to find a job in their discipline mainly because they did not meet the requirements of employers. one of the most common reasons for this was unsatisfactory english proficiency. in 2007, the government therefore lifted the level of english for international students who wanted to apply for permanent residency. however, the situation did not improve because a large number of international students still failed to secure a job at a time when the country faced a shortage of skilled workers. more recently, the australian government has prioritised employer-sponsored migrants, although in reality very few employers are willing to sponsor international students mainly because international students are still often perceived as insufficiently qualified by employers due to various reasons including the issues related to culture and language. this study has confirmed that if international students are expected to improve their language skills without support, then the potential for them to contribute to the australian economy and society will be seriously diminished. as with employers, there is also a need to rethink how much international students should obey and follow local workplace ethics, conduct and management styles. it has been widely reported that so-called marginalised countries have a rich body of philosophical and ethicalsocio-political thought. india is a clear example of being widely recognised for its rich science, philosophy, literature and critical theories. these intellectual qualities are helping many of these countries develop their economies over western nations – china is a clear example. international students are nurtured with these intellectual heritages, so surely they possess and could access them while working in australia. it is timely for current and future employers in australia to rethink and make use of these marginalised ways of thought and working. indeed, employers need to recognise that the notion of employability is vastly different across different countries and cultures with some more focused on discipline content whereas others, including australia, place more emphasis on developing non-technical skills and gaining relevant work experience. as such, australian employers need to work out what is a good balance between technical qualities and non-technical capabilities. this paper has made a contribution to the literature on the experience of international students and especially to the strategies that could assist international students to overcome their disadvantages when participating in wil. while some of the findings may not be new they are a timely reminder of the need to remain cognisant of the issues related to international students and their wil experiences. it is acknowledged that the review in this paper may not represent all that has been reported about international students on wil, especially since information in internal reports of companies hosting wil students was not available. since only published sources were included, it is also acknowledged that a few unpublished theses in the field may provide further insights in the future. finally, it is recognised that this paper only included research conducted in australia rather than in other countries. pham, t., saito, e., bao, d., & chowdhury, r. 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(2017). a focus on collaboration: fostering australian screen production students’ teamwork skills. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 8 (1), 74–105. 74 a focus on collaboration: fostering australian screen production students’ teamwork skills kath dooley1 and larissa sexton-finck1 kath.dooley@curtin.edu.au; l.sexton-finck@curtin.edu.au 1school of media, culture and creative arts, curtin university abstract recent research undertaken in australia and abroad suggests that the development of effective collaboration skills is a significant factor affecting the successful employment of graduate screen practitioners. this article outlines the results of a study that examined student response to the explicit teaching of collaboration skills in an australian screen production course. the authors report on an empirical research project undertaken in 2015 and 2016 in the department of screen arts at curtin university, western australia. this involved two cohorts of second year screen production students (83 in total), and aimed to foster students’ teamwork skills. the activities and resources shared with students encouraged an interrogation of contemporary models of filmmaking collaboration, the use of group contracts to identify shared values of teamwork and the implementation of activities designed to improve students’ awareness of various collaboration styles. outcomes were measured by both qualitative and quantitative means through student surveys administered at both the beginning and end of the unit of study. the results of these surveys suggest a change in student attitudes towards collaboration, particularly in regards to the value of communication. the authors aim to disseminate these findings and to encourage further discussion and study in this area. the article builds a case for more attention being placed on the explicit teaching of teamwork and collaboration skills in university screen production courses. keywords: screen production, screen education, collaboration, teamwork, employability. introduction in the 21st century we have seen rapid and fundamental change to screen industries around the world. the proliferation of the internet and the development of digital technologies has revolutionised practices of screen production, distribution and consumption. media convergence has pushed traditional media producers into the area of digital media, while crowd funding and other practices involving social media have redefined the relationship between producer and audience member. finney (2014) notes that the international film business stands on a delicate cusp due to these changing technologies and user demands (p. 4), while at a more local level, filmmaker robert connolly has called for a necessary reimagining of the (australian) film industry (2008, p. 2). looking forward, one certainty appears to be further change that will continue to impact on the way that filmmakers develop, structure, create and distribute their work. given this situation, the question of how to best equip screen production students with skills to enter into, and find success in, a dynamic industry has been an ongoing concern for us as screen educators. a recent report commissioned by metro screen (2015) titled ‘emerging visions: career pathways in the australian screen production industry’ provides a useful mailto:kath.dooley@curtin.edu.au dooley, k., & sexton-finck, l. (2017). a focus on collaboration: fostering australian screen production students’ teamwork skills. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 8 (1), 74–105. 75 profile of the current screen production environment into which graduates try to obtain a foothold. the report describes a screen sector characterised by boom and bust, project-byproject activity, contract and casual employment (2015, p. 9). this means that for the emerging screen practitioner, a project-based career can be complex, requiring the collaboration of selfdirected teams including specialists with diverse skills (p. 9). five assets or capabilities that the report identifies as important factors for early career advancement (for both above and below the line roles), are formal education and training, production experience, networks, personal qualities, including ‘talent’, and overall reputation (p. 21). on the subject of personal qualities, it is later noted that: …the collaborative and high-risk nature of screen production requires people who are trustworthy and reliable, who are brave and focused, who show initiative and can problem solve, and who can work well with other people and bring out the best in the team (p. 35). in other words, the ability to be an effective and productive collaborator is of the utmost importance to the contemporary screen production graduate. furthermore, in this age of global networks and technological proliferation, it would seem that a successful career in the screen production industry now requires collaboration across platforms and beyond the range of activities associated with filmmaking in the historical sense. ryan and hearn describe the rise of entrepreneurial ‘next generation’ filmmaking projects, noting that many of these ventures are developed by collaborative teams; some teams consist of several participants, others no more than two, but collaboration is a constant feature (2010, p. 7). they suggest that contemporary screen practitioners now find themselves balancing creative production and managing a business enterprise/franchise (2010, p. 7). likewise, iezzi describes the emergence of a generation of multitasking directors who are as adept on the desktop as they are behind the camera (2006, p. 16). for iezzi this factor, alongside the rise of viral video, the growing importance of games and interactive media, and the trend towards more in-house agency production, poses a threat to the commercial-production model that existed in the past (p. 16). this builds a case for the explicit teaching of collaboration skills in screen production courses. on this subject of collaboration, a number of researchers and screen educators (kerrigan & aquilia, 2013; hardin, 2009; hodge, 2009; sabal, 2009; west, williams, & williams, 2013) agree that effective teamwork underpins success in all areas of film and video production. despite the upheavals experienced by the global screen industries, the fostering of students’ collaboration skills is of the utmost importance for students hoping to gain employment in screen production. however, this is an area of pedagogy that is frequently absent from the university screen arts curriculum, and has received little attention in terms of both local and international research. sabal observes educators who often stand by ‘transfixed’ when projects unravel due to failed collaboration and destructive conflict, having failed to offer timely, practical advice on this subject to students (sabal, 2009b, p. 3). he stresses that by teaching only the technical, aesthetic, and procedural part of production [educators] choose to ignore the foundation on which success in all the other areas rests (2009b, p. 13). similarly, hodge notes the way in which young adults with limited life experience are too often expected to master collaboration on their own, as if it were an innate skill, not a learned one (2009, p. 19). this article reports on the findings of an empirical research project undertaken in 2015 and 2016 in the department of screen arts at curtin university, which aimed to foster students’ collaboration skills in the area of screen production. the following initial research question was posed by researchers and experienced educators involved in the project: how can the screen production educator approach the subject of collaboration and teamwork so as to develop students’ skills and appreciation of this area? to find an answer to this question, we designed and delivered a series of collaboration-based activities to students. we then sought to discover the effect that this explicit teaching of collaboration skills had on the cohorts dooley, k., & sexton-finck, l. (2017). a focus on collaboration: fostering australian screen production students’ teamwork skills. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 8 (1), 74–105. 76 involved, posing questions such as: could certain approaches to the subject change student behaviours and attitudes to teamwork in the context of screen production? would students find the explicit teaching of collaboration skills to be beneficial? in finding answers to these questions, we hoped to road test resources that could be used by other educators to improve graduate employability in the australian and global screen industries. our research was informed by literature that looked at teamwork in the context of screen production education, and in the university sector in general. working with two student cohorts of second year screen production students in a single semester unit of study, this project involved an in-class interrogation of contemporary models of filmmaking collaboration, the use of group contracts to identify shared values of teamwork and the implementation of other activities designed to improve students’ awareness of various collaboration styles. the impact of these activities on student attitudes and behaviours was measured by both qualitative and quantitative means through two student surveys, administered at the beginning and end of the unit of study. a questionnaire developed by united states screen educator rob sabal in collaboration with psychologist john bilby, was used as a research instrument within these surveys. this questionnaire had previously been administered to students working within a similar cultural and educational context in the united states by hardin (2009), so was deemed appropriate for this study. additional questions applied in hardin’s research were also used in the curtin university surveys. we aim to disseminate our findings and to establish a need for further discussion and study in this area. in doing so we offer suggestions for trialled resources that can be used in the screen production classroom. literature review as reported in conference proceedings by dooley (2015), collaboration in screen production education has been the subject of little research in both australia and abroad. several scholars have explored the areas of cooperative learning, collaboration and team building in the university environment (see johnson & johnson, 1999; oakley, felder, brent, & elhajj, 2004; lobato et al., 2010 and riebe, roepen, santarelli, & marchioro, 2010); however, this research fails to consider the challenges specific to the screen production student. for example, caspersz, skene and wu (2006) provide useful advice on the formation and management of student teams in the higher education research and development society of australasia (herdsa) guide ‘managing student teams’, but these suggestions do not address the hierarchy that is present within student production teams. collaboration in this context means the adoption of leadership roles, such as producer or director, and the take up of other specific roles that lead to the creation of a creative product or artwork. unrealistic student expectations in regards to these roles, and a lack of understanding of each role’s demands can create conflict for the screen production team. there is also no australian government sponsored research that has been undertaken in this area. recent australian government office of learning and teaching (olt) projects have addressed aspects of assessment in screen production courses (see petkovic et al. 2008) and collaboration between universities to create a national postgraduate research program (see petkovic et al., 2011); however, neither of these reports has considered the fostering of students’ teamwork skills. likewise, the australian learning and teaching council (altc) good practice report (orrell, 2011) does not address the issue of student collaboration in screen production. improving teamwork skills, conflict resolution and communication in the screen education classroom is addressed in a special issue of the journal of film and video (2009), featuring the work of united states-based authors hardin (2009), hodge (2009) and sabal (2009). this issue stresses the importance of effective collaboration skills and suggests that this area be privileged alongside the development of technical skills and aesthetic knowledge as part of the screen arts curriculum. hardin and hodge observe the frequent absence of explicit dooley, k., & sexton-finck, l. (2017). a focus on collaboration: fostering australian screen production students’ teamwork skills. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 8 (1), 74–105. 77 teaching in this area, while hodge (2009) notes that a student crew cannot afford the many lost hours that result from a collective meltdown, when they cannot get past blaming others […] and are unable to repair and restore ragged crew relationships (p. 23). the teaching activities and approaches suggested by these three authors as a way to foster teamwork skills are expanded upon further in the methodology section of this article, where we outline the activities that we have implemented for students at curtin. in the context of the hardin, hodge and sabal’s articles, however, no evaluation of these techniques has been undertaken and the impact of their teaching methods on the fostering of students’ skills is based on anecdotal evidence. sabal (2009a) suggests a range of reflective activities for screen production students undertaking collaborative tasks. one of these asks students to compare themselves with several different profiles and to choose the way they most often respond in a given situation (sabal, 2009, p. 14). as a tool, he looks to a theoretical framework developed by john bilby in ‘being human: a catalogue of insights’ (1997). in this text bilby observes eight principal categories of action and that each of us favors one or two approaches to acting in the world (sabal, 2009, p. 14). bilby offers the ‘wheelbook’ as a tool that identifies eight potential profiles of the screen producer (see figure 1). sabal and bilby develop a multiple choice questionnaire for students based on these eight categories. this is attuned to the specifics of screen production activities and highlights both productive and destructive actions that a student might take in a group environment (sabal, 2009, p. 14). bilby’s development of the wheelbook is part of an awareness game that allows students to become mindful of their own manipulative tendencies, and those of others (hardin, 2009, pp. 34-35). the development of student awareness in regards to personal behaviours and tendencies is also explored by ireland and moon (2004) in their ‘group work & assessment in media production (gwamp) project’ which ran in the united kingdom from 2000 to 2004. these researchers consider the notion of ‘academic assertiveness’, which is described broadly as a set of emotional and psychological orientations and behaviours that enable a learner appropriately to manage the challenges to the self in the course of learning and their experiences in formal education (2004). the gwamp project investigates this area with a particular focus on group assessment of screen production; however, full details of this project are no longer accessible. the area of assessment in screen production is another important factor when considering teamwork and collaboration skills. as hodge notes, much tension is generated by the fact that screen production students are being graded individually for their group efforts, even though they have little control or authority over their crewmates (2009, p. 19). sabal (2009a) agrees and offers a range of approaches to assessment, which aim to better identify individual contributions and relieve student fears of unfair recognition in this area. the area of assessment in screen production has been explored by several other scholars including sergi (2007), who looks at peer assessment in screen production education, and west et al. (2013), who report on the development of effective groupand self-evaluation skills in a cohort from an american centre for animation. however, assessment falls outside of the scope of our curtiin university study, which seeks to test strategies for the development of interpersonal, communication and conflict resolution skills prior to the production process. the hardin study hardin (2009) reports on a study involving the profiling of 149 screen production students over two years at columbia college, chicago (2009), which used the sabal/bilby wheelbook questionnaire, as well as several additional multiple choice questions. hardin’s surveys were administered to students before and after the group filmmaking phases of their study, although it is not known what other instruction and coursework took place during this period of time. dooley, k., & sexton-finck, l. (2017). a focus on collaboration: fostering australian screen production students’ teamwork skills. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 8 (1), 74–105. 78 figure 1: bilby's wheelbook (source: hardin 2009: 34) the wheelbook questionnaire comprises 17 multiple choice questions with eight possible answers. the questions ask students to reflect on the personal qualities and behaviors that they bring to the screen production process. the eight answers correlate with the eight different profiles identified by bilby. of these eight different profiles, four are considered to involve passive behaviors (the passive hemisphere) and the others, by contrast, to involve aggressive behaviors (the aggressive hemisphere) (see figure 1). the wheelbook suggests that the self is composed of two sides, these involving a person’s essential qualities or essence (the inner circle) and the personality traits that emerge in situations of duress (the outer circle) (hardin, p. 34). bilby offers ‘experiential thumbnail sketches’ of each of the profiles, outlining qualities and behaviors that are observed as ‘essence’ and ‘personality’ (see appendix 1). for example, the ‘can-do person’ is brave, strong and manually competent in essence, but when placed under duress, may become a pushy or destructive ‘dictator’ personality (2009, p. 35). as explained by hardin, bilby argues that successful collaboration involves students striking a balance between the ‘essence’ listed in the inner circle of the wheelbook and the ‘personality’ listed in the outer circle (2009, p. 35). by facilitating students to identify their own behavioral tendencies, the survey encourages collaboration that builds on the strengths of each crewmember. students are encouraged to be mindful of their own and others’ possible manipulative tendencies in various teamwork situations (hardin, p. 35). additional questions in hardin’s survey were designed to qualify students’ sense of themselves and others as collaborators, as well as to a highlight a ‘critical incident’ or reflective dooley, k., & sexton-finck, l. (2017). a focus on collaboration: fostering australian screen production students’ teamwork skills. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 8 (1), 74–105. 79 moment of insight into collaboration (2009, p. 38). the results of hardin’s surveys showed that most students chose answers that correspond with the ‘teacher/con-artist’ profile (48%), followed by the ‘player/judge’ profile (17%) (p. 41). notably, he found that responses to questions interrogating attitudes towards work allocation and conflict resolution tended to be correlated with the ‘con-artist’ personality. hardin thus concludes that in the absence of coaching or dialogue about interpersonal strategies, many students align with the con-artist (p. 45). this confirms the importance of the explicit teaching of collaboration skills in screen production courses to encourage students to move beyond these limiting behaviours (p. 47). kerrigan and aquilia (2013) successfully use the questionnaire on filmmaking adapted by hardin to compare the collaboration styles of screen production students in australia and singapore. their study seeks to gauge the different student cohorts’ approaches to group collaboration; however, this research does not offer practical suggestions on how to foster students’ abilities in this area. instead the focus lies on measuring students’ abilities for the sake of comparison, rather than for measuring improvement. the curtin university study the 2015 and 2016 curtin university study involved respectively 41 and 42 bachelor of arts students completing a screen arts major, who were enrolled in the second year unit, ‘drama production workshop’. student work in this unit includes several group work projects, these being initial short exercises completed in class and then the major projectthe production of a three to five-minute drama film. the latter exercise would see students adopt a specific crew role and work in a team of six to seven members over a period of several weeks. all students had previously completed a compulsory first year course that introduced them to screen practice, and therefore had some experience of working in teams, and of the production process. at the beginning of semester, students completed a questionnaire of 22 multiple choice questions. these included the 17 wheelbook questions and five additional questions designed to gauge student attitudes and experiences of collaboration to date (see appendix 2)1. this initial survey allowed the researchers to determine the personality traits that were characteristic of the cohort. over the following 12 weeks of the semester, teachers of the unit then introduced a range of activities designed to place an explicit focus on the fostering of teamwork skills. these activities will be outlined below. at the end of the semester, after formal classes had ended and the students’ short films were nearing completion, the curtin questionnaire was administered a second time. this allowed for a comparison with the initial questionnaire, to determine any significant change in student attitudes, perceptions, experience and/or behaviours. in addition to the 22 questions outlined above, the second curtin questionnaire included an additional 3 questions asking students to evaluate the teamwork focused activities undertaken throughout the semester (see appendix 3). in this section students were asked to provide written responses, as well as answering multiple choice questions, allowing for the collection of qualitative and quantitative data. students were also asked two additional evaluating questions from hardin’s survey (questions 4 and 5). due to student absences and withdrawals, only 36 of the original 41 students completed the second survey in 2015. this factor creates an element of uncertainty regarding the analysis of comparative data, which the researchers have taken into consideration when presenting and analysing these results. this factor also led to the study being repeated in 2016, with 42 students completing both surveys in this year. 1 in addition to the wheelbook questions, initial questions 1, 4 and 5 are also taken from the hardin survey. dooley, k., & sexton-finck, l. (2017). a focus on collaboration: fostering australian screen production students’ teamwork skills. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 8 (1), 74–105. 80 in class activities the activities that were designed and implemented throughout the semester were developed based on the suggestions of the number of experienced educator/researchers listed in the literature review section of this article. in deciding upon and developing activities, consideration was given to the overlapping concerns of the researchers, and the teaching experiences and past observations of educators, to determine important points of focus. the aim was to design a set of classroom resources that could be evaluated as part of the study, and then shared with colleagues if deemed successful. available time was a factor, as the existing ‘drama production workshop’ curriculum was already busy with workshops and seminars designed to develop students’ screen storytelling, aesthetic and technical skills. rather than devote whole weekly sessions to the subject of teamwork and collaboration skills, these activities were conducted in short sessions (30-60 minutes) throughout the semester program, and tied to the students’ short drama production work where possible. this approach aimed to make teamwork an ongoing concern and ‘conscious activity’ (hodge, 2009, p. 29). firstly, students were asked to complete a self-reflection activity on their past experience of teamwork. they were asked to spend a short period of time silently reflecting on a recent experience of collaboration (concerned with screen production or otherwise) to identify firstly, their particular contribution to the group process, and secondly, the specifics of how the group functioned. for example, was the group hierarchical or democratic in terms of the decision making process? could the experience be considered positive or negative? students then formed small groups to discuss their experiences, before an instructor led class discussion called on them to reach a common understanding of the requirements for a productive collaborative experience. like sabal’s suggestion of a ‘focused autobiographical sketch’ (sabal, 2009a, p. 13) or hodge’s ‘student entry questionnaire’ (hodge, 2009, p. 22), this task is intended to highlight students’ different approaches to/ experiences of collaboration, and identify this as a point of focus in the course. furthermore, when students completed the first curtin survey in class, the task of answering the 17 multiple choice questions linked to bilby’s wheelbook profile was followed up with a class discussion regarding the different profile types. before submitting the hard copy survey, students were asked to note whether or not their answers identified them with one or two of the eight profiles in particular. this allowed students to compare themselves with several different profiles and to choose the way they most often respond in a given situation (sabal, 2009, p. 14). many students identified with several of the profiles, rather than a single one, allowing for fruitful discussion regarding the wheelbook as a tool for meaningful self-reflection. most importantly, this class discussion raised awareness of the fact that different people approach screen production in different ways, and that there may not be one ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ way to approach a particular task or crew role. in a following session, students were presented with material aimed to deconstruct the concept of the auteur, to interrogate traditional crew roles and to examine alternative (nonhollywood) modes of screen production. the notion of the visionary, individual ‘auteur’ film director has remained popular since its creation in the 1950s. hunningher (2000) notes that, in our culture there is a romantic perception that commercial and experimental films ‘authored’ by one writer/director are artistically superior to those made by collaboration (2000, p. 172). sabal suggests the need for students to reflect on the constructed notion of the individual artist, on who each student is, and on what they bring to the group production process (sabal, 2009a, p. 7). hodge also calls for an interrogation of leadership positions such as director and producer noting that collaboration thrives when the creative ‘leadership’ is granted to whoever in the moment has the best idea or solution to a difficulty rather than who is in the most powerful role (hodge, 2009, p. 23). powerpoint slides were used to spark student discussion and debate on this topic, firstly presenting statements concerning the working methods of several famed directors, and then interrogating the approaches of lesser known filmmakers dooley, k., & sexton-finck, l. (2017). a focus on collaboration: fostering australian screen production students’ teamwork skills. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 8 (1), 74–105. 81 working in a variety of ways. the desire for authentic collaboration suggested the need for instructors to present a range of examples of contemporary practice in screen industries worldwide, rather than focusing on traditional hollywood models of crew organisation. later in the semester, when students had first established teams for their major video production, each group was asked to submit a contract that outlined their planned approach to group communication, decision making and conflict management. this called for a 30minute group discussion in which time students decided: how they would communicate in the preproduction, production and post-production phases (e.g. regular face-to-face meetings, facebook groups, email); the limits and scope of each person’s creative contribution and role in decision making; what they would do if a team member failed to complete their assigned work; how they would respond to a team member who took on the work of others; how conflicts would be managed; and, what grade they hoped to achieve for the completed project. this information was shared in class by each groups’ producer, so that the differing approaches could be compared and considered by students. the activity encouraged students to ensure they shared common expectations of the production process, criteria for success, and to be clear of their particular role within this process. it also aimed to foster investment in the group process, as well as a sense of personal commitment from each student. following the completion of this contract, students were encouraged to meet weekly to evaluate their progress against the criteria they had established for themselves. sabal reports on a similar approach in his classroom, implemented so that students might be able to choose a less manipulative and more peaceful manner of interaction (sabal, 2009a, p. 12). on a similar note west et al. stress the importance of identifying key criteria, agreed upon by everyone in the group, for evaluating (student) progress (west et al., 2013, p. 123). finally, as students progressed towards the production phase, a series of case studies was used to explore conflict resolution strategies. working in their production groups, students were presented with several scenarios illustrating screen production group conflict, and asked to identify possible causes and solutions. this activity, as suggested by hodge, is a useful way to explore a range of positive or destructive screen production group work scenarios with students (2009). using case studies, students can role-play conflict situations and consider issues such as production safety and filmmaking ethics (hodge, p. 27). the goal here is to allow students to reflect on the difference between useful, creative debate and destructive, non-creative conflict. hodge also notes the importance of students listening to and acknowledging others. not surprisingly, we found that within groups, students responded to a single case study in a variety of ways. the following case study is presented to elaborate on this point: you are the producer in a film crew with people from various cultural backgrounds. some of the crew voice that they would like to meet regularly in pre-production to do all creative brainstorming as a communal group, while other members indicate a strong preference to come up with ideas individually before presenting them to the rest of the crew. this difference in communication styles and preferred modes of working has created some discordance among the group, mostly in crew members’ perceptions of what is means to be a successful team player. as the producer, what effective strategy would you employ to accommodate these differing communicative styles? when discussing this scenario, students interrogated the notion that individuals from different cultural backgrounds might have different approaches to collaboration. while some students suggested that all group members should adopt the approach of the majority, others suggested a variety of solutions that would allow for individuals to work in their preferred manner towards the common goal. in doing so, students reflected on their own preferred approach to idea generation in preproduction. dooley, k., & sexton-finck, l. (2017). a focus on collaboration: fostering australian screen production students’ teamwork skills. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 8 (1), 74–105. 82 as sabal notes, it is of the upmost importance that students are able to identify their own preferred ways of working and communicating (sabal, 2009a, p. 13). as well as developing an awareness of their own style, they must, however, also recognise and respect that their peers may approach collaboration and communication differently and that this can present an opportunity for productive dialogue and creative growth. to emphasise this point during the case study discussions students were reminded of bilby’s wheelbook profiles, and asked to reflect on how their individual personality traits and style of collaboration might be influencing their response to each case study scenario. the activity led on to a powerpoint presentation and class discussion around strategies for conflict resolution. in particular, effective communication and being able to identify the creative potential or benefits of multiple modes of working was stressed as a tool for resolving group problems and for acquiring the versatile skillset needed to work in contemporary screen industries. in summary, the aim as to address successful collaboration as an ongoing process over the course of the semester. this concurred with sabal, who states that a focus on teamwork cannot be a one-time activity (2009a, p. 9). like hodge, it was hoped that students would realise that they will continue to be confronted with a range of personalities, work habits, communication styles and creative instincts as they work in the film industry (2009, p. 29). this approach also aligns with that of caspersz, skene and wu, who agree that an equipped team has a sound understanding of each other’s strengths and capabilities early on in the team process which might be gained through small group discussions on targeted readings and appropriate case studies (2006, p. 23). results the initial curtin surveys (beginning of semester) the results listed here highlight initial trends across both student cohorts. (a full list of the data is in appendix 2.) the majority of students in both the 2015 and 2016 cohorts started the unit with an appreciation for the importance of each group members’ contribution and the value of good teamwork. when asked to identify the most important factors when making a film (q1.1 & q1.2), 37 of 41 students (90% in 2015) and 41 of 42 students (97.6% in 2016) ranked ‘good contributions from all crew members’ as equally important as ‘a strong vision from the director’ (q1.1). the majority of students (60.9% in 2015 and 52.4% in 2016) selected ‘good teamwork’ as a factor of greater importance than ‘story’ (17% in 2015 and 33.3% in 2016), and technical expertise (9.7% in 2015 and 9.5% in 2016) (q1.2). by contrast, ‘consideration of the audience’ was favoured as the most important factor when making a film by only two students in both cohorts. when asked about past experiences of collaboration (q1.3) most students reported that they started the semester with either a positive experience of filmmaking collaboration in their work to date (31.7% in 2015 and 31% in 2016) or a mixed experience that was both positive and negative (61% in 2015 and 69% in 2016, q1.3). when asked what kind of collaborator they considered themselves to be (q1.4) most students chose ‘helper and team player’ (39% in 2015 and 35.7% in 2016). slightly less popular was ‘hard worker’ and ‘open to giving and receiving feedback’. ‘commitment’ was the trait that students in both cohorts most valued in their collaborators (53.7% in 2015 and 54.8% in 2016), followed by ‘respect’, (19.5% in 2015 and 19% in 2016, q1.5). answers to the wheelbook questions (q2.1q2.17) did not follow a discernible pattern when looking at individual student responses. the majority of students answered in a way that aligned them with several of the eight profiles, rather than a distinct one or two. however, when the cohort response to the questions is looked at in total (17 x 41 student responses in 2015 and 17 x 42 student responses in 2016), a skew towards the teacher/con-artist profile dooley, k., & sexton-finck, l. (2017). a focus on collaboration: fostering australian screen production students’ teamwork skills. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 8 (1), 74–105. 83 (21.4% in 2015 and 19.7% in 2016), followed by the player/ judge (18.2% in 2015 and 18.8% in 2016) becomes apparent. this result is consistent with hardin’s findings in relation to his student surveys (2009). the next most popular profile was the hard worker/doormat (11.6% in 2015 and 15.3% in 2016), which, unlike the two profiles listed above, sits in the passive hemisphere. the second curtin surveys (end of semester) the results reported here outline significant changes in student responses when comparing the surveys undertaken at the beginning and end of semester. due to the discrepancy in numbers of students completing both surveys in 2015, comparative data related to the first two parts of the survey from 2016 will be presented and analysed as our focus. trends for both student cohorts in regards to the third part of the survey (evaluation questions) will then be presented. (a full list of the data is attached in appendix 3.) at the end of semester in 2016, there was an observed increase from 52.4% to 66.7% of students who list ‘good teamwork’ as more important than ‘story’ and other factors (q1.2). the majority of students (90.1%) still equally favour ‘a strong vision from the director’ and ‘good contributions from all crew members’; however, an increase of three students (7.1%) now identify ‘a strong vision from the director’ as more important than good contributions from all (q1.1). when asked what kind of collaborator they consider themselves to be (q1.4), five fewer students describe themselves as the ‘helper and team player’ (23.8%) and three fewer select ‘hard worker’ (16.7%). conversely, an additional ten students describe themselves as being ‘open to giving and receiving feedback’ (50%). this movement towards the latter category is a trend that can also be observed when looking at the 2015 results. here we see an additional nine students in the reduced cohort describing themselves as ‘open to giving and receiving feedback’. ‘commitment’ remains the most important trait that is expected of collaborators (45.2%, q1.5); however, this description loses some ground in favour of ‘openness to giving and receiving feedback’ (23.8%) and ‘hard work’ (16.7%). a movement towards ‘openness to giving and receiving feedback’ can also be observed in 2015, with an additional five students choosing this description. in regards to the wheelbook questions, the 2016 students showed an increased overall skew (4.4%) towards the teacher/con artist profile (24.1%). students identifying with the player/judge profile dropped from 18.8% to 16.2%, and the hard worker/doormat fell from 15.3% to 12.9%. overall, there was a slight increase in responses aligned with the aggressive hemisphere in 2016 (from 55.1% to 57.9% of the total answers). see table 1 below for more information. dooley, k., & sexton-finck, l. (2017). a focus on collaboration: fostering australian screen production students’ teamwork skills. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 8 (1), 74–105. 84 table 1: 2016 wheelbook survey results (42 students total) start of semester survey q 2. 1 q 2. 2 q 2. 3 q 2. 4 q 2. 5 q 2. 6 q 2. 7 q 2. 8 q 2. 9 q 2. 10 q 2. 11 q 2. 12 q 2. 13 q 2. 14 q 2. 15 q 2. 16 q 2. 17 total respo nse % a. can-do person/ dictator 0 0 5 0 0 4 0 4 8 13 16 2 1 0 0 4 7 64 9.00 b. teacher/ con artist 0 34 3 17 2 0 25 6 0 13 5 11 4 0 1 5 15 141 19.70 c. player/ judge 37 4 2 11 13 9 0 18 3 3 1 5 9 4 6 6 3 134 18.80 d. artist/rebel 0 0 0 4 11 7 1 0 3 0 2 18 2 1 3 0 2 54 7.60 e. hard worker/ doormat 1 2 0 1 7 16 10 5 14 1 3 6 3 25 5 8 2 109 15.30 f. student/ believer 4 0 3 0 2 0 3 7 13 0 3 0 7 6 5 8 5 66 9.20 g. lover/ martyr 0 1 23 4 2 3 0 2 1 5 6 0 6 1 20 5 1 80 11.20 h. healer/kind helper 0 1 6 5 5 3 3 0 0 7 6 0 10 5 2 6 7 66 9.20 end of semester survey q 2. 1 q 2. 2 q 2. 3 q 2. 4 q 2. 5 q 2. 6 q 2. 7 q 2. 8 q 2. 9 q 2. 10 q 2. 11 q 2. 12 q 2. 13 q 2. 14 q 2. 15 q 2. 16 q 2. 17 total respo nse % a. can-do person/ dictator 0 0 5 0 2 8 0 3 12 12 14 2 1 0 1 2 13 75 10.50 b. teacher/ con artist 0 38 4 16 0 0 31 7 1 19 14 12 5 5 3 8 9 172 24.10 c. player/ judge 34 1 1 9 12 5 0 17 3 4 0 5 9 6 1 5 4 116 16.20 d. artist/rebel 1 1 0 5 8 3 0 0 4 0 2 20 0 2 5 0 0 51 7.1 e. hard worker/ doormat 0 2 0 3 7 19 3 6 11 0 4 1 6 16 8 5 1 92 12.90 f. student/ believer 5 0 6 1 5 1 2 8 9 1 0 0 9 5 7 5 3 67 9.40 g. lover/ martyr 1 0 23 6 3 3 0 0 0 2 4 1 3 4 14 6 2 72 10.10 h. healer/kind helper 1 0 3 2 5 3 6 1 2 4 4 1 9 4 3 11 10 69 9.70 dooley, k., & sexton-finck, l. (2017). a focus on collaboration: fostering australian screen production students’ teamwork skills. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 8 (1), 74–105. 85 as this table attests, it is not possible to identify a single, overwhelming trend in regards to the cohort’s changed responses to the wheelbook questions in the second administered survey, as majority movements towards the different wheelbook profiles vary from question to question. this points to a limitation in the use of the survey as a research instrument for comparative study, as students follow no discernible pattern when responding to the 17 questions. such a result suggests that the wheelbook is perhaps a more valuable tool for student self-analysis than it is for tracking student development. nonetheless, changes in responses to individual questions do show some significant trends and we offer some points of further analysis in this regard. there was a significant shift in the number of students moving toward the teacher/con artist profile for q2.11. here they were asked what they consider the essential strength that they bring to a project. an additional nine of 42 students chose ‘creative imagination’ as their response. as a result, those choosing the student/believer response of ‘inspiration’, fell from 3/42 to 0/42, while other response numbers diminished less significantly. an additional six students also moved to the teacher/con artist response for q2.7 and q2.10. these questions interrogate responses to conflict resolution, specifically, asking what the student might say to negotiate conflict so as to get what they want (answer‘i can see all the outcomes, so the best way is ...’), and what they might do to resolve a moment of group conflict (answer‘explain the situation thoroughly’). conversely, on q2.17, ‘what do you like? i like…’ the number of students choosing the teacher/con artist response of ‘to discover’, dropped from 15/42/ to 9/42. this was offset by increases in the can-do person/dictator response of ‘to work things out’, (7/42 to 13/42) and the healer/kind helper response of ‘to help’ (7/42 to 10/42). in regards to q2.16, ‘what is most important to you?’, an increase toward the healer/kind helper response of ‘concern for others’ was also observed (6/42 to 11/42). this was offset by small decreases in all other responses to this question. moving on to the last section of the survey, there was an overwhelmingly positive student response to the teamwork-focused activities that were undertaken throughout the semester. when asked whether the activities had improved their filmmaking collaboration skills (q3.1), the majority of student responded ‘yes’ (72.2% in 2015, 83.3% in 2016). bilby’s wheelbook was singled out as a useful tool for self-analysis by several students. one 2015 student commented that: …[t]he character wheel was by far the most useful exercise. it made me analyse myself and it showed me what kind of group member i am. students also commented on a new sensitivity and awareness of the skills of their collaborators: i have realised and continue to see everyone’s strengths/skills and how they independently bring the film together.(2015) everyone has their own strengths and people need to use that to the group’s advantage. (2016) a significant percentage of students believed that they had changed their approach to collaboration as a result of their experience in the unit (47.2% in 2015, 73.8% in 2016, q3.2). on this subject, some students commented on the need to listen more effectively with comments such as: i’ve learnt not only to listen more but to expand on the ideas of others. (2015) before i used to be quite bossy and leadership driven, but now i like to take everyone’s ideas and concerns into play. (2016) dooley, k., & sexton-finck, l. (2017). a focus on collaboration: fostering australian screen production students’ teamwork skills. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 8 (1), 74–105. 86 conversely, one student commented on the need to: …contribute more verbally and offer more assistance rather than being shy and sitting on a potential good idea. (2016) in particular, student comments reveal a new appreciation for group discussion and listening in the preproduction phase. furthermore, a high percentage of students responded that they had changed their thinking in regards to other students’ collaboration styles as a result of their experience in the unit (61.1% in 2015, 52.4% in 2016, q3.3). student comments reflect a need to be mindful of others’ strengths and weaknesses, and again, the need for good communication. for example, students commented that: not everyone has the same dedication to projects and therefore (you need to) talk to people more in terms of visions before making a team. (2015) i have to be more mindful of others’ strengths/weaknesses and adjust my style to work with these people better. (2016) a new appreciation for communication was also demonstrated when students were asked how they might have done things differently over the semester (q3.4). a high percentage of students identified either increased communication at preproduction phase (47.2% in 2015, 35.7% in 2016) or increased communication at all stages of production (25% in 2015, 38.1% in 2016) as the most important factor that could have been improved. when asked how the dynamics of collaboration impact the end product (q3.5), a majority of students in both years selected ‘dynamics are managed to make a better film’ (52.8% in 2015, 81% in 2016). a lower percentage chose ‘dynamics are in the film or are the film (27.8% in 2015, 11.9% in 2016), while the remaining students responded that ‘dynamics can slow the process so that tasks are never completed’ (19.4% in 2015, 7.1% in 2016). discussion the results of the first part of the survey suggest that most students’ experience in the unit has been beneficial in terms of providing them with a new appreciation for the importance of good teamwork. the increase in students listing ‘good teamwork’ as the most important factor when making a film (q1.2) reflects a change in thinking by a substantial portion of the cohort. the strong initial value that students placed on teamwork highlights the fact that most students started the semester valuing the personality traits stated as desirable in the metro screen study (people ‘who can work well with other people and bring out the best in the team’ (p. 35), and that more students gained an appreciation of these traits by the end of semester. while a lack of detailed qualitative data makes it difficult to form a conclusion in relation to the three students who listed ‘a strong vision from the director’ as more important than good contributions from all in the second survey (q1.1), one could imagine that they may have encountered a poorly functioning director in their specific group context. such an experience, and a poor end product (film) made as a result, can be devastating to the dedicated and hardworking student crew member. the substantial increase in students who described themselves as a collaborator who is ‘open to giving and receiving feedback’ (q1.4), as well as the increase in students who look for this behaviour in their collaborators (q1.5), suggests that some students find increased value in frank group discussion throughout the production process. hardin aligns this response with the behaviour associated with the teacher/con artist profile, in that it suggests an open, ‘discerning’ attitude within group interaction (2009, p. 45). this is in keeping with the results of the wheelbook survey questions, in which a majority of student responses fall into that of the teacher/con artist profile. dooley, k., & sexton-finck, l. (2017). a focus on collaboration: fostering australian screen production students’ teamwork skills. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 8 (1), 74–105. 87 the increase in students moving toward the teacher/con artist profile for q2.11 (what do you consider the essential strength you bring to a group project?) suggests some change in student perceptions of their value in the group context. the common choice of the teacher/con artist response ‘creative imagination’ is an interesting one, as while a large percentage of students see this as a strong trait in themselves in the second survey, ‘creativity’ is the least valued trait that they expect in their collaborators (q1.5). this inconsistent valuing of creativity could be interpreted as aligning students with the behaviour in personality of the con artist, as they see themselves as creative but do not particularly care for this trait in others. this suggests that when it comes to ideas, the student ‘wants to be seen as ‘the best’. the increase in numbers of students choosing the teacher/con artist response for q2.7 and q2.10 (questions that interrogate approaches to conflict resolution) also suggests potential for con artist behaviours in relation to this subject. students who attempt to diffuse situations of conflict might display behaviours that are ‘shrewd, cold, aloof, taking selfish advantage’. the overall increased skew towards the teacher/con artist profile in the end of semester student responses suggests that, despite the raising of awareness of poorly functioning behaviours, the stake of ‘outsmarting others, and being admired’ is difficult to overcome. this is not surprising given the average age of the student cohort (late teens/early twenties). as hardin notes in the discussion of his surveys, ‘notoriety for the individual may, at times, trump the importance of team spirit in the production classroom’ (p. 45). by contrast, the increase in students identifying with the healer/kind helper response for both q2.16 (what is most important to you?) and q2.17 (what do you like? "i like ...) suggests a greater value on ‘nourishing, responsible, caretaking’ behaviour when it comes to matters of overall ‘importance’ and ‘like’. these results, which go against the overall trend of wheelbook answers, demonstrate the diverse nature of student responses and the difficultly of aligning students with any one overall profile. however, the wheelbook survey itself stands as a useful tool for student self-reflection. in general, the third section of the survey demonstrates students’ appreciation for the teamwork focused activities undertaken throughout the semester. in particular, the responses reveal a new awareness of their own strengths and weaknesses, and a willingness to engage with those of their peers. the value of good communication, especially in preproduction stages, is something that is noted by several students in their comments; specifically, the need to have more frequent and fruitful discussions at the beginning of the filmmaking process, and to make sure that everyone shares a common creative vision. the fact that a majority of students in both years acknowledge that ‘dynamics are managed to make a better film’ suggests that they view good teamwork as something that is not just ‘luck of the draw’, but must be explicitly addressed. this confirms hardin’s point that, students are ready for a more direct discussion and education about interpersonal dynamics in film production (2009, p. 47). the third section of the survey also confirms, again, that students value the collaborative skills that are presented as key criteria for employability by the metro screen study (p. 35). limitations we acknowledge the limitations of the curtin study, which records students’ perceptions of their learning and changed behaviour, rather than actual observable behaviour changes. further research might track students as they move into their third year of study, to observe their continued development of group work skills in the screen production classroom. such a project could gauge the ongoing impact of the activities that were offered to students in the second year unit, as well as students’ continued mindfulness in relation to interpersonal dynamics. in particular, it would be of great interest to observe whether students who displayed traits of a specific ‘essence/personality’ type in second year continue to do so as they further develop, or conversely, whether a different trajectory all together can be adopted. dooley, k., & sexton-finck, l. (2017). a focus on collaboration: fostering australian screen production students’ teamwork skills. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 8 (1), 74–105. 88 a longer study could also gauge the impact of future team dynamics on this process, to determine how strongly this factor affects each student’s individual developmental path. another limitation of the study concerns the amount of information available to interpret negative attitudinal data received from individual students. without access to more detailed qualitative data that sheds light on the specifics of each student’s group experience, it is difficult to form conclusions about students who saw no benefit in the teamwork-focused activities undertaken throughout the semester. the addition of survey questions that interrogate the successful/unsuccessful nature of the students’ end products (films), and the nature of group conflict, could further illuminate the causes of negative student experience. we acknowledge that group conflict and the creation of a poor final product undoubtedly influences students’ attitudes to teamwork. while it was outside of the scope of this project, a future study might also seek outside review of students’ film projects as an additional assessment measure. as an additional data source, these reviews could then be crossexamined against responses to the surveys, to uncover links between student behaviours, attitudes and final product outcomes. conclusion the survey results that are presented in this article provide evidence that an explicit focus on collaboration skills in the screen production curriculum will increase student appreciation for the importance of teamwork. as has been demonstrated, the impact of this instruction is a notable positive change in student attitudes and behaviors in regards to their own and other students’ approaches to collaboration. students also show an increased understanding of the value of clear communication in the teamwork process. returning to our initial research question, we conclude that in order to meaningfully develop students’ teamwork skills, the screen production educator must approach collaboration and teamwork in an ongoing way throughout the semester, making the subject a clear focus of student learning from the outset. screen production educators can play an active role in improving the dynamics of student collaboration, but as has been shown, this need not be a cumbersome activity that takes up large amounts of time in the weekly class schedule. an explicit focus on collaboration can be achieved by encouraging self-reflection and selfanalysis, by putting structures in place to improve group communication and conflict resolution, and by offering different models of collaboration. in doing so, educators highlight the potential positive outcomes that can come from group tensions, when creative differences are treated respectfully and in a timely fashion. teamwork becomes a ‘conscious activity’, that requires skill development, just like any other area of the screen production curriculum. as students go on to employment in an industry where technology, production processes and approaches to storytelling are rapidly changing but the need for collaboration remains or even increases, this focus on personal development has never been so important. sabal makes the point that the collaborative film production class can create the kind of meaningful learning experience that transcends the specific subject matter and goes on to inform all aspects of a student’s life (sabal 2009a, 7). he is right to note that students in screen production classes are not there simply to produce video products, but to develop as people who can form meaningful and productive working relationships with others. by explicitly teaching collaboration skills, the screen production educator can orient students towards increased self-knowledge and improve their chances of success in whatever careers they chose. dooley, k., & sexton-finck, l. (2017). a focus on collaboration: fostering australian screen production students’ teamwork skills. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 8 (1), 74–105. 89 acknowledgments this research was supported by a teaching academic scholarship seed grant from curtin university, western australia (ethics approval number: rdhu-132-15). ‘wheelbook questions applied to film production’ copyright rob sabal and john bilby 2007; used with the permission of rob sabal, granted in june 2015. dooley, k., & sexton-finck, l. (2017). a focus on collaboration: fostering australian screen production students’ teamwork skills. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 8 (1), 74–105. 90 references bilby, j. (1997). being human: a catalog of insights. teaching tools for mindfulness training. tucson, az: john bilby. caspersz, d., skene, j., & wu, m. 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(2017). a focus on collaboration: fostering australian screen production students’ teamwork skills. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 8 (1), 74–105. 92 appendix 1: experiential thumbnail sketches from bilby’s wheelbook the first name of each behaviour type is its ‘essence’, as exemplified through its strengths and qualities. under optimal circumstances, this kind of behaviour refers to the student in his or her natural, or ‘relaxed,’ state. the second, linked name is the ‘personality,’ as exemplified through various forms of manipulation and defences. under extreme duress, the personality describes the student behaving in exaggerated ways. positive and negative emotional feelings that tend to accompany each essence and personality are in parentheses. the ‘stake’ is each personality’s underlying, motivating goal for expression. every personality uses manipulation in order to attain various goals (or stakes). 1. can-do person/dictator. brave, strong, manually competent, bold/arrogant, pushy, demanding, destructive. (courage/fear). in personality: wants to be respected, whether earned or not. stake: being in control of other people. 2. teacher/con artist. smart, discerning, inventive, articulate/shrewd, cold, aloof, taking selfish advantage. (solitude/loneliness). in personality: wants to be seen as ‘the best.’ stake: outsmarting others, and being admired. 3. player/judge. balanced, disciplined, wise, playful/judgmental, cynical, sarcastic, punishing. (humour, fun/anger). in personality: wants to win the argument and straighten out the other person. stake: being right (and making others wrong). 4. artist/rebel. sensitive, attuned, unique, moving/over-sensitive, rejected, spitefully rejective, outrageous. (artistic sensitivity/jealousy, ‘over-sensitivity’). in personality: wants, in everything, to do it their own way (for the beauty of it as they see it) and not be told what to do. stake: not having ‘the beauty of it’ spoiled. 5. hard worker/doormat. modest, understanding, willing to do the hard work, empathetic/shy, self-doubting, self-effacing, lazy (sweet rest/shame, depression). in personality: wants everything to be easy. stake: comfort. 6. student/ believer. energetic, eagerly curious and interested, loyal, highly intuitive/hyper, phobicobsessive, believes too easily, taken advantage of (excitement, enthusiasm/nervousness, anxiety). in personality: dependent on others for advice and approval. stake: security. 7. lover/martyr. natural, tender, spontaneous, free/melodramatic, suffering over lost love, giving love to get love, used (‘martyred’). (tenderness love/sadness.) in personality: wants indiscriminately to be loved back. [the only answer to this dilemma for the many who encounter it is to learn to love with no expectations of love in return.] stake: intimacy. 8. healer/kind helper. nourishing, responsible, caretaking, healing/worrying, interfering, giving help whether needed or wanted or not, undermining. (friendly love/guilt). in personality: they want to have their company be safe, healthy, clean, and well-nourished. (underlying that, they don’t want their company to take any changes in their lives, else they get hurt in life, and don’t come back.) stake: having and keeping company. (bilby). source: hardin 2009:35 dooley, k., & sexton-finck, l. (2017). a focus on collaboration: fostering australian screen production students’ teamwork skills. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 8 (1), 74–105. 93 appendix 2: student survey 1 with data part 1: attitudes towards filmmaking and collaboration 1. which of these factors is most important when making a film? 2015 (41 students) 2016 (42 students) a. a strong vision from the director 2 0 b. good contributions from all crew members 2 1 c. all of the above 37 41 2. which of these factors is most important when making a film? a. story 7 14 b. consideration of the audience 2 2 c. technical expertise 4 4 d. managing logistical issues 3 0 e. good teamwork 25 22 3. how would you describe your experiences of filmmaking collaboration to date? a. positive 13 13 b. negative 3 0 c. mixed 25 29 4. what kind of collaborator do you consider yourself? a. open to giving and receiving feedback 7 11 b. hard worker 11 10 c. leader 6 4 d. helper and team player 16 15 e. boss/overlord 1 0 5. what do you expect of other collaborators? a. commitment 22 23 b. hard work 4 4 c. openness to giving and receiving feedback 5 7 d. creativity 2 0 e. respect 8 8 dooley, k., & sexton-finck, l. (2017). a focus on collaboration: fostering australian screen production students’ teamwork skills. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 8 (1), 74–105. 94 part 2: wheelbook questions 1. when you are working on a project, how do you expect to work with others in relationship to deadlines? a. i expect results as soon as possible 0 0 b. i can wait for what i want for a long time 2 0 c. i expect results according to the arrangement 32 37 d. i don't keep track of deadlines 0 0 e. i think there is plenty of time 0 1 f. i can't wait to get started 5 4 g. i would rather things stay the same 0 0 h. i should have more time for everyone 2 2 2. when you interact with others on a project, what might you say in a moment of conflict? a. "do what i tell you to do." 0 0 b. "i think that we could ..." 36 34 c. “why did you do that?" 4 4 d. "fuck that!" 0 0 e. "i'm sorry." 0 2 f. "you're right." 0 0 g. "how could you do that?" 1 1 h. "i should/shouldn't do that." 0 1 3. the thing that i'd find really difficult to say to another person in my group would be: a. "do it your own way." 4 5 b. "i need your help." 2 3 c. "good job." 0 2 d. "yes." 0 0 e. "i can do it now." 1 0 f. "i don't need your help." 3 3 g. "poor job" 27 23 h. "no." 4 6 4. how would you describe the way you contribute to a problem-solving meeting? dooley, k., & sexton-finck, l. (2017). a focus on collaboration: fostering australian screen production students’ teamwork skills. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 8 (1), 74–105. 95 a. i give orders 0 0 b. i provide ideas 12 17 c. i evaluate the suggestions on the table 12 11 d. i see things from a fresh perspective 3 4 e. i volunteer to do some of the hard work 4 1 f. i support the leadership 0 0 g. i care about the people involved 3 4 h. i make sure everyone is comfortable 7 5 5. when you are working on a project, what is the most important element for you? a. i want to be in control of the project 0 0 b. i want to be admired for the work 4 2 c. i want to make sure that it goes according to plan 12 13 d. i want it to be beautiful 10 11 e. i want a comfortable working environment 3 7 f. i want to be secure in my area of responsibility 1 2 g. i want to get to know the people i'm working with 5 2 h. i want to be part of the community working together 6 5 6. what is the worst thing that can happen on a project you are working on? a. it will spin out of control 12 4 b. no one will notice the great work i'm doing 2 0 c. something will go wrong, and i won't be prepared to fix it 3 9 d. my vision of the result will be compromised by other's choices 2 7 e. i fail in my part of the project 10 16 f. i get fired 2 0 g. i end up hating my co-workers 10 3 h. other people don't share in the privilege of the work 0 3 7. when working with others on a project, how might you negotiate a conflict to get what you want? a. "this is the deal; take it or leave it." 1 0 b. "i can see all the outcomes, so the best way is ..." 24 25 c. "i know right from wrong. i'm right, and you are wrong." 0 0 d. "to hell with the normal process; this way is better." 2 1 dooley, k., & sexton-finck, l. (2017). a focus on collaboration: fostering australian screen production students’ teamwork skills. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 8 (1), 74–105. 96 e. "sorry, i just can't do that." 7 10 f. "i'll get someone else to help me take care of it." 2 3 g. "how can you treat me this way after all i've done for this project?" 0 0 h. "i should help rescue this project." 5 3 8. when working with others on a project, how do you expect others to act? a. to show respect for me and to do what i ask them to do 2 4 b. to have faith in my ability to get the job done 9 6 c. to follow the procedure as it was agreed to 14 18 d. to let me do it my own way 1 0 e. to give me support in getting my work done 8 5 f. to tell me the truth 3 7 g. to respond to all of my contributions 2 2 h. to take care of their own problems 2 0 9. when working with others on a project, what kind of behaviour would you least tolerate? a. co-workers who act "smart" or are "out of control" 10 8 b. co-workers who misunderstand what you really promised 0 0 c. co-workers who make stupid mistakes 6 3 d. co-workers who expect you to be like them 1 3 e. co-workers who are pushy 7 14 f. co-workers who don't keep their promises 10 13 g. co-workers who don't recognize the contribution you've made 3 1 h. co-workers who take too many careless chances 4 0 10. in a moment of conflict on a group project, what might you do to get things on track? a. assign everyone a task 10 13 b. explain the situation thoroughly 18 13 c. refer to an authority to establish what is correct in this situation 3 3 d. suggest something off the wall 0 0 e. stay out of the way 1 1 f. appeal for outside help 0 0 g. ask everyone to commit more to the project 5 5 h. remind everyone of the risks of various choices 4 7 dooley, k., & sexton-finck, l. (2017). a focus on collaboration: fostering australian screen production students’ teamwork skills. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 8 (1), 74–105. 97 11. what do you consider the essential strength you bring to a group project? a. the ability to get things done 13 16 b. creative imagination 9 5 c. wisdom 2 1 d. artistic sensitivity 3 2 e. endurance for the long haul 1 3 f. inspiration 2 3 g. tenderness 0 6 h. responsibility 11 6 12. what do you like about working on a film project? a. leading the work 0 2 b. contributing good ideas 3 11 c. having fun with other people 14 5 d. creating something beautiful 23 18 e. doing what i'm asked to do 1 6 f. urging everyone on 0 0 g. making sure that everyone has a good time 0 0 h. making sure that everything is taken care of 0 0 13. what do you think you've got that can help the effort? a. the muscle 0 1 b. the education 2 4 c. the balance 11 9 d. the taste for life 4 2 e. the modesty 4 3 f. the excitement 8 7 g. the caring heart 3 6 h. the responsibility 9 10 14. what can others count on you for? a. to have the clout to do it 2 0 b. to find the smart way to do it 6 0 c. to offer frank criticism and joke 4 4 d. to be sensitive to poisonous elements 0 1 e. to work hard and to be understanding 18 25 dooley, k., & sexton-finck, l. (2017). a focus on collaboration: fostering australian screen production students’ teamwork skills. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 8 (1), 74–105. 98 f. to be loyal and to respond quickly 7 6 g. to care about everyone's feelings 2 1 h. to take care of loose ends 2 5 15. what do you consider one of your best characteristics? "i'm . . . a. unflinching 0 0 b. articulate 4 1 c. candid 1 6 d. innovative 5 3 e. peaceful 5 5 f. cheerful 8 5 g. passionate 14 20 h. generous 4 2 16. what is most important to you? a. strength 1 4 b. intelligence 7 5 c. wisdom 6 6 d. beauty 1 0 e. humility 11 8 f. energy 6 8 g. love 3 5 h. concern for others 6 6 17. what do you like? "i like ... a. to work things out 9 7 b. to discover 9 15 c. games 3 3 d. acceptance of the beauty of it 3 2 e. to rest 0 2 f. to be appreciated 7 5 g. pleasure 3 1 h. to help 7 7 dooley, k., & sexton-finck, l. (2017). a focus on collaboration: fostering australian screen production students’ teamwork skills. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 8 (1), 74–105. 99 appendix 3: student survey 2 with data part 1: attitudes towards filmmaking and collaboration 1. which of these factors is most important when making a film? 2015 (36 students) 2016 (42 students) a. a strong vision from the director 1 3 b. good contributions from all crew members 5 1 c. all of the above 30 38 2. which of these factors is most important when making a film? a. story 8 12 b. consideration of the audience 2 0 c. technical expertise 1 1 d. managing logistical issues 2 1 e. good teamwork 23 28 3. how would you describe your experiences of filmmaking collaboration to date? a. positive 14 16 b. negative 0 1 c. mixed 23 25 4. what kind of collaborator do you consider yourself? a. open to giving and receiving feedback 16 21 b. hard worker 5 7 c. leader 1 4 d. helper and team player 14 10 e. boss/overlord 0 0 5. what do you expect of other collaborators? a. commitment 17 19 b. hard work 2 7 c. openness to giving and receiving feedback 10 10 d. creativity 1 1 e. respect 6 5 dooley, k., & sexton-finck, l. (2017). a focus on collaboration: fostering australian screen production students’ teamwork skills. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 8 (1), 74–105. 100 part 2: wheelbook questions 1. when you are working on a project, how do you expect to work with others in relationship to deadlines? 2015 2016 a. i expect results as soon as possible 1 0 b. i can wait for what i want for a long time 0 0 c. i expect results according to the arrangement 29 34 d. i don't keep track of deadlines 0 1 e. i think there is plenty of time 4 0 f. i can't wait to get started 1 5 g. i would rather things stay the same 0 1 h. i should have more time for everyone 1 1 2. when you interact with others on a project, what might you say in a moment of conflict? a. "do what i tell you to do." 0 0 b. "i think that we could ..." 23 38 c. “why did you do that?" 4 1 d. "fuck that!" 0 1 e. "i'm sorry." 1 2 f. "you're right." 0 0 g. "how could you do that?" 2 0 h. "i should/shouldn't do that." 6 0 3. the thing that i'd find really difficult to say to another person in my group would be: a. "do it your own way." 2 5 b. "i need your help." 4 4 c. "good job." 1 1 d. "yes." 0 0 e. "i can do it now." 0 0 f. "i don't need your help." 5 6 g. "poor job" 16 23 h. "no." 8 3 4. how would you describe the way you contribute to a problem-solving meeting? a¤ i give orders 1 0 b. i provide ideas 9 16 c. i evaluate the suggestions on the table 12 9 d. i see things from a fresh perspective 1 5 dooley, k., & sexton-finck, l. (2017). a focus on collaboration: fostering australian screen production students’ teamwork skills. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 8 (1), 74–105. 101 e. i volunteer to do some of the hard work 2 3 f. i support the leadership 0 1 g. i care about the people involved 2 6 h. i make sure everyone is comfortable 9 2 5. when you are working on a project, what is the most important element for you? a. i want to be in control of the project 1 2 b. i want to be admired for the work 3 0 c. i want to make sure that it goes according to plan 8 12 d. i want it to be beautiful 7 8 e. i want a comfortable working environment 5 7 f. i want to be secure in my area of responsibility 5 5 g. i want to get to know the people i'm working with 0 3 h. i want to be part of the community working together 7 5 6. what is the worst thing that can happen on a project you are working on? a. it will spin out of control 8 8 b. no one will notice the great work i'm doing 0 0 c. something will go wrong, and i won't be prepared to fix it 6 5 d. my vision of the result will be compromised by other's choices 0 3 e. i fail in my part of the project 10 19 f. i get fired 3 1 g. i end up hating my co-workers 7 3 h. other people don't share in the privilege of the work 2 3 7. when working with others on a project, how might you negotiate a conflict to get what you want? a. "this is the deal; take it or leave it." 0 0 b. "i can see all the outcomes, so the best way is ..." 21 31 c. "i know right from wrong. i'm right, and you are wrong." 1 0 d. "to hell with the normal process; this way is better." 3 0 e. "sorry, i just can't do that." 4 3 f. "i'll get someone else to help me take care of it." 1 2 g. "how can you treat me this way after all i've done for this project?" 1 0 h. "i should help rescue this project." 5 6 8. when working with others on a project, how do you expect others to act? a. to show respect for me and to do what i ask them to do 3 3 dooley, k., & sexton-finck, l. (2017). a focus on collaboration: fostering australian screen production students’ teamwork skills. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 8 (1), 74–105. 102 b. to have faith in my ability to get the job done 8 7 c. to follow the procedure as it was agreed to 8 17 d. to let me do it my own way 0 0 e. to give me support in getting my work done 9 6 f. to tell me the truth 7 8 g. to respond to all of my contributions 0 0 h. to take care of their own problems 1 1 9. when working with others on a project, what kind of behaviour would you least tolerate? a. co-workers who act "smart" or are "out of control" 5 12 b. co-workers who misunderstand what you really promised 1 1 c. co-workers who make stupid mistakes 2 3 d. co-workers who expect you to be like them 2 4 e. co-workers who are pushy 8 11 f. co-workers who don't keep their promises 11 9 g. co-workers who don't recognize the contribution you've made 1 0 h. co-workers who take too many careless chances 6 2 10. in a moment of conflict on a group project, what might you do to get things on track? a. assign everyone a task 11 12 b. explain the situation thoroughly 18 19 c. refer to an authority to establish what is correct in this situation 2 4 d. suggest something off the wall 2 0 e. stay out of the way 0 0 f. appeal for outside help 0 1 g. ask everyone to commit more to the project 0 2 h. remind everyone of the risks of various choices 3 4 11. what do you consider the essential strength you bring to a group project? a. the ability to get things done 7 14 b. creative imagination 10 14 c. wisdom 2 0 d. artistic sensitivity 0 2 e. endurance for the long haul 5 4 f. inspiration 1 0 g. tenderness 4 4 h. responsibility 7 4 dooley, k., & sexton-finck, l. (2017). a focus on collaboration: fostering australian screen production students’ teamwork skills. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 8 (1), 74–105. 103 12. what do you like about working on a film project? a. leading the work 1 2 b. contributing good ideas 7 12 c. having fun with other people 9 5 d. creating something beautiful 18 20 e. doing what i'm asked to do 0 1 f. urging everyone on 0 0 g. making sure that everyone has a good time 1 1 h. making sure that everything is taken care of 0 1 13. what do you think you've got that can help the effort? a. the muscle 0 1 b. the education 3 5 c. the balance 9 9 d. the taste for life 2 0 e. the modesty 3 6 f. the excitement 8 9 g. the caring heart 2 3 h. the responsibility 9 9 14. what can others count on you for? a. to have the clout to do it 0 0 b. to find the smart way to do it 2 5 c. to offer frank criticism and joke 3 6 d. to be sensitive to poisonous elements 0 2 e. to work hard and to be understanding 21 16 f. to be loyal and to respond quickly 6 5 g. to care about everyone's feelings 2 4 h. to take care of loose ends 2 4 15. what do you consider one of your best characteristics? "i'm . . . a. unflinching 0 1 b. articulate 4 3 c. candid 3 1 d. innovative 7 5 e. peaceful 8 8 f. cheerful 5 7 g. passionate 6 14 h. generous 3 3 dooley, k., & sexton-finck, l. (2017). a focus on collaboration: fostering australian screen production students’ teamwork skills. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 8 (1), 74–105. 104 16. what is most important to you? a. strength 2 2 b. intelligence 9 8 c. wisdom 5 5 d. beauty 2 0 e. humility 6 5 f. energy 8 5 g. love 1 6 h. concern for others 3 11 17. what do you like? "i like ... a. to work things out 7 13 b. to discover 8 9 c. games 1 4 d. acceptance of the beauty of it 5 0 e. to rest 0 1 f. to be appreciated 9 3 g. pleasure 2 2 h. to help 4 10 part 3: evaluation 1. have the activities undertaken this semester improved your filmmaking collaboration skills? a. yes 26 35 b. no 0 1 c. unsure 10 6 2. have you changed your approach to collaboration as a result of the unit’s experience? a. yes 17 31 b. no 13 10 c. d. unsure 6 1 3. have you changed your thinking in regards to other students’ collaboration styles? a. yes 22 22 b. no 8 11 dooley, k., & sexton-finck, l. (2017). a focus on collaboration: fostering australian screen production students’ teamwork skills. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 8 (1), 74–105. 105 c. unsure 6 9 4. reflecting on what your group film production this semester, how would you collaborate differently? a. increased communication at pre-production stage 17 15 b. more clearly defined tasks 8 6 c. increased communication at all stages of production 9 16 d. stricter deadlines 2 1 e. no changes 6 4 5. how do the dynamics of collaboration impact the end product (film)? a. dynamics can slow the process so that tasks are never completed 7 3 b. dynamics are managed make a better film 19 34 c. dynamics are in the film or are the film 10 5 d. dynamics may have no effect on the final film 0 0 international employability: stakeholder attitudes at an international university in malaysia lucy bailey1 and gudrun ingimundardottir1 lucy.bailey@nottingham.edu.my; gudruningimundar@ktj.edu.my 1university of nottingham, malaysia campus abstract this paper critically examines conceptions of international employability. drawing on a study of stakeholder views on the employability curriculum at the malaysia campus of a british university, the paper questions whether there is an identifiable notion of international employability. contrasting the perceptions of malaysians and expatriates, both lecturers and students, it is suggested that employability is a blurred, evolving and culturally based concept. in questioning the existence of an identifiable notion of ‘international employability’, the paper suggests that universities with large numbers of overseas/ international students and staff need to give more attention to understanding competing notions of employability. moreover, universities with nationally diverse student bodies may need to develop multiple employability curricula to meet their varied needs. keywords: graduate employability, international higher education, malaysia, employability curriculum introduction although increasing numbers of universities claim to have an international outlook or to serve a global university, the concept of an international university remains contested and complex. a university could be deemed international because of the composition of its staff and/ or student bodies. it could be deemed international because it is operating off-shore campuses or programmes. finally – and implicit in becoming an international university in either of the previous two senses – a university’s internationalism could be premised on the idea that its educational goals are in some sense global that it offers a curriculum that can meet at once the needs of students from different countries and continents. this last form of internationalism forms the focus of this paper, and necessitates ensuring that the content knowledge, the forms of learning and the learning outcomes are universally desirable. whilst attempts have been made in recent decades to constructively critique academic curricula that are, arguably, dominated by dead white anglo-saxon/ european males (shapin, 1994; parker, 1997), and more recently to identify the ways in which (eastern) confucian approaches to learning differ from (western) socratic approaches (li, 2005), this paper will suggest that the discourse of employability remains rooted in the needs of developed western nations and cultures, and that the employability curriculum needs to adapt to reflect a less culturally-limited approach. these conclusions are reached based on an analysis of conceptions of employability at an international campus of a uk university. in the uk, the emphasis on employability at higher education institutions is a preoccupation that has grown over the past two decades (knight & yorke, 2003; boden & nedeva, 2010). bailey, l. & ingimundardottir , g. (2015). international employability: stakeholder attitudes at an international university in malaysia. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 6 (1), 44-55. 44 mailto:lucy.bailey@nottingham.edu.my mailto:gudruningimundar@ktj.edu.my critics of this preoccupation range from those who have argued that it all too frequently attempts to address, in a module or in a semester, measures that need to be embedded across an undergraduate program (knight & yorke, 2003), to those who see it as a discursive shift which is central to the neoliberalisation of higher education (boden & nedeva, 2010). as he has become increasingly internationalised over the last decade, with british universities increasingly offering degrees to those studying outside the national borders, it is pertinent to examine in more detail what an interest in an employability curriculum might mean in an international setting. the data analysed here are from a study of stakeholder perspectives on an extra-curricular ‘employability’ program that is offered to students attending a british university in malaysia; for the purposes of this paper, we shall simply term it the ‘award’. the award is optional, and students elect whether to sign up to modules, which are entirely separate from their academic program. students are not charged a fee for these additional modules, although the modules that are successfully completed do appear on their degree transcripts. in addition, students completing three modules are deemed to have finished the award, and are given an additional award certificate upon graduation. the modules cover a wide range of volunteering, work experience, mentoring, language, and career skills, with a reflective assessment component built into each module; there is a strong emphasis on so-called ‘soft skills’ development. for the research, staff, students and alumni of the university were interviewed in order to gain their perceptions of the award. this paper analyses the data from these interviews to interrogate conceptions of employability in an international context, examining how a university with a claimed international outlook and under the purview of a foreign tertiary institution ‘conceptualises’ the notion of employability and delivers it to its students. the implications of the findings for employability and career programs in higher education are discussed. literature review employability is a contested term (knight & yorke, 2003; rothwell, herbert & rothwell, 2008; tomlinson, 2012), with different employers, for instance, placing differing emphases on the skills required for employability. although the call for employability in higher education is becoming ever louder, moreau and leathwood (2006) are critical of the increasingly dominant discourse of employability in the uk, arguing that systematic social inequalities are overlooked by the rhetoric of individual responsibility. knight and yorke (2003) are also highly critical of the official approach taken in the uk to measuring employability in terms of the graduate employment rate within six months of graduation, suggesting that this ignores important factors like economic cycles, regional variation and employment discrimination against certain groups. within such a discourse, employability has shifted from being seen as an area for university discretion to an area of their performance that is increasingly scrutinized by the state (boden & nedeva, 2010). employability, therefore, does not represent a fixed attribute or set of assets; rather, employability, for most people, is for life (yorke, 2006, p. 14), and is a discourse that reflects current political preoccupations, both at national and international level. traditionally, employability has been conceptualised as a skill-based concept. following this approach, several researchers (for instance, dacre pool & sewell, 2007; harvey, 2005; glover, law & youngman, 2002) have pointed out that there are several aspects to employability, including skills related to finding a job, finding a job at graduate level, deploying skills within that job, retaining employment and pursuing a fulfilling career. a common identifying feature of this conception of employability, however, seems to be what de vos, de hauw and van der heijden (2011) describe as: … the continuous fulfilling, acquiring or creating of work through the optimal use of competences. these competences refer to an individual’s knowledge, skills and bailey, l. & ingimundardottir , g. (2015). international employability: stakeholder attitudes at an international university in malaysia. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 6 (1), 44-55. 45 abilities needed to adequately perform various tasks and carry responsibilities within a job, and their adaptability to changes in the internal and external job market (p. 439). furthermore, when referring to an individual’s skills and knowledge, it is important to recognise that these qualifying attributes can be specific to the job at hand (for example specific technical knowledge), but can also be comprised of a range of transferable skills that do not form a dichotomy with the former but serve to complement and further enhance the specific knowledge required each time. such skills could include analytical thinking, successful time management, self-reflection, leadership skills, and the motivation and confidence to continuously adapt to changing environments and teams of work (glover et al., 2002). they can also include the group of skills that contribute to career management (bridgstock, 2011), such as the ability to employ social networks effectively. a second conceptualization of employability, however, focuses on ‘talent’ rather than skills. talent is rooted in an applicant’s character and their general orientation to the world, and there is a growing body of evidence to suggest that multi-national companies now tend to seek ‘talent’ rather than technical capabilities (lauder, 2014; brown, lauder & sung, 2015). employability can therefore be said to be a ‘psycho-social construct’ (de vos, et al., 2011, p. 439), that is, it is made up of elements that are influenced both by the environment (job requirements or subject-specific knowledge for example) and personal psychological attributes, the exact inter-dependencies between these being context-dependent. there is a growing bank of research suggesting that employers are placing increasing emphasis on recruiting graduates who have ‘work readiness’ across this broad range of competences (caballero & walker, 2010). the question remains how such competences can be integrated into a university experience, and whether competences that have been honed for a european, north american or australian job market are applicable when european, north american or australian higher education institutions sell their degrees in other parts of the world. there is some evidence to suggest that asian students have placed more emphasis on studying abroad as a way to differentiate themselves from other graduates in the job market, rather than on extracurricular activity, but that uk students may now be following this practice to an increasing extent (brooks, waters & pimlott-wilson, 2011). whilst there has been some study of students’ perceptions of their employability skills (for example, rothwell et al., 2008), the degree to which these are developed in a globalised education system remains open. cranmer (2006) argues that the classroom structure is ill-suited to developing the kinds of skills most valued by employers. she suggests that resources should be directed towards securing job placements or internships for students that would instead take them outside of the classroom environment to gain the knowledge and skills needed that fall outside their core curriculum. the university should, as a result, serve as an enabler for graduates (harvey, 2005) instead of an educator in the strictest sense of the term. however, as mcgrath (2009) points out, there are ways in which employability can be embedded in the curriculum – for example through projects that develop transferable skills. what is important is not solely to focus on the development of an additional skill set, but also to make sure that those skills are in accordance with demand and requirements from the job market (harvey, 2005). this conception of employability gives universities an additional role in investigating those needs and to serve as a mediator between potential employees and employers (zaharim et al., 2009). however, since the socio-cultural environment is a significant variable when identifying job market requirements (rothwell & arnold, 2007), it draws into question whether culturally decontextualised employability skills can be identified for the ‘global student’. continued research and revisiting of market supply and demand is necessary, not the least in emerging markets such as malaysia (gurvinder & sharan, 2008), where the bailey, l. & ingimundardottir , g. (2015). international employability: stakeholder attitudes at an international university in malaysia. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 6 (1), 44-55. 46 growth and development of higher education must go hand-in-hand with such socio-cultural and economic considerations. research carried out in malaysia on employability of university graduates (see for example gurvinder & sharan, 2008; husain, mokhtar, ahmad & mustapha, 2010; zaharim et al., 2009) has revealed that employers’ expectations of university graduates do not differ significantly from those of their counterparts in countries such as the united kingdom (see for example cranmer, 2006); however, some differences have been noted. for example, an additional requirement of fluency in english (and malay for work in government-run institutions) is included as one of the elements that make up employability of graduates (wye & lim, 2009) in malaysia. moreover, there is evidence of a mismatch between the employability skills malaysian students feel they have best developed at university and the importance given to these skills by local employers (wye & liew, 2005). while it is important to caution against the naïve assumption that employers necessarily know best (mcgrath, 2009), it is nevertheless interesting to note that wye and lim’s (2009) study revealed that the cultivation of skills, such as the development of problem-solving skills, communication and workplace negotiation, within higher education had not met the standard required by malaysian employers, although levels of numeracy and computer literacy were reported as being high and generally well developed at university. this is consistent with gurvinder and sharan’s (2008) findings that malaysian graduates were lacking in most areas related to communication and adaptability, but often highly competent in matters directly related to their degree or the subject-specific knowledge required for their particular vocation. students’ perceptions of their skill levels provide an interesting complement to the employer perspective. shafie and nayan (2010) surveyed malaysian students at a local university to identify the employability skills they believed to be most important to employers. the students identified personal attributes as the most important, followed by team work and selfmanagement. communication skills and the ability to learn were seen as less important than these three. shafie and nayan (2010) elaborated on the idea of personal attributes for employment: personal attributes include loyalty, commitment, honesty, integrity, enthusiasm, reliability, personal presentation, common sense, positive self-esteem, a sense of humor, motivation, adaptability, a balanced attitude to work and home life and ability to deal with pressure (p. 121). it seems, then, that the way in which employability is conceptualised by stakeholders in malaysia is not necessarily the same as that in the uk. this is a point that has been suggested by previous researchers. rooney et al., (2006) have identified international variations in how employability is understood even when solely considering one degree subject, geography. they note that ‘employability’ is a term that does not exist in some languages (e.g. italian or spanish), an issue that is rarely addressed in some national contexts. similarly, speight, lackovic and cooker (2012) have identified subtle differences in the emphasis given to various aspects of employability between the stakeholders on the china campus and the uk campus of a uk university. they found that staff on the china campus placed greater emphasis on both interdisciplinarity and internationalization in employability, seeing this as a way of differentiating themselves from chinese universities. some of the staff at the china campus suggested that there are contrasts between chinese and western ways of communication and that to achieve career success, students needed to be educated about both. speight, lackovic and cooker (2013) found their stakeholders argued that international employability was achieved at an international campus through exposure to staff and students from other cultural contexts. bailey, l. & ingimundardottir , g. (2015). international employability: stakeholder attitudes at an international university in malaysia. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 6 (1), 44-55. 47 this paper queries this assumption by exploring the participants’ perceptions of two related issues. while these were not questions directly posed to the participants, their comments implicitly revealed their assumptions regarding the issues of: a) what is international employability? b) what is the significance given to studying at an international campus? research methods the campus of the uk university studied for this research is a private university in malaysia and has an internationally diverse student body; approximately 60 per cent are malaysians, one per cent are british, and 39 per cent are from the rest of the world. over 80 per cent of the student body is comprised of undergraduates. it should be noted that several uk universities have campuses in malaysia, but the numbers remain small enough that any more contextualizing information about the university would serve to identify it. this study employed both focus groups and interviews as a way of exploring the views of academic staff and students at the university about their views of the extra-curricular employability program. ethical approval was sought for the research within the university, and the practices employed followed the ethical guidelines of the british educational research association. eight members of the academic staff were directly involved in the program at the time of the study, and all of these were interviewed for the study. in addition, twelve academics, not involved in the award, were recruited across all faculties. these were recruited by asking the director of undergraduate studies in every school either to participate or to suggest an alternative participant. recruiting student participants for the study proved challenging. initially, stratified sampling of students was employed, with the aim of including graduates with the award, graduates without the award, undergraduates taking the award and undergraduates not involved in the award. an invitation to participate was sent to all graduates who had completed the award (36 to date) as well as to a random sample of graduates who had not completed the award. however, in the light of a low response rate from students, snowball sampling was then employed to recruit further non-award graduates. two focus group interviews were also conducted with current undergraduates, using purposive sampling to ensure that undergraduates engaged in the award and those not engaged in the award were represented, and subsequent snowball sampling was used to ensure that all faculties were represented. these efforts resulted in a total of eighteen students (including some former students) participating in the research. the following table summarises the participants in the study. table 1: research participants total staff interviewed 20 total students interviewed 18 staff involved in the award 8 students involved in the award undergraduates 4 graduates 6 staff not involved in the award 12 students not involved in the award undergraduates 4 graduates 4 faculty of engineering 4* faculty of engineering 7 faculty of science 3* faculty of science 3 faculty of arts and social sciences 5* faculty of arts and social sciences 8 total interviewees 38 bailey, l. & ingimundardottir , g. (2015). international employability: stakeholder attitudes at an international university in malaysia. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 6 (1), 44-55. 48 * note: figures only given for non-award staff, since some of the award staff did not have a faculty affiliation. the interview schedules used were adapted, with permission, from the study of the employability curriculum at a british university in china discussed above (speight et al., 2012; speight et al., 2013), but were adapted slightly to suit the malaysian context. the interviews were recorded and transcribed, then coded according to saldaña’s (2012) guidelines for qualitative coding in order to establish patterns and prevalent themes. in the following section, the paper will analyse the perceptions of employability that were expressed in the interviews, and discuss the ways in which the students and academics felt that international employability could be achieved by attendance at an international campus of a uk university. data analysis and discussion what is international employability? the definitions of employability given by both staff and students were largely consistent with findings from previous research, insofar as the vast majority of interviewees cited a range of transferable skills and levels of emotional intelligence as being the most important elements of employability (e.g. glover et al., 2002; de vos et al., 2011). the answers that diverged most from this model were those from the faculty of engineering, where the emphasis on subject-specific knowledge was greater than in the other faculties and, by the same token, the importance of generic skills was valued to a lesser extent than, for example, in the faculty of arts and social sciences. a) student views among the students, the most salient identifying features of employability were elements such as leadership, confidence, initiative, creativity and ‘out-of-the-box thinking’, which were predominantly mentioned in relation to their extra-curricular activities, which they considered had contributed most to the development of such skills or attributes. another prevalent feature was the notion of exposure to real-life situations or hands-on experiences within their chosen field, as well as most other experiences that took them outside the classroom format and allowed them to employ skills that perhaps otherwise would neither be used nor developed. students cited examples of group projects, presentations or the organisation of events as a part of a team as being among the most important experiences in terms of developing desirable skills for the job market. the value of a rounded university experience was raised by a majority of the interviewees, where personal attributes such as motivation, initiative and drive would play an important role in ensuring long-lasting benefits from participating in extra-curricular activities and other projects or experiences that would enhance their university education. however, for some, being holistic was instrumental; for instance, one malaysian graduate explained that she pursued extra-curricular activities in order to put them on her cv, and related employability to having an ‘holistic look’ to her cv. it is worth noting that the malaysia campus of this uk university is a private institution, reliant on sponsoring bodies and parents paying high fees to enable students to attend. as a consequence, the emphasis placed on immediate access to employment rather than longer-term career planning by many students, may in part reflect the high opportunity cost of such a degree. b) staff views this study echoes previous work in the area in suggesting that there are significant differences in the views of relevant stakeholders (gurvinder & sharan, 2000; speight et al., bailey, l. & ingimundardottir , g. (2015). international employability: stakeholder attitudes at an international university in malaysia. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 6 (1), 44-55. 49 2012). among the academic staff, an interesting dichotomy emerged between the perception of local staff members and those from abroad, where both the perception of the readiness of graduates to enter the job market and the definition of employability differed on several major points. foreign staff for the most part agreed on soft skills and a rounded personality as being among the chief attributes of an employable graduate, whereas the definitions given by the local staff members were more focused on the attributes needed to be recruited soon after graduation. some local staff members brought up appearance and presentation of character as being important elements of employability, while foreign staff focused on more longitudinal aspects such as lifelong learning and adaptability within the workplace. just as rooney et al. (2006) found international differences in how employability was seen in a single academic subject, there were clear differences between the malaysian and nonmalaysian academics in our study. secondly, while foreign staff members considered their graduates to be largely ready to enter the job market and many felt that the efforts of the university to cultivate soft skills had been sufficient, the local staff members found that their students were often ill-prepared for the realities of finding a job, even for stages as early in the process as applying and interviewing for a job. some cited examples of students not knowing how to dress for the workplace or what questions to ask in job interviews, and others stressed the importance of teaching workplace etiquette as they found that many students were lacking in matters such as professional behaviour and workplace interaction and communication. a possible explanation for this divergence in opinions and definitions may be that most of the foreign staff members came from either the faculty of arts and social sciences or the faculty of science, where both the modes of instruction and objectives of the degree are different from other more vocational subjects such as engineering or pharmacy. for example, one malaysian member of staff defined employability as whether the student can easily get a job or not. in line with the findings of cranmer (2006), her emphasis was on the skills that students obtained outside the conventional classroom, rather than within it. she expressed her concern that many students currently lacked knowledge about professional etiquette – for example, she cited instances of students on internships reading novels at work, turning up late on the first day, failing to dress smartly, handing in medical certificates on their second day, and writing poor cvs: the way you perform during training actually reflects how you will perform during the actual work, so there’s a lot of these kinds of problems, which i think maybe ten years back normally wasn’t a problem, but with this generation … in fact when i meet with a lot of employers, they say that during the interview they have a lot of students asking those questions i mentioned, and they don’t expect to hear from the students like: ‘do i need to work on saturdays? do i have the chance to travel? go to the us for training?’ this kind of thing. for this member of staff, the feedback given from malaysian employers was important, and she was here adopting the role that zaharim et al. (2009) suggest for universities, in mediating the gap between employers and students. an extract from k, another malaysian academic who adopted a similar approach,suggests that employability is about short-term marketability: the moment that you graduate, you should be employed pretty soon, and making yourself marketable. i mean, when people read your résumé or your cv, they will want to hire you. that’s my understanding of employability. k also mentioned the importance of grooming and etiquette, but alongside that she placed an importance on intercultural awareness. bailey, l. & ingimundardottir , g. (2015). international employability: stakeholder attitudes at an international university in malaysia. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 6 (1), 44-55. 50 an extract from an interview with l, a malaysian member of staff, exemplifies again the approach that emphasises getting a job over longer-term employability skills: you need to get employed first in order for you to remain in employment, what we need to do is just like, the basic skills, we must have them. it means that all of us, we have that foundation in order to perform a job well and after that, when you are in a job, there will probably be specific skills for your particular profession. so that is probably the time where you really need to think about what the specific skills are that you need, and then you work on it. in this way, we can see the malaysian staff placing more emphasis on the work readiness (caballero & walker, 2010) of graduates than the non-malaysians. this distinction between expatriates and malaysians was not absolute, however, and there was an exception on either side. a malaysian academic, x, defined employability as follows: employability to me is soft skills that employers seek after, that employers want. it’s not only that, but the kind of skills that are lifelong learning skills. once they have these skills, they will not become obsolete. conversely, z, an international academic, argued: i think as a university we have a responsibility to ensure our graduates leave with skills that should get them into a first-round interview, and we should provide them with opportunities to practice these. the overwhelming majority of the staff interviewees discussed employability as if it is reified, fixed, not culturally specific, placing attention on key skills (s) that are needed by all students. only one member of staff – an expatriate academic, who had recently moved to malaysia from being an expatriate elsewhere in asia – suggested that the kind of skills students require might be culturally specific. m argued: malaysians write business letters differently to indians, to arabs, and we can teach people how to write a british business letter but that’s not necessarily what they need. so that sort of thing might happen in the future. m also examined other culturally embedded aspects of employability: in a country like malaysia you’ve got different types of english, you’ve got one that is closer to the prestige form, and then you’ve got all the way down to the street english, and i think in this particular context, in malaysia in 2013, people don’t realise where they are on the scale. middle-class academics can move up and down at will, but a lot of people don’t realise that if they’re for example missing the past participle when they’re writing, or dropping malay words in, which i’ve seen, it isn’t international english, it isn’t prestige english, and i don’t think that some of them realise this. he argued that the form of english needed to work in a local family firm is different than the form of english required to work in an international company. he also noted that there is cultural variation about what to include in a job application, arguing that in terms of employability, there’s a risk that we’re teaching, if people are not really familiar with the culture, we’ll be teaching them in vain. he used the example of the portfolio of certificates attained during your childhood which in malaysia is seen as an important part of a job application, but which would be received with bemusement by someone from the uk. similarly, he noted that in some cultures you need to provide a photo and write your religion on your job application, while in other cultures both of these are unacceptable. in summary, the conception of employability communicated in the majority of the staff interviews seemed to be implicitly linked to human capital theory (becker, 1964; de vos et al., 2011), rather than to broader conceptions of employability, education and citizenship. bailey, l. & ingimundardottir , g. (2015). international employability: stakeholder attitudes at an international university in malaysia. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 6 (1), 44-55. 51 the human capital approach to employability is ostensibly neutral; that is, it sees employability as about objective skills and unrelated to culture. by contrast, the citizenship approach is necessarily related to cultural practices. the very idea that there is a notion of employability that makes sense internationally is embedded in the human capital model. there was only one member of staff who offered a contrast to this approach. amongst other members of staff, it seemed that a single concept of employability was being posited to meet the needs of their diverse students. the significance of an international campus a) staff views in addressing the significance of study at an international campus, a clear divide opened up between the responses of the academics and the students. the academics, both malaysians and expatriates, were interested in the way in which exposure to multi-national classes and social circles might develop skills or attributes that enabled a student to operate effectively in an international setting in the future. there was discussion as to whether this kind of intercultural sensitivity needed to be taught explicitly or implicitly, and some of the academics reported introducing it as a key theme for certain modules in the award. for l, a malaysian academic, giving students these kinds of opportunities was integral to the university’s ‘brand’: we get our undergraduate students to be the volunteers at this international education conference, so our students will get the opportunity to work with people in the industry, and because it’s an international conference, they have the opportunity to meet participants from all over the world. this approach echoes the stakeholders, australian academics, students and employers studied by crossman & clarke (2009), who concurred that international experience under study abroad schemes builds students’ soft skills and abilities to operate professionally in culturally diverse contexts. b) student views by contrast, for the students in our study, having an international qualification was taken as a hallmark of quality rather than linked to any international or inter-cultural skills, an emphasis that echoes the work of brooks et al. (2012) discussed above. for instance, f, an international student from elsewhere in asia, explained that in his national context getting a job was about the piece of paper, rather than the content of the degree: any foreign degree holds higher value than a local degree. not necessarily [name of university], but any foreign degree. there were also several students who placed specific emphasis on getting a british degree, which they felt gave them higher status in the job market than if they had a degree from elsewhere. nearly all the students interviewed intended to pursue their careers, at least initially, in their country of origin. as a consequence, the interactions they had enjoyed with people of different nationalities received little attention, while the way that an international degree was viewed acquired more significance. several students mentioned the importance of the award in enabling them to work with people from different faculties; none mentioned having been exposed to further nationalities than those they met in the course of their academic work. hence, in contrast to the malaysian graduates studied by shafie and nayan (2010), these students placed less emphasis on personal attributes and more on their documentation, in the form of the degree certificate itself or a well-written cv. in summary, the extent to which the kinds of internationalism represented by international universities parallel the kinds of international settings their students are likely to encounter in bailey, l. & ingimundardottir , g. (2015). international employability: stakeholder attitudes at an international university in malaysia. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 6 (1), 44-55. 52 their working lives remains unclear. whilst academics were anxious to develop students’ skills in interacting with people from other cultures, for the students the international nature of their degree was as much a signalling device as of intrinsic utility. conclusion this paper raises fundamental questions about how employability can be taught in he institutions operating in a globalised market, and whether a monolithic conception of employability can meet the needs of diverse student bodies. for instance, can a definition of employability be created or developed that suits most faculties and fields of study in global contexts, and would such a definition be so broad as to prevent its having any practical utility? just as rooney et al. (2006) found different conceptions of employability in different national settings amongst geographers, we found that academics working on a single campus but originating from diverse settings, had similar differences. with the rise of offshore campuses for western and southern universities, it is concerning that our findings suggest that there is little consensus on this subject amongst academics teaching in such institutions, and even less consensus between these academics and the students with whom they work. this is a small-scale study of one off-shore campus of a british university, and the number of participants was limited. nevertheless, as increasing numbers of universities open off-shore campuses, it offers an insight into some of the challenges presented in one particular context for the development of an employability curriculum. this paper raises further questions for research around the relationship between international higher education and international inequalities in cultural capital. how students make economic use of their extra-curricular activities at university is intrinsically linked to structural inequalities, such as gender, race and class (stevenson & clegg, 2012), but the discourse of employability overlooks social inequalities (moreau & leathwood, 2006). we know from previous studies that middle-class students are better at transforming educational qualifications into economic advantage than working-class students, and that their extracurricular activities lie at the heart of this as a result of their contribution to students’ cultural capital (bathmaker, ingram & waller, 2013). what is less clear is whether there are international differences in how extra-curricular activities are perceived by students, and whether the advent of employability-focused features of he, like the award, help to reproduce international inequalities in cultural capital, or whether they transcend them. the data presented above suggest that malaysian staff and international staff at the university studied have different perceptions of the skills lacking in students and needing to be fostered through curricular and extra-curricular engagement. however, there seems to be greater commonality between the concerns of local and international students in their preoccupation with the short-term need to get a job, and this is a concern that more closely echoes the malaysian staff than the views expressed by expatriate academics. from this study, it is evident that employability remains a blurred concept; it is constantly evolving and is culturally based. in the university studied, there was no clear consensus amongst academic staff regarding the skills that students would require for employability, and there was a clear divide between the views of the expatriates and the malaysians. moreover, the employability skills offered by an international campus are seen as important by academics, but viewed more instrumentally by their students. these findings suggest that international employability deserves greater explicit consideration amongst staff in universities that are offering programs targeting overseas students, whether in the home nation or in off-shore programs, and that the development of multiple employability pathways might best meet the needs of diverse student bodies. without explicit consideration of these competing notions of employability, it remains a risk that these universities will replicate western conceptions of employability without any adaptation to culturally contrasting settings. bailey, l. & ingimundardottir , g. 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(2015). international employability: stakeholder attitudes at an international university in malaysia. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 6 (1), 44-55. 55 1 editorial welcome to volume 9 of the journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability. the results of the 2017 employer satisfaction survey (ess), which reported the views of over 4,000 employers about the attributes of recent graduates from australian higher education institutions, indicate that overall 84 per cent of these employers were satisfied with the graduates who worked for them. furthermore 93 per cent of supervisors reported that the qualification prepared the graduate ‘very well’ or ‘well’ for their current employment. this suggests a good correlation between the skills and knowledge acquired by higher education graduates during their studies and the requirements of their jobs after graduation. interestingly, in the same report, 25 per cent of the graduates indicated that they thought their degree was less important to their employment than their supervisors did. but herein lies the issue: we must remember that degree a does not necessarily lead to career a. a university course – particularly at undergraduate level – is often a grounding in a discipline which, most, importantly, enables students to think, learn and communicate in more sophisticated ways. in many universities, about half the commencing cohort enter less vocationally defined degree courses. regardless, many change direction during their undergraduate degrees, as they find the right ‘next step’ for them. reports like these sometimes lead us to the perception that the value of such a degree experience is lower. indeed, sometimes in the mainstream media, we hear about ‘useless degrees’. education is a good thing, no degree is useless in itself, but we can see why some think this way if they are under the impression that a degree is a first step on a clearly defined career pathway. there are boundless reports reminding us that the world of work is changing rapidly, and so educational pathways into finding meaningful work are also likely to be changing. nevertheless, this is a reminder that there is still work to be done in making more explicit to students where these graduate skills and competencies are incorporated into courses, units, teaching and learning experiences and assessment tasks – and the various ways in which they might assemble the evidence to future employers in various fields as to how they might flourish in a particular area of work. the first two paper’s in this volume tap into related themes. the first reports a study at leeds metropolitan university in the uk which investigated student perceptions of their skill development. authors of the report ‘enhancing student awareness of employability skills through the use of progress files’, dawn leggott and jane stapleford, found that fewer than half the students believed that they had developed the skills of ‘organisation and planning', ‘critical thinking and analysis', ‘self-confidence', ‘decision-making' and ‘problem-solving' by the final year of their degree. however, after one year of work experience, most of the graduates realised, in hindsight, that they had indeed developed these skills upon graduation and that they had been able to transfer them from the university to work context. given the competitive nature of the job market it is important for graduates to not only recognise their employability skills, but also to understand where they have been embedded and developed throughout their studies so that they can evidence them in demonstrating employability. the second paper in this volume shares the results of a study which examined perceptions of eportfolios, their uses, the skills required to implement them, and confirms their importance as 2 a tool for student reflection on their employability. portfolios have long been used as a repository for evidence of skills and competencies and increasingly eportfolios are emerging as a strategy for collating artefacts including demonstrations, resources, and documenting learning and assessment. as eportfolios are flexible and enable students to collect evidence of learning, reflect on it and make connections between the various components of their studies, they are an ideal vehicle for graduates to demonstrate their employability. on behalf of the editorial committee and deputy editor dr beatrice tucker i commend this volume to you and invite you to engage with the forthcoming papers throughout the year as we seek to promote scholarly communication and debate, and scholarship in learning and teaching for graduate employability. alfred deakin professor beverley oliver, editor sutherland, k., freberg, k., & driver, c. (2019). australian employer perceptions of unprofessional social media behaviour and its impact on graduate employability. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 10(2), 104-121. 104 the journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability issn: 1838-3815 (online) journal homepage https://ojs.deakin.edu.au/index.php/jtlge/ australian employer perceptions of unprofessional social media behaviour and its impact on graduate employability karen sutherland1, karen freberg2 and christina driver1 corresponding author: karen sutherland (ksutherl@usc.edu.au) 1university of the sunshine coast, queensland, australia 2university of louisville, kentucky, usa abstract social media has become a tool used for the process of employee recruitment in a range of industries. the technology is utilised by job candidates and by employers and job-recruiters to screen and source suitable staff for their organisations. research has investigated issues relating to ethics, privacy and accuracy regarding employers’ use of social media to screen prospective employees. yet, limited research has been conducted to investigate employer perceptions of prospective/current employees’ unprofessional social media behavior. our study involved a survey of 396 australian employers from a range of industries to explore the influence of job-candidates’ social media presence on employer decision-making and the most unprofessional social media behaviors according to employers. our investigation found 82% of employers are influenced by a job candidate’s social media presence and using social media to intentionally cause harm to others was perceived by employers as the most unprofessional social media behavior. the findings from this study will assist educators in guiding university students and graduates to meet industry expectations as professionals and provide scholars with new knowledge as to what is deemed to be unacceptable behavior in a professional context at this point in the evolution of social media. keywords social media, job-recruitment, employability, professional behaviour, employment, personal branding introduction with social media user numbers predicted to reach 2.77 billion in 2019, the widespread use of social media has impacted some of the key business functions and processes within a range of industries (statista 2019; baptista et al., 2017). the employee recruitment process is a core business function that has been influenced by the pervasive use of social media (aggerholm & andersen, 2018; koch, gerber, & de klerk, 2018; offong & costello, 2017). job candidates have also embraced the use of social media as a tool to https://ojs.deakin.edu.au/index.php/jtlge/ mailto:ksutherl@usc.edu.au sutherland, k., freberg, k., & driver, c. (2019). australian employer perceptions of unprofessional social media behaviour and its impact on graduate employability. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 10(2), 104-121. 105 find employment using social networking sites such as linkedin to network with prospective employers, host their curriculum vitae and to search and apply for the employment opportunities being advertised on the sites (kissel & büttgen, 2015; sivertzen). alternatively, social media has also been embraced by human resources professionals, job recruitment specialists and employers as a tool that not only facilitates the advertising of employment opportunities, but technology that also enables the screening of prospective employees and monitoring of current staff and their social media behaviour (jeske & shultz, 2016; madera, 2012). as never before, social media has provided employers with a glimpse into the online personality of a prospective employee before an offer of employment is made (slovensky & ross, 2012). an employer can assess the digital footprint of a prospective employee to determine their suitability for a role and their organisation (also known as person–organisation fit, the extent to which an individual’s values match those of the organisation) to decide if an offer of employment will be made (baert, 2018; kooij & boon, 2018). furthermore, social media technology can support employers in monitoring current staff and their online activities to ascertain whether an employee is behaving in a way that contradicts company values or jeopardizes organisational reputation (mcdonald & thompson, 2016; el ouirdi, el ouirdi, segers, & henderickx, 2015). research to date has focused on issues relating to the ethics, law, privacy and accuracy of using social media to screen the suitability of job candidates (slovensky & ross, 2012; sutherland, 2013; van de ven, bogaert, serlie, brandt, & denissen, 2017; van iddekinge, lanivich, roth, & junco, 2016). other studies have explored employee use of social media in relation to the use of personal social media for work purposes, boundary-spanning and story-sharing (van zoonen & rice, 2017; archer‐brown, marder, calvard, & kowalski, 2018; sayers & fachira, 2015). however, less focus has been placed on the exploration of employee unprofessional social media behaviours as perceived by employers, and the research conducted on this specific issue is predominantly centered on students and professionals from the health industry sector such as nursing and medical students with few studies conducted within an australian context (de gagne, yamane, conklin, chang, & kang, 2018; pereira, cunningham, moreau, sherbino, & jalali, 2015; langenfeld, cook, sudbeck, luers, & schenarts, 2014). our study focuses specifically on employers within the australian job market and provides current data on an issue that must be explored every few years to keep pace with the rapid evolution of social media technology. our study has two aims. the first is to better understand the influence that a job candidate’s social media presence may have on employers of university graduates during the recruitment decision-making process to gauge its potential impact on graduate employability. secondly, the purpose of this study is to explore the attitudes of employers of university graduates, from a wide range of industries, in relation to their perceptions of unprofessional social media behaviours by prospective and current employees. this knowledge will inform university graduates, job candidates and employees as to the types of social media conduct that is deemed to be inappropriate by prospective employers. the findings from this study will also assist university educators in guiding their students and graduates to increase their employability by meeting industry expectations as professionals and provide scholars with new knowledge as to what is deemed to be unacceptable behaviour in a professional context at this point in the evolution of social media. literature review to date, the majority of literature exploring social media use by employers, employees and job seekers has fallen within two broad categories: social media’s influence on employers’ recruitment decisions and the professional social media behaviours of job seekers and employees (melanthiou, pavlou & constantinou, 2015; slovensky & ross, 2012; brouer, stefanone, badawy, & egnoto, 2017; baert, 2018; de gagne et al., 2018; pereira et al., 2015; langenfeld, et al., 2014). the literature has explored how social media is being used by employers and recruiters as a tool to source suitable job candidates for specific sutherland, k., freberg, k., & driver, c. (2019). australian employer perceptions of unprofessional social media behaviour and its impact on graduate employability. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 10(2), 104-121. 106 roles and to assess the suitability of candidates based on an audit of their digital footprints or social media profiles (nikolaou, 2014; aggerholm & andersen, 2018; saros-rogobete & sav, 2016). alternatively, the literature has also focused on the social media activities of job candidates and existing employees through the lens of what may be deemed as professional or unprofessional social media behaviours (davis et al., 2017; ramsay, 2010; valdez, schaar, & ziefle, 2015; valdez et al., 2015; kinsky, freberg, kim, kushin, & ward, 2016; kietzmann, hermkens, mccarthy, & silvestre, 2011). both perspectives in the literature have raised issues surrounding ethics (non-harmful conduct), privacy and the accuracy of judgements made by employers based on their perceptions of prospective and current employer social media activity. social media’s influence on employers’ recruitment decisions results are mixed in the literature exploring social media’s influence on employers’ recruitment decisions. however, there has been consensus in the literature indicating that facebook, linkedin and twitter are the social media platforms most used by employers to source candidates (koch, gerber, & de klerk, 2018; caers & castelyns, 2011; doherty 2010; dutta, 2014; singh & sharma, 2014). while employer use of social media to screen job candidates has been reported as being widespread (nikolaou 2014; aggerholm & andersen, 2018; saros-rogobete & sav, 2016) other studies have suggested that the practice is uncommon (jindal & shaikh, 2014). findings in the literature are also contradictory in relation to how much social media screening influences hiring decisions and employer perceptions of the ethical (morally just) and legal issues surrounding the practice. for example, in a study by melanthiou, pavlou and constantinou (2015), 94% of the sample answered that they did not let social media screening influence their hiring decisions and 86% considered the social media screening on applicants to be legal and ethical. however, a study by slovensky and ross (2012) found that 70% of hiring managers have rejected a job candidate based on the information that they had found about them on social media. the influence of a job candidate’s social media presence on a prospective employer has also been confirmed in studies by brouer et al. (2017) and baert (2018). the baert (2018) study found that a job candidate’s facebook profile photo can increase job interview invitations by 38% and can positively impact hiring chances when the candidate is highly educated, and the recruiters are female. also, brouer et al. (2017) found that the way that job candidates present themselves on social media in relation to their gender, can directly influence a hiring manager’s decision to appoint them. male candidates representing themselves with ‘feminine’ traits on social media by demonstrating communal, caring and empathetic behaviours received negative responses from hiring managers. the brouer et al. (2017)study also found that hiring managers did not use social media to assess a candidate's professional competence, instead used the technology for...making inferences about the candidates’ personality…(p.2229). using social media to make assumptions about a job candidate has led to the issues of privacy, ethics and the legalities surrounding the practice being prevalent in the literature. this is largely due to social media blurring the boundaries between public and private life (melanthiou, pavlou, & constantinou, 2015; larkin & buhalis, 2016). it is this narrow segregation between public and private that has raised many ethical questions around the practice as well as highlighting the possibility of litigation as a result. furthermore, employers have been cautioned not to base their hiring decisions on what they find when searching for a candidate on social media as they may find information that would be illegal to request in an interview (regarding age, marital or parental status, religious beliefs or sexual orientation etc.) and use it to discriminate against the candidate (karl, peluchette & schlaegel, 2010; melanthiou, pavlou, & constantinou, 2015). while a study by van de ven et al. (2017) found inferences made from linkedin profiles regarding traits such as extraversion and self-presentation correlated with candidates’ self-rated scores, employers have been advised against judging a job candidate based on their social media persona and activities because this does not always reflect a candidate’s behaviour in the workplace (slovensky & sutherland, k., freberg, k., & driver, c. (2019). australian employer perceptions of unprofessional social media behaviour and its impact on graduate employability. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 10(2), 104-121. 107 ross, 2012; jeske & shultz, 2016). in fact, slovensky and ross (2012) suggest that social media content may not be a current reflection of a candidate’s behaviour, rather a snapshot of a moment in time and one that would be both unfair and inaccurate for an employer to base their hiring decisions. yet, other scholars argue that an employee is a representative of their employer 24 hours a day whether or not they are in the workplace and any content perceived as ‘unprofessional’ may reflect negatively on an employer (demek, raschke, janvrin, & dilla, 2018). with these findings in mind, our study will explore whether an employer’s hiring decision can be directly affected by a job seeker’s social media presence. professional social media behaviours of job seekers and employees the majority of the research conducted thus far in relation to the social media behaviours of job seekers and employees has largely focused on the health industry sector and social media platforms such as facebook and twitter (de gagne et al., 2018; pereira et al., 2015; langenfeld, et al., 2014). this may be due to the strong necessity for public trust in health professionals’ abilities to administer medical treatment. as such, there have been consistent themes present in the current literature available on the topic of professional social media behaviour. firstly, there is consensus in the literature regarding what constitutes unprofessional behaviour on social media. these behaviours tend to fit into three broad categories: behaviours harmful to others (bullying, intimidation, and discrimination), anti-social behaviours (drugs, alcohol and sexually explicit content), and direct threats to employer and organisational reputation (negative posts about employers, workmates and workplaces, breaching confidentiality etc.) (koo, bowman, ficko, & gormley, 2018; kenny & johnson, 2016; langenfeld et al., 2014; barlow et al., 2015). other research has approached the issue of unprofessional social media behaviour in the context of online etiquette (davis et al., 2017; ramsay, 2010; valdez, schaar & ziefle, 2015; valdez et al., 2015; kinsky et al., 2016; kietzmann et al. 2011). these studies have taken two different approaches when investigating the issue of online etiquette. the first explores etiquette through the lens of organisational communication with stakeholders; providing advice on how brands can interact positively with social media users (ramsay, 2010). secondly, the issue of online etiquette has been approached in the literature from the perspective of how employees, particularly students and recent grads, should behave in a professionally acceptable way online (davis et al. 2017; valdez, schaar & ziefle, 2015; valdez et al., 2015; kinsky et al., 2016). in a study of 99 social media users aged between 20 and 25 years, etiquette was defined in the context of online professional behaviours such as: formal addressing, correct spelling, acronym and emoticon usage, work disruption and perceived urgency (valdez, schaar, & ziefle, 2015, p.427). a further study of 167 people and the use of ‘text-speak’ (‘non-standard, condensed and primarily text-based communication’) and found participants were perceived to be less conscientious and less open but more emotionally stable when textspeak was used, a finding that could result in wider implications within the employee recruitment process (fullwood, quinn, chen-wilson, chadwick, & reynolds, 2015, p. 147). our study differs from the valdez, schaar and ziefle (2015) and fullwood, et al. (2015) studies because it focuses on employer perceptions and explores a wider spectrum of behaviours. the kinsky et al. (2016) research included a survey of 129 social media students as part of a mixed-methods study that also included employers. a significant finding from this study was that almost half of student participants (n=47%) responded that social media etiquette and responsibility was an area in which they desired further training. our study aims to clearly define what employers perceive to be as the most unprofessional social media behaviours so that this knowledge can be used to inform students, graduates and job seekers such as those in the kinsky et al. (2016) research sample. sutherland, k., freberg, k., & driver, c. (2019). australian employer perceptions of unprofessional social media behaviour and its impact on graduate employability. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 10(2), 104-121. 108 a range of studies have found that even though educational institutions and workplaces have policies regarding online conduct of students and staff, content identified as unprofessional under the three broad categories mentioned could still be identified on staff and student profiles (barlow et al., 2015). the barlow et al. (2015) study explored the topic of unprofessional social media behaviour in a survey of 880 medical students. nearly 35% of the sample self-reported unprofessional social media behaviour, mainly images posted of participants while intoxicated, despite there being an organisational social media policy prohibiting such behaviour. the findings were similar in a langenfeld et al. (2014) study, where excessive alcohol consumption was the most prominent unprofessional social media behaviour demonstrated by the sample contradicting professional guidelines set by the organisation. this study highlights that policies are not enough to curb unprofessional behavior on social media by university students and may negatively impact graduate employability as a result. misguided reliance on privacy settings impacting employability this discrepancy between perceived organisational governance and the deficiencies in its application may be explained by another key finding in the literature; students and staff relied heavily on privacy settings much to their own detriment (langenfeld et al., 2014; kitsis et al., 2016). in a study conducted by kitsis et al. (2016) of 496 medical students and 614 faculty members, 21.8% of students were more likely to describe their online presence as unprofessional compared with faculty members. yet, students were more likely to act than faculty members if they found publicly available information about themselves that they thought to be private. however, a study by ponce et al. (2013) explored the facebook content of medical professionals and found that 85% of the sample with a facebook profile had it set to ‘public’ rather than ‘private’ and unprofessional social media content was detected on 16% of public profiles. a later study of 152 medical students by walton, white and ross (2015) found that 25% had personal information on facebook that was publicly accessible. the ponce et al., (2013) and walton, white and ross (2015) studies were undertaken a few years ago and the landscape of social media and its use has changed since then with the emergence of snapchat, instagram, tiktok and messaging services such as whatsapp, resulting in the necessity for current data in relation to this issue. the studies mentioned have demonstrated a clear disparity between employer expectations in relation to current and prospective employee conduct on social media and the actual behaviour of some staff and job candidates using the technology. this has led to employers monitoring the social media activities of current and prospective employees to ensure that professional codes of conduct and social media policies are being adhered to (o’connor & schmidt, 2018; francis & wagner, 2018). however, this once again raises the issue of the blurred boundaries that social media creates between personal and professional life and the public and the private (mcdonald & thompson, 2016; lam, 2016; sanchez, levin, & del reigo, 2012). some employers believe that an employee is an organisational representative at all times throughout their employment, yet some employees expect that this only occurs during working hours. this difference in opinion between employer and current and prospective employee can result in unprofessional social media behaviours despite organisational social media policies as the literature has been demonstrated in the literature. what is essential is exploring these issues with students while at university to ensure they are aware that their behaviour on social media can directly impact their chances of not only securing employment but also maintaining it. the research currently undertaken on the topic of employer perceptions of unprofessional social media behaviours and their influence on employers throughout the job recruitment process has largely focused on the healthcare sector in countries other than australia. our study differs because it explores australian employer perceptions of unprofessional social media behaviours from a wide range of industry sectors rather than focusing on one. the scarcity of research undertaken regarding australian employer sutherland, k., freberg, k., & driver, c. (2019). australian employer perceptions of unprofessional social media behaviour and its impact on graduate employability. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 10(2), 104-121. 109 perceptions of professional social media behaviour from a range of industry sectors has led to the following research questions: research question 1. can a prospective employee’s online presence directly influence an employer’s decision to offer them a job? research question 2. what do employers perceive to be the most unprofessional social media behaviours of current/prospective employees? methods participants this study was part of a wider series of investigations, which employed a cross-sectional survey targeting employers of university graduates throughout australia. participants were recruited via a third-party database containing australian employers of university graduates who had provided permission to receive communication such as online surveys. four hundred and fifty participants commenced the survey, of which 29 respondents specified that their industry was located outside of australia, and were subsequently removed. of the 421 responses contained within the australian sample, 25 responses were removed due to incomplete surveys, and further data cleaning was conducted to assess and remove corrupt and/or irrelevant responses. in total, 396 respondents of the australian sample provided meaningful responses and were included in the analyses, resulting in a completion rate of 94.1%. respondents’ age ranged from 20-65 years (m = 42.78, sd = 11.90), with gender the distribution of males = 46.5% and females = 53.5%. the most represented industry/sector with nearly a quarter of respondents was retail and consumer, and middle management was the most represented professional position level with nearly a third of respondents. further demographic data are presented in table 1. in australia, the retail sector is the second largest employer after the healthcare industry (vandenbroek, 2018) suggesting that our sample provides a reasonable representation of the australian workforce. table 1. demographics of respondents % industry/sector retail and consumer 23.2 n = 396 education 11.9 healthcare 10.4 construction and transportation 9.3 technology 8.1 government 6.6 entertainment and media 6.1 non-profit 3.5 agriculture 3.0 financial services 2.5 real estate 2.5 banking and finance 2.3 manufacturing 2.3 mining 1.5 sutherland, k., freberg, k., & driver, c. (2019). australian employer perceptions of unprofessional social media behaviour and its impact on graduate employability. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 10(2), 104-121. 110 wholesale trade 1.5 power and utilities 1.5 legal services 1.0 infrastructure .8 defence .8 other .8 energy and gas .5 professional position level middle management (director/divisional/department head) 31.3 n = 380 owner/partner 26.6 front line management 26.1 senior management (ceo/vp/managing director) 16.1 procedure an online survey was developed specifically for this study using survey monkey (2019) as surveys employed in previous similar research did not individually address all specific areas under study. the design was firstly informed by a literature search that identified key areas of interest and was further developed based on the strengths and limitations of previous research (koo et al., 2018; kenny & johnson, 2016; langenfeld et al., 2014; barlow et al., 2015). next, the 17 individual questions used with the 7 point likert scale (1 = extremely professional to 7 = extremely unprofessional) was reviewed by a research advisory group with membership from industry representatives, employment development professionals, senior researchers and social media educators to ensure that the questions posed would be meaningful to the sample and effective in returning the data being sought. responses from the survey questions have been divided up into subscales (anti-social behaviours, posts about employers/workmates, damaging/harmful behaviours, and general social media behaviours) representing different categories of social media behaviours present in the literature. the content validity in relation to the sample is relatively sound and representative of the employers within australian industry sectors. this can be evidenced by the outcome of a reliability analysis of the 17 items which resulted in cronbach’s α = .97. materials the survey questions from this study are presented in table 2. table 2. survey questions and answer options question options in what industry sector/s does your organisation operate? (see table 1.) what is your professional position level? (see table 1.) sutherland, k., freberg, k., & driver, c. (2019). australian employer perceptions of unprofessional social media behaviour and its impact on graduate employability. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 10(2), 104-121. 111 in what region of the world is your organisation based? africa asia/pacific europe latin america middle east north america in what country is your organisation based? open text field the way that a prospective employee presents themselves online would directly influence my decision to offer them a job at my business/organisation. 7-point likert scale (see table 3). using the scale below; please indicate your feelings about the following social mediarelated behaviours. 7-point likert scale (see table 4 for categories of social media behaviours). data analyses data were initially analysed using descriptive statistics. frequency distribution and percentages provided an overall description of the data. a chi-square test for goodness of fit was used to assess the distribution of all responses. to test for homogeneity of responses across industry/sector, professional position level and gender, tests of differences using crosstabs with chi-squared tests of contingencies were conducted. nonparametric tests were employed due to the ordinal nature of the data and the non-normal distribution. for all analyses, significance was set at p < .05. results the results in table 3 clearly indicate that an unprofessional online presence can directly impact employability. table 3. responses to the question: the way that prospective employees present themselves online would directly influence my decision to offer them a job at my business/organisation n = 396 % (n) strongly agree 22.2 (88) agree 38.6 (153) slightly agree 21.5 (85) slightly disagree 8.1 (32) disagree 2.0 (8) sutherland, k., freberg, k., & driver, c. (2019). australian employer perceptions of unprofessional social media behaviour and its impact on graduate employability. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 10(2), 104-121. 112 strongly disagree 4.5 (18) don’t know 3.0 (12) as demonstrated in table 3 most participants (82.3%, 326) agreed to some extent that the way prospective employees present themselves online would directly influence their decision to offer employment. the most frequent response for all items except posting political content was 7; extremely unprofessional. the overall single most unprofessional behaviour as rated by respondents, was using social media to intentionally cause harm to others. likewise, damaging and harmful behaviour was rated the most unprofessional subscale of social media behaviours. table 4. percent (frequency), mode and chi-squared tests of respondents’ opinions about social media behaviours response social media behaviour 1 extremely professional 2 3 4 5 6 7 extremely unprofessional mode chi squared p antisocial behaviours posting sexually suggestive photos or videos 2 (8) 2.5 (10) 3.3 (13) 7.3 (29) 5.6 (22) 11.4 (45) 67.9 (269) 7 .001 posting content about taking drugs 1.5 (6) 2.5 (10) 3.8 (15) 5.8 (23) 7.1 (28) 11.1 (44) 68.2 (270) 7 .002 posts containing swearing 1.3 (5) 2.5 (10) 4.5 (18) 13.1 (52) 13.4 (53) 15.4 (61) 49.7 (197) 7 .003 posting content (text, video, images etc.)about drinking alcohol .5(2) 3.0 (12) 7.3 (29) 17.4 (69) 15.2 (60) 17.2 (68) 39.4 (156) 7 sutherland, k., freberg, k., & driver, c. (2019). australian employer perceptions of unprofessional social media behaviour and its impact on graduate employability. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 10(2), 104-121. 113 posts about employers/work mates. sharing confidential information about a current or former employer 2.0 (8) 2.3 (9) 3.0 (12) 5.3 (21) 6.1 (24) 8.1 (32) 73.2 (290) 7 .001 posting negative comments about a current or former workmate 2.3 (9) 1.8 (7) 3.3 (13) 7.8 (31) 6.1 (24) 14.4 (57) 64.4 (255) 7 posting negative comments about a current or former employer 1.5 (6) 2.8 (11) 3.8 (15) 7.8 (31) 7.3 (29) 10.4 (41) 66.6 (263) 7 .005 posting content featuring a current employer and/or workmates without their permission 2.0 (8) 2.0 (8) 3.3 (13) 6.6 (26) 10.9 (43) 17.4 (69) 57.8 (229) 7 .001 using copyrighted material without the owner’s permission 1.8 (7) 3.3 (13) 2.3 (9) 9.3 (37) 8.1 (32) 12.9 (51) 62.4 (247) 7 damaging/harmf ul behaviours. using social media to intentionally cause harm to others 1.8 (7) 1.8 (7) 3.5 (15) 5.6 (22) 4.3 (17) 7.1 (28) 76.0 (301) 7 .008 using social media to bully or intimidate others 1.5 (6) 2.3 (9) 3.0 (12) 7.3 (29) 3.3 (13) 8.6 (34) 74.0 (293) 7 .024 posts with discriminatory comments (racist, sexist, homophobic etc.) 1.5 (6) 2.3 (9) 4.3 (17) 6.6 (26) 4.8 (19) 8.3 (33) 72.2 (286) 7 .042 sutherland, k., freberg, k., & driver, c. (2019). australian employer perceptions of unprofessional social media behaviour and its impact on graduate employability. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 10(2), 104-121. 114 general social media behaviours checking personal social media profiles during work meetings 1.0 (4) 2.5 (10) 3.5 (14) 10.9 (43) 10.4 (41) 17.2 (68) 54.5 (216) 7 checking personal social media profiles more than three times during a working day 1.0 (4) 4.0 (16) 7.6 (30) 21.5 (85) 18.7 (74) 16.4 (65) 30.8 (122) 7 using social media to communicate with an employer and/or workmates instead of calling or speaking to them in person 1.0 (4) 4.8 (19) 8.8 (35) 20.7 (82) 18.7 (74) 17.4 (69) 28.5 (113) 7 posts with poor grammar, spelling and punctuation 1.0 (4) 3.0 (12) 4.5 (18) 21.0 (83) 22.5 (89) 20.2 (80) 27.8 (110) 7 posting political content 2.0 (8) 3.3 (13) 7.3 (29) 28.5 (113 ) 17.9 (71) 15.7 (62) 25.3 (100) 4 note: chi squared tests were carried out on responses comparing professional position level, gender and industry. this table only shows those comparisons that were significantly different. the only significant differences were found in professional position level. no significant differences were found between gender and industry. chi squared tests of differences on industry/sector and gender revealed no significant differences in responses. however, significant differences were found between professional position level and the following items: posting sexually suggestive photos or videos, posting content about taking drugs, posts containing swearing, sharing confidential information about a current or former employer, posting negative comments about a current or former employer, posting content featuring a current employer and/or workmates without their permission, using social media to intentionally cause harm to others, using social media to bully or intimidate others, posts with discriminatory comments (table 4). discussion the results in this study demonstrate the impact that social media can have on employers and graduate employability. more than 80% of employers stated that a prospective employee’s social media presence can directly influence their decision whether or not to offer them a job. this finding reinforces outcomes from studies conducted by slovensky and ross (2012), brouer et al. (2017) and baert (2018), who also found that employers’ hiring decisions were influenced by a candidate’s social media presence. this result suggests to job seekers that it is now more important than ever before for university graduates to sutherland, k., freberg, k., & driver, c. (2019). australian employer perceptions of unprofessional social media behaviour and its impact on graduate employability. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 10(2), 104-121. 115 proactively cultivate a positive, professional and personal online brand. the influence of an online brand can have negative or positive effects on the career outcomes of a university graduate as a prospective or current employee. the notion of influence presented in this study can work either for or against a university graduate seeking employment. in fact, the literature suggests that cultivating a positive and professional personal brand can have a direct impact on an individual's level of social, human and economic capital (khedher, 2014; arruda & dixson, 2007; gehl, 2011; mcnally & speak, 2002). more specifically, it has been suggested that individuals who develop their personal brand experience an increase in worth, value, employability and lifetime earnings (khedher, 2014; peters, 1997; montoya & vandehey, 2002; mcnally & speak, 2002; arruda & dixson, 2007). therefore, building an online presence that promotes the positive aspects of and personal and professional successes, a university graduate seeking employment can leverage social media technology to assist them in their search for work by demonstrating their skills and achievements to prospective employers. furthermore, after securing employment, a university graduate may also increase their opportunities for career advancement if they continue to strengthen a positive professional and personal online presence. however, this finding raises many of the issues relating to the blurring of boundaries between public and private life raised in the literature in relation to employers using social media to screen job candidates and to monitor employees (melanthiou, pavlou, & constantinou, 2015; ladkin & buhalis, 2016). without ethical processes, policies and procedures to underpin the practice of using social media as a tool to screen and monitor, the influence that it has on employee hiring decisions may be largely subjective resulting in an uneven playing field among all job applicants. employers may form their decisions from their own unconscious biases relating to what they deem to be positive or negative about a candidate’s online presence rather than assessing each candidate in a systematic way. this inability to secure employment as a result of employers being influenced by candidates’ social media presence is a stark reality. an incident of such an occurrence was recently covered in the australian media where an employer refused to offer a candidate employment after searching through the candidate’s facebook profile and perceiving them as unsuitable for the role based on their personal aversion to their selfies and tattoos (withers, 2019). this judgement was exposed when the employer was accidentally recorded on a voicemail message to the candidate after they mistakenly believed that they had ended the call (chung, 2019). this case supports our findings from this study suggesting that an employer’s decision regarding the suitability of a job candidate for a role maybe be influenced by much more than their qualifications, employers’ personal biases can also play a part. having access to online information about job seekers via social media provides greater ammunition for these biases to be supported. while it must be acknowledged that this is only one case and cannot be emblematic of the current climate of employment, it definitely adds to the notion that employers are conducting social media searches of job candidates without their knowledge and judging their suitability for employment based on their findings of these searches. yet, these social media searches tend to be completely non-transparent, largely unregulated and neglect to not follow any set process or procedure which then raises questions of unethical practices and discrimination on behalf on employers. therefore, it is essential to educate university students regarding these issues and to be proactive in cultivating a positive online brand. next, the results from this study indicated that most behaviours that were presented to employers were deemed as unprofessional across all industry sectors. there was not one industry in particular that was more accepting of the behaviours presented. this result implies that there are a distinct set of social media behaviours that are perceived by most employers as unacceptable. there is not any industry that is more lenient than other in this respect. this is extremely important for job seekers to understand in order to use this knowledge to make choices online that will not impede their employability in the longer term. it must be stressed to job seekers, employee, and university students that behaving negatively online can directly influence their employability regardless of the industry or profession that they wish to enter and sutherland, k., freberg, k., & driver, c. (2019). australian employer perceptions of unprofessional social media behaviour and its impact on graduate employability. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 10(2), 104-121. 116 maintain employment. incidents are regularly reported in the media where job candidates, even prospective interns, miss out on opportunities because of their online misconduct. a high-profile example occurred when a woman lost an internship with nasa for swearing on twitter at a national space council member (weiss, 2018). educating job seekers, employees and students about the influence that their social media presence can have on their career outcomes is extremely important and necessary in the current digital climate and a key purpose of this study. furthermore, our findings in relation to the behaviours categorized as the most unprofessional were also supported by the literature. damaging/harmful behaviours were ranked as the most unprofessional, which is also in line with other studies on this topic (koo et al., 2018; kenny & johnson, 2016; langenfeld et al., 2014; barlow et al., 2015). the social media behaviour considered as the least unprofessional was the posting of political content. this may be an indication of the current political climate where more and more content of this nature is shared on social media platforms. for example, it has been reported that trump’s team generated more than 100,000 pieces of social media content during his presidential campaign (beckett, 2017), therefore, as political social media content becomes more normalized, this may logically impact its level of acceptance by employers. the results were similar in relation to gender as well as with the position level of the sample and its perception of unprofessional social media behaviours. however, there was a slight difference recorded with participants who identified their position as senior management level. this segment of the sample ranked many of the social media behaviours as slightly less unprofessional as the participants from other position levels. this may be due to unfamiliarity of social media technology. various industry research reports have indicated that more than 60% of fortune 500 ceos do not have a social media presence and that not one ceo from a fortune 500 company has a presence across all six major social media platforms (ceo.com, 2015). a further explanation may be that senior management may not be directly involved at the coalface with the management of social media-related issues and crises and are therefore unaware of the deeper negative implications and impacts that unprofessional social media behaviours can have on organisational reputation. as reinforced by kinsky et al., (2016) university students, graduates, job seekers and current employees must be trained in the professional use of social media to ensure that their online activities assist them in building a positive personal brand rather than resulting in them missing out on internship and employment opportunities from unwittingly engaging in the unprofessional behaviours explored in this study. however, communicating to university students the influence that social media activity can have on graduate employability must be approached with care. it is important to communicate facts using methods that both attract attention and can be logically understood so that they can be practically applied. as one way to address this, the authors have collaborated with university students to develop an infographic (see figure 1) and a video to convey the key findings from this study to university students and graduates within classroom environments, on campus noticeboards, before beginning internships and placements and when engaging with internal career development advisors. sutherland, k., freberg, k., & driver, c. (2019). australian employer perceptions of unprofessional social media behaviour and its impact on graduate employability. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 10(2), 104-121. 117 figure 1. infographic developed in collaboration with university students to convey key findings from this study. please note that the full sample were used in these results. the two communication tools of an infographic and video have been selected to convey the main findings from this study because research has indicated that using infographics within a higher education context can communicate information in a clear, concise and persuasive way (taguchi & ackerman, 2014, p. 1901). furthermore, video has also been identified as an effective educational tool in higher education (brame, 2016; allen & smith, 2012; kay, 2012; lloyd & robertson, 2012; rackaway, 2012; hsin & cigas, 2013). however, measuring the impact of communicating our findings to university students and graduates using these methods requires further research. conclusion this study provided a brief insight into the perceptions of unprofessional social media behaviours according to the employers of one country in 2018. extensive research using a range of approaches is recommended to provide a much more comprehensive view of this topic, including an analysis of industry sutherland, k., freberg, k., & driver, c. (2019). australian employer perceptions of unprofessional social media behaviour and its impact on graduate employability. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 10(2), 104-121. 118 roles and their impact on employer perceptions, which was not explored in this study. further research could involve an international comparative analysis of employer perceptions of unprofessional social media behaviours with samples located in different global regions. similarly, undertaking this study longitudinally may provide an insight on what social media behaviours are gaining or losing acceptance with employers over time, providing a glimpse of the evolution of cultural norms with society and measuring the differences across industries over time as more people are trained in social media. an additional area of further research could focus on the impact of methods used to communicate employability information to university students and graduates to determine the most effective channels to promote sense-making and behaviour change. knowledge is power for all parties involved in the recruitment process and this study aimed to empower educators, employers, university students, graduates and job seekers with the information about the strong influence that social media can have on employer decision making and what employers perceive as unprofessional social media behaviour. the authors hope that this knowledge will be used to educate university students, graduates, employees and job seekers to use social media as a tool to increase employability and promote themselves in a positive way online. acknowledgements this research was supported by funding from the centre for support and advancement of learning and teaching (c-salt) at the university of the sunshine coast in queensland, australia. references aggerholm, h. k., & andersen, s. e. 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'she's probably doing her fake tan': young woman, 25, is denied her dream job because recruiters didn't like her facebook selfies and she found out in a cruel voicemail message. daily mail australia, accessed 03 june 2019, <https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7074991/accidentalvoicemail-recording-reveals-employers-judging-applicant-facebook-selfies.html/> ensuring health graduates’ employability in a changing world: developing interprofessional practice capabilities using a framework to inform curricula margo brewer1, helen flavell1, courtney harris1, melissa davis1, katherine bathgate1 m.brewer@curtin.edu.au; h.flavell@curtin.edu.au; c.harris@curtin.edu.au; m.davis@curtin.edu.au; k.bathgate@curtin.edu.au 1curtin university abstract curtin university introduced an interprofessional first year curriculum in the faculty of health sciences in 2011. this curriculum, now delivered to over 3,300 first year health science students annually, consists of five common compulsory units, eight optional units (specific to several courses) and one discipline specific unit for each course. significantly, the learning outcomes are informed by an interprofessional capability framework (brewer & jones, 2013). this paper reports on a study which aimed to analyse the use of the capability framework in supporting the development of the desired interprofessional capabilities. this qualitative study was based on data from student reflective journals in one of the large common units. the sample consisted of 105 of the 411 students enrolled in one of the common units (response rate 25.6 percent) in the second major teaching period (semester two) in 2011. the data was analysed via nvivo8© to provide a holistic view of the content of the reflections as they related to the interprofessional capability framework. the results indicate that the use of the interprofessional capability framework in structuring the learning outcomes has influenced student learning. this is evidenced by the correlation between the themes which emerged during the coding of the data and the interprofessional capability framework. for example, ‘client-centred’ was the most frequently coded theme, followed by collaboration, team function, and quality care, all of which are reflected in the framework. the major finding of the study is that the framework did have an impact in guiding the development of the foundational interprofessional unit; the learning outcomes included key elements of the framework, the learning experiences were designed to meet these outcomes, and the assessment utilising a reflective journal was designed to measure the development of novice interprofessional capabilities. keywords: curriculum framework, interprofessional, graduate capabilities, constructive alignment introduction graduate employability has, for some time, been core business for higher education and is often manifested through the identification of generic key graduate attributes (barrie, 2012; bridgstock, 2009). however, the extent to which graduate outcomes are achieved is uncertain particularly in the area of generic outcomes as measuring graduate abilities is difficult, time-consuming and, in some cases, impossible (oliver, 2011). additionally, many brewer, m., flavell, h., davis, m., harris, c. & bathgate, k. (2014). ensuring health graduates’ employability in a changing world: developing interprofessional practice capabilities using a framework to inform curricula. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 5(1), 29–46. 29 mailto:m.brewer@curtin.edu.au mailto:h.flavell@curtin.edu.au;%20c.harris@curtin.edu.au mailto:m.davis@curtin.edu.au mailto:k.bathgate@curtin.edu.au academics lack a shared understanding of what is meant by graduate attributes (barrie, 2012) and the confidence to teach generic capabilities, instead preferring their own disciplinary content (de la harpe et al., 2009). despite these challenges and complexities, there is growing emphasis worldwide on demonstrating student learning outcomes with universities increasingly scrutinised by quality assurance organisations (krause, barrie, scott, sachs & probert, 2012). in the education of health professionals there are parallel pressures to ensure that graduates have not only their discipline specific knowledge, but also generic capabilities which will enable health services to meet the demands of future health and social care needs. the world health organization (who), for example, argues that due to changes in population demographics there is a growing need for graduates with the capabilities to work collaboratively in interprofessional teams to deliver high quality, safe client care (world health organisation, 2010). interprofessional education has been identified as the mechanism to prepare graduates who can demonstrate these interprofessional collaborative capabilities and has been defined by the who as occur[ing] when students from two or more professions learn about, from and with each other to enable effective collaboration and improve health outcomes (2010). there is considerable debate and contestation regarding graduate outcome terminology including, for example, competency versus capability and how graduate attributes and employability are defined (barrie, 2012; eraut, 1998; stephenson, 1994). however, yorke’s conceptualisation of graduate attributes is well accepted as it portrays a complex set of integrated skills, characteristics and abilities that aid employability. yorke defines graduate attributes as the skills, understandings and personal attributes that make an individual more likely to secure employment and be successful in their chosen occupations to the benefit of themselves, the workforce, the community and the economy (yorke, 2006, p. 8). his definition of ‘graduate attributes’ is particularly pertinent to the field of interprofessional education as he clearly links the development of graduate outcomes with workforce and community needs, a major focus of interprofessional education. health workers who are better prepared to work collaboratively with other health professionals—with a focus on client needs rather than the goals of the professional—are more likely to impact positively on client outcomes (barrett, curran, glynn & godwin, 2007). interprofessional capabilities, therefore, extend well beyond discipline knowledge and understanding. the capabilities identified for an effective interprofessional health worker including communication, reflective skills, team function, conflict resolution and client-centred care (barr, 1998; walsh, gordon, marshall, wilson & hunt, 2005; wood, flavell, vanstolk, bainbridge & nasmith, 2009), align well with the vision of an employable graduate needing a sophisticated, integrated set of capabilities that encompass more than discipline specific knowledge, skills and understandings. interprofessional education interprofessional education has emerged as an area of focus in higher education for many reasons including the need to modify negative attitudes and perceptions, and to redress issues of trust and communication between professions (carpenter, 1995). barr (2002) hypothesised that pre-licensure interprofessional education might have both a preventative function (mitigating the risk of developing prejudices and negative stereotypes) and a preparatory function (laying the foundation for subsequent interprofessional learning and practice). early introduction of regular and sustained interprofessional education continues to find support one decade on (reeves, tassone, parker, wagner, & simmons, 2012). in keeping with this, and the desire to deliver the practice-ready health workers of the future, curtin university introduced an interprofessional first year curriculum in the faculty of health sciences in 2011. this curriculum, delivered now to over 3,300 first year health science students annually, consists of five common compulsory units, eight optional units (specific to several courses) and one discipline specific unit for each course. this curriculum ensures brewer, m., flavell, h., davis, m., harris, c. & bathgate, k. (2014). ensuring health graduates’ employability in a changing world: developing interprofessional practice capabilities using a framework to inform curricula. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 5(1), 29–46. 30 that 75 percent of first year student learning experiences have an element of interprofessional education. this is most explicit in the common units which are taught by interprofessional teaching teams to interprofessional student groups (bathgate & harris, 2012). significantly, the learning outcomes of the common first year units (as well as other interprofessional education experiences offered by the faculty) are informed by an interprofessional capability framework (brewer & jones, 2013). this paper presents qualitative data from the analysis of student reflective journals in one of the large common interprofessional first year units to demonstrate how the use of a capability framework to inform the curriculum design is supporting students in the development of the interprofessional graduate capabilities deemed essential for future health workers. utilising knight and yorke’s (2002) usem model of employability—as a set of capabilities which extend beyond skills and knowledge—the paper illustrates how the unit learning outcomes, which are in alignment with the framework, are supporting first year students to develop crucial interprofessional graduate attributes. in fact, qualitative data analysis suggests there is evidence that first year students are demonstrating what knight and yorke identify as ‘efficacy beliefs and metacognition’ at the novice level (as defined by the interprofessional capability framework). the study adds to the body of literature on interprofessional education and, more specifically, contributes to the limited evaluative research on the implementation of interprofessional frameworks (reeves, zwarenstein, goldman, barr, freeth, koppel & hammick, 2010). knight and yorke’s (2002) usem model of graduate employability knight and yorke’s usem model was developed based on ‘capability’ as defined by stephenson, as well as the literature on employability and insights from cognitive and social psychology (knight & yorke, 2002, p. 264). according to stephenson (1998), capability is a necessary part of specialist expertise, not separate from it. capable people not only know about their specialisms, they also have confidence to apply their knowledge and skills within varied and changing situations and to continue to develop their specialist knowledge and skills… (cited in knight & yorke, 2002, p. 264). in other words, capability in this context implies that graduates with the capabilities that count for employability know much more than their discipline or specialist knowledge, they are able to effectively manage changing circumstances and respond appropriately. usem (knight & yorke, 2002, p. 264) is an acronym which represents a complex and rich theory of graduate employability and stands for: understanding skills (subject specific and generic) efficacy beliefs (and self-theories generally) metacognition (including reflection) according to the authors, curricula have a tendency to focus on understanding and skills with little attention to personal qualities or efficacy beliefs and metacognition. this appears consistent with research into graduate attributes which suggests most australian universities struggle to effectively embed the generic capabilities implied by graduate attributes (barrie, hughes & smith, 2009). in keeping with the theory of interprofessional education (barr, 2012; colyer, helme & jones, 2005; hean, craddock & hammick, 2012), knight and yorke argue that students’ personal qualities (including self-theories and efficacy beliefs) colour everything the student/graduate does. their model, therefore, takes into account the impact of personal qualities and beliefs on student learning. this approach to graduate capability and employability is highly applicable to an interprofessional education context, where professional identity and role understanding have the capacity to significantly hinder or facilitate the development of interprofessional collaborative practice capabilities (coster, norman, murrells, kitchen, meerabeau, sooboodoo & d’avrey 2008; forte & fowler, 2009; brewer, m., flavell, h., davis, m., harris, c. & bathgate, k. (2014). ensuring health graduates’ employability in a changing world: developing interprofessional practice capabilities using a framework to inform curricula. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 5(1), 29–46. 31 wackerhausen, 2009). as will be illustrated, the interprofessional capability framework used to inform the common interprofessional first year units emphasises the e and m of knight and yorke’s usem model and appears to assist first year students to begin their journey towards developing interprofessional practice capabilities. these capabilities align well with many of the ‘soft’ generic attributes desired for all university graduates including communication, teamwork, critical reflection and conflict resolution (precision consulting, 2007). the interprofessional capability framework the competency movement in interprofessional education began to gain prominence in the late 1990s (barr, 1998). since that time a number of lists of key interprofessional competencies and competency frameworks have been published (bainbridge, nasmith, orchard & wood, 2010; barr, 1998; interprofessional education collaborative expert panel, 2011; walsh et al., 2005; wood et al., 2009). such frameworks define educational outcomes based on the knowledge, skills, attitudes and values underpinning the competencies for practice (curran et al., 2008). the movement to competency based education is not without its critics. reeves, fox & hodges (2009) raised concerns about not only the process for developing such frameworks, but also the need to be cautious in their implementation as they shape education, regulation and practice. at the same time, there is inconsistency within the movement towards frameworks with debate about the value of competencies versus capabilities. competence can be defined as the habitual and judicious use of communication, knowledge, technical skills, clinical reasoning, emotions, values and reflection in daily practice for the benefit of the individual and community served (epstein & hundert, 2002, p. 226). capability on the other hand refers to the ability to change, generate knowledge and continuously improve performance (mcnair, 2005, p. 460). as capability infers ongoing adaption (cooper, spencer-dawe & mclean, 2005) it was utilised in curtin’s framework (brewer, 2011, p. 5) which operates with several assumptions including: • collaborative practice is critical to client safety and quality of service or care; • interprofessional education occurs on a continuum from early exposure to other professions through to collaborative practice in teams in the practice setting; • the learner will move through the levels at different rates according to their personal and professional experiences; • a student’s capacity to demonstrate interprofessional capabilities in different settings will be impacted by their comfort level, familiarity and skill set within that context. the framework consists of three core elements: client-centred service, client safety and quality, and collaborative practice; which are underpinned by five interprofessional practice capabilities: communication, team function, role clarification, conflict resolution and reflection (see table 1). the practice capabilities are interdependent and developmental on a three phase continuum: novice, intermediate and entry to practice. key terminology in the framework is viewed with a broad understanding to ensure a high level of inclusivity. significantly, the use of ‘client’ rather than ‘patient’ was the result of the interprofessional capability framework needing to speak to a broad range of health science professions where, in some instances, ‘patient’ was not appropriate. the term ‘client’ includes the family and the community and ‘safety’ includes the physical, psychological, environmental and cultural aspects of health care. thus the focus on client-centred care is strongly related to safety and quality and supports the provision of culturally responsive service delivery through emphasising client needs over the health professional’s interests and needs. the framework is provided in the form of a booklet to all students and teaching staff within the interprofessional first year units. the booklet provides key background information, brewer, m., flavell, h., davis, m., harris, c. & bathgate, k. (2014). ensuring health graduates’ employability in a changing world: developing interprofessional practice capabilities using a framework to inform curricula. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 5(1), 29–46. 32 definitions, the underlying assumptions, an overview of each element along with a set of descriptors and capabilities at each level. the capability framework provided staff with an opportunity to design learning experiences that emphasise observable abilities that can be assessed in terms of development milestones (frank, mungroo, ahmad, wang, de rossi & horsley, 2010). table 1: curtin university’s faculty of health sciences ipe curriculum model context of the study: foundations for professional health practice foundations for professional health practice is one of the five common units in curtin’s interprofessional first year curriculum which was informed by the interprofessional capability framework. the unit was designed by an interprofessional team from across the faculty of health sciences and aims to assist student health professionals to develop an understanding of professional practice requirements such as ethical decision making; academic standards; safety and quality of client-centred service; australian and international health care systems, and diversity in interprofessional practice. the unit was delivered via a weekly, three hour workshop in conjunction with online materials in a blended learning model. each workshop comprised 50 students from different schools across the faculty facilitated by two interprofessional tutors teaching collaboratively. typically, students from biomedical science, nursing, midwifery, occupational therapy, pharmacy, physiotherapy, psychology, public health, social work and speech pathology would participate in the workshops. the purpose of the interprofessional teaching team was interprofessional capability framework vision to provide high quality interprofessional education experiences that ensure curtin’s health science graduates have the collaborative practice capabilities to deliver safe, effective health services authenticity level learning experiences complexity high entry fieldwork placements case-based workshops high medium intermediate case-based workshops and simulation interprofessional focus in profession specific units medium low novice interprofessional first year low brewer, m., flavell, h., davis, m., harris, c. & bathgate, k. (2014). ensuring health graduates’ employability in a changing world: developing interprofessional practice capabilities using a framework to inform curricula. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 5(1), 29–46. 33 to model collaborative practice and provide students with an opportunity to learn ‘about, from and with’ teaching staff from professions other than their own. the foundations of professional health practice curriculum, like all common first year units, was constructively aligned with the interprofessional capability framework. each week one of the three core elements or five interprofessional practice capabilities provided the theme for the learning experiences for each workshop and reflected the novice level required of first year students. in fact, all of the workshop experiences were aimed to assist students to develop interprofessional practice skills at the novice level. the capability themes would be explored through interprofessional group work activities, watching videos, youtube clips, short podcast lectures, case studies, completing online activities, quizzes, and completion of workbook activities. additionally, assessment tasks including oral presentations, written assignments and reflection pieces required students to use content related to the interprofessional capability framework. consistent with the interprofessional capabilities, reflective practice was introduced within the unit with students required to reflect on their development of health professional practice capabilities as a major assessment task (worth 20 percent of the final mark). the students were required to write a 500 word reflection on their professional code of ethics, standards and obligations, and their perceptions of the value of working in interprofessional teams. students were also required to submit with their reflection, evidence of their development of the interprofessional education core capabilities of team function, role clarification, clientcentred service, communication and conflict resolution (see table 1). reflective practice reflective practice is frequently described as an essential attribute of competent health care professionals (mann, gordon & macleod, 2009). boyd and fales (1983) defined reflective practice as the process of internally examining and exploring an issue of concern, triggered by an experience, which reacts and clarifies meaning in terms of ‘self’ and which results in a changed conceptual perspective (p. 100). as with many forms of learning, reflective practice is cited as critical to effective interprofessional education and practice (barr, 2012; clark, 2009; morison, johnston & stevenson, 2010). the use of structured journals, selfassessment and reflective papers are considered to be effective methods to provide the necessary conditions for developing reflective skills (clark, 2009). the ability to engage in critical reflection will facilitate graduates to develop a shared understanding of the world and ways of working together based on creating shared dialogue within communities of practice that will enhance the experience of service users (karban & smith, 2006, p. 11). much like other areas of competence or capability, reflection is a developmental process as seen in moon’s (2013) five step process from noticing to transformative learning or findlay, dempsey & warren-forward’s (2010) seven levels from non-reflector to critical reflector. the decision to include a reflective journal within foundations for professional health practice was aimed at assisting students to develop their reflective practice skills consistent with what is expected of first year (novice) students. level 1 of reflection is outlined in the interprofessional capability framework as: ‘reflects on own contributions to teamwork experiences, and reflects on own learning and progress in developing interprofessional capabilities’. the reflective journal also ensured effective assessment of the unit’s learning outcome: ‘describe the key elements of ethical and professional standards and behaviours in health which impact on the safety and quality of client-centred service / care’. method participants the sample consisted of 105 of the 411 students enrolled in foundations of professional health practice within the faculty of health sciences at curtin university (response rate brewer, m., flavell, h., davis, m., harris, c. & bathgate, k. (2014). ensuring health graduates’ employability in a changing world: developing interprofessional practice capabilities using a framework to inform curricula. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 5(1), 29–46. 34 25.6 percent) in the second major teaching period (semester two) in 2011. students ranged in age from 17 to 51 years, with 63.8 percent of the sample aged 21 years or younger. students represented 14 different discipline/profession areas from all of the seven schools within the faculty, with the majority studying either a generic health sciences degree (24.8 percent) or nursing (39 percent). materials and procedure ethics approval to conduct the research was obtained from the university’s human research ethics committee and the conduct of the study was consistent with the national health and medical research (2007) statement on ethical conduct of human research as well as curtin university’s policy for surveying students. all students enrolled in the unit were invited to participate in the research via a participant information sheet posted on the learning management system site. students were assured that participation in the research was entirely voluntary and that their responses would be de-identified for analysis. students provided written consent to participate in the research through submission of a signed consent form to a secure depository at the student administration centre. at the end of the semester, the written reflections of consenting students were downloaded from students’ electronic portfolios by administrative staff, none of whom were involved in grading student work. no identifying information was attached to the reflections, which were imported into nvivo8© to manage and organise the data (bazeley, 2007). the data set was then analysed via nvivo8© to provide a holistic view of the content of the reflections as they related to the interprofessional capability framework. thematic analysis (ryan & bernard, 2003) was chosen to identify recurrent patterns of responses across student reflections and allow the investigators to explore the data using the interprofessional capability framework that underpinned teaching and learning in this unit. the initial analysis was conducted by one investigator soon after the reflections had been submitted. the investigators took a deductive ‘top-down’ approach to the thematic analysis, using the interprofessional capability framework as a scaffold for exploring patterns in the data (creswell, 2012). in addition, the investigators were responsive to concepts in the students’ reflections that related to, but were not covered by, the framework. an audit trail was maintained in the form of individual and group discussion notes throughout the analysis. the investigators began by conducting several readings of each transcript in order to familiarise themselves with the data and make notes of initial impressions. the coding process involved an initial stage of open coding where each transcript was scanned for key ideas, phrases or words and codes were then collapsed into broader categories. through a closer inspection of the categories and relationships between them, and with reference to the underlining theory, these categories were further developed and refined into overarching themes and associated subthemes (ryan & bernard, 2003). thematic maps were created to display relationships between themes and based on discussion between investigators, the interpretations of and relationships between these themes were continually modified as the data was synthesised. the number of items coded for each of the nodes in the nvivo8© analysis was also mapped in order to provide information about the most frequently occurring themes in the reflections (bryman, 2012). to enhance the credibility of the study, the investigators engaged in a process of peer debriefing whereby a third independent investigator selected a random 10 percent of the total codes (n=6) to confirm coding strategies and interpretations. each of the six codes was crosschecked for whether the data contained within was homogenous, whether the code name accurately represented the included data, and whether that code was appropriately situated in reference to all other codes (bryman, 2012). no disagreements were identified but the peer debriefing process was used to clarify names of sub-themes and inform brewer, m., flavell, h., davis, m., harris, c. & bathgate, k. (2014). ensuring health graduates’ employability in a changing world: developing interprofessional practice capabilities using a framework to inform curricula. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 5(1), 29–46. 35 descriptions for the write-up of the findings. respondent validation was not conducted as, based on the nature of the project, the reflections were de-identified prior to the research team receiving them. finally, three of the investigators read all of the reflections and extracted illustrative quotes corresponding to the core elements of the interprofessional capability framework. results the results indicate that aligning the interprofessional capability framework with the learning experiences has influenced students’ development (at a novice level) of the key elements of the framework. for example, ‘client-centred’ was the most frequently coded theme within the students’ reflective papers, followed by collaboration, team function, and quality care. this demonstrates the weighting given to the central aspects of the interprofessional capability framework (see table 1). the achievement (as evidenced below) of the key interprofessional capabilities outlined in the framework is significant, in that it indicates the attainment of important graduate capabilities, which typically are not well embedded into curricula. according to knight and yorke (2002) curricula tends to pay little attention to personal qualities and self-theories which are crucial to employability as they underpin the ability to persist in the face of conflict and failure, as well as the disposition to use initiative and get things done. results from this study indicate that students were demonstrating novice level ability in communication, team function and conflict resolution (understanding and skills). more importantly, however, these first year health science students also demonstrated evidence of capabilities related to role clarification (efficacy beliefs and self-theories) and reflection (metacognition) at novice level. knight and yorke (2002) clearly view the graduate capabilities linked to efficacy and metacognition as more complex capabilities and essential to employability. knight and yorke (2002) argue that including efficacy and metacognition development in curricula leads to more employable graduates who are less fixed in their attitudes, are malleable, and able to commit to life-long learning. this approach is consistent with interprofessional education—as conceptualised by the interprofessional capability framework at curtin—which sees the attainment of interprofessional capabilities as part of a continuum of development. evidence of year one student achievement of the interprofessional capabilities is provided below and aligned with the usem model (in parenthesis). client-centredness (understanding) client-centred service is the central principle of the interprofessional capability framework and it is expected that novice level collaborative workers will acknowledge the need to be client-centred in providing safe and high quality service/care (brewer, 2011, p. 6). hobbs’ (2009) review of the literature evidences that client-centredness is a multidimensional concept, and different dimensions of the concept were demonstrated in students’ reflections. at the most simple level, students’ understandings of the meaning of client-centredness referred to a focus on the client, as opposed to a focus on the service or service-provider. client-centred is giving them a high quality and safe health services. it is doing what is best for them and providing them with the best we can … … a patient centred practice for me means that the health care system should work for the patient, instead of the patient having to work out the health care system. some students’ reflections evidenced an understanding of the importance of respecting each client as an individual, with attention to their unique needs. i now realise how much we perceive health practice as a ‘cook book’ or a certain way of doing things which completely ignores differences and subtleties in clients. brewer, m., flavell, h., davis, m., harris, c. & bathgate, k. (2014). ensuring health graduates’ employability in a changing world: developing interprofessional practice capabilities using a framework to inform curricula. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 5(1), 29–46. 36 i … not only need to listen to them but also understand their meanings and what they want. some students recognised that part of working with each client as an individual required health workers to view clients holistically, for example: … not only consider the patient or client’s physical health, but their mental and emotional health. others recognised the importance of the client’s background and unique characteristics, including culture, for example: client-centred care is the care of a patient with strong consideration regarding their cultural traditions, personal experiences and morals and in the long run following a course of treatment that will be most beneficial to the patient. i need to understand what their cultural values are, to ensure they feel safe and comfortable. a final dimension of the concept of client-centredness referred to the client being an active participant in the decision making and service-process, as evidenced by comments such as: … making the client part of the healing process so that we can stop having the attitude that we know what is best for the client. … the client-centred service ideology has taught me how important it is for clients to not only have a team of professionals that are willing and able to talk to each other and discuss options but that the patient is also an integral part of the team. being a good professional doesn’t just mean dispensing your expert opinion and having it taken as an order … working with clients can be just as important as working with other professionals. as a health professional it is important to form a partnership with the client and help guide them and inform them of options so that they can make the best decision for themselves. our job as a health professional is to work in partnership with our client to provide a service or care that is purely client-centred … sometimes in reality what we think what is in best interest for the patient might go against what they think is best for them. although the student statements quoted above provide evidence of their understanding of client-centred care, they also imply an element of metacognition through demonstration of a self-awareness of their professional identity formation and its potential impact on their role in health service delivery. for example, several statements above imply a self-awareness of, or critical reflectiveness about, their traditional professional culture which places the health provider as ‘expert’ often at the expense of the client’s input into decision making. collaborative practice capabilities communication (skills) at the end of the undergraduate year, novice collaborative workers are expected to demonstrate developing skills in effective listening and oral and written communication skills, to respect others, and to make a contribution to team discussions (brewer, 2011). brewer, m., flavell, h., davis, m., harris, c. & bathgate, k. (2014). ensuring health graduates’ employability in a changing world: developing interprofessional practice capabilities using a framework to inform curricula. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 5(1), 29–46. 37 many students recognised the importance of good communication skills to their team work in the classroom and explicitly referred to the importance of appropriate communication for facilitating and demonstrating respect for others. i learnt that communicating effectively is necessary to establish trust, to show respect to others and set up productive relationships with people. there was also evidence from students’ reflections of their skill development and recognition of the importance of confidence when participating in group discussions. working cooperatively with other people who are from different health domains has given me the skills to work as a group, allowing me to build my own confidence in contributing to group discussions. … it has also made me realise that i am not confident enough. i need to speak louder when in a group and not just let others make the decisions. if i am going to have to work in a team in the future, i need to start participating more strongly now. the cultural diversity of the cohort provided rich authentic learning opportunities related to intercultural communication and this was highlighted as a particularly valuable learning experience as well as a key challenge for students. being put into teams also challenged my communication skills … being in a group with others who did not speak english as a first language challenged me to listen to myself speak and often reword my jumble so that it made sense to someone other than myself. … i would like to continuously improve my communication skills for dealing with a variety of people different to myself. the experience of teamwork in the classroom highlighted to students the importance of both verbal and non-verbal communication. in particular, one student commented on the importance of appreciating non-verbal aspects of communication. …there are many verbal and non-verbal cues that can dramatically affect the way you communicate with your co-workers and patients. this made me think about how much of communication is non-verbal, which a lot of is done subconsciously… some students’ reflections extended beyond their learning in the classroom to demonstrate their appreciation of the importance of effective communication skills in the workplace for effective teamwork and ultimately high quality client care/service. …addressing the issues in a professional manner allows for better communication between the other health professionals … and helps to avoid any misunderstandings and conflict that may arise if addressed in a non-professional manner. … the chain to a client’s recovery is not restricted to each health professional’s consultation but also the effective communication between each health professional, a lack of communication resulting in breaking the chain and adversely affecting the client. communication is vital in order for an interprofessional team to be successful. if there is a lack of communication skills in a team it will affect the client’s care … brewer, m., flavell, h., davis, m., harris, c. & bathgate, k. (2014). ensuring health graduates’ employability in a changing world: developing interprofessional practice capabilities using a framework to inform curricula. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 5(1), 29–46. 38 team function (understanding) brewer (2011) described novice-level capabilities in team functioning as being able to describe the process of group/team development, participating in the exchange of knowledge and shared decision-making, and demonstrating effective teamwork skills including respecting team ethics. as discussed earlier, students’ reflections highlighted the close relationship between communication skills and team function. many students reflected on the importance of good teamwork during their university experience, as well as an appreciation of their teamwork experiences as a microcosm of future teamwork in the workplace. many students referred to important elements of forming and working as a functional group, including respect, acknowledging differences of opinion and individual strengths and weaknesses, for example: …from the beginning we were open with each other about our own strengths and weaknesses and were willing to complement each other so as to establish functional roles for each of us. i found that while working in these teams, communication and respect are essential, as we all study different courses, have different ethics and knowledge, we learnt to work together and resolve issues as if we were health professionals in an interprofessional team. … by accepting or acknowledging everyone’s opinion you can avoid any form of conflict and misunderstanding within the group. the importance of all members’ contributions for effective teamwork was highlighted in the following student’s comment: in our team we needed everyone to put in 110 percent, as we will in our future careers. as a health professional, being in control of people’s lives and well-being it isn’t okay to put in half the effort. conflict resolution (understanding) positive and constructive conflict resolution is noted in the interprofessional capability framework as an important collaborative practice capability. novice-level collaborative workers are expected to be able to describe potential sources of conflict within interprofessional teams and identify suitable strategies to avoid or address conflict as well as to employ effective communication skills to promote positive interactions within the team (brewer, 2011). issues related to this element of the framework were mentioned the least frequently by the students. however, some students demonstrated knowledge of factors that can contribute to conflict within teams, for example: …conflict among teamwork can be easily avoided if each health professional is aware of the factors that could cause conflict, such as power, communication and goal differences …. many students referred to the importance of good communication and teamwork skills as important for avoiding and resolving conflict, for example: i have learnt from this experience that there is an existence of power struggles and different goals and it requires the acceptance that we all have different expertise and skills brewer, m., flavell, h., davis, m., harris, c. & bathgate, k. (2014). ensuring health graduates’ employability in a changing world: developing interprofessional practice capabilities using a framework to inform curricula. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 5(1), 29–46. 39 other students referred to the importance of retaining a focus on the client/servicerecipient(s) in order to facilitate resolution of issues. one student referred to a real-life application of a strategy learned during his/her coursework experience in terms of seeking assistance from a supervisor or manager if team members are not able to resolve a conflict between themselves. a real world example of when i would later use this skill is if perhaps i have an issue with a co-worker, if we try everything and still can’t resolve it between ourselves i would have to go to the supervisor/management above us. role clarification (efficacy beliefs and self-theories) according to the interprofessional capability framework, novice-level capabilities related to role clarification include demonstrating a developing knowledge of one’s own and other professions and effectively communicating their point of review (brewer, 2011). there is evidence that interprofessional education can provide a very helpful context for clarifying one’s own professional role in collaboration with others from different professions (pirrie, hamilton & wilson, 1999) and this was supported by students’ reflections, for example: when i was explaining why i chose to do nursing to other members, i thought it was a really worthwhile activity, because it helped clarify my thinking and learned more about myself in the process. there was significant evidence of students’ demonstrating capabilities in role functioning that exceeded novice-level expectations and approached the intermediate level capability of demonstrating and understanding the importance of role clarification for client care/service provision (brewer, 2011). this is exemplified by one students’ reflection on the analogy between the experience of a group assignment and a workplace team task: role clarification also showed important when preparing for our oral presentations because if that didn’t happen, some things may not have been done and others would have been done multiple times. this reflects the health workforce as all tasks need to be completed once and to the greatest ability possible. one student also related role clarification to ethical practice, which represented a sophisticated reflection for a novice-level student. the exercise also reinforced the importance of not performing tasks outside my scope of practice as this can be easily avoided and can be highly dangerous. reflection (metacognition) novice-level capability in reflection is characterised by reflecting on one’s own contribution to teamwork as well as on one’s own development of interprofessional competencies (brewer, 2011). many students’ reflections exemplified the attainment of this capability by demonstrating an awareness of the benefits of interprofessional education and their own strengths, weaknesses and areas for development. i used to assume that … being a good health professional meant … knowing what is best for the patient and help them. after what i have learnt, my assumption was incorrect. it made me question, how well do i work in a team environment? i found perhaps my strength was that i could easily help organise my group members, however a weakness was trying to find the line between talking change and also allowing everyone to have equal input brewer, m., flavell, h., davis, m., harris, c. & bathgate, k. (2014). ensuring health graduates’ employability in a changing world: developing interprofessional practice capabilities using a framework to inform curricula. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 5(1), 29–46. 40 collaborative practice and client-centredness for client-safety and quality many students’ reflections indicated that upon commencing their university course, they were focused on their chosen course/career and had not considered the broader context of the environment in which they would engage in professional practice. working in interprofessional teams during the unit had opened their eyes to the importance of collaborative practice for client-centred service/care: working with other professionals from different fields simply wasn’t something that had occurred to me. however i can see how integral it is in healthcare fields and how important it is for so many professional fields. several students showed a sophisticated level of reflection about their learning, related to collaborative practice capabilities, by explicitly acknowledging how the elements of the framework come together to enhance service provision/client care. it is easy to see how things can go wrong with this type of health care system and it is a much safer and more effective system if health professionals work together. in saying that, it is also important to include the patient in this team so they are empowered and play a role in the decision making. i think the most important thing i learnt in this unit was the need to develop inter-professional relationships. …because if the health professionals are not communicating then the patients may not be getting the best treatment for them as an individual and this all ties back to the idea of client-centred care. limitations although the study had a reasonable response rate of 25.6 percent and included students from all of the faculty’s seven schools, due to the timing of the study most of the students were predominately from two programs of study: the generic health sciences degree and nursing. consequently, the results show greater development of team function, collaboration, communication, and less on role clarification and conflict resolution. a lack of emphasis on role clarification is not surprising as students were in their first semester of study in their first year with many undertaking a general health science course and hence were not aligned with a specific health profession. class activities were directed toward building teams and developing communication skills to connect students to the course, university, other students and support student retention. this emphasis on connection and cohesion within the context of the first year experience combined with the difficulty many people have in recognising the value and normality of conflict likely explains why conflict resolution was the least mentioned capability. students who participated in the study self-selected, which had the potential to influence the findings; it may well be that students who were most engaged in their study felt more confident in submitting their reflective journal which raises questions about how effective the unit had been in achieving the desired outcomes for less engaged students. discussion across the 105 participants, there was certainly evidence of the attainment of novice level interprofessional capabilities. students’ reflections demonstrated varying levels of sophistication with some referring directly to their experiences in the classroom, some referring to the interprofessional capability framework more abstractly, and some showing evidence of how their classroom experiences will be relevant to their future workplace practice. given that they were first semester, first year students and thus their ability for reflective practice emergent and their experience and understanding of health practice brewer, m., flavell, h., davis, m., harris, c. & bathgate, k. (2014). ensuring health graduates’ employability in a changing world: developing interprofessional practice capabilities using a framework to inform curricula. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 5(1), 29–46. 41 limited, the evidence of novice level interprofessional capabilities suggests that alignment of the interprofessional first year curriculum with the interprofessional capability framework is delivering the desired outcomes: that is, students are beginning their journey to developing the interprofessional practice capabilities identified as crucial for future health workers. interprofessional socialisation exposes students to the roles and functions of other professions and assists with the development of their professional and interprofessional identity. despite the increasing acceptance of the value of this socialisation a review of curricula in canada (arndt, king, suter, mazonde, taylor & arthur, 2009) found little evidence of this being embedded with any consistency. in keeping with the canadian review recommendations, this foundational unit embeds significant interprofessional socialisation enabling students to begin building their interprofessional capabilities early in their training. in addition to role clarification, early interprofessional socialisation has been identified as a mechanism to improve communication, respect and trust, and reduce prejudice and negative attitudes (barr, koppel, reeves, hammick & freeth, 2005). the literature shows that early embedding of interprofessional education is, in itself, not sufficient. learning experiences must be aligned with good practice in interprofessional education curriculum design. the foundations of professional health practice unit captures all three elements of the accepted definition of interprofessional education: about, from and with, by utilising trained co-teachers from different professions, providing a range of activities including case-based discussions, joint projects and presentations (bainbridge & wood, 2013). a strong emphasis on adult learning theory in the unit’s implementation ensures that cooperative, collaborative, reflective and socially constructed learning takes place within each weekly workshop (barr, 2012). the foundations of professional health practice unit provides a basis on which other elements of curtin’s interprofessional education curriculum are built and students are able to draw on the interprofessional connections established in first year. students are provided with opportunities to apply their emerging understanding of client-centred service, safety and quality in health, and collaborative practice in a range of other experiences including interprofessional case-based workshops (brewer, tucker, irving & franklin, 2014) and interprofessional fieldwork placements (brewer & jones, 2014). reflection is an integral competency for professional practice (wald, borkan, scott taylor, anthony & reis, 2012) and particularly relevant to interprofessional education where students need to reflect to effectively learn ‘with, from and about each other’. according to zarezadeah, pearson & dickinson (2009) reflection on the role and importance of ‘others’ leads to better understanding and a more reinforced acquaintance, which, in turn, lessens prejudice and breaks stereotypes (p. 8). whilst foundations of professional health practice provides a starting point, more opportunities to develop reflective skills are recommended with greater guidance on reflective practice provided in an ongoing, scaffolded manner throughout the curriculum. it is thus recommended that efforts be made to fully vertically integrate authentic interprofessional learning experiences for all health science students to deliver curtin’s vision of health science graduates having the collaborative practice capabilities to deliver safe, effective health services. further research is also required to determine whether this interprofessional curriculum is achieving the desired collaborative practice capabilities (zarezadeah et al., 2009). conclusion curtin’s interprofessional capability framework can function effectively as a curriculum design tool through its alignment with the learning outcomes, experiences and assessments to assist students to develop an understanding of interprofessional collaboration. as described in brewer and jones (2013) the framework guided the constructive alignment of this foundational unit (biggs, 2003); the learning outcomes included key elements of the brewer, m., flavell, h., davis, m., harris, c. & bathgate, k. (2014). ensuring health graduates’ employability in a changing world: developing interprofessional practice capabilities using a framework to inform curricula. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 5(1), 29–46. 42 framework, the learning experiences were designed to meet these outcomes, and the assessment utilising a reflective paper was designed to measure the impact of the unit on the student’s development of novice interprofessional capabilities. beyond their application to the health professions these results indicate that the unit aligns well with yorke and knight’s (2002) usem model of employability with students evidencing all four elements of this model within their reflective journals. this early focus on the higher order graduate capabilities of efficacy and metacognition should provide students with a foundation on which to continue their journey to employability in its broadest sense; that is, beyond discipline knowledge. acknowledgements the authors would like to acknowledge the contribution of candice leeder and lorenz wolf for the nvivo© analysis, and emma penman for assistance in presenting the analysis. brewer, m., flavell, h., davis, m., harris, c. & bathgate, k. 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(2009). a model for using reflection to enhance interprofessional education. international journal of education, 1(1), 1–18. brewer, m., flavell, h., davis, m., harris, c. & bathgate, k. (2014). ensuring health graduates’ employability in a changing world: developing interprofessional practice capabilities using a framework to inform curricula. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 5(1), 29–46. 46 ensuring health graduates’ employability in a changing world: developing interprofessional practice capabilities using a framework to inform curricula abstract introduction interprofessional education brewer, m., lane, m., carter, a., barnard, s., & ibrahim, o. (2019). evaluation of a leadership development program to enhance university staff and student resilience. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 10(2), 136–151. 136 the journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability issn: 1838-3815 (online) journal homepage: https://ojs.deakin.edu.au/index.php/jtlge/ evaluation of a leadership development program to enhance university staff and student resilience margo brewer1, murray lane2, alice carter1, sue barnard3 and omar ibrahim4 corresponding author: margo brewer (m.brewer@curtin.edu.au) 1faculty of health sciences, curtin university 2division of research and innovation, queensland university of technology 3 equity and student counselling department, queensland university of technology 4 faculty of health, queensland university of technology abstract university life presents challenges that can negatively affect the health and wellbeing of students and staff. resilience is critical to managing challenges and thus is increasingly viewed as important for university students, graduates and employees. to date research on resilience has tended to adopt a view of resilience as an individual issue with little consideration of the socio-cultural factors that influence an individual’s resilience. to address this gap a leadership program to enhance both staff resilience and their capacity to lead resilience enhancements for students from an ecological perspective was developed. the program, piloted in three universities across australia, assisted staff in understanding the nature and importance of resilience, the contextual factors that impact on resilience and the leadership practices that help drive change in the higher education context. both academic staff and professional staff involved in leading co-curricula student experiences participated in the two-day leadership program. this study, part of a broader program evaluation, adopted a mixed methods approach to investigate university staffs’ levels of distress, resilience, and leadership practices. preand post-intervention survey data indicated the program was positively received and most participants felt confident to lead curricula and co-curricula changes to enhance resilience within their work context. implications for university educators, researchers and leaders are discussed. keywords resilience, mental health, faculty development, well-being, employability, success, retention introduction concern over university student distress has been on the rise in recent years in australia (stallman, 2011) and across the globe (larcombe et al., 2016). stressors reported by students include academic workload demands, difficulty balancing study with employment and financial pressures (ryan, shochet, & stallman, 2010). in their recent study on australian university students, stallman and hurst (2016) highlighted that while a degree of stress is associated with arousal and performance, excessive stress coupled with poor coping skills, contributes to psychological distress and mental health problems. this study found that 60% of over 2,500 students reported feeling distressed (stallman & hurst, 2016). similarly, larcombe and colleagues (2016) large scale study involving 4,258 australian university students found one in four reported severe psychological distress. symptoms https://ojs.deakin.edu.au/index.php/jtlge/ brewer, m., lane, m., carter, a., barnard, s., & ibrahim, o. (2019). evaluation of a leadership development program to enhance university staff and student resilience. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 10(2), 136–151. 137 of distress include fatigue, hopelessness, depression, loss of energy and worthlessness (sunderland, mahoney, & andrews, 2012). elevated student stress can be detrimental not only to student health but also learning outcomes (watson, deary, thompson, & li, 2008). for instance, the most common reasons for student attrition across australian universities in 2015 included physical and mental health issues and financial pressures (higher education standards panel, 2017). in response to this concern over university student distress and mental health problems, the development of strategies to enhance student resilience is gaining importance in higher education with resilience described as a vital capability for students to develop (dickinson & dickinson, 2015; holdsworth, turner, & scott-young, 2018). resilience has been defined as a dynamic process of positive adaptation in the face of adversity or challenge. this process involves the capacity to negotiate for and draw upon psychological, social, cultural and environmental resources (brewer et al., 2019, p. 10). the development of resilience has been shown to reduce psychological distress, assist with managing academic demands and enhance academic outcomes (ortega-maldonado, & salanova, 2018; pidgeon, rowe, stapleton, magyar, & lo, 2014). rahat and ilhan (2016) describe resilience as a significant predictor of successful coping for university students. further to this, research has demonstrated that a higher rate of resilience in university students is the best predictor of successful coping (mclafferty, mallet, & mccauley, 2012). therefore, resilience plays an important role in improving students’ university experience and preparing them for contemporary work environments where coping with ongoing change and stress is critical (humburg, van der velden, & verhagen, 2013; ovans, 2015). university staff play a pivotal role in the development of student capabilities (chalmers et al., 2014), and thus are ideally placed to help build students’ resilience (ortega-maldonado & salanova, 2018). however, barriers exist to staff successfully enhancing student resilience, including the pressures they face on a daily basis. hoffman (2017) cites administrative overload, large student cohorts, time constraints and unrealistic workload demands as key challenges for academics. bahia, freire, estrela, amaral, and santo (2017) discuss the negative impact of increased bureaucratisation of higher education on academics’ work and emotions. behari-leak (2017) highlights the constant state of flux in the university work environment as institutions strive to address demands for increased efficiency, accountability and quality. in the context of these organisational changes, as well as the demand to demonstrate high level administrative, managerial, scholarly and entrepreneurial skills (zabrodska et al., 2018), academic teaching is increasingly associated with distress and burnout (watts & robertson, 2011). these experiences can not only hinder the implementation of new pedagogical initiatives but also impact on the resilience of staff. the critical role of resilience for academic staff is highlighted by gu and day (2013) who claim to teach, and to teach at one's best over time, has always required resilience (p. 22). furthermore, staff need to role-model resilience (holdsworth et al., 2018). the pedagogical changes needed to enhance student resilience require staff to develop new classroom practices, to rethink curriculum design (ortega-maldonado & salanova, 2018; mula et al., 2017), and to develop their ability to influence the educational practice of others. in other words, there is a need for professional development that invites university staff to embed resilience into the existing educational system, to reflect on, rethink and reframe their priorities for, and approaches to, teaching, and to facilitate their leadership of change at the program/course, school or institutional level (martensson & roxa, 2016). leadership, from this perspective, is defined as the process of influencing others to understand and agree about what needs to be done and how it can be done effectively (willumsen, 2006, p. 404). developing staffs’ resilience and capabilities for enhancing student resilience and leading change is an imperative in higher education pedagogy. while there is evidence highlighting positive benefits of various resilience training interventions (brewer et al., 2019), to date these programs lack methodological quality (leppin et al., 2014). one example of good practice in the area of training resilience is the building resilience in teacher education model (mansfield, beltman, weatherbyfell, & broadley, 2016). this program aimed to assist pre-service teachers build their resilience by brewer, m., lane, m., carter, a., barnard, s., & ibrahim, o. (2019). evaluation of a leadership development program to enhance university staff and student resilience. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 10(2), 136–151. 138 providing a series of online learning modules informed by empirical research (mansfield et al., 2016). while this program supported and trained future school teachers, there is little evidence of programs targeting university students from other disciplines. further to this, the focus to date has been on viewing resilience as an individual issue with limited consideration of the broader context within which that individual learns or works (brewer et al., 2019). to address these gaps, this paper describes a multidisciplinary leadership development program that aimed to enhance the resilience of university staff and ultimately their students. informed by kirkpatrick and kirkpatrick’s (2006) evaluation model, the specific research questions addressed in this study focused on the first two levels of this model: (1) what aspects of the leadership development program did university staff find satisfactory and useful? (level 1, reaction), and (2) what impact did the program have on staffs’ perceptions of their own resilience, distress, leadership confidence and practice? (level 2, learning). evidence of program outcomes at kirkpatrick and kirkpatrick’s (2006) other two levels have also been measured (participants’ behaviour changes and the impact of the program on students’ resilience), resulting in a series of manuscripts. the study reported here, the first in the series, outlines the short-term quantitative and qualitative outcomes of the program for 58 staff participants across three australian universities. methodology intervention program an intensive leadership development program was developed by a multidisciplinary team of academic and professional staff from three australian universities; curtin university (curtin), university of south australia (unisa) and queensland university of technology (qut). the program was informed by quality practice in staff development (boud & brew, 2013; steinert, naismith, & mann, 2012). for example, the program was underpinned by a needs assessment (pre-intervention survey), considered the participants work context, fostered effective peer relationships, established communities of practice, provided opportunities to reflect on personal goals and learning, and included in-situ mentoring and feedback related to progress and overcoming challenges. vilkinas and cartan’s (2006) academic leadership model, the integrated competing values framework, was a core element of the program. the overarching learning outcomes for the staff program were to:  enhance participants’ understanding of resilience and leadership within the higher education context.  develop the capacity of participants, and ultimately their students, to manage the complexities of the 21st century workplace through enhancing resilience.  develop participants’ leadership capabilities to embed resilience enhancement strategies within the curriculum. the program was delivered as a face-to-face course over two consecutive days. the lead author (mb) led the development of the program and facilitated the first pilot. to ensure the future flexibility of the program’s delivery, the content was broken into several modules as outlined in table 1. modules one to four were delivered on the first day; the remainder carried over to the second day. for a detailed description of the program, along with the program resources, visit the project’s website www.enhancingresilience.com. following the workshops staff continued to receive support in implementing their action plan via peer coaching groups comprised of 4 to 6 members; each group with a mentor from the project team. brewer, m., lane, m., carter, a., barnard, s., & ibrahim, o. (2019). evaluation of a leadership development program to enhance university staff and student resilience. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 10(2), 136–151. 139 table 1: program modules and their aims module title aims 1. overview of program and participants  understand the program objectives and structure  understand the role of the facilitator(s) and participants 2. setting the scene  examine the contemporary higher education environment  understand the drivers for resilience enhancement in higher education 3. conceptualisation of resilience  reflect on own conceptualisation of, and experience with, resilience  understand historical views of resilience  define resilience 4. enhancing resilience  critique resilience intervention research  understand key approaches to resilience enhancement within an ecological framework  critique resources related to resilience enhancement 5. mindset  consider mindset as a factor in enhancing resilience 6. leadership  reflect on own conceptualisation of, and experience with, leadership  understand contemporary approaches to leadership  consider sustainable change supports including networking, peer coaching and mentoring  create an action plan to lead change eight project team members attended the first pilot in keeping with the train-the-trainer approach adopted. a total of 58 staff (48 females, 10 males) participated in the three pilots between august and november 2017; 24 at curtin, 19 at unisa, and 15 at qut. six staff (10%) only participated in the first day of the program. procedure an invitation to attend the program was disseminated via the respective university email channels, accompanied by an information sheet providing the details of the study. adopting a holistic view of students’ university experience, participation was open to both academic and professional staff who had influence over either curricula or co-curricula elements of university life. participants who registered a desire to participate in the program were invited to complete preand postintervention surveys online. participants completed the online surveys within two weeks of starting and then finishing the program. in addition, immediately after the conclusion of day two of the program, participants were invited to complete a paper-based program evaluation. submission of surveys was taken as consent. data collection a three-phase data collection process was undertaken as per figure 1. as outlined earlier, only the first two phases are reported in this study. brewer, m., lane, m., carter, a., barnard, s., & ibrahim, o. (2019). evaluation of a leadership development program to enhance university staff and student resilience. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 10(2), 136–151. 140 figure 1: data collection process rau = resilience at university; icvf = integrated competing values framework resilience and distress levels of program participants were gathered using the pre-and postintervention online surveys. the online survey comprised demographic questions, including a question on whether participants had experienced a period of adversity in the previous six months and their perceived impact of this. the survey also incorporated the validated resilience at university (rau) scale (turner, holdsworth, & scott-young, 2017) and the kessler psychological distress (k-10) scale (kessler et al., 2002). a leadership questionnaire, based on the six roles of the integrated competing values framework (vilkinas & cartan, 2006), was developed by the project team as part of the needs assessment. participants created a personal code to ensure their data was anonymous, while allowing for pre and post surveys to be matched. the 19-statement rau scale (turner et al., 2017), designed for use with higher education students, is comprised of seven factors: finding your calling (fyc), interacting cooperatively (ic), living authentically (la), managing stress (ms), building networks (bn), maintaining perspective (mp), and staying healthy (sh). to adapt the scale for use with university staff two minor word changes were made. for the item i often ask for feedback so that i can improve my university performance, the word ‘university’ was changed to ‘work’. for the item i have a strong and reliable network of supportive students at university, the word ‘students’ was changed to ‘colleagues’. the rau uses a six-point likert scale from 0 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree). the k-10 (kessler et al., 2002) is a widely used measure to screen for psychological distress. it consists of ten questions about the level of anxiety and depressive symptoms experienced by the respondent in the previous four weeks. the tool uses a five-point likert scale from 1 (none of the time) to 5 (all of the time) to measure the frequency of symptoms. the leadership questionnaire included 18 questions related to key leadership dimensions of the integrated competing values framework (vilkinas & cartan, 2006). these dimensions were: leading others (e.g. developing staff capability), leading innovation and change (e.g. influencing and inspiring others), leading strategically (e.g. thinking strategically and having vision), managing operations (e.g. managing complex projects), and managing self (e.g. understanding self and others). participants were asked to rate their confidence from low to high on a three-point likert scale and the amount of time they spend on each of the leadership dimensions on a six-point likert scale (1 represented not relevant to my current role and 6 represented i spend most of my time doing this). a three-part paper-based survey, informed by kirkpatrick’s level i reaction survey tool (kirkpatrick partners, 2009), was provided to participants as part of the program’s quality improvement process. part one of the survey focused on the learning environment, course materials, relevance, delivery, and overall course satisfaction and impression. participants were asked to rate their experience on a four-point likert scale (1 represented strongly disagree and 4 represented strongly agree). part two brewer, m., lane, m., carter, a., barnard, s., & ibrahim, o. (2019). evaluation of a leadership development program to enhance university staff and student resilience. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 10(2), 136–151. 141 of the survey focused on the participants’ energy for change, specifically their confidence and commitment to applying their learning in the workplace. a ten-point likert scale (1 represented not confident/committed at all and 10 represented extremely confident/committed) was utilised. qualitative comments were invited throughout part one and two of the survey. part three comprised open-ended questions that invited participants to reflect on the anticipated barriers to implementing their learning, potential strategies to overcome these barriers, outcomes they hoped to achieve from the program and the potential impact of the program on their organisation. ethics statement this study was approved by the human research ethics committee of each of the three participating universities (approval number hre2017-0439). data analysis data analysis was conducted using spss v21 to obtain demographic descriptive statistics and independent sample t-tests and mean comparisons for preand post-intervention scores. qualitative comments from the surveys were analysed via nvivo software version 12. results demographics of the 58 program attendees, 38 staff completed the online pre-intervention survey and 17 completed the online post-intervention survey. females comprised over 83% of the respondents (table 2). given the majority of participants were from a health-related course including physiotherapy, occupational therapy, speech pathology, psychology and nursing the high percentage of females was not surprising. for example, the profile of staff at curtin’s faculty of health sciences from 2013 to 2017 indicated 75% were female. the term ‘exercise science’ was used to capture staff from exercise science, exercise physiology, human movement and exercise, and sports and rehabilitation science. courses categorised as ‘other’ included staff involved in learning design, creative industries, and internships. a number of staff (e.g. 28% pre-intervention) did not to specify the course they were involved with, many of whom were professional staff who worked across multiple courses. nearly half (44%) of the pre-intervention respondents, and just over threequarters (76%) of the post-intervention respondents, indicated they were currently involved in an academic leadership and/or management role (e.g. unit or course coordinator, professional staff manager role). the vast majority of preand post-intervention respondents had over two years of academic experience, with approximately two thirds having more than five years’ experience. half of the respondents (49%) had previously participated in a leadership program. forty-one out of the 58 program participants (71% response rate) completed the paper-based evaluation survey at the conclusion of the program. table 2: survey respondent demographics pre-intervention survey post-intervention survey gender female 34 (87%) 14 (83%) male 5 (13%) 3 (17%) profession brewer, m., lane, m., carter, a., barnard, s., & ibrahim, o. (2019). evaluation of a leadership development program to enhance university staff and student resilience. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 10(2), 136–151. 142 health 18 (46%) 11 (64%) exercise science 4 (10%) education 2 (5%) business 1 (3%) 2 (12%) other 3 (8%) 1 (6%) not specified 11 (28%) 3 (18%) academic experience 0-2 years 5 (13%) 1 (6%) 2-5 years 8 (21%) 5 (29%) 5-10 years 11 (28%) 5 (29%) 10 years > 15 (38%) 6 (35%) staff resilience and distress of the pre-intervention response group, 19 (51%) reported experiencing a period of adversity or distress in the six months preceding the program. the perceived impact of this adversity varied, with 20% rating the impact as mild, 65% moderate and 15% severe. for the post-intervention respondents, not only the rate of experience of adversity was lower (41%), but also the perceived impact, with 59% rating the impact as mild, 29% moderate and 12% severe. the details of this adversity were not requested. self-reported levels of distress and resilience preand postintervention are outlined in table 3. staff members’ distress level pre-intervention scored an average of 18.5 (sd = 7.21) on the k-10 scale, while the post-intervention cohort scored an average of 16.05 (sd = 5.11). it is worth noting that a normal score on the k-10 ranges from 15 to 20 (kessler et al., 2002). average scores on each of the seven resilience factors of the rua scale for both pre and post staff cohorts are also reported in table 3. turner et al. (2017) state that the higher the resilience score the greater the resilience. table 3: participants’ levels of distress and resilience preand post-intervention pre (n=38) post (n=17) scale/subscale range min. max. mean sd range min. max. mean sd k-10 30 10 40 18.58 7.21 18 10 28 16.06 5.12 rau finding your calling 20 4 24 18.68 4.60 10 14 24 19.89 2.42 rau interacting cooperatively 5 7 12 9.92 1.26 6 6 12 9.47 1.81 rau living authentically 10 8 18 14.16 2.39 8 10 18 14.89 2.00 rau managing stress 18 0 18 11.55 4.29 10 8 18 13.65 2.60 brewer, m., lane, m., carter, a., barnard, s., & ibrahim, o. (2019). evaluation of a leadership development program to enhance university staff and student resilience. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 10(2), 136–151. 143 rau building networks 10 2 12 8.37 2.39 9 3 12 9.06 2.54 rau maintaining perspective 17 1 18 9.26 4.66 14 1 15 10.65 3.55 rau staying healthy 10 0 12 8.92 2.70 8 0 12 8.82 2.27 rau = resilience at university interestingly, the highest levels of resilience were found for interacting cooperatively, finding your calling, living authentically, and staying healthy with scores at or above 75% of the maximum possible score. the lowest level of resilience was found for maintaining perspective which was at 50% of the maximum possible score. the overall results show an increase in resilience and decrease in distress scores following the intervention. however, due to the small sample size, the mean differences are not statistically significant, as reported in table 4. table 4: participants’ level of distress and resilience preand postintervention* *independent sample t-tests (equal variances not assumed). staff leadership practices respondents’ leadership practices, as aligned with the integrated competing values framework (vilkinas & cartan, 2006), were measured via questions targeting confidence with, and time spent, on key leadership practices. while t-test results indicated average scores for perceived confidence and time showed an increase in the post-intervention cohort (table 5), the mean differences are not significant (table 6). table 5: time spent and confidence of participants’ leadership capabilities preand post intervention icvf dimensions pre post range min. max. mean sd range min. max. mean sd time* 48 44 92 67.58 12.04 36 55 91 71.06 11.91 confidence** 34 19 53 34.53 8.89 25 24 49 37.65 7.91 icvf = integrated competing values framework *confidence measured on a scale from 1 to 3; **time spent measured on a scale from 1 to 6 scale/subscale mean difference std. error difference t df sig. (2-tailed) k-10 2.52 1.71 1.48 42.55 .15 rau finding your calling -1.20 .95 -1.27 51.39 .21 rau interacting cooperatively .45 .48 .93 23.25 .36 rau living authentically -.72 .62 -1.17 36.45 .25 rau managing stress .51 .74 .69 28.61 .50 rau building networks -.69 .73 -.95 29.20 .35 rau maintaining perspective -1.38 1.14 -1.20 39.84 .24 rau staying healthy .10 .70 .14 36.23 .89 brewer, m., lane, m., carter, a., barnard, s., & ibrahim, o. (2019). evaluation of a leadership development program to enhance university staff and student resilience. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 10(2), 136–151. 144 table 6: comparison of time spent and confidence of participants’ leadership capabilities pre and post-intervention mean difference std. error difference t df sig. (2-tailed) icvf time -3.48 3.49 -.100 31.16 .33 icvf confidence -3.12 2.40 -1.30 34.46 .20 icvf = integrated competing values framework note: t-tests (equal variances not assumed) while time spent on the different leadership practices varied, pre-intervention the leadership domains where respondents spent moderate time (small amount to quite a bit) were: leading strategically, leading innovation and change, and managing operations. the most time was spent on managing self (quite a bit to a lot) and the least time on leading others (small amount). in relation to confidence in these leadership domains, pre-intervention almost half the participants (42%) rated their confidence with leading others as low. confidence with the leadership domains was generally moderate (50% to 60%) except for dealing with conflict, building and managing high performance teams, developing staff capacity, setting goals and objectives, and managing university resources and complex projects which received more low confidence ratings. post-intervention more participants rated their confidence across all five domains as moderate with few low confidence ratings. interestingly post-intervention 41% rated their confidence as high on building working relationships, effective communication, and modelling the organisation’s values (all items under the domain of managing self). no other leadership practices received high ratings by more than 29% of participants post-intervention. reaction to the program forty-two of the 58 program participants (72%) completed the paper-based evaluation survey at the conclusion of the second day which measured their reaction to the program (kirkpatrick & kirkpatrick, 2006). ratings were positive across all elements measured as demonstrated in table 7 below. qualitative comments were invited from participants with regard to the learning environment, course materials, relevance, delivery, and overall course impression and satisfaction. further to this, participants commented on their energy for leading change, potential obstacles to this change and the outcome they wished to achieve. an overview of each aspect of the program, including supporting quotes, is outlined below. table 7: summary of staff post-program paper-based evaluation responses (n=42). overall course satisfaction learning environment course materials course relevance course delivery course impression overall confidence & commitment mean 3.70 3.73 3.66 3.44 3.66 3.67 8 median 3.74 4 3.8 3 3.75 3.67 8 mode 4 4 4 4 4 4 8 note: reaction to program, confidence and commitment to change measured immediately after program (reaction measured on a 1 to 4 scale, confidence & commitment measured on 1 to 10 scale). 1. learning environment overall, feedback regarding the learning environment was positive. for example, one participant commented: brewer, m., lane, m., carter, a., barnard, s., & ibrahim, o. (2019). evaluation of a leadership development program to enhance university staff and student resilience. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 10(2), 136–151. 145 i found the environment very safe and inclusive and friendly. 2. course materials and relevance many participants commented on the relevance of the course and course materials to their work and the usefulness of the resources, as demonstrated by the words of one participant: extensive resources; highly informative and appropriate for real-life application. 3. course delivery the most cited theme regarding the delivery of the program centred on the knowledge and skills of the facilitators, followed by the practical application of the program content. participants commented: x was a great facilitator working at a manageable pace, catering for all interests, abilities and areas. this course possibly provides only the surface of what can be gained with resilience (still so much to learn and be able to do). but, it is delivered in such an interactive way you take away (tools) you can apply immediately. 4. overall course impression and satisfaction the most frequent comments regarding participants’ overall impression and satisfaction with the program were that it exceeded expectations. for example: this course delivered more than i expected and was exactly what i needed right now. outstanding program. i especially liked that the resilience training was coupled with leadership development.” 5. energy for change: confidence and commitment participants were asked to rate their confidence and commitment to apply what they had learned in the program to their work. six participants (14%) rated their confidence at a six or below on the 10point likert scale, with 36 rating their confidence greater than six (86%). those who rated their confidence or commitment at a six or below were asked to select the reasons for their choice with multiple responses possible. the two most common reasons for a reduced rating were not having the necessary resources and/or human support to apply their learning (n = 4). three participants indicated they did not have a clear picture of what was expected of them. two participants indicated they had other higher priorities, while another indicated they did not have the necessary knowledge and skills. in relation to commitment, 40 participants (95%) rated their commitment greater than six. 6. obstacles to applying learning and potential solutions the most common barriers to implementing learning related to time-pressures including workload and competing priorities. other barriers included concern over resistance to change from colleagues. the three most common solutions to these obstacles were: (1) utilise the support from others, particularly their peer-coaching group members; (2) focus on the reason for the change to gain buy-in from colleagues and senior staff; and (3) communicate widely and often. for example: addressing the many why’s that underpin the need for student resilience. 7. desired outcomes and potential impact not only did participants focus on enhancing student or graduate resilience, there was also a strong focus on enhancing their own resilience and the resilience of their colleagues. for example, when asked about their plans for the future, one participant remarked: brewer, m., lane, m., carter, a., barnard, s., & ibrahim, o. (2019). evaluation of a leadership development program to enhance university staff and student resilience. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 10(2), 136–151. 146 increase my own resilience practices to increase my confidence and engage in new challenges. several comments linked enhanced resilience to specific outcomes, including fostering greater student independence, increasing student satisfaction, well-being, and university attendance. one participant commented: students have better resilience, so reduced drop-out from placement and less reliance on staff. the most widely cited potential impact of the course related to student retention. the following participant quotes demonstrate the potential impacts of the program from across the three universities: students are more likely to stay in the course. staff are more mindful of providing a supportive culture. increased satisfaction of students, who will then recommend [the university] to others as a place of excellence. resilient ot [occupational therapist]’s that build capacity within the profession and deliver high-quality healthcare. discussion the higher education environment can be stressful for both students and staff. although there has been increased attention on university students’ mental health (stallman, 2011) and resilience (holdsworth et al., 2018) in recent years, the focus to date has been on teaching students to be resilient. this approach implies that resilience is an individual issue without consideration of the socio-cultural factors that impact on an individual’s resilience (brewer et al., 2019). furthermore, this individualistic focus on students ignores the important part staff play as role models of resilience (howe, smajdor, & stockl, 2012). this study addressed this gap by focusing not only on the resilience of students but also the staff who support them and the context in which they learn. the aim of this study therefore was to assess the quality and impact of a development program designed to enhance staff’s capabilities for leading resilience enhancement within their work context. the program, piloted in three universities across australia, assisted staff in understanding the nature and importance of resilience and the leadership practices that help drive change in the higher education context. a critical element of our program was establishing whether the staff had the resilience to function as effective role models for students and colleagues. given growing concern over excessive stress experienced by university staff (robotham & julian, 2006), it was perhaps not surprising that half of the study participants reported experiencing a recent period of adversity and that most of these participants felt this had a moderate impact on them. despite this adversity, prior to the program, the participants’ average level of distress was within the normal range, but towards the upper limit of the k-10 scale (kessler et al., 2002). while participants’ level of distress was reduced after the program, the small sample size in the follow up survey (only 30% of the program participants) did not allow conclusions on this to be drawn. previous research indicates psychological distress among faculty staff has become widespread (kinman & wray, 2013; shin & jung, 2014) and elevated levels of stress and burnout have impacted on academics’ performance, productivity, absenteeism and turnover (khan, rasli, yusoff, & ahmad, 2015). similarly, watts and robertson’s (2011) systematic review of burnout in university teaching staff found clear evidence of burnout, particularly for women, younger staff members and those teaching large volumes of students. while no direct correlations were drawn in the study based on gender, it is worth noting that 83% of respondents were female. in addition, the majority of staff were from health-related courses, a field with a high representation of females and major concerns about staff and student wellbeing (brand et al., 2017). brewer, m., lane, m., carter, a., barnard, s., & ibrahim, o. (2019). evaluation of a leadership development program to enhance university staff and student resilience. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 10(2), 136–151. 147 in relation to the program participants’ resilience, this appears to be the first study to use a resilience scale developed specifically for the higher education context (turner et al., 2017). participants’ resilience prior to the program was high for sense of purpose (finding your calling), living authentically, cooperation and staying healthy. their reduced score for managing stress, building networks and maintaining perspectives was noted as a concern by the research team. following the program, all seven resilience subscales had mean scores above 71% of the maximum possible score. firm conclusions cannot be drawn from this finding, however, as the resilience tool (turner et al., 2017) has only been used with students and the establishment of its psychometric properties is still in the development phase. furthermore, as for the distress scale, the post-program sample size was small. it is worth noting that to date, research on the health and wellbeing of higher education staff has tended to adopt a deficit model, focusing only on levels of distress, burnout, depression and other mental health conditions. research that adopts a strengths-based approach by focusing on staff resilience has yet to be explored thus comparisons with other studies is difficult. one recent qualitative study by darabi, macaskill, and reidy (2017), of 31 academic staff in a teaching-intensive university in the uk, did find staff utilised both positive and negative coping strategies to deal with increased work stress. the most common positive coping strategy was establishing good working relationships with colleagues, a strategy that was low for the pre-program participants (building networks) but a key focus of the intervention and improved post-program. interestingly, the potential for relationships with work colleagues to have a significant impact on staff resilience was evident in ovans’ (2015) study of over 800 employees in the uk where 75% of respondents reported that managing difficult people and office politics were the biggest drains on their resilience. while the link between resilience and both social support such as relationships with colleagues (luthar, 2015) and self-care (winkel, honart, robinson, jones, & squires, 2018) has been reported, further research on university staff resilience is needed. exploration of the participants’ leadership practices, using an adaptation of the integrated competing values framework (vilkinas & cartan, 2006), indicated participants felt they spent more time and were more confident with leading innovation and change, leading strategically and managing self. the majority of staff estimated they spent the least amount of time and had the lowest level of confidence with leading others. this differs from vilkinas and ladyshewsky’ s (2012) study of 90 academic program directors from four australian universities, that found local people issues (leading others) was the key area of focus of these leaders, followed by ‘getting the job done’ (managing operations). interestingly, exerting influence, developing networks outside of their local area and leading innovation and change were deemed to be of less importance and thus received less time and attention by these program directors (vilkinas & ladyshewsky, 2012). this research finding differs from vilkinas and ladyshesky’s (2012) study, at least prior to the program, with participants study lacking both confidence and focus on leading others. it should be noted though that comparison is difficult due to differences in positions; only 44% of the pre-program respondents were in an academic leadership and/or management role. participants’ postintervention ratings of increased time and confidence in relation to leadership, while not statistically significant due sample size, was pleasing. in particular, the increase in high confidence ratings for three of the five managing self items was worthy of note given previous research has indicated that this leadership domain is a predictor of leadership effectiveness (vilkinas & ladyshewsky, 2012). managing self was also a key element of the resilience program. another finding worthy of note was that only 44% of participants described themselves as having a leadership or management role prior to the program. it appears this may have been due to a reluctance to identify themselves as a leader as, when asked to identify their role, 21% were unit coordinators, 27% course coordinators and, of the 39% who categorised themselves as ‘other’, half had roles including clinical coordinator, program director, head of department or had a combination of these roles. the percentage who identified themselves as a leader increased post-program from 44% to 76%. it was unclear if this was due to them having broader view of the term leadership, more confidence in labelling themselves as a leader, or if the staff who remained in the program and opted to participate in the post-survey had a leadership role. brewer, m., lane, m., carter, a., barnard, s., & ibrahim, o. (2019). evaluation of a leadership development program to enhance university staff and student resilience. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 10(2), 136–151. 148 participants were overwhelmingly positive about the quality and delivery of the program. they reported high levels of confidence and commitment to applying their learning on resilience and leadership in their work context. these findings align with other similar programs. for example, steinert and colleagues’ (2016) systematic review of 111 faculty development programs found high levels of satisfaction (reaction and enjoyment), increased levels of confidence, enthusiasm, knowledge and skills, as well as self-reported and observed changes in teaching practices. similarly, hauser, weisweiler, and frey’s (2018) meta-analysis of academic development programs found overall means of 4.20 and 4.46 (on a 5-point scale) for reaction and satisfaction. encouraged to reflect on, rethink and reframe their own priorities and approach to teaching (academic staff) or their work (professional staff), and to facilitate change within their sphere of influence (covey, 1989), participants identified the three major barriers to leading change as timepressure, lack of resources, and colleagues’ resistance to or lack of buy-in with the proposed change. these barriers are reported widely elsewhere (e.g. gregory & lodge, 2015; lewis, 2019; serdyukov, 2017). participants proposed solutions to these barriers included: utilising the support of others, focusing on the reason for the change, and communicating widely and often. these aspects were all key elements of the leadership program and align with previous research that has demonstrated the critical role of institutional support and local leadership in managing staffs’ workloads (jaaskela, hakkinen, & rasku-puttonene, 2017). all three strategies also align with change leadership experts including harvard university professor john kotter (2012) and his eight accelerators for leading change. the present study does have limitations. only self-reported data was collected and analysed. while concerns have been raised about the validity of such data, these concerns have been challenged by chan (2009) who argues that respondents’ perceptions (e.g. of their own confidence, sense of commitment) are unlikely to be evident to others (peers, supervisors), and thus cannot be accurately measured by others. this research utilised both quantitative and qualitative data and forms part of a larger study which includes interviews and document audits with participants and students, all designed to increase the reliability and breadth of the program evaluation. participant numbers were limited to those who attended the program, hence the sample size was relatively small, particularly following the intervention. furthermore, the participants were predominantly from health faculties. while several other disciplines were represented, and three universities in different states of australia involved, further research is needed to explore the extent to which the program is applicable to other fields and countries. another aspect worthy of further research is exploration of the enablers and obstacles staff encountered in translating the knowledge and skills gained during the program to leading curricula and co-curricula change. in addition, research is needed into the impact of these changes on student resilience and other areas of university life related to resilience such as the achievement of learning outcomes, retention, and health and wellbeing. to conclude, university staff play a critical role in helping to build the resilience of their students. the program informed staff of strategies to enhance their own resilience so that they could effectively model resilience and actively assist students in the development of their resilience. a curriculum framework to support staff embedding resilience engagement within their curriculum is in the final stages of development and will be added to the program website referred to earlier. the program’s replicability and reach beyond the initial pilots reported here was ensured through the dissemination of workshop resources on a dedicated website. universities are encouraged to adopt a similar approach to student wellbeing that focuses not only on addressing mental health problems but also on enhancing resilience. further to this, institutions and individual academic and professional staff need to view resilience as both an issue of the socio-cultural context as well as the individual. brewer, m., lane, m., carter, a., barnard, s., & ibrahim, o. (2019). evaluation of a leadership development program to enhance university staff and student resilience. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 10(2), 136–151. 149 acknowledgements the authors acknowledge the australian technology network for funding the research and the staff who participated in the study. furthermore, we wish to thank the other members of the project team for their contribution: michelle donaldson, gisela van kessel, brooke sanderson, sonia ferns, alan reubenson, sharon maresse, bernadine cooper and fiona naumann. declaration of interest the research reported in this paper was supported by a grant from the australian technology network. references bahia, s., freire, i., estrela, m., amaral, a., & santo, j. (2017). the bologna process and the search for excellence: between rhetoric and reality: the emotional reactions of teachers. teaching in higher education, 22(4), 467-482. doi:10.1080/13562517.2017.1303471 behari-leak, k. 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(2018). burnout among university faculty: the central role of work–family conflict. educational psychology, 38(6), 800819. doi:10.1080/01443410.2017.1340590 https://hbr.org/2015/01/what-resilience-means-and-why-it-matters https://doi.org/10.5172/jamh.9.1.73 https://doi.org/10.1080/07294360.2010.509763 https://doi.org/10.1080/0142159x.2016.1181851 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.brat.2012.03.005 stepping out of the shadows: allied health student and academic perceptions of the impact of a service-learning experience on student's work-readiness and employability. debra jones1, lindy mcallister2 & david lyle1 debra.jones1@health.nsw.gov.au; lindy.mcallister@sydney.edu.au; david.lyle@health.nsw.gov.au 1broken hill university department of rural health, university of sydney; 2university of sydney abstract universities, health services and health students have a vested interest in the development of work-ready graduates to improve employment prospects, standards of practice and healthcare outcomes. work integrated learning supports the transition of theoretical knowledge into professional practice, thus preparing students for their work following graduation. the positive impact of practice experiences on work-readiness and employability is largely assumed. this paper describes the impact of participation in a rural australian service-learning program on student and academic perceptions of work-readiness and future employability. qualitative data was gathered from allied health students who participated in inter-professional focus groups and allied health academics who participated in individual interviews. the findings indicate that students were challenged in transitioning from being observational or highly directed learners, described as [being in the] 'shadows' or 'shadowing', to semi-autonomous healthcare providers. participants reported enhanced perceptions of future employability through 'real work' experiences and identified broader program implications for universities and students. based on participant experiences, service-learning, a relatively new educational pedagogy in rural health education in australia, may provide universities, health services, and students with an alternative to acute hospital placements in the development of work-ready attributes for new graduate allied health practitioners. key words: work integrated learning, work-readiness, inter professional learning, service learning introduction work integrated learning (wil) experiences in rural and remote (referred to as rural throughout this paper) locations are a significant health workforce development strategy (hwa, 2013b). students who are exposed to positive wil experiences are more likely to consider rural practice post-graduation (hwa, 2013b, deaville & grant, 2011). these experiences include clinical, fieldwork and service-learning placements that support student acquisition of work-readiness attributes aligned to health industry expectations, including autonomous and inter-professional practice (ipp) (smith, ferns, & russell, 2014; nisbet, lee, kumar, thistlethwaite, & dunston, 2011). barriers exist nationally and in particular in rural locations, in the provision of wil experiences. such barriers include curriculum and jones, d., mcallister, l., & lyle, d. (2015). stepping out of the shadows: allied health student and academic perceptions of the impact of a service –learning experience on student’s work readiness and employability, journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability 6(1), 66–87. 66 mailto:debra.jones1@health.nsw.gov.au mailto:lindy.mcallister@sydney.edu.au mailto:david.lyle@health.nsw.gov.au educational responsiveness to rapidly changing health care environments, staffing reductions within health care settings (rodger, webb, devitt, gilbert, wrightson, & mcmeeken, 2008), existing rural workforce shortages (hwa, 2013b), high work demands for health professionals and limited placement capacity (spiers & harris, 2015; hwa, 2013b). occurring in tandem with these barriers is the increased demand for placement growth to respond to increased student numbers needed to address national health workforce shortages (hwa, 2013a). these factors have contributed to the emergence of servicelearning models that extend placements into community-based settings (mcallister, paterson, higgs, & bithell, 2010) and which can serve dual purposes: expansion of placement capacity and enhanced accessibility to health care through the alignment of student learning to service provision for populations with high unmet health needs (eyler & giles, 1999). despite the growth of wil opportunities, and specifically service-learning in rural australia, there is limited evidence of the impact of participation in these models on student learning outcomes, academic institutions and community agencies (smith et al., 2014; steinberg, bringle, & williams, 2010). the purpose of this qualitative study was to explore the impact of participation in a rural community-based inter-professional service-learning (cbisl) program for students, academics and community agencies. the program aligned the learning requirements of final year occupational therapy (ot) and speech pathology (sp) students to the provision of services to address the unmet developmental needs of school children residing in far west new south wales (nsw), australia. context rural health workforce development and work integrated learning rural communities face complex challenges in the recruitment and retention of health professionals (hwa, 2013b). health workforce shortages impact on the type and intensity of services available (doha, 2010) and allied health professionals are particularly underrepresented in rural locations (ahpa, 2013; spiers & harris, 2014). the provision of rural experiences for students is a significant strategy in addressing these health workforce shortages (hwa, 2013b). evidence suggests that where students are exposed to positive experiences they are more likely to consider rural practice in the future (deaville & grant, 2011). wil includes clinical, fieldwork and service-learning placements that support students in the acquisition of work-readiness attributes for graduate practice, including autonomous and ipp (smith et al., 2014; nisbet et al., 2011). generic attributes include clinical reasoning, adaptability, time management, planning and organisation, self-confidence, independent working and ipp (jackson, 2010; smith et al., 2014). ipp attributes are acquired when students work collaboratively in professional teams to accomplish shared goals that improve healthcare outcomes (freeth, hammick, reeves, koppel, & barr, 2005). the acquisition of generic and inter professional skills and student capacity to demonstrate these to potential employers is increasingly being linked to enhanced employment outcomes for australian graduates (smith et al., 2014). despite the benefits of wil, as mentioned above, barriers exist nationally and rurally in the provision of quality wil experiences (hwa, 2013a). rodger and colleagues (2008) broadly describe these barriers as a lack of curriculum and education responsiveness to rapidly changing healthcare environments and decreased placement capacity resulting from workforce reductions. in rural locations, workforce shortages, across a range of disciplines, high work demands and limited placement capacity in hospital settings, all impact on student ability to access rural wil opportunities (spiers & harris, 2014; hwa, 2013b). health workforce australia (hwa, 2013b) also identified that rural locations are being confronted with increasing demands to extend placement capacity in response to the growth in health jones, d., mcallister, l., & lyle, d. (2015). stepping out of the shadows: allied health student and academic perceptions of the impact of a service –learning experience on student’s work readiness and employability, journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability 6(1), 66–87. 67 student numbers needed to address national health workforce shortages, contributing to the emergence of community-based wil models (rodger et al., 2008, mcallister et al., 2010). community-based service-learning in rural locations service-learning is being drawn on by university departments of rural health (udrh), key stakeholders in australian rural health workforce development (mason, 2013), to establish models that transition students from the patient bedside into community settings. service-learning is concerned with balancing student learning and service recipient outcomes (furco, 1996) through the alignment of student learning to the provision of services to populations with identified unmet health needs (eyler & giles, 1999; jacoby, 2003), characteristics reflected in rural australia. service-learning models expose students to a range of population health needs, diverse community members, alternative service delivery models, complex problems and community partnerships (jacoby, 2003). servicelearning extends learning through the formation of community-academic-student partnerships (furco, 1996; seifer, 1998). the goals of service-learning partnerships go beyond addressing the learning needs of individual students by focusing on civic engagement as a conduit to achieving learning outcomes. service-learning engages community partners in student professional, technical and civic development (cashman & seifer, 2008). a service-learning approach to experiential learning (kolb, 1984; furco, 1996) links theoretical knowledge acquired within curricula to the ‘real-life’ application of knowledge (titchen & higgs, 2001; cashman & seifer, 2008). this alignment enables students to engage in learning that can include illdefined problems that occur within ‘real’ community contexts which cannot be replicated in hospital or university settings (keys, 1994). a rural community-based inter-professional service-learning program the allied health in outback schools program (ahobsp) commenced in far west nsw in 2009 and was informed by the principles of service-learning and experiential learning. the program is underpinned by a cross-sector partnership between school education and health service stakeholders, the broken hill udrh (bhudrh) and the university of sydney faculty of health sciences. program objectives include addressing unmet allied health needs of children, expansion of regional placement capacity through extension into nontraditional community settings, and exposure of students to alternative population health practices (wylie, mcallister, marshall, & law, 2014), with intent to influence student place of practice post-graduation (deaville & grant, 2011). serial inter-professional, ot and sp, student cohorts, (i.e., new cohort of final year ot and sp students each school term), undertake placements across the four school terms. students participate in an intensive five day orientation program and weekly professional reflection sessions facilitated by the bhudrh with services being delivered in pre-schools and primary school settings. students draw on the work of previous cohorts to inform service activity creating service continuity. students, with same-discipline, as well as interprofessional supervision, from qualified ots and sps, provide screening, assessment and therapy as inter-professional groups for children with mild to moderate developmental delays. children identified with complex delays are referred to hospital clinicians for further assessment. supervision is provided through scheduled face-to-face contact throughout the students’ ‘working week’ and via email, sms and telephone. approximately 150 pupils access these services annually. service delivery takes a population health approach (kindig & stoddart, 2003) in response to the needs of school children, parents, and teachers and includes individual, small group, and whole of class sessions (wylie et al., 2014). in each school term, four ot students and six sp students engage with three regional communities and 12 school campuses. a total of 24 sp and 16 ot students are placed jones, d., mcallister, l., & lyle, d. (2015). stepping out of the shadows: allied health student and academic perceptions of the impact of a service –learning experience on student’s work readiness and employability, journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability 6(1), 66–87. 68 annually representing significant growth in regional allied health placement capacity (jones et al., 2015). term-specific documentation guides student service planning and delivery. students develop individualised pupil therapy plans and handover documents identifying successful pupil engagement strategies, assessment and therapy outcomes. therapy plans then guide parental and teacher involvement in home and ongoing class-based interventions (see jones et al., 2015 for more information). students participate in structured mid and end of placement program evaluations facilitated by an independent researcher, informing program improvement and adaptation. however no formal evaluation had been undertaken on the impact of participation in this program for allied health students, academics, community leaders, facilitating agencies and service recipients. limited evidence exists, especially within the rural australian context, on the efficacy of service-learning for these key stakeholders (steinberg et al., 2010; frenk et al., 2010; kramer & usher, 2011; smith et al., 2014). as an emerging health education strategy in rural australia additional research is required that explores these outcomes. the study the research aims of this study were to provide a deep and holistic understanding of the impact and outcomes of participation in the ahobsp for key stakeholders, ensuring this exploration was informed by multiple stakeholder perspectives (creswell, 2007). the study was qualitative in design, explored the experiences of community leaders; pre-school and primary school principals, senior managers from local facilitating agencies; one based with the udrh and one with school education, sp and ot students, and academics engaged in the development and delivery of the program. due to the breadth of study findings this paper reports on student and academic outcomes, specifically those associated with perceptions of student work-readiness skills acquisition and future employability. additional student, academic and community experiences are described in subsequent papers. method low risk ethical approval was obtained from the university of sydney human research ethics committee (approval number 2014/178), nsw department of education and communities (serap approval number 2014117), catholic education office and la trobe university (written approval). participants academics and ot and sp students were purposefully selected based on their role in program development and delivery. participants were contacted through work and student university email accounts. an introductory email including information sheets and consent forms was sent by an independent administration officer to one student cohort and two academics. the email provided contact details of the lead investigator for additional study information. signed consent forms were returned to the administration officer. all data was collected in the latter half of 2014. the entire student cohort, ot 4 and sp 6, undertaking their placement in one school term in 2014, consented to participate in one of two face-to-face focus groups. face-to-face focus groups (fgs) were held onsite at the bhudrh. students represented two different universities. two allied health academics, one rurally located with direct responsibility for student supervision and one metropolitan, with a strategic program role, consented to participate in individual semi-structured interviews, face-to-face for the rural academic and via teleconference for the metropolitan academic. jones, d., mcallister, l., & lyle, d. (2015). stepping out of the shadows: allied health student and academic perceptions of the impact of a service –learning experience on student’s work readiness and employability, journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability 6(1), 66–87. 69 face-to-face focus groups student fgs were considered appropriate given the shared experience of the program, time restrictions associated with placement duration and levels of comfort during data collection (patton, 2002). students were purposefully allocated to each fg to ensure an even distribution of ot and sp students, reflecting the inter-professional placement (two ot and three sp students in each fg). both fgs ran for approximately 60 minutes. an independent qualitative researcher facilitated both sessions using a prepared schedule of questions developed from previous cohort evaluations (n=12 sessions) and study aims. questions focused on: 1. factors that influenced program participation and student pre-placement understanding of the program. 2. comparison of the placement to previous placement experiences. 3. learning impacts associated with program participation. 4. how students would describe the placement to their non-participating peers. 5. understanding of program aims. 6. recommendations for program improvement and future directions of the program. follow up questions were asked to encourage greater participant feedback. fg sessions were digitally recorded and transcribed manually. allied health students were de-identified by discipline and university in the transcripts due to small participant numbers and placement location to ensure confidentiality. participants were allocated fg and student numbers: focus group 1 student 1 – fg1:s1, focus group 2 student 2 – fg2:s2 and so on. semi-structured individual interviews individual academic interviews were selected due to variations in program roles, differing levels of seniority and geographical separation. each interview ran for approximately 50 minutes. the same independent qualitative researcher facilitated both interviews using a prepared schedule of questions developed from previous academic feedback and the study aims. questions focused on: 1. factors that influenced program participation and participant role in program development and delivery. 2. impact of participation in the program on participant approach to education delivery, practice and strategy. 3. how the academics would describe the program to external community and university agencies. 4. understanding of program aims. 5. suggestions for program improvement and future directions of the program. some variation existed between the questions and follow up questions asked of the academics reflecting their operational and strategic program roles. individual interviews were digitally recorded and transcribed manually before being provided to participants for verification. academic participants were de-identified by discipline to ensure their confidentiality based on small participant numbers and allocated identifiers, ra for rural academic, and ma for metropolitan academic. data analysis data was analysed using an inductive, content-sensitive approach (patton, 2002). the lead researcher repeatedly listened to digital recordings and read and re-read the transcripts, to become deeply familiar with the audio and texts. coding was conducted using a process of constant comparative analysis (miles, huberman, & saldana, 2014). data was manually jones, d., mcallister, l., & lyle, d. (2015). stepping out of the shadows: allied health student and academic perceptions of the impact of a service –learning experience on student’s work readiness and employability, journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability 6(1), 66–87. 70 coded based on the researchers’ desire to avoid distancing themselves from the data (creswell, 2007). the process began with identification and coding of words or phrases that captured key meanings. these codes were then grouped and re-grouped into a smaller number of categories. coding and categorisation was constantly compared within, and across, transcripts to ensure consistency in development, application and refinement of student and academic codes and categories. categories were collapsed into overarching themes until all codes and categories were accounted for (patton, 2002). this approach enabled the researchers to explore, in-depth, student and academic perspectives. data interpretation was critically appraised and verified by expert qualitative researchers with a depth of experience in allied health and primary health care professional education. the lead and expert researchers independently coded two transcripts using the same process. these codes were then compared, explored, and refined with the identification of key themes and sub-themes. the remaining texts were coded independently by the lead researcher. trustworthiness of the analysis was enhanced through checking processes: referential adequacy through recording and verbatim transcription of focus group and individual interview data, checking of transcripts against the recordings to ensure accurate transcription and member-checking of individual interview transcripts (creswell, 2007). in order to ensure interpretation process trustworthiness, a clear and transparent record was maintained of the hand coding process. rigor was further enhanced by the inclusion of direct participant quotes to illustrate the five identified themes, subthemes and subsections (creswell, 2007) as outlined in table 1. table 1: themes, subthemes and subsections. theme subthemes (numbered) and subsections (dot points) 1. challenges in transition to service-learning 1. students as supernumerary or inactive in previous learning experiences: shadows 2. student as observer/highly directed learner: shadowing 3. fragmented and specialist exposure to care delivery 2. context of care 1. rural context 2. community-based population health practice 3. work-readiness attributes 1. relationships • service-learning • community • academic-student • student-program 2. learning planning and organisation skills 3. clinical reasoning • supervision approach • peer learning • scope of experience 4. inter-professional practice 5. self confidence 4. employability 1. perceptions of previous student employment outcomes 2. enhanced skills acquisition 3. employer implications 5. program implications 1. university implications • curriculum development • model transferability 2. student implications • impact on care delivery • longer placement durations jones, d., mcallister, l., & lyle, d. (2015). stepping out of the shadows: allied health student and academic perceptions of the impact of a service –learning experience on student’s work readiness and employability, journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability 6(1), 66–87. 71 • rural practice • return to previous supervision approaches results and discussion data analysis identified five themes, associated subthemes and a number of subsections. these are each elaborated and followed by a brief discussion. theme 1: challenges in transition to service-learning participants identified a number of factors that impacted on student capacity to transition from previous practice experiences to a semi-autonomous service-learning role. students and the ra used terms such as ‘shadow’, fg1:s2, to describe student preference to be supernumerary or inactive in initial stages of placement, and ‘shadowing’, fg2:s1, to describe previous supervision approaches where students were an observer or highly directed learner. three subthemes are now described using participant comments, followed by a brief discussion. subtheme 1: students as supernumerary or inactive in previous learning experiences: ‘shadow’ role. student participants described previous practice experiences where they were inactive in the learning environment as having …just had observational practicums (fg1:s3). consequently some students viewed their participation in the service-learning program, particularly when compared with these previous experiences, as being: …thrown off the deep end. (fg2:s3) … beneficial for us to be thrown in the deep end and get that experience. (fg1:s3) however, other students did not see this as a benefit reflecting a preferred supernumerary approach: i didn't have that opportunity to shadow [the supervisor] for a short period of time prior to [engaging in service delivery], it caused me a little bit of anxiety. (fg1:s2) student perceptions of how academics regarded the benefits of the program included: our placement coordinator made an emphasis on the advantages of student-led placements. (fg1:s3) the tasks that students undertake in their practice experiences are considered crucial for quality learning outcomes (herrington & herrington, 2006). smedley and morey (2010) identified students’ preference to be active participants in practice settings and that a lack of participation impeded student confidence, competence and learning outcomes. student experiences of being inactive in their previous placements and preference for opportunities to remain supernumerary, or to ‘shadow’, in the initial stages of placement, potentially reflect a lack of semi-autonomous practice in previous learning experiences. this may have contributed to student perceptions of ‘being thrown in the deep end’, being influenced by program expectations of higher levels of semi-autonomous student practice. subtheme 2: student as observer or highly directed learner: ‘shadowing’ role. a number of students commented that in previous practicums they had passively followed their supervisor. the concept of ‘shadowing’ was described by students as being associated with activities where they were heavily directed by their placement supervisors: in other placements you just do what you’re told and get on with it (fg1:s3). jones, d., mcallister, l., & lyle, d. (2015). stepping out of the shadows: allied health student and academic perceptions of the impact of a service –learning experience on student’s work readiness and employability, journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability 6(1), 66–87. 72 we’ve always had supervisors shadowing us, being like do this, do that. (fg2:s1) one student commented that being an observer only was appropriate for them: my learning style is to observe something. it’s simpler when you can see it than when you have to work it out for yourself. (fg1:s3) the ra identified implications of this shadowing approach to supervision on student development of work-readiness attributes: those work ready skills are difficult to develop in other placements where there is that shadowing level of supervision. exposure of students to discipline role models and professional experts enhances students’ understanding of how ‘real’ practitioners behave in ‘real’ healthcare contexts (herrington & herrington, 2006). when students are not actively engaged by supervisors in understanding practice rationales and healthcare approaches they are less likely to be able to model and contextualise ‘real-world’ service provision (herrington & herrington, 2006). students, who are exposed to ‘shadowing’, especially in the final stages of their degree where higher levels of autonomous practice can be a discipline expectation, may struggle to develop practice competence and confidence. shadowing may also result in students devaluing their contribution to health care delivery and client outcomes. subtheme 3: fragmented and specialist exposure to care delivery students described prior experiences of fragmented and specialised exposure to healthcare delivery, challenging their ability to conceptualise holistic client care: in some of the other placements i’ve had in the past it’s hard to put all of the pieces together because you’re only a small part of [care]. (fg2:s4) students described a lack of exposure to a diverse range of therapeutic activity as impacting on their ability to respond to complex and diverse health care needs experienced by pupils in the program: i’ve had a lot of [specialised therapy] experience but very little [other specialised therapy] experience and this placement has predominately been around [the other specialised therapy]. i’ve been like, what am i doing? am i doing this right? (fg2:s1) students need to be provided with experiences that enable them to understand and apply their knowledge in complex environments, in this instance a rural community-based context, so they are appropriately prepared for the ‘real-world’ of work. curricula requirements and practice environments need to be responsive to contemporary heath care practice and student learning needs, providing opportunities for students to engage with diverse practice opportunities when they present themselves, supporting student capacity to comprehend and engage with complex and inter-connected components of care (sturmberg, 2005). theme 2: context of care this theme has two subthemes: rural context and community-based population health practice. subtheme 1: rural context. the rural context was seen as contributing to participant experience, with students commenting on the connections with the community: part of the interest in coming here was being in the rural town and experiencing it for yourself. (fg1:s5) jones, d., mcallister, l., & lyle, d. (2015). stepping out of the shadows: allied health student and academic perceptions of the impact of a service –learning experience on student’s work readiness and employability, journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability 6(1), 66–87. 73 everyone in [rural community] knows each other or has a connection at some point. (fg2:s5) it’s not like a major city where you can pass by so many people and no one talks to each other. (fg1:s3) the ra described the deeper connectivity of the program and student learning experience within the rural context: we sit and live in this community. we are service providers to our community and we [are] doing that through the education of students. the authors propose that the view of rodger and colleagues (2011) regarding a welcoming clinical environment as an indicator for quality learning experiences can be extended beyond the clinical setting to include the broader welcoming nature of host communities. denser connecting mechanisms, within and across rural communities, create different learning environments for students influencing approaches to healthcare provision. in developing rural community-based wil opportunities academic institutions and health professionals need to be informed about and acknowledge the importance of rural community contributions to student learning outcomes (rodger, fitzgerald, davila, millar, & allison, 2011). subtheme 2: community-based population health practice the five day orientation component of the program was established to support student transition to rural community-based practice. this aspect of the program was appreciated by participants as seen by the following comment: it's getting orientated to the whole experience. you have a new placement, you're nine hours from home, you're in a new place, you're meeting new people, you're trying to explore the town, you're looking at different schools and you’re going to [outreach communities]. there’s a lot on, it's great, it's just a little bit intense for the first week. (fg1:s5) the validity of the population health approach, class-based therapy, to allied health service delivery was questioned by a student, challenging their perception of ‘real’ therapeutic approaches and location of therapy delivery: i think time would be much better spent doing individual sessions rather than trying to manage an entire class. you’re setting these [broader] goals. i’m starting to think, ‘what should pupils be doing at this age?’ that’s where i’m pitching this lesson rather than focusing on therapy. it’s not really therapy. (fg2:s4) student preparation for their wil experience is a key curriculum dimension (smith et al., 2014). program orientation has been extended from two to five days in an endeavour to prepare students for their experience. orientation includes cultural education, community tours, introduction to key program stakeholders, tours of host schools and clinical education focused on technical skills development required to enhance service delivery and pupil outcomes. a high priority is placed on supporting students in understanding the context of their placement and alternative health care approaches. understanding contexts of care that impact on community health is essential in the provision of population healthcare. differing social, educational, cultural and economic status experienced in rural locations creates different ‘terms of reference’ for communities, influencing how and where care can best be provided, including service delivery in school settings (kindig & stoddart, 2003; who, 2010). service-learning is concerned with broadening student exposure to diverse populations, specifically marginalised and underserved populations (jacoby, 2003), in this instance through population healthcare delivery (doh, 2010). jones, d., mcallister, l., & lyle, d. (2015). stepping out of the shadows: allied health student and academic perceptions of the impact of a service –learning experience on student’s work readiness and employability, journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability 6(1), 66–87. 74 theme 3: work-readiness attributes this theme contains five sub-themes: relationships, planning and organisation skills, clinical reasoning, inter-professional practice; and self-confidence and associated subsections. subtheme 1: relationships this subtheme contains four subsections associated with relationships. subsection 1: service-learning relationships the multi-layered program relationships, the connection between service and learning and the importance of time to build positive relationships were all recognised by the students: there’s a lot of support from the university, our supervisors, the hospital staff [and] community. they understand why we are here and what we are doing. (fg2:s2) we can see we have provided a service for these pupils. we’re able to achieve our own [learning] goals while we’re doing it. (fg2:s1) students come and go. it takes time to build rapport with the [pupil]. (fg2:s1) seeing the pupils every day, they all remember your name. it feels really nice. it feels different to other placements in that way. (fg1:s2) students also described a sense of responsibility associated with their pupil relationship: our responsibility [when we are at ‘work’] is to provide therapy for these pupils. (fg1:s2) subsection 2: community relationships students described the friendly nature of the community and displayed insights into the social connectivity of the community: i find everybody’s so easy to talk with. (fg1:s3) the community has that really amazing atmosphere. everyone talks to everyone, everyone knows everyone’s business and everyone’s related. (fg1:s1) the ma described their relationship with the community: that visit to community was incredibly important in terms of my thinking. i felt ashamed of my own profession because of what had happened in the community. the level of disillusionment in the principals i found quite distressing. i came away very determined i was going to help be part of the solution. subsection 3: academic-student relationship the ra perception of their relationship with the students was collegiate: i’m working alongside budding [discipline] so there’s greater capacity between us [to deliver services]. students discussed the depth of program knowledge of their supervisors and identified the cumulative nature of this knowledge from past student cohorts: they just know every little bit. we do debrief every week and they have an agenda that has slowly been accumulated from previous placements. they know how we’re feeling, what we’re thinking. (fg2:s1) jones, d., mcallister, l., & lyle, d. (2015). stepping out of the shadows: allied health student and academic perceptions of the impact of a service –learning experience on student’s work readiness and employability, journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability 6(1), 66–87. 75 subsection 4: student-program relationship students demonstrated an understanding of the importance of building and sustaining trust between program stakeholders and how this trust could be detrimentally impacted upon by student approaches to relationships: they’ve [program partners] worked really hard on the program so far. they’ve built that rapport with the teachers to gain that trust. [the community have] obviously had [services] coming in and out, inconsistent. it’s up to how well the future students manage that [relationship]. (fg2:s3) students identified the ‘student continuum’ approach as a connecting relationship between serial student cohorts and program outcomes: it's nice to see that [previous cohorts have] been doing the same thing. you just have to keep doing it so that the next person knows exactly what to do. here in this continuum of students you really do feel like you're at least making some change [for the pupil] (fg1 s2). positive relationships established on placement significantly improve student learning outcomes (hartigan-rogers, cobbett, amirault, & muise-davis, 2007). however there are few formally identified efforts that seek to assist students in developing effective relationships (suchman, sluyter, & williams, 2011). relationship-centered care (rcc) is based on partnerships between individuals, communities and health care practitioners and includes an understanding that relationships occur at multiple levels, between different partners and are critical for effective health care delivery (suchman et al., 2011). there are increasing calls for allied health professions to engage in population health approaches that are intrinsically linked to complex relationships (miller & gallicchio, 2007; wylie et al., 2014). a lack of practice experiences within community-based organisations that provide exposure to these relationships has been identified as a constraint in the provision of rcc experiences (suchman et al., 2011). our data supports the value of investing in the provision of these opportunities at the pre-registration level. sub-theme 2: learning planning and organisation skills students identified a lack of previous exposure to decision making, case load management, development and implementation of therapy plans, preparation of documentation, and the preparation of new or utilisation of existing resources, as impacting on their capacity to confidently undertake these tasks within the early stages of program participation: we always go over time. nine times out of ten, it’s 7.30, 8, 9 o’clock at night and i’m still preparing [resources]. (fg2:s1. just working with the resources we do have, it’s been emphasised throughout the placement, ‘you should try and work with what’s available, use what’s in the [class] room’. it has been really useful to try and do that (fg2: s4). the ma identified the learning impact associated with the program, including time management and resource use: it’s not only time, they have to manage their learning. they need to know what they don’t know and work with the resources that are available. students identified exposure to ‘real’ work experiences as impacting on their planning and organisation skills: jones, d., mcallister, l., & lyle, d. (2015). stepping out of the shadows: allied health student and academic perceptions of the impact of a service –learning experience on student’s work readiness and employability, journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability 6(1), 66–87. 76 you have your own caseload, you have to make your timetable, make your session plans [and] think about therapy. (fg1:s3) planning and organisation skills include time management, effective use of resources, collecting, analysing and organising information (diisrte & deewr, 2013). despite the literature identifying the importance of these skills (smith et al., 2014) our findings suggest that students can be poorly prepared to undertake these tasks when their responsibility for these tasks in professional practice settings has been limited. accessibility of resources in rural locations is frequently less than that experienced in metropolitan practice and health professionals are required to think innovatively in the identification of, and access to, alternative resources to enable the delivery of therapy. sub-theme 3: clinical reasoning this subtheme contains three subsections: supervision approach, peer learning and scope of experience. subsection1: supervision approach the supervision approach of the program was described as contributing to the development of higher levels of autonomy in professional and technical decision making: because there isn’t that constant supervision i was constantly [asking myself] ‘am i doing this right? is this okay? am i pitching it at the right level? did i use the right feedback? am i using the right tools?’ personally that was quite a challenge doing that on my own [initially] but now [it’s okay]. (fg2:s1) subsection 2: peer learning the ra identified the role of peer learning as an additional modality to support the development of clinical reasoning skills: i talk more formally with the students in debrief. you don’t go to your supervisor first in the workplace, that’s not the first place you go if you need help, you go to your peers. the impact of peer learning was also discussed by the students: to be able to manage our own case load and still have the support there to ask [the supervisor] questions, find out if we’re doing the right thing, have the other students as well, to discuss different aspects [of therapy]. (fg2:s2) the ma identified peer learning as a workplace skill: they learn how to work with their peers, maximise their learning. that’s a great workplace skill to have. subsection 3: scope of experience students identified program participation as impacting on their clinical reasoning skills, describing skill acquisition in information processing, analysis, decision making and resultant implications for client care: you have to think about therapy, how and why, the clinical reasoning behind why you are doing that type of therapy. that thought process is going on. ‘why are you doing what you're doing and how is it going to help a client?’ (fg1:s3) student capacity to understand holistic approaches to service delivery through exposure to a broad range of therapy approaches and continuity of client care was described: jones, d., mcallister, l., & lyle, d. (2015). stepping out of the shadows: allied health student and academic perceptions of the impact of a service –learning experience on student’s work readiness and employability, journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability 6(1), 66–87. 77 i think [the program] makes [therapy delivery] make more sense. you have a much more holistic understanding of the whole [process]. (fg2:s4) educational institutions may struggle to challenge students in developing clinical reasoning (sharp et al., 2013; arum & roksa, 2011) due to a lack of ‘real’ context (durning, artino, pangaro, van der vleuten, & schuwirth, 2011). health care practice is underpinned by clinical reasoning and a failure of adequate clinical reasoning can have negative impacts on client outcomes of care (norman, 2005). the development of clinical reasoning skills for allied health students has been identified as being essential in enabling students to gather, analyse and process information to inform logical decision making across health care contexts (mcallister & rose, 2008). the provision of higher levels of autonomous practice, within a framework of safety, and peer learning for senior students has been identified as contributing to the development of clinical reasoning skills (smith et al., 2014, kuipers, pager, bell, hall, & kendall, 2013). service-learning is also viewed as inherently promoting clinical reasoning attributes through exposure to direct service provision (steinke & fitch, 2014). sub-theme 4: inter-professional practice study participants identified the importance of accessing wil ipp experiences. the ra and students commented as follows: inter-professional practice was [talked about] at university. i hadn’t had a go at [interprofessional practice] at university. inter-professional education, you don’t really get, you never get that. (fg1:s2) the ma identified the importance of ipp experiences for students at their institution: a goal of our faculty is to make sure our students have at least one genuinely interprofessional placement. for many of our students this [program] will be the one and only true inter-professional placement they have. the students provided examples of sharing inter-professional knowledge in approaches to therapy planning and to enhance therapy delivery: you know what the other discipline activity is, you speak to them before and after therapy, you talk to them after school and you plan therapy together. (fg1:s2) maybe something’s working, you’ve got the same pupil and something’s working during therapy with this pupil in your discipline so you pass it onto the other discipline and say try this out. (fg1:s3) health industry expectations for new graduates include the acquisition of a breath of knowledge, skills and experiences that will enable them to locate themselves as valuable ipp team members (nisbet et al., 2011). the benefits of ipp include positive interactions across different professions, enhanced collaboration between professions, development of mutual trust, decreased service duplication, and improved health care safety and client satisfaction (nisbet et al., 2011). despite ipp being considered standard practice in australian health care settings findings from this study support the findings of howell, devine and prostman (2004) that students may receive little or no formal ipp experience during their training. there is a need to embed meaningful ipp experiences within australian health practice settings to ensure new graduates are prepared for contemporary healthcare practice. due to the breadth of findings associated with ipp this sub-theme will be explored in greater detail in a subsequent paper. sub-theme 5: self-confidence students identified enhanced self-confidence in their skills associated with program participation: jones, d., mcallister, l., & lyle, d. (2015). stepping out of the shadows: allied health student and academic perceptions of the impact of a service –learning experience on student’s work readiness and employability, journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability 6(1), 66–87. 78 as a clinician coming into our second last placement it’s very beneficial to be at least feeling confident in this area. i’m feeling better. you’ve got more skills. it’s good to be finally feeling like that coming up to graduation. (fg1:s5) students discussed the impact of semi-autonomous practice as contributing to their trialling and implementation of alternative therapeutic approaches: the independence, going and doing some therapy, that didn't work so well, what can i do next time? there's a lot of professional reflection. (fg1:s5) practice experiences play a key role in the development of professional self-confidence (rodger et al., 2008). supportive learning environments, with appropriate levels of supervision and safety, can enable students to learn from their mistakes contributing to learning opportunities that require them to explore alternative approaches to therapy delivery that enable the alignment of therapy to individual client need (plack, 2008). building student confidence to practice independently is a key learning outcome as students near completion of their degree (newton, billet, jolly, & ockerby, 2009a). theme 4: employability this theme consists of three subthemes, perceptions of previous student employment outcomes, enhanced skills acquisition and employer impact. subtheme 1: perceptions of previous student employment outcomes knowledge of employment outcomes of past student participants who were seen to have gained employment first on graduation were discussed: the students who had done the placement [previously] were actually the first to get jobs. i think it had a lot to do with the fact that it’s so student-driven. the employers really liked that. makes us more work ready. (fg2:s1) enhancing employability outcomes is considered integral to degree programs (jackson, 2010). wil experiences are considered a significant strategy in the development of workreadiness attributes that enhance graduate employability (jackson, 2010; smith et al., 2014). participation in the program was perceived by students as an opportunity to develop work-readiness attributes that would be considered desirable by potential employers. additional research is required on the employment outcomes of program participants, including industry perceptions of participant characteristics that may influence employer selection, to validate these perceptions. subtheme 2: enhanced skills acquisition the ra shared their perception of enhanced skills acquisition, thereby facilitating transition into the workplace for students in comparison to non-participating peers: [these students] do have skills that other students don’t, a whole lot more. i think [the program] aims to achieve service-giving skills in the new graduates and prepare them in a way they should be prepared. students shared this perception stating that their skill level was enhanced by more realistic [work] (fg2:s3), that would: really set us up for working, going into the workplace (fg2:s2). developing graduates with work-readiness attributes that are considered valuable by employers is a key objective of wil strategies (skills australia, 2010). wil is viewed as supporting students in the development of skills that have the potential to enhance their employment outcomes (smith et al., 2014). health graduates who: possess a range of work jones, d., mcallister, l., & lyle, d. (2015). stepping out of the shadows: allied health student and academic perceptions of the impact of a service –learning experience on student’s work readiness and employability, journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability 6(1), 66–87. 79 readiness skills may experience a smoother transition into the workplace compared with graduates lacking such skills (walker et al., 2013, p.116). subtheme 3: employer implications the ra identified the importance of their role in describing student program experiences to potential employers when acting as a student referee: the employers are not familiar with the program and they say, ‘oh wow, that’s fantastic’. while many of the students saw enhanced employability as an outcome of their service-learning placement, not all students did. one student questioned whether the experience in a community-based setting would prepare them for a hospital position: i wonder whether this placement is preparing me for the workplace. say i go into a hospital next year, has this placement actually equipped me to do that because i have that lack of traditional placement in a hospital. (fg1:s2) the ma also questioned whether the students who had participated in the program had enhanced employability potential in comparison with non-participating peers: i don’t think we know whether they’re better prepared. we don’t have a direct comparison with other types of placements. i know [the program is] incredibly helpful. there is an increasing call at the national level for the integration of population health and primary health care practice into health care education and service delivery (doha, 2010). frenk et al. (2010) stated that health professional education has not responded effectively to contemporary health care needs resulting in ill-equipped graduates. a mismatch of student competency to population health needs, a narrow technical focus that fails to account for a broader contextual understanding of healthcare, and a focus on hospital orientated health education are factors that impact on student capacity to respond to changing and complex healthcare environments (frenk et al., 2010). additional research is required to determine if participation in the program provides participants with skills that are transferable across health care contexts and are of relevance to the health industry. theme 5: program implications this theme contains two sub-themes: program implications for universities and program implications for students and associated subsections. sub-theme 1: university implications this subtheme has two subsections: curriculum and model transferability. subsection1: curriculum development the ma reported that program participation had influenced faculty investment in rural curriculum content: in order to prepare the students for that remote experience we need to put rural health in the curriculum so that when they go to the community they’ve got a bit of an idea. that’s made us backtrack to our curriculum and up the rural content. subsection 2: model transferability. student participants discussed the potential transferability of the program and implications for their universities: this program could be fed back to our universities to help them with some of the school placements they try and run because this is far more organised. (fg2:s4) jones, d., mcallister, l., & lyle, d. (2015). stepping out of the shadows: allied health student and academic perceptions of the impact of a service –learning experience on student’s work readiness and employability, journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability 6(1), 66–87. 80 the ma identified their perceptions of impact on faculty in considering transferability of the model to other contexts: one of the things the program has done, because that clinical education model has been so successful, is stimulated the thinking of [faculty] staff around using similar models in other places, helping other organisations to use those kinds of models. to develop different models that launch from here [into metropolitan sites]. wakerman et al. (2009) identified that rural communities are incubators of health service and workforce innovations that better meet the needs of these communities. denser connections within rural communities increase opportunities to implement change at the population level. the transferability of rural health service and workforce innovation into metropolitan contexts is poorly understood and additional research is required that explores the transferability and impact of rurally developed models in these locations. sub-theme 2: student implications the students identified four aspects of the program for further consideration: impact on care delivery, longer placements, intent for rural practice and return to previous placement experiences. concerns were raised by students about their contribution to health care outcomes in previous experiences: in other placements you just go in and go out and you don’t really feel like you’ve made a difference. …here in this continuum of students you really do feel like you're at least making some change [for the pupil]. (fg1 s2) length of placement experience was identified by many of the students as a factor that impacted on consolidation of their knowledge and skills: this week i will just feel as if i'm getting into it, getting the hang of things. …i feel like an additional [placement] month, in terms of the development for the children, would change [pupil outcomes] dramatically within that month. (fg2:s3) students had differing views on how the placement might influence their consideration of rural practice post-graduation: i would consider [working rurally] definitely. after this placement i probably would consider it. (fg1:s2) for me personally i wouldn't go rural straight away because of the lack of support first year out. i think i need that support. (fg1:s5) the difficulty of returning to highly supervised placements was also raised: i’m thinking it might be difficult to go back to a traditional placement, being supervised all the time and [loosing autonomy]. (fg1:s2) experiential learning includes student engagement in tasks that are aligned to healthcare provision, including the direct engagement of students with healthcare recipients. through this engagement students are provided with a deeper insight into the role of health professionals and their contribution to improved health outcomes (spiers & harris, 2015). experiencing a sense of professional satisfaction through direct service provision to clients has been identified as improving student participation and learning outcomes (suchman et al., 2011). the time required to enable students to gauge their impact on care requires sustained engagement over a period of time (herrington & herrington, 2006). benefits associated with longer duration of student placements have been explored in the health education literature, predominately within medical student education (forster, assareh, watts, & mclachlan, 2013). opportunities to extend allied health student placements within jones, d., mcallister, l., & lyle, d. (2015). stepping out of the shadows: allied health student and academic perceptions of the impact of a service –learning experience on student’s work readiness and employability, journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability 6(1), 66–87. 81 rural locations needs to be explored to enable the consolidation of student learning and service recipient outcomes. discussion summary a high level of connectivity exists across the themes, subthemes and subsections discussed in this paper. addressing rural health workforce and service accessibility challenges is complex. of equal complexity is the development and delivery of quality wil experiences in these locations. allied health students and academics described a number of broad challenges that can be experienced in the provision of wil and ipp experiences. student descriptions of previous placements, ‘shadows’ and ‘shadowing’, raise a number of concerns associated with the active engagement of students in ‘real world’ work of ‘real meaning’ in ‘real world’ contexts. if wil strategies are to uphold ‘the promise of producing graduates with the capabilities valued by employers’ (smith et al. 2014, p.14) additional investments are required to ensure these experiences meet wil and industry objectives. study participants identified a number of beneficial learning outcomes acquired through their participation in the program including insight into rural community contexts, complex and interconnected relationships, planning and organisation skills and enhanced self-confidence. findings suggest that a rural cbisl experience has the potential to impact on student acquisition of work-readiness attributes and the practices of a metropolitan university. limitations the small participant sample size associated with this qualitative study limits generalisability of the results. findings are representative of one student cohort and a small number of academics. additional research is required to explore program impact on greater numbers of participating students and academics. comparative studies are also required that explore learning outcomes between program participants and non-participating peers. servicelearning is inherently concerned with experiences of service recipients and communities and additional research is required on program outcomes for service recipients, pupils and families, school teaching staff, and local clinicians. findings on community leader and agency perspectives are described in subsequent papers. conclusion universities and the health industry acknowledge the need to develop highly skilled workready health professionals. levels of industry dissatisfaction with the current levels of workreadiness of australian graduates have influenced the development of wil strategies that seek to enhance student acquisition of generic skills. limited evidence exists on the impact and outcomes of participation in wil strategies for health students, higher education institutions and the health industry. this paper explored the impact on allied health student and academic participants in a rural cbisl program. the program aligned student learning to direct service provision to address unmet allied health needs of pre-school and primary school children in far west nsw, expanding student placement capacity within the region and exposing students to alternative learning and service provision approaches. based on the findings of this study, cbisl, a relatively new educational pedagogy in australian health education, may provide students, universities and the health industry with an additional approach that can contribute to the development of generic work-readiness attributes. the provision of wil learning experiences that expose students to ‘real work’ in ‘real world’ settings that are of ‘real value’ to ‘real rural communities’ is imperative if we are to ensure a competent future health workforce. jones, d., mcallister, l., & lyle, d. (2015). stepping out of the shadows: allied health student and academic perceptions of the impact of a service –learning experience on student’s work readiness and employability, journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability 6(1), 66–87. 82 acknowledgements the authors wish to acknowledge nsw department of education and communities primary schools, catholic education primary schools, and pre-schools located in far west nsw who are engaged in the program. funding for the ongoing development of the study program was accessed through health workforce australia. the university of sydney, faculty of health sciences was the foundational university to engage in this program. the university of sydney, broken hill university department of rural health, is a federally funded program through the commonwealth department of health. jones, d., mcallister, l., & lyle, d. 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(2017). embedding graduate employability attributes in management sciences curricula: a case of two namibian universities. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 8(1), 123–136. 123 embedding graduate employability attributes in management sciences curricula: a case of two namibian universities romanus shivoro1, rakel kavena shalyefu1 and ngepathimo kadhila1 rshivoro@gmail.com; rkshalyefu@unam.na; nkadhila@unam.na 1university of namibia abstract recognising implicit employability attributes within discipline-specific program modules is a critical part of the process of developing new employability modules in the management sciences curricula. the notion of graduate employability has gained acceptance in the higher education sector across the world and furthermore higher education and industry appear to have reached consensus on the importance of enhancing graduate attributes through the curricula at university. this paper offers a qualitative analysis of curricula documents to determine strategies that are effective in enhancing graduate employability. using content analysis to assess six bachelor degree programs in management sciences from selected universities in namibia, the study established that, in addition to work-integrated learning modules, there is evidence of graduate employability attributes being implicitly embedded in core curricula and discipline-specific modules. the researchers argue that universities should develop a stand-alone core module specifically to cultivate employability attributes. this should be supported by multiple workintegrated learning experiences for students to practise technical or discipline specific skills and generic employability attributes. key words: employability attributes, content analysis, implicit employability, graduate attributes, work-integrated learning introduction the notion of enhancing graduate employability through curriculum provision has gained prominence in the higher education sector across the world. higher education institutions (heis), employers and graduates are in agreement that graduates need other attributes in addition to subject-specific discipline knowledge (andrews & higson, 2008; weligamage, 2009). as a result, universities are placed under pressure by the labour market to demonstrate that they are effectively and efficiently equipping students with employability attributes to meet the demands of the 21st century (barrie, 2006). in namibia, the labour market has expressed concerns about graduates’ readiness for the world of work (links, 2010; schade & amunkete, 2011). specifically, employers claim that graduates from heis in namibia do not all possess the types of graduate employability attributes necessary for employment. in addition, namibia’s national council for mailto:rshivoro@gmail.com mailto:rkshalyefu@unam.na mailto:nkadhila@unam.na shivoro, r., shalyefu, r., & kadhila, n. (2017). embedding graduate employability attributes in management sciences curricula: a case of two namibian universities. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 8(1), 123–136. 124 higher education (2011) has claimed that graduates are not adequately prepared for work, and that their training is not relevant to the demands of the work place. this sentiment is echoed by kanyenze (2012), who argues that there is a mismatch between skills demanded and skills provided, and a lack of coordination between producers of knowledge and users of skills in namibia. to date, research on graduate employability has produced varied lists of employability attributes required in the contemporary workforce (markes, 2006). rosenberg, heimler and morote (2012) synthesised these attributes into eight categories: literacy and numeracy, interpersonal attributes, work ethic, leadership attributes, information technology, critical thinking, systems thinking, and management attributes. the task at hand for higher education is to determine the best strategies for effective and efficient delivery of these attributes to students. despite the labour market’s expectation that higher education will demonstrate how to enhance graduate employability, there seems to be no agreement as to which approach would provide sufficient opportunities to enhance the required attributes. yorke and knight (2006) suggest that employability can be fostered through a range of curriculum levels. they further assert that one size does not fit all institutions and/or disciplines as far as employability is concerned. the aim of this paper is therefore to analyse how employability attributes have been incorporated into the curricula of management sciences, using two namibian universities as a case study, and to assess which approach might be the best in fostering graduate employability. the argument presented here is that universities should develop a stand-alone core module on graduate employability. this module should be supported by work-integrated learning at different stages of the curriculum. strategies for enhancing employability attributes in higher education the sole purpose of teaching graduate attributes is to enhance graduates’ skill sets in order to enhance their work-related skills (sarkar, overton, thompson, & rayner, 2016) and thereby boost their competitiveness in the job market (jonck, 2014; mason, williams, & cranmer, 2009). several researchers have voiced opinions on strategies that might enhance graduate employability. for example, saunders and zuzel (2010) established that the current trend of enhancing graduate employability is to incorporate opportunities for employability skills alongside subject-specific knowledge and skills. this means that the program of study is separate from graduate employability interventions. in contrast to this strategy, mason et al. (2009) and bhola and dhanawade (2013) observe that some universities have adopted the strategy of integrating graduate employability into programs of study. here, employability is built into the program, alongside the specific learning outcomes of the degree. these strategies include offering work experience, work-related learning and employability skills modules, and ‘ready for work’ events, as well as involving employers in course design and delivery. this is a rather general view of possible employability enhancing opportunities, without elaborating on the specific details of the benefits to either academics or students who are participating in these experiences. authors such as jackson (2014), pillai, khan, syahirah and raphael (2012) and gardner (1998) have suggested that, in their efforts to create opportunities for enhancing students’ workplace readiness, academic staff should highlight opportunities to develop graduate employability attributes in their courses, rather than regarding skills classes as single, one-off experiences. in addition, they should be more involved in experiential programs such as providing opportunities for student reflection on experiences, and should set rigorous standards and evaluation criteria for internships/work-based placements. furthermore, academics should seek to engage students in contextual situations (for example, community projects). such an approach would encourage students to reflect on their experiences, skills acquisition and application of education or academic shivoro, r., shalyefu, r., & kadhila, n. (2017). embedding graduate employability attributes in management sciences curricula: a case of two namibian universities. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 8(1), 123–136. 125 training to future work and life situations. this suggests that employability should be built into an existing module or course so that the skills are contextualised. this aspect calls for a rigorous engagement between student and lecturer while students are on internship placements. it also requires that academics follow the students to the workplace. gardner (1998) argues that the challenge is to incorporate such opportunities in incremental stages in the intellectual, professional and personal development of university students. levels at which graduate employability could be embedded in the curriculum work on embedding employability attributes within the curriculum was initiated by yorke and knight (2006). they suggested five levels at which employability could be fostered in the curriculum, either explicitly or implicitly. the first level is employability throughout the entire curriculum. at this level, each student is required to demonstrate eight broad abilities at progressively more complex levels in both general education and the specialist subject(s) chosen. these abilities are: communication (reading, writing, speaking, listening, and visual, quantitative, and technological skills), analysis, problem solving, decision-making, social interaction, global perspectives, effective leadership, and aesthetic responsiveness. here, subject understanding is blended with skillful operational practices. owens and tibby (2014) provide the example of the staffordshire graduate employability project (sgep), a university-wide undergraduate program on employability focusing on attributes such as discipline expertise, professionalism and professional integrity, global citizenship, communication and teamwork, reflective and critical learning, and lifelong learning. these attributes are embedded in the whole curriculum, with a clear acknowledgement of the need for preparation for employability to be central to all programs and courses. the second level is employability in the core curriculum: a university may opt to designate a module or two as vehicles for the development of employability attributes. kemp (2009) studied the case of a module that was designed to enhance employability and provided evidence for the possibility of developing an employability profile that focuses on enhancing specific practical experience using a single module, while at the same time strengthening basic employability attributes. another case is provided by jackson (2013), who discussed a learning module dedicated to developing employability skills in a business context. the module had four units that were core to the bachelor of business program. in this example, each of the four units aimed to enable students to acquire a variety of employability skills through practical experience in a business context. the third level occurs when work-based or work-related learning is interspersed throughout the curriculum. this model is regarded as a contributor to employability. this includes placements of various periods, ranging from short periods to one-year placements. research has provided evidence of greater self-confidence and awareness of the challenges to be faced in the world of work as a result of such placements. students are required to complete a period of work experience and produce a report for both the workplace and the academic tutor. many universities credit work-based learning as part of their curricula. an example of this level is provided by pillai et al. (2012) in their discussion of an industrial training program at the university of malaya in malaysia. students received feedback sessions with lecturers and workplace training providers on skills gaps and mismatches in the workplace, as well as receiving continuous input from the workplace. in such a model, effective collaboration between academic staff and practitioners supervising students at work, is essential. kettis, ring, gustavsson and wallman (2013) suggest that interaction by higher education institutions with employers through placements enriches both parties, that is, academic staff at university and supervisors of students at placements. academic staff gain insight into practice, which may inspire teaching on campus, for instance by generating real life examples that trigger students’ motivation and inform curriculum design. shivoro, r., shalyefu, r., & kadhila, n. (2017). embedding graduate employability attributes in management sciences curricula: a case of two namibian universities. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 8(1), 123–136. 126 at the fourth level, employability-related modules are situated within the curriculum. these modules develop the students’ skills at the beginning of their program of study as they focus on freestanding skills. these modules are based on the assumption that if students are able to develop their personal autonomy in studying at the beginning of their studies, this will have longterm benefits. at this level, the university may develop a suite of modules designed to engage first-year students in a learning experience aimed at equipping them with the skills needed to meet the challenges of creativity and innovation (quality assurance agency for higher education, 2009). the final level is work-based or work-related learning in parallel with the curriculum. this occurs when students are employed part-time while they are studying. part-time employment could provide an experiential base for the academic study of employment-related disciplines. tran (2016) notes that this is a form of university-enterprise collaboration or partnership that involves work-based learning degree programs/sandwich courses. this kind of partnership blurs the barriers between the academic world and the world of work. muldoon (2009) presents a case study of the outcomes of an institutional award for the development of graduate employability attributes. in the study, students engaged in paid and voluntary part-time work as professional development and extra-curricular activity. the study concluded that part-time work was a useful avenue for the development of graduate employability attributes. nagarajan and edwards (2014) caution that higher education institutions may face a challenge in their efforts to integrate graduate employability attributes in their curricula. this challenge is posed by the different conceptualisations of graduate employability at various institutional levels such as university, faculty, school, department, program of study and particular subjects. one approach to managing the different levels is the use of overarching generic attributes that can then be broken down into specifics which can be implemented at lower levels. subsequently, these attributes are transformed by the faculty into a set of more specific learning goals relevant to the particular degree. the successful development of graduate employability attributes can then be facilitated by aligning learning design, learning outcomes, teaching and learning activities and assessment criteria and tasks with the generic attributes. the overview presented above provides this paper with a framework with which to analyse and assess strategies and levels at which employability attributes have been incorporated into the curricula of management sciences in namibia. the study asked the following question: how is graduate employability embedded in management sciences bachelor degree curricula in namibia? using the results from the first question, the paper then assesses which strategy can be considered most effective in enhancing graduate employability in curricula. methodological approach this study employed a qualitative approach using content analysis as a method to determine which strategy was most effective in integrating graduate employability into management sciences curricula (creswell, 2003). the sample comprised curriculum documents from six undergraduate degree programs at two public universities in namibia. three degree programs from each university, namely, bachelor of business management/administration, bachelor of accounting (general), and bachelor of economics were studied. these were four-year degree programs and were common to both institutions, thus allowing for comparisons of strategies employed in a similar program at two different institutions operating in the same context. in the interests of confidentiality as a principle of research ethics, the two universities that were the focus of the study are referred to as university a and university b. the researchers used the content analysis to identify explicit and implicit graduate employability attributes throughout the degree programs. this was done using both deductive and inductive methods of content analysis (zhang & wildemuth, 2009). qualitative analysis software, atlas ti. version 7.1.4., was used to code shivoro, r., shalyefu, r., & kadhila, n. (2017). embedding graduate employability attributes in management sciences curricula: a case of two namibian universities. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 8(1), 123–136. 127 portions of content from the curriculum documents and categorise these according to strategies and levels presented in the literature (see figure 1). figure 1: an example of coding portions of content for analysis using atlas ti. version 7.1.4. results and discussion results of the analysis are categorised using the levels and strategies of embedding graduate employability into curricula that are presented in the literature. the hierarchy begins with assessing whether the broad aims of the program make reference to graduate employability: the terms generally used are employability skills or attributes, transferable skills, generic attributes, graduate attributes, and soft skills. a university would have agreed on particular attributes to concentrate on based on demand from the labour market. this indicates the intention and commitment of the university to equip students with employability attributes, and these become known to students, academics and industry. level 1: employability-related modules in the whole curriculum this level analysed whether the two universities have purposefully incorporated graduate employability attributes in the aims of the programs. below, in table 1, are excerpts from the program documents. shivoro, r., shalyefu, r., & kadhila, n. (2017). embedding graduate employability attributes in management sciences curricula: a case of two namibian universities. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 8(1), 123–136. 128 table 1: broad program aims in relation to graduate employability university a university b program 1: students will have the opportunity to develop the required cognitive/intellectual, practical and key transferable skills, and apply these to complex accounting issues in the context of an organization. program 1: the purpose of this qualification is to provide an academic foundation for students intending to pursue a career in the accounting profession or financial service sector. program 2: the program will enable students to acquire cognitive, practical problem-solving, and key transferable skills that are necessary for addressing pressing challenges in the current namibian market and economy. program 2: this qualification equips students with intellectual ability, executive personality and managerial skills through an appropriate blending of business and general education. program 3: the program will enable students to acquire cognitive/intellectual, practical and key transferable skills and to apply these skills in solving economic problems that face the public and private sectors, as well as the overall economy. program 3: the purpose of this qualification is to produce graduates who are technically and intellectually competent in the application of economic theories, models and techniques. data analyses indicated that in all three degree programs, university a articulated that graduate employability would be enhanced in the program. a broad statement is made in the aims section of each degree program. specifically, each program asserts that students will have the opportunity to develop key transferrable skills and will be able to apply these to address challenges. this is done alongside the technical or discipline related aims of the degree program. however, this is not the case in the aims of programs at university b, where no reference is made to enhancing graduate employability attributes in the broad aims of programs 1 and 3. the broad aim of program 2 makes reference to developing executive personality. the broad program aims are further expanded into specific aims in the curriculum documents, as indicated in table 2. shivoro, r., shalyefu, r., & kadhila, n. (2017). embedding graduate employability attributes in management sciences curricula: a case of two namibian universities. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 8(1), 123–136. 129 table 2: specific program aims in relation to graduate employability attributes university a university b program 1: developing the ability of students to analyse information from a wide range of sources; equipping students with the requisite skills to work effectively as individuals and as members of a team; enabling students to communicate effectively in the workplace. program 1: this qualification equips students with the necessary accounting knowledge and skills that allow them to pursue their career in accounting, auditing, finance, taxation, banking and other related areas to contribute towards nation building and realisation of vision 2030. program 2: developing the ability of students to collect, analyse and interpret information from a variety of sources; preparing students to add value in the workplace through individual endeavour, as well as within a team context; and developing the generic as well as business communication skills of students. program 2: it is meant to develop the student's practical managerial skills, communication skills and business decision-making capability. it incorporates training and practical experience in the form of case projects, presentations, internships, industrial visits and interaction with experts from the industry. program 3: developing the ability of students to analyse information from a wide range of sources; equipping students with the requisite skills to work effectively as individuals and as members of teams, and enabling students to communicate effectively in the workplace. program 3: the qualification will sharpen the students’ analytical skills through integrating their knowledge of economic theory with real life economic issues encountered in day to day economic decision-making processes, both in the government and private sector. curriculum documents from university a highlight specific graduate attributes as outcomes of its programs. these attributes are: skills to work effectively as individuals and as team members; ability to communicate effectively in the workplace; and analysing information from a variety of sources. these appear in the intended outcomes of all three degree programs. in contrast, program 1 of university b does not make reference to graduate employability attributes other than discipline-specific knowledge and skills. programs 2 and 3 make reference to practical projects, internships, industrial visits, and the integration of theory with real life issues. there seems to be no consistency in the intent to develop graduate employability attributes in university b programs. despite the overarching statement concerning transferable skills and a second tier of attributes in university a’s programs, it was clear that there was a third tier of attributes that was unique to a given degree program. all three programs from university a have the uniform outcome that students will achieve the generic graduate outcomes of problem-solving, critical thinking, responsible citizenship and good communication. however, program 1 indicates the additional outcomes of: display honesty (integrity), social responsibility (consideration of the public interest), competence, objectivity and professional demeanour by their timeliness, due care, courteousness, respect, responsible actions and reliability. a comparison with university b shows shivoro, r., shalyefu, r., & kadhila, n. (2017). embedding graduate employability attributes in management sciences curricula: a case of two namibian universities. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 8(1), 123–136. 130 that its program 2 notes that graduates will be able to apply innovation and creativity skills in a business environment and communicate effectively in a business environment. program 3 from university b states that graduates should achieve quantitative and qualitative analysis and critical thinking skills as outcomes. program 1 from university b makes no mention of generic attribute outcomes. this does not mean that there are no graduate employability attributes embedded in the university b programs, however, they are not made explicit but implied, as will be shown later in this section. level 2: employability in the core curricula analysis has indicated that at both university a and university b, certain modules form part of the core curricula; these are compulsory for all students undertaking the degree program. the modules focus on communication skills, information technology skills and responsible citizenship. at both universities, the modules are delivered through contact hours, directed self-learning, and self-directed learning; and are assessed by continuous assessment and exams at the end of the semester. in addition, it was observed that some employability modules in the core curricula of management sciences at university a had incremental stages of competence. for example, there are three modules aimed at enhancing communication skills in a single degree program. below is a depiction of employability modules with incremental stages of competency. figure 1: incremental stages of english competency a second graduate employability provision with incremental stages is aimed at enhancing information technology. below is a depiction of the incremental stages of competence. figure 2: incremental stages of information technology competency language in practice year 1 semeters 1 (y1 s1) – display grammar english in practice y1 s2 – apply grammar english for academic purposes y2 s2 – communicate accurately computer user skills, y2 s2 – apply various technical and practical skills to use basic functions of the personal computer, as well as widely used application software, to solve problems and improve personal and organizational productivity. information competence, y1 s1 – search for information using search engines on the internet and web 2.0 technologies to solve given problems and critically evaluate information obtained. shivoro, r., shalyefu, r., & kadhila, n. (2017). embedding graduate employability attributes in management sciences curricula: a case of two namibian universities. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 8(1), 123–136. 131 at university b, all management sciences programs have common modules as part of the core curricula. these modules are: computer literacy, english communication and study skills, english for academic purposes, contemporary social issues, and business mathematics. as at university a, the english courses at university b are incremental. this is also the case in a university b module business mathematics, which prepares students for other mathematical and statistical modules at higher levels of the degree. this means that although the core curriculum serves as a foundation to prepare students for subsequent advanced levels of learning, these modules provide an implicit opportunity to develop generic employability attributes at the same time. these universities should determine whether core modules are to be considered as employability modules in core curricula. level 3: work-based or work related learning a module entitled work integrated learning (wil) is offered in all degree programs at university a. it is compulsory for all students registered for any of the degrees. the program is offered during the first semester of the third year of the degree. students are eligible to register for this module if they have passed all the modules in their first and second years. the wil module enables students to evaluate, apply and practise learnt competencies in the workplace to improve career prospects. it provides an opportunity for firsthand work experience in the student’s field of study and focuses on both discipline specific skills and employability attributes. the following is an excerpt from program 1 from university a: enabling students to apply various accounting and finance-related theories/best practices to real world accounting and finance situations/problems; developing capabilities such as effective oral and written communication, teamwork, planning and organising, thinking creatively and problem solving; enabling students to acquire general work experience and work ethics, and to manage time, communicate effectively, make presentations and apply economic theory to the various workplace tasks. the wil module is assessed through students’ workplace experience reports, the academic supervisor’s workplace visitation report, workplace supervisors’ reports, and students’ presentation skills. although university b’s program 2 mentions internships as part of the degree offering, there is no specific module related to internship in any of the three management sciences programs at this university. the wil experience at university a is offered in semester 1 of year 3; this implies that students are practising the theory they have learned in the first two years of the degree program. here, employability is embedded at the mid-point of the degree program. as learning is incremental, students enter the workplace with basic knowledge and skills learnt in the study program. therefore, it is important for universities to determine the best moment within the program to offer and assess wil so that students have the opportunity to undergo workplace experience of the theoretical learning acquired in years 3 and 4. level 4: other modules enhancing discipline-contextualised attributes related to graduate employability in the analysis of modules that embed graduate employability in curricula, the following modules were identified by the characteristics of their outcomes, which were related to specific employability attributes. these modules are contextualised to business management, but they also have characteristics of graduate employability. table 3 provides descriptions, taken from the curriculum documents, of these characteristics. shivoro, r., shalyefu, r., & kadhila, n. (2017). embedding graduate employability attributes in management sciences curricula: a case of two namibian universities. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 8(1), 123–136. 132 table 3: discipline-specific modules with graduate employability attribute characteristics module aim – the module enables students to: year and semester systems thinking apply knowledge of systems thinking to improve decision-making in the business administration and management domain. y2 s1 (university a) business ethics analyse and apply general ethical concepts in making ethical decisions in a business environment. y2 s2 (university a) innovation, creativity & entrepreneurship create innovative and feasible business ideas and develop a comprehensive and functional business plan for a sustainable entrepreneurial business. y3 s1 (university a) business ethics & leadership analyse and apply general ethical concepts in making ethical decisions in a business environment. y1 s2 (university a) business research methods select a research problem, define it, do the preliminary literature review and develop research design for problem solving. collect suitable data using appropriate methods and perform data analysis. y3 s2 (university b) research project formulate a research topic and research questions, then undertake a literature study. write a research proposal, collect and analyse relevant data and develop a written report. y4 s1 (university b) the topics and aims of these modules indicate strong elements of graduate employability attributes. for example, if the term business administration is excluded from the aim of the systems thinking module, the aim will read as: apply knowledge of systems thinking to improve decision-making. another example from the business ethics module is analyse and apply general ethical concepts in making ethical decisions. these examples suggest that graduate employability has a strong presence within these modules. thus they are implicitly enhancing generic attributes required in the workplace. implicit graduate employability attributes in curricula despite a lack of statements specifically intended to develop graduate employability attributes in some university b management sciences programs, further analyses of curriculum documents have established that graduate employability attributes are implicitly embedded in all university b programs. below are examples of excerpts from curriculum documents.  numeracy and critical thinking: apply mathematics principles and techniques to solve business related problems and develop critical reasoning and problem solving skills. shivoro, r., shalyefu, r., & kadhila, n. (2017). embedding graduate employability attributes in management sciences curricula: a case of two namibian universities. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 8(1), 123–136. 133  communication skills: express themselves fluently and concisely in spoken and written english in the context of university studies and the work environment.  problem solving: apply the knowledge acquired for solving the real life problems using techniques such as linear programming, network analysis.  ict skills: apply practical computer skills to use relevant software effectively, including microsoft windows, microsoft word, microsoft excel and microsoft powerpoint.  innovation and creativity: prepare bankable business plans, apply innovation and creativity skills in a business environment.  ethics: demonstrate critical knowledge of diversity and ethics.  management skills: apply conflict management and conflict resolution skills in organisations.  leadership skills: demonstrate a sound knowledge of strategic leadership. from the examples above, it can be concluded that there is an assumption of work-related training in the programs. specifically, there are elements of work-integrated learning through which students are expected to apply acquired knowledge and skills. however, there is no specific reference to prearranged work-integrated learning experiences. conclusion this paper analysed levels and strategies through which graduate employability has been embedded in the curricula of management sciences, using namibian universities as a case study. it then assessed which approach was most ideal for embedding graduate employability in the curricula. graduate employability has been defined in the literature as the qualities, skills, knowledge and abilities of university graduates, beyond disciplinary content knowledge, which are applicable to a range of contexts and are acquired as the result of completing any undergraduate degree, and which should represent the core achievements of a university education (barrie, 2006; yorke & knight, 2006). using the above explanation, the study found that employability attributes are explicitly but, largely, more implicitly embedded in the whole curriculum. although desirable, an absence of a principal statement on developing graduate employability in program aims may not necessarily imply an absence of opportunities for developing employability attributes in such a program. core modules in curricula have a dual role to provide a foundation to university education and to act as vehicles for developing graduate employability attributes. skills related to numeracy, communication, information and communication technology were found to be largely embedded in core curriculum modules. discipline-specific modules may also be a valuable resource for enhancing graduate employability attributes. specifically, skills related to leadership, management, innovation and creativity, critical thinking, and ethical conduct were found to be embedded in discipline-specific modules. as is evident from the analysis, work-integrated learning provides an opportunity for students to practise discipline-specific skills, but it also serves as a professional space for students to learn and practise generic or transferrable attributes. this is particularly useful in developing generic attributes when the workplace learning experience is arranged during the early years of the degree program. if workplace learning takes place during the final year of the degree, the student might be in position to showcase and practise advanced discipline-specific knowledge and skills, shivoro, r., shalyefu, r., & kadhila, n. (2017). embedding graduate employability attributes in management sciences curricula: a case of two namibian universities. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 8(1), 123–136. 134 coupled with employability attributes. therefore, a university should determine specific learning outcomes of any work-integrated learning experience. the study revealed the extent of graduate employability outcomes embedded in discipline-specific modules with specific outcomes related to graduate employability also being identified. both discipline-specific modules and employability modules specifically intended to enhance graduate employability were interlinked, and both were valuable in the development of graduate attributes. the study concludes that the best strategy to integrate employability attributes in curricula is to develop a graduate employability module as a core module. such a module should indicate the specific attributes that the university is intending to enhance. this should be supported by continuous workplace learning opportunities and reflection activities so that students can continuously reflect on their experiences and relate theoretical learning, from the earliest to the most advanced stage of the degree. however, universities should first take stock of those graduate employability attributes that are implicitly embedded in discipline-specific modules, and build on these by developing explicit employability modules. further research should determine the best stage in the curriculum at which to effectively enhance and assess graduate employability. shivoro, r., shalyefu, r., & kadhila, n. 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(2009). qualitative analysis of content. in b. wildemuth (ed.), applications of social research methods to questions in information and library science, (pp. 308-319). santa barbara:greenwood press. messum, d., wilkes, l., peters, k., & jackson, d. (2016). content analysis of vacancy advertisements for employability skills: challenges and opportunities for informing curriculum development. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 6 (1), 72-86. 72 content analysis of vacancy advertisements for employability skills: challenges and opportunities for informing curriculum development diana messum1, lesley wilkes1, kath peters1 & debra jackson2 d.messum@uws.edu.au; l.wilkes@uws.edu.au; k.peters@uws.edu.au; djackson@brookes.ac.uk 1western sydney university, 2oxford brookes university, uk abstract the process of curriculum development can be informed by seeking the views of stakeholders, including employers, academics, students and recent graduates, about the skills, attributes and personal characteristics required by various professions. the views of several stakeholders may also be compared to help ensure reliability of results and identify areas of agreement or variance. however, there are documented limitations regarding the perceptions of academics and students of employability skills, and also problems with employers’ and recent graduates’ views. another approach to identifying the skills required in various professions is content analysis of job vacancy advertisements. content analysis of advertisements is a versatile way of identifying current skills required by various professions, and allows comparison across countries and over time to identify trends. yet there is little evidence to suggest that this information is used to inform curriculum development. this paper presents a qualitative integrative review of studies looking at employability skills (es) through the use of content analysis of job vacancy advertisements. here es are equated with essential requirements stated in vacancy advertisements. es is the term adopted in australia by dest (2002) to define skills required to both secure employment and progress in an organisation. the critical appraisal skills programme (2014) checklist for qualitative research was used in this integrative review of 40 studies. the range of application, research methods used and findings are discussed in this paper, as are the advantages and challenges associated with analysing job vacancy advertisements as a method of identifying employability skills (es) required by employers. key words: employability skills, generic skills, content analysis, advertisements, job vacancies introduction adequately identifying the required skills of professions and industry is important in higher education institutions (heis) to ensure that curriculum remains relevant and current, thereby yielding high rates of graduate employment (a sector performance indicator) and attracting new students. the requirements of industry must first be clarified for employability capabilities to be embedded in the curriculum and to help ensure the work-readiness of graduates, consistent with the recent national wil strategy (universities australia, 2014). furthermore, the contextual nature of employability skills (es) has long been recognised (dewr, 2012), which means that industry specific es need to be identified. although industry generally appears satisfied with the discipline-specific skills of graduates, there is ongoing evidence that es are under-developed (precision consultancy, 2007; graduate careers australia (gca), 2015). while employer preferences for graduates who can ‘hit the ground running’ have been mailto:d.messum@uws.edu.au mailto:l.wilkes@uws.edu.au mailto:k.peters@uws.edu.au mailto:djackson@brookes.ac.uk messum, d., wilkes, l., peters, k., & jackson, d. (2016). content analysis of vacancy advertisements for employability skills: challenges and opportunities for informing curriculum development. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 6 (1), 72-86. 73 reported (ferns & lilly, 2015; semeijn, veldon, heijke, vlueten, & boshuizen, 2006; ridoutt, selby smith, hummel, & cheang, 2005), deficiencies in written and oral skills (gca, 2015; cbi, 2013; archer & davison, 2008) have been reported. gca (2015) found deficiencies in self-management skills, planning/organising, initiative/enterprise and problem solving skills in their annual survey of a range of industries across australia. communication skills, teamwork and technology skills were rated better, but were still in need of improvement. in the uk, deficits in integrity, teamwork, problem solving, literacy, numeracy, critical analysis skills, planning, organising and self-management have also been reported by employers (hinchliffe & jolly, 2014; tymon, 2011). these generic es seem more useful than job-specific skills for coping with rapidly changing and complex work environments such as in the health field (liang, short, & brown, 2006) and library information services (harper, 2012). although employee expectations for work readiness are also typically defined in terms of generic rather than discipline specific skills, with communication skills consistently emerging as the most important es, it would appear that these are not being sufficiently demonstrated. in 2015, 23.4 per cent of australian employers indicated that they had difficulty sourcing/recruiting graduates and would have employed more had they been available. this is a serious problem for employers given the cost of interviews and staff retention issues (gca, 2015, p. 5). the australian commonwealth department of education science and training (dest, 2002) definition of employability skills which was used in this research encompasses the skills not only to gain employment, but also to progress within an enterprise (dest, 2002, p. 143). this includes technical or discipline specific skills, knowledge, capabilities and personal attributes. more recently, the australian employability skills framework (2012) specified that es are those skills and knowledge that enable employees to perform effectively in the workforce and apply technical or discipline specific skills: these are considered context dependent. typically the views of employers (gca, 2015) or students are sought in an attempt to ascertain those es which should be included in curricula (jackson, 2013; nilsson, 2010). the views of recent graduates and academics have been reported (oliver, whelan, hunt, & hammer, 2011; gedye, fender, & chalkey, 2004; crebert, bates, bell, patrick, & cragnolini, 2004). other sources of information include capability lists published by professional colleges (achsm, 2014) and the analysis of essential skills identified in vacancy advertisements (messum, wilkes, & jackson, 2015; harper, 2012; varje, turtianen, & vaananen, 2013). however, skills to gain a job appear to be different from those required once a job is secured (semeijn, veldon, heijke, & vlueten, 2006; messum, wilkes, & jackson, 2015). bennett (2002) found that job advertisements aptly represent the skills and qualities that employers are looking for because the skills listed in the advertisements are carefully chosen to suit the position. it is argued that analysis of relevant job advertisements for current industry skill requirements may provide important information to inform curriculum development and may be useful for current or prospective students. this paper provides an integrative review (whittemore & knafl, 2005) of studies using job advertisements to identify skill requirements across a range of professions. research method a literature search, (see messum, wilkes, & jackson, 2011) of peer reviewed publications analysing vacancy advertisements for graduate es was conducted. electronic searches used google scholar to find peer reviewed articles and references lists were scrutinised. the search was limited to english full text articles, from 1997 through to 2015. key search words included: es, competencies, capabilities, job, recruitment or vacancy advertisements, job audit, generic skills, soft skills and content analysis. search alerts were set up to capture recent publications. in the process of updating the original literature search, 54 articles were found. however after duplicates were removed, 48 remained. these were screened to determine whether author(s) had conducted similar studies and only the most recent articles or those which used a different methodology were selected. this excluded another eight, leaving 41 full text articles. lastly, a review article was removed (harper, 2012). a summary of the research strategy is shown in figure 1. messum, d., wilkes, l., peters, k., & jackson, d. (2016). content analysis of vacancy advertisements for employability skills: challenges and opportunities for informing curriculum development. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 6 (1), 72-86. 74 figure 1: prisma 2009 flow diagram for research method to critique the papers, the qualitative checklist of ten questions from the critical appraisal skills programme (casp) from the uk national health service (2014) was applied. the first three questions relate to clarity of the goal statement, appropriateness of qualitative method and justification of the research design. the data generated included: authors, country where the research occurred, year and journal of publication, and goal statements, (table 1). further casp questions relate to the research method, namely the recruitment strategy; clarity of data collection procedures; whether the researcher examined their own role and potential biases; rigour of the data analysis (e.g. how themes were derived), sampling method and sample size; clarity of findings and consideration of limitations; and value of the research (tables 2-5). the casp question about ethics approval and consent is not relevant because data from advertisements is available in the public domain. results studies analysing advertisements for es from 1997 to 2015 were conducted in the uk, usa, europe, japan, malaysia, australia and new zealand. all except three studies were published in profession-specific journals, for example various management journals, marketing, social work, advertising, information technology (it), medicine, leisure and librarianship. none were found in journals relating to higher education and only two were retrieved from a human resources journal. one recent study was found on an employment website. this is consistent with the context specific nature of es recognised by dewr (2012). however, it means that exposure to the process and findings from content analysis of job advertisements, is limited. messum, d., wilkes, l., peters, k., & jackson, d. (2016). content analysis of vacancy advertisements for employability skills: challenges and opportunities for informing curriculum development. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 6 (1), 72-86. 75 table 1: publication details and study intent no author, year, country and journal goal statement and industry 1. redman & mathews (1997), uk. public personnel management recruiters requirements for public and private sector marketing and hrm managers 2. communal & senior (1999), britain, france, germany. management leadership & organisational development journal. to identify if any differences and similarities in the characteristics required of managers can be explained by reference to the impact of culture. 3. hawkins et al. (2000), australia. australian. social work sought insight into advertised employment opportunities for social workers. 4. bennett (2002), london, uk. journal vocational education and training to identify personal skills required in marketing, finance, general management and hrm. 5. arcodia & barker (2003), us. journal human resources in hospitality & tourism to classify event management competencies, number of jobs available and track changes for course evaluation. 6. pember (2003), australia. australian. academic & research libraries. knowledge and skills sought by employers for record keeping jobs. 7. cremin (2003), uk. sociological review incidence of personality traits describing the ideal corporate employee. 8. cullen (2003), ireland. leadership & organization development journal to identify sectoral differences in management cultures in ireland. 9. johnson & zlotnik (2005), usa. mentoring and tutoring: partnerships in learning use of mentoring as an es for psychology academics. 10. chao & shih (2005), usa. it, learning, and performance journal types of information systems (is) jobs in demand. 11. kennan, willard & wilson (2006), australia. australian academic & research libraries to monitor trends in es requirements for librarians. 12. mar molinero & xie (2007), uk. journal of the operational research society skills employers want for operational research, job tasks and employment conditions. 13. den hartog, caley, & dewe (2007), uk. human resource management journal how do organisations find leaders? to what extent is the ‘vocabulary of leadership’ used. 14. marchal, mellet, & rieucau (2007), france and uk. human relations do online vacancy search engines connect or select for jobs as sales managers & engineers? 15. orme et al. (2008), uk. library review employers' requirements for library and information (lis) professionals. 16. kennan et al. (2009), australia. australasian journal of information systems knowledge, skills and competencies demanded of early career is graduates. 17. massey (2010), usa. journalism and mass communication educator skills demand for multi-platform reporters. i.e. print, broadcast, the web, and mobile devices. 18. sodhi & son (2010), usa. journal of operational research to identify important es and trends over time in operational research skills jobs. 19. wellman (2010), wales, uk. marketing intelligence and planning to inform curriculum development in marketing. 20. france (2010), nz, australia. journal of business ideas and trends to identify differences between advertised expectations and pedagogy for management accountants. http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/cf_dev/absbyauth.cfm?per_id=727213 messum, d., wilkes, l., peters, k., & jackson, d. (2016). content analysis of vacancy advertisements for employability skills: challenges and opportunities for informing curriculum development. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 6 (1), 72-86. 76 21. askehave (2010), denmark. journal of business communication to analyse the way language is used to construct the ideal bank manager applicant. 22. messum, wilkes, & jackson (2011), australia. asia pacific journal of health management to identify current es required of health managers and update course curriculum. 23. wise, henninger, & kennon (2011), australia. australian academic and research libraries. to review and renew curricula for lis. to identify skills in demand and decline. 24. emery, crabtree, & kerr (2012), australia. annals of leisure research nature and diversity of employment required skill sets in sports management. 25. ahmed, capritz, bouktif, & campbell (2012), us, europe, asia and australia. journal of systems and information technology to find out whether employers’ soft skills requirements for different roles of software development, are similar across cultures. 26. reeves & hahn (2012), usa. journal education library & information science to provide information on skill requirements for recent graduates, to update lis curriculum. 27. omar, manaf, mohd, kassim, & aziz (2012), malaysia. asian social science are graduates employable based on the current pattern of job demands? 28. chipulu, neoh, ojiako, & williams (2012). uk, usa, canada, china, india, hk, malaysia, singapore. ieee transactions on engineering management to explore key competencies for project managers, across multiple industries. 29. quinn & rochford (2013), ireland. accountancy ireland role and characteristics required of management accountants. 30. salleh et al. (2013), malaysia. international business research to explore and profile architecture industryrelevant competencies. 31. kuokkanen, varje, & vaananen (2013), finland. acta sociologica to identify the ideal non-managerial employee. 32. ahsan, ho, & khan (2013), nz and australia. project management journal to compare frequently advertised competencies for project managers by country and industries. 33. cramer & tenzek (2013), usa. journal of health care chaplaincy to uncover trends in credentials and responsibilities expected of hospice chaplains. 34. varje, turtiainen, & vaananen (2013), finland. journal of management history to analyse the changing representations of the ideal manager, 1949 to 2009. 35. rear (2013), japan and uk. asian business and management identify changing work practices based on skills required in japan and uk for it, is, engineering, manufacturing, banking, finance and retail. 36. lavy & yadin (2013), israel. international journal of e-education, e-business, emanagement and e-learning to map soft skills requirements in it. 37. broome & gillen (2014), australia. british journal of occupational therapy. to identify competencies required in highdemand areas of ot practice and compare with curriculum. 38. harris (2014), canada. workopolis website to determine the most in-demand skills by canadian employers for all jobs, compared with posted resumes on the same website 39. hong (2015), usa. journal of geography to identify skill requirements of geographic information systems positions 40. ooi & ting (2015), malaysia. the english teacher to examine the emphasis placed on technical and soft skills in job advertisements. http://search.proquest.com.ezproxy.uws.edu.au/pubidlinkhandler/sng/pubtitle/international+business+research/$n/307072/docview/1516517620/fulltext/bca43fe77b544b42pq/1?accountid=36155 http://search.proquest.com.ezproxy.uws.edu.au/pubidlinkhandler/sng/pubtitle/international+business+research/$n/307072/docview/1516517620/fulltext/bca43fe77b544b42pq/1?accountid=36155 messum, d., wilkes, l., peters, k., & jackson, d. (2016). content analysis of vacancy advertisements for employability skills: challenges and opportunities for informing curriculum development. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 6 (1), 72-86. 77 study intent the goals of the studies varied little. generally they focused on providing insight into employment opportunities, namely types of jobs available and the skill sets, knowledge and competency requirements of industry, the relevant tasks and the diverse nature of a profession. some compared competency requirements across countries/cultures (communal & senior, 2004; ahsan, ho, & khan, 2013; rear, 2013) or revealed institutional differences such as private versus public (cullen, 2003; redman & mathews, 1997). all of the studies were based on a broad definition of es, consistent with the dest (2002) definition encompassing technical or discipline specific skills, knowledge, capabilities and personal attributes. only one examined generic or ‘soft’ skills alone (lavy & yadin, 2013). three focused on specific skills or requirements: the importance of personal skills, a uk government priority in response to employer criticism of graduates, (bennett, 2002); and the language employers used to describe leadership (communal & senior, 1999; den hartog, caley, & dewe, 2007). the importance of experience as an essential job requirement was also identified (salleh, yusoff, amat, noor, & suredah 2013). research was conducted to highlight not only current skills requirements, but also skills in demand or decline (quinn & rochford, 2014). findings from analysing trends over time for particular professions were reported in accounting (france, 2010; omar, manaf, mohd, kassim, & aziz, 2012) and librarianship (kennan, willard, & wilson, 2006). others undertook periodic analyses to understand skill changes and trends (sodhi & son, 2010; cramer & tenzek, 2013;) with the intention of keeping skill requirements up to date (wise, henninger, & kennon, 2011) or determining what skill sets preserve employability in rapidly changing and often global fields (kennan, cecez-kecmanovic, willard, & wilson, 2009). more recently studies have focused on identifying high-demand areas of practice within professions (wise et al., 2011; broome & gillen, 2014). in canada, workopolis (2014) provided the most indemand skills by employers across all job types, and compared the contents of online job postings with the available skills of candidates on the market to identify skill gaps. the finns have sought to find a country’s ideal employee across all jobs, analysing national newspaper advertisements, making comparisons over the last three decades (kuokkanen, varje, & vaananen, 2013). they have also profiled the ideal manager using the same data sources (varje, turtiainen, & vaananen, 2013). few studies sought information for the purpose of evaluating and renewing teaching and informing curriculum development (wellman, 2010; messum et al., 2011; reeves & hahn, 2012; broome & gillen, 2014). these studies explored the skills employers seek in recent graduates and the tasks they are expected to perform on the job. it was argued that although national competency sets exist for many professions, employer requirements may be different and present more up to date skill requirements useful for curriculum renewal (broome & gillen, 2014). even if this was not the original intention, findings from other studies noted the implications for curriculum development (lavy & yadin, 2013; emery, crabtree, & kerr, 2012; france, 2010; kennan et al., 2009; arcodia & barker, 2003). certainly employers have seen value in listing frequently used competencies to attract potential employees as opposed to using competencies described in the literature and from professional bodies (reeves & hahn, 2012; cramer & tenzek, 2013). data data sources table 2 summarises data sources and shows that nearly half the studies used online job recruitment sites and very few used professional publications, or employer websites. more recently, web based sites appear to be the major source of job vacancies. from one (omar et al., 2012) to as many as 13 online sites were used (emery et al., 2012). print media was less messum, d., wilkes, l., peters, k., & jackson, d. (2016). content analysis of vacancy advertisements for employability skills: challenges and opportunities for informing curriculum development. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 6 (1), 72-86. 78 frequently used unless historical trends were being researched as in finland (varje et al., 2013). table 2: data sources data sources n % article number in table 1 on line recruitment sites 19 47.5 4, 5,10, 16,18,19, 20, 23-30, 32, 35, 38, 39 major newspapers 11 27.5 2, 3, 6, 7, 8,11,13, 31, 34, 36, 37 professional publications 4 10.0 1, 9, 12, 15 employer corporate website 1 2.5 21 more than one of the above 5 12.5 14,17, 22, 33, 40 n=number sample size and sampling procedure table 3 reports the number of advertisements reviewed and sampling procedures. sampling was purposive whether determined by source, for example, certain newspapers or online job sites, time period, place (e.g. a country), profession(s), sector of employment, or type of es or experience requirements. all studies removed duplicates. some set a target number of advertisements for collection, for example, 100, a time period such as three months, or sampled within a time period, for instance the first saturday of the month, one week every three months or every third advertisement, typically to remove seasonal variations. a few used a random number generator when numbers were large to avoid bias in selection of advertisements for analysis. sample size varied from only one advertisement used in multiple locations across a country to over 3000. over 40 per cent collected 500 advertisements or more and 22 per cent collected over 1000. only four collected under 100, while for two studies sample size was not stated (cremin, 2005; harris, 2014). use of large samples may be explained by the more recent ready availability of data from online job sites. table 3: data sampling and number of advertisements analysed data sampling and size n % article number in table 1 random sample: <100 ads 100499 ads >500 ads ns 5 0 4 1 0 12.5 0 10.0 2.5 0 1,15, 25, 35 4 purposive sample: <100 ads 100-499 ads >500 ads ns 20 2 10 7 1 50.0 5.0 25.0 17.5 2.5 21, 33 2, 8, 10, 11, 17, 20, 23, 26, 35, 40 12,14, 26, 32, 34, 36, 39, 7 census over set time period: <100 ads 100-499 ads >500 ads ns 15 2 5 7 1 37.5 5.0 12.5 17.5 2.5 6, 30 5, 16, 22, 27, 29, 3, 9,13,18, 24, 28, 37 38 n=number, ns= not stated messum, d., wilkes, l., peters, k., & jackson, d. (2016). content analysis of vacancy advertisements for employability skills: challenges and opportunities for informing curriculum development. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 6 (1), 72-86. 79 data coding, analysis and study rigour manual data analysis was used in the majority of studies to count the most frequently occurring skills required as shown in table 4. five more recent studies used nvivo, provalis simstat, leximancer or wordstat. cross tabulations were performed for comparison purposes in seven studies. statistical software programs were applied to the derived data in a quarter of studies only, which had large enough sample sizes. few used a predetermined coding frame to categorise data into themes. table 4: data coding and analysis data coding and analysis n % article number in table 1 manual frequency counts of all key words 16 40 3, 5, 6, 8, 10,12,14,15, 20, 22, 25, 29-31, 40 manual tally using pre-set codes 10 25 1, 2, 18, 19, 24, 26, 27, 32-34 manual tally selected key words only 4 10 7, 9, 23, 36 mixed methods e.g. word counting software applied, or manual coding then proximal plots or cluster analysis 10 25 4, 11, 13, 16,17, 21, 28, 35, 37-39 n=number *more than one item could have been used study rigour and control of bias was not well addressed in most studies. only six discussed any pilot study to develop a coding frame, and five checked coder reliability. three followed up findings with focus groups or surveys to verify findings, for example to find out why skills were listed by managers (bennett, 2002) or to clarify the meaning of a term such as leadership (france, 2010; messum et al., 2011). acknowledgement of study limitations was found in one third of studies only. ten noted the need for follow up and triangulation with employers, recent employees or job applicants to corroborate findings, and/or the need for a larger sample or longer time period to collect data. five mentioned limited external validity, due to incomplete coverage or non-inclusion bias such as internal hiring, use of only one data source, or findings from one country only. coding problems due to ambiguity in interpretation and the lack of shared understanding of the terms used occurred in five studies. one study noted that the es identified may not reflect actual hiring decisions (cramer & tenzek, 2013), or the job demands once hired (massey, 2010). most commonly identified es table 5 reveals that communication skills were the most commonly advertised skill requirement followed by teamwork, job specific skills and experience. however, communication skills were also variously identified as social skills (redman & mathews, 1997) and interpersonal skills (wise et al., 2011) or listed as an item in a cluster of skills. other studies viewed communication skills as a distinct skill separate from interpersonal skills (den hartog et al., 2007; omar et al., 2012; hong, 2015; salleh et al., 2013). rear (2013) concluded that communication skills mean different things in different countries. six studies did not report specific es, or focused on one es only, for example leadership. messum, d., wilkes, l., peters, k., & jackson, d. (2016). content analysis of vacancy advertisements for employability skills: challenges and opportunities for informing curriculum development. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 6 (1), 72-86. 80 table 5: rank order of es found in advertisements* findings n % article number in table 1 communication skills 25 62.5 1, 4-8,10,12,13,15,18,19, 22-27,30-32, 35, 36, 38-40 teamwork 13 32.5 4, 6, 15,18,19, 22, 26, 27, 30, 36-38, 40 job specific or technical skills 10 25.0 6, 12,16,18-20, 31, 32, 37, 39, experience 10 25.0 3, 6,10,15,16,19, 22, 24, 26, 28 interpersonal skills 9 22.5 2, 6,11,13,15, 23, 30, 35, 39 organisational skills, planning 7 17.5 4, 5, 8, 19, 24, 38, 40 it, computing, software skills** 7 17.5 4, 6, 12,19, 22, 27, 38 tertiary qualifications 7 17.0 3,15,16,18, 22, 31,37 leadership 3 7.5 8,18,29 personal qualities 3 7.5 1, 27,34 creativity and innovation 3 7.5 1,19, 25 analytical skills 3 7.5 8,18,22 problem solving 2 5.0 12,38 project management 2 5.0 8,18 work independently 2 5.0 20,40 other eg good fit, commitment, drive change, ethical, service orientation, lll, time management, collaboration skills 6 15.0 23, 25, 26, 35, 36, 38 n= number *more than one could be reported. ** it skills for it industry are listed as job specific skills. value of the research various claims about the value of the research were provided. several confirmed that generic skills were as, or more important, than discipline specific skills to secure a job, (chipulu, neoh, udechukwu, & williams, 2012; varje et al., 2013; lavy & yadin, 2013; broom & gillen, 2014). longitudinal studies showed changing skill requirements over time with increased emphasis on soft skills rather than job or profession-specific skills (hawkins et al., 2000; quinn & rochford, 2013; cramer & tenzek, 2014). monitoring of market trends to define current skill requirements was well supported although cultural and other contextual differences were acknowledged, (cullen 2003; den hartog et al., 2007; ahmed, capritz, bouktif, & campbell 2012; reeves & hahn, 2012; kuokkanen et al., 2013; ahsan et al., 2013). in fact one third (13) of the studies specifically recommended that hei should use their findings for academic advising, updating curriculum and to help new graduates align with skill requirements of industry. they argued that hei should teach generic skills required by industry: in particular communication skills and teamwork should be addressed. one study revealed a poor match between curriculum and professional competency lists (france 2010). three studies saw value in current employees, employers, human resources managers or graduates using their findings (ahsan et al., 2012; ahmed et al., 2012; messum et al., 2011). the importance of work experience was also confirmed and taken to support the importance of work integrated learning and industry placements, (messum et al., 2011). the value of using content analysis of advertisements as a supplement to employer interviews to identify job requirements was also confirmed (reeves & hahn, 2012; emery et al.,2012). messum, d., wilkes, l., peters, k., & jackson, d. (2016). content analysis of vacancy advertisements for employability skills: challenges and opportunities for informing curriculum development. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 6 (1), 72-86. 81 discussion content analysis of job advertisements has been widely used by various professions to identify commonly required es and trends in skill requirements. however, relatively few studies were found in many different refereed journals. this may explain why content analysis of vacancy advertisements is not frequently used to triangulate es research. it appears to be a worthwhile alternative or adjunct to employer surveys, with the advantages of currency, accessibility and low cost. researchers even argued that results from their research challenged professional competency sets and found current curriculum wanting, (france 2010; messum et al., 2011; broome & gillen, 2014). one third of the studies recommended that findings be used to inform curriculum development. furthermore, additional uses to required skills lists were revealed in this integrative review. for example, askehave (2010) found advertisements attracted male rather than female applicants, when the potential employment pool of females was the larger. furthermore, the wording of their advertisement restricted rather than attracted applicants: feedback useful to human resources departments. regular monitoring of advertisements can identify trends in es requirements, areas of high demand within a profession, and where jobs are located, which is useful information for recent graduates and careers advisors. there were consistent findings emphasising the importance of generic skills such as communication skills and teamwork. furthermore, such skills have remained important over time as shown from longitudinal analysis of es trends in advertisements, (varje et al., 2013). massey (2010), concluded that skill sets are in transition, with a move towards generic skills rather than job or profession-specific skills (hawkins et al., 2000; cramer & tenzek, 2014; quinn & rochford, 2013). these skills may well protect and preserve employability. for example, the es that are required to secure a job as found in vacancy advertisements have been found to be somewhat different skill sets to those that help employees progress in the employing organisation (semeijn et al., 2006; messum et al., 2015)). the skills for successful long term employment need to be studied. however, definition of individual es is not agreed. for example, this review revealed that communication skills mean different things to different researchers. in depth studies exploring words like personal attributes, leadership and soft skills, included in this review, help to clarify understanding. use of agreed definitions on webbased job vacancy sites is also recommended. the es profiles that emerged varied not only by industry and discipline, but also by country or culture (marchal, mellet, & rieucau, 2007; communal & senior, 1999; quinn & rochford, 2013; rear, 2013; ahmed et al., 2013; cramer & tenzek, 2014). our review supports the conclusion of dewr (2012) that es are context specific. it means that lists of es for school leavers or university wide graduate attributes may not be enough to help students identify skill requirements for their chosen profession. listing of the most frequently required es is a start, but their importance for various professions has been found to vary, plus discipline specific skills or technical skills and experience requirements need to be known. the recommendation from this review is that researchers need to use a broad definition of es such as that offered by dewr, and identify current, context specific es. although gca (2015) provides annual updates on the most common es required by industry, there is still a need to disaggregate data by discipline. according to the literature, another important, if not the most important es requirement, was experience (orme, 2008). this review found one quarter of advertisements required experience. chao and shih (2005) found experience was listed in 67 per cent of advertisements, wellman (2010) reported 52 per cent and kennan et al., (2009) 50 per cent. some studies found that it was even a requirement for new entry positions (messum et al., 2011; reeves & hahn, 2012; chipulu et al., 2013). this finding may help explain recruitment shortages identified by gca (2015), and has important implications for hei and work integrated learning, as well as employers. the wording used in advertisements may deter applicants if experience is emphasised or narrowly defined. messum, d., wilkes, l., peters, k., & jackson, d. (2016). content analysis of vacancy advertisements for employability skills: challenges and opportunities for informing curriculum development. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 6 (1), 72-86. 82 there is a need to improve rigour in content analysis studies of advertisements. some authors used a predetermined coding frame to categorise data into themes, but problems were noted about agreement of coders. the majority of studies allowed their coding frames to be data driven, tallying the advertised skill requirements to identify themes. sodhi and son (2010) argued that manual analysis is superior to computerised analysis in terms of accuracy of frequency counts, because words have different meanings in different contexts. however, this review found that few used pilot studies or cross checked coder reliability. more recently, web based job sites appear to be the major source of advertisements. however, marchal et al. (2007) argued that online job advertisements constrain employers by requiring use of pre-defined lists, keywords and input fields, making entries more standardised and quantified than newspaper advertisements. similarly they found that search engine toolkits restrict wording used to find job skill requirements. yet the opportunity is there for job sites to clearly define commonly used terms and overcome this problem. recommendations for further research a mixed methods approach of content analysis followed up with employers and or recent graduates would be useful to verify findings. then the extent to which selection criteria attracts suitable applicants can be investigated. this would help provide external validity for criteria used in job advertisements. however, the process of content analysis of job advertisements must be improved with larger data sets from online sites, and better measures to ensure reliability. furthermore, researchers need to report both the frequency of occurrence of common es, as well as the composition of clusters that emerge from more sophisticated data analysis. these serve different purposes: the first identifies commonly required es across many jobs; the latter describes specific skill sets for professions and industries. this moves content analysis research beyond descriptive frequency counts to more useful information. it is also important that common definitions of terms be agreed, which more in depth study of particular es may reveal. on line job sites could then provide definitions of es based on the evidence. conclusion triangulation efforts for curriculum development have included not only employers, but also recent graduates, applicants for positions, professional bodies and recruitment agencies. given the limitations of stakeholder lists of es an objective, additional or alternative sources of information to at least corroborate views, is needed. the advantages of analysing advertisements for es include: ready accessibility, potentially large data sets, at low cost and not always time consuming method to determine those es required on the job. as a qualitative exercise it can provide a wealth of useful information to inform curriculum development, careers advisors, current students and graduates about the es employers require in specific fields. however, the challenge is to improve external validity, sampling techniques, sample sizes and agree common definition of terms when using content analysis. allowing the data to drive findings rather than forcing es identified in advertisements into pre-determined categories is also recommended. messum, d., wilkes, l., peters, k., & jackson, d. 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(2017). editorial. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 8(1). 1 editorial welcome to volume 8 of the journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability. in the debate about the relationship between higher education and the world of work, the concepts of employability, graduate capabilities, work readiness, work experience and lifelong learning are recognised as significant in enhancing graduates’ competitiveness in the employment stakes. this is certainly supported by the view of employers who in the recent times higher education global university employability rankings (2016) survey identified professional experience and employability skills as being the most important in predicting employability and the qualities they would seek in graduates. however the transition from selecting a course of study to displaying these employability capabilities and finally selecting a career may prove quite difficult for some students. emeritus professor john brennan of the open university uk suggests that studying different subjects and preparation for different jobs require different things. some of these might be known at the time of study, but others will not. it is not surprising then that while higher education students commence their studies expecting that graduation will lead to a career eventually, many don’t make a conscious effort to explore career options. it might be that the delay in considering a career is related to how they view the purpose of their higher education. for some it may be an opportunity for a well-rounded education; learning how to think critically, reason analytically and reflect on personal growth. others may be interested in campus life and the social opportunities that prevail, while others might indeed have a definite career route in mind. the rising popularity of business degrees does seem to indicate that many students see the vocational role of higher education with the goal being to get a job rather than to ‘experience’ an education. however for those who commence their higher education with a more liberal view of their education the question of when and how to make a career choice may be challenging. the graduate careers australia gradstats report 2015 revealed that only 11 per cent of graduates visited their institutions’ career service and just four per cent attended a career fair or information session. the most common sources of information regarding careers were the internet or friends. it would appear that there remains some work to be done in better understanding how to assist students to make connections between their studies and career opportunities. a recent report out of bond university, ‘global graduate employability research: a report to the business20 human capital taskforce’ identified seven strategies most frequently identified by stakeholder groups (employers, graduates, students and higher education personnel) as being valuable. these were: work experience /internships/ placements; engaging in extra-curricular activities; careers advice and employment skill development; part time employment; attending networking or industry information events; volunteering/community engagement; and professional association membership/ engagement, confirming the importance of career advice in tandem with work experience opportunities. the first paper for our 2017 issue by shelley kinash, linda crane, john capper, mark young and ashley stark, when do university students and graduates know what careers they want: a research-derived framework, reports on research which explored how university students and graduates subsequently employed, made career decisions. notably, students and graduates in the study appeared to unconsciously subscribe to a largely vocational model of oliver, b. (2017). editorial. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 8(1). 2 university education with a nearly unanimous belief that career preparation was the main, if not sole, purpose of a university. the paper provides a ‘university student and graduate career-knowledge framework’ and a set of recommendations for universities on how to better support students to make career choices. on behalf of the editorial committee and deputy editor beatrice tucker i commend the first paper to you and invite you to engage with the forthcoming papers throughout the year as we seek to promote scholarly communication and debate, and scholarship in learning and teaching for graduate employability. beverley oliver editor dunne, j. (2017). work placement reflective assessments and employability enhanced through highlighting graduate attributes. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 8(1), 40–59. 40 work placement reflective assessments and employability enhanced through highlighting graduate attributes. julie l. dunne julie.dunne@dit.ie school of food science and environmental health, college of sciences and health, dublin institute of technology orcid id: 0000-0002-5858-2694 abstract this paper reports on a study which investigated the effect of activities to promote awareness of specific prioritised graduate attributes on the quality of reflection displayed in student work-placement reflective blog assessments. the focus of the paper is on the results from a thematic analysis of reflective writing assisted by nvivo software from a control and research group, using the a priori codes of ‘reflection’ and ‘graduate attributes’, as part of a participatory action research study. the findings show an increase in reflection associated with graduate attributes in the research group compared to the control group. more importantly, there is evidence of an increase in the variety of graduate attributes being discussed by the research group, with the specifically prioritised attributes featuring most frequently. additionally, the research group were much more likely to explicitly identify the skill or attribute by name. this shows that activities that emphasise graduate attributes within a curriculum in advance of entering an internship or work-placement can help students by providing a focal point to frame their work-placement experiences in their reflective assessments. students have an increased tendency to frame their placement experiences in terms of graduate attributes, as well as core skills developed in the curriculum. this consequently broadens their reflection and advances their employability, particularly initially securing employment, through improved articulation and evidencing of their transferable skills. it also provides a means of assessing the development of graduate attributes, which is a challenging but necessary academic task in a modern professional curriculum. keywords: graduate attributes, work-placement, reflective assessment, thematic analysis, employability, blog assessment introduction this paper discusses the results of a research investigation into the effect of emphasising graduate attributes within a curriculum on student pharmacy technician work-placement reflective assessments, with a view to enhancing their employability. employability is the ability to gain, maintain and obtain new employment (hillage & pollard, 1998). gaining initial employment requires the correct skills and qualifications, but also the ability to present them mailto:julie.dunne@dit.ie dunne, j. (2017). work placement reflective assessments and employability enhanced through highlighting graduate attributes. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 8(1), 40–59. 41 to an employer in an appropriate manner. these professional competencies relate to both theoretical knowledge and graduate attributes, as both are key to students employability (james, lefoe, & hadi, 2004). given that employment advertisements and interview questions typically refer to specific transferable skills, along with professional and disciplinary competencies, inability to articulate and provide evidence for relevant graduate attributes thus reduces employability. the higher education authority (hea) employability skills review advises that higher education institutions (heis) can help to close the skills gap by offering students the opportunity to develop an ability to articulate generic and other employability skills that can be applied in a professional capacity to address challenges (toland, 2011). a comprehensive review of integrating graduate attributes into the curriculum in australia identified challenges in setting standards, and in determining to what extent these standards are being met by students (hughes & barrie, 2010). it emphasised that graduate attribute assessment plans will not accomplish their aim if students are not made aware of their objectives and if students are not actively involved as partners in the assessment process. they argue that a ‘student-centeredness’ in which graduate attributes are assessed with rather than for students is needed. they emphasise that the collection of evidence of progress in relation to specific attributes is needed for success, as well as active discussion about improvement with teachers and peers. the reflective process that underpins this approach to the understanding and development of graduate attributes is also key. there have been many literature reports in various fields wherein attempts have been made to make more explicit within the curriculum the development and assessment of graduate attributes. treleaven and voola (2008) advocate that students’ awareness of graduate attributes and their value must be developed and put in the context of their future careers, using reflective journals to gather evidence. nicol (2010) has also included self-regulated learning in the development of graduate attributes, and reasons that students need opportunities to develop the ability to critically evaluate the quality and impact of their own work, which requires both self-assessment and peer review. like many heis, in order to realise a graduate skills portfolio, dublin institute of technology (dit) identified a suite of skills aligned to its academic mission as an industry focussed institution that delivers job-ready graduates. dit requested that these be integrated into curricula (dit, 2013), and they were the focus of the institute’s learning, teaching and assessment strategy. they are branded under 5 ‘e’s: engaged, enterprising, effective, enquiry based, and expert; and are further broken down within each ‘e’ (figure 1). the 20 dit graduate attributes expert effective enquiry based engaged enterprising work based/work related learners strategic thinkers critical thinkers global citizens leaders disciplinary knowledge active team players creators of new knowledge excellent communicators innovators reflective practitioners emotionally intelligent decision makers motivated selfstarters collaborative workers digitally literate resilient problem solvers ethical entrepreneurs figure 1: dit graduate attributes dunne, j. (2017). work placement reflective assessments and employability enhanced through highlighting graduate attributes. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 8(1), 40–59. 42 in tandem with this, on-going research has been carried out in dit into the use of blogs as a reflective assessment and as a tool to foster a community of learning for pharmacy technician students on work-placement (dunne & ryan, 2016). work-placement is a period of planned work-based experiential learning, where the learning outcomes are part of a programme of study. common to best practice recommendations is the notion that students should actively participate in reflection, which is key to turning experiences into learning (boud, keogh, & walker, 1985). smith, clegg, lawrence, and todd (2007) argue that the academic benefits of work-based experiences depend largely on the extent to which students reflect on them and relate them back to knowledge gained in theoretical modules. reflection must be considered a purposeful activity that is pursued with intent, and involves and inter-relationship between feelings and cognition. teaching innovations in the area of reflection for professional development include online technologies (for example blogs) which provide a virtual space for reflection which can be accessed by peers and tutors alike (chretien, goldman, & faselis, 2008). a recent review of the supports for student reflection in technology-enhanced learning identified that pre-defined guidance and human-intervention guidance can both act as a positive support for high-quality reflection (kori, pedaste, leijen, & mäeots, 2014). the review advises that some kind of mechanism should be designed to guide learners in ‘focusing on critical points’ while engaging in reflective practice. the previous dit research, which can be seen as reconnaissance for the study described in this paper, identified that a workshop on reflective writing improved the students’ understanding of what good reflective writing looks like (dunne & ryan, 2016). however they continued to struggle with the practice of reflective writing as evidenced by their own opinions as well as their reflective assessments. as an additional positive support, the current research proposed to investigate whether a better appreciation of graduate attributes may help the students to focus on these as ‘critical points’ (kori et al., 2014) upon which to frame their work based experiences and consequently improve and deepen their reflective writing, and also their employability. this paper will discuss the results of a comparative thematic analysis of the reflective blog assessments of a control group (cg) from 2013/14 and a research group (rg) in 2014/15 to determine the effect of emphasising graduate attributes in the curriculum on their subsequent work-placement reflective writings. the study theoretical framework a participatory action research (par) methodology was implemented for the study in order to create a learning environment that connects theory and practice with action and reflection as an outcome of participating with others (reason & bradbury, 2008). as research that is carried out with participants not on them (baldwin, 2012), this facilitated the students to act as co-researchers, and thereby through their participation and interactions each contributor was able to develop their own understanding of the concept of graduate attributes. a constructivist ontological position allowed for concepts about how graduate attributes are perceived and developed by the students to be produced through social dialogue and reflection. research into how each individual student perceives graduate attributes must take into account the differences in individuals, and thus an interpretation of their reflective assessments was required. therefore an interpretivist epistemological position was assumed. the method chosen for the interpretation of the reflective assessments was through template analysis (king, 2014) for thematic coding. analysis of the control group (2013/14) and research group (2014/15) was based on a hypothesis driven confirmatory approach using the a priori codes of ‘reflection’ and ‘graduate attributes’. independent double blind coding of a random sample of assessments was carried out. dunne, j. (2017). work placement reflective assessments and employability enhanced through highlighting graduate attributes. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 8(1), 40–59. 43 participants in the study the control group (cg) and research group (rg) involved in this study were all the students registered in the final year of the dit higher certificate in pharmacy technician studies in the two consecutive years of 2013/14 for the control group, and 2014/15 for the research group. there were no incidents of students belonging to both groups – each group was entirely independent of the other. other than the activities included in the study described by this paper that were implemented for the research group, there were no other significant changes to the curriculum, nor those teaching it, during the years involved. implementation engaging in a par project enabled students to share responsibility for all aspects of the project (fowler, wu, & lam, 2014). it placed the students at the centre of the research as coresearchers who would benefit through the development of a deeper understanding and articulation of graduate attributes and how they relate to the curriculum and the profession. this aligned to the concepts of hughes and barrie (2010) and treleaven and voola (2008) as explained in the introduction. the research group students were involved in the three cycles of the action research, as follows. during the first ‘knowledge development’ cycle of par (september to october 2014) a baseline level of research group (rg) student knowledge and confidence in their understanding of the twenty dit graduate attributes (figure 1) was achieved through student surveys. their level of initial confidence about graduate attributes is depicted in error! reference source not found. in the results and discussion section. following this, they were provided with several resources to develop their knowledge. these included information from the university of sheffield careers service (department, 2014), the he stem employability skills review (toland, 2011), the open university careers service resources (university, 2014), and resources from the university of aberdeen centre for academic development (aberdeen, 2014). knowledge development was carried out over a series of face-to-face tutorial sessions, and involved peer and tutor discussion. during the second cycle ‘prioritisation of graduate attributes’, prioritisation for the programme in question was achieved through an online survey of pharmacy technician employers, including hospital and community pharmacists and human resource professionals (n=48). the survey was developed in conjunction with the students (november–december 2014). allowing students to be involved with the development of the simple online survey assisted with their familiarisation of the graduate attributes. for example, the survey included student input into developing a definition of each graduate attribute. these definitions are provided in the appendix. further details about the survey design, which was based on the australian graduate employability indicators survey are available (dunne, 2015). the results from the survey allowed for the most important graduate attributes for pharmacy technicians to be prioritised. these are listed in table 1. based on these, a series of activities to highlight the most important graduate attributes was carried out with the students. the assuring graduate capabilities website (oliver, 2015) was used to identify suitable activities. these included online self-evaluation exercises to allow students to determine their strengths and weaknesses in skills to date. they also included an ethics debate centred on a short ethical case study relevant to the role of the pharmacy technician, organised based on a modified version of the ‘think-pair-share’ format reviewed in kennedy (2007) (december 2014 – february 2015). following these activities, the final cycle of the action research project to determine any effect of their reflective writing, the students undertook exactly the same placement preparation workshops as the 2013/14 control group. details of these are already published (dunne & dunne, j. (2017). work placement reflective assessments and employability enhanced through highlighting graduate attributes. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 8(1), 40–59. 44 ryan, 2016). the assessment rubric and details also remained exactly the same as for the control group. students were on placement from march – august 2015 and reflective blogging took place in four weekly instalments during april – may 2015. data analysis using nvivo while qualitative research is not given to mathematical analysis, it is nonetheless systematic in its approach to data collection and analysis. in this research, the process involved breaking down the data into discrete ‘units’ and coding them to categories according to pre-defined a priori codes. coding of the 2013/14 and 2014/15 reflective blogs was carried out using nvivo software to support the qualitative analysis. while the researcher carried out the hermeneutic task, nvivo was used as a tool for efficiency and transparency of coding, and to query the data during the analysis. the coding in relation to the results in this paper sought to look for evidence of increased emphasis on graduate attributes in student reflection. the phases of the analysis were as follows: phase 1: extracting the data from individual blog posts from the research and control groups into individual microsoft word documents and uploading these as sources in nvivo as ‘case nodes’. the control group comprised of 26 student case nodes and 78 blog sources, while the research group consisted of 29 student case nodes and 87 blog sources. for anonymity when using extracts from their blogs, the students have been assigned the codes cg1-cg26 and rg1-rg29 for control and research groups respectively. phase 2: ‘open coding’ each blog post case node into the primary nvivo ‘node’ of graduate attributes, according to the nvivo codebook. phase 3: ‘coding on’ the primary nodes into sub-nodes, according to the nvivo codebook. note, during the early analysis phase, a further coding-on was carried out to reduce the explicit references to graduates attributes into ‘explicit but unnamed’, and ‘explicit and named’. examples to show the difference between these can be found in the results and discussion section. phase 4: running nvivo matrix queries on the coded data to establish trends and relationships between the different categories of codes from the codebook. phase 5: comparison of sample double coded assessments for agreement of coding. dunne, j. (2017). work placement reflective assessments and employability enhanced through highlighting graduate attributes. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 8(1), 40–59. 45 table 1: nvivo codebook for open coding and coding-on for thematic analysis of control and research blogs open code sub-code code description graduate attributes all references to graduate attributes explicit and implicit specific attributes: communication references to communication based graduate attributes emotional intelligence references to emotional intelligence based graduate attributes, including discussion on ones own feelings, and ones perceptions of others. motivation references to motivation based graduate attributes, including taking initiative. work related learner references to work related learning graduate attribute, including cpd, on the job learning, and standard work skills such as organisation, time-keeping. collaboration references to collaboration based graduate attributes team work references to team work based graduate attributes, including organisation and time keeping. accuracy and precision. innovator references to innovation critical thinking reference to critical analysis and problem solving ethical reference to ethical practice others references to specific graduate attributes not listed statement type: implicit references to graduate attributes that have been interpreted by the researcher rather than explicitly labelled by the blog author. explicit references to graduates attributes that have been explicitly acknowledged by the blog author, either by using the graduate attribute term itself or clearly alluding to the skill as has been defined for this project. interpretation by the researcher was not required. dunne, j. (2017). work placement reflective assessments and employability enhanced through highlighting graduate attributes. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 8(1), 40–59. 46 limitations, delimitations and ethics this research was delimited to the students in dt425/2 higher certificate in pharmacy technician studies (dit), 2013/14 as the control group for comparison. the study is limited to the cohort of students registered to the module tfip2001 pharmacy work-placement dit (n=29). owing to the nature of the action research based methodology, there is an inherent deficit in the study because the research group and control group were not sampled from the same cohort, but rather individual cohorts in their final year of the same course in consecutive years. the study was delimited to a single primary coder, namely the author of the study, with a representative sample of double coding by an academic unrelated to the project for rigour. the project has received ethical clearance from the dit research ethics committee (ref no. 14-68). results and discussion the graduate attributes that were specifically identified by the pharmacy stakeholders as being most important for graduates of a pharmacy technician programme are shown in table 2. table 2: prioritisation of graduate attributes for pharmacy technician graduates by stakeholders (n=48) dit graduate attribute excellent communicators* active team players* collaborative workers** motivated self-starters** emotionally intelligent** ethical** work based/work related learners** * top priority **very high priority the results from the baseline survey (n=22 rg students) show that there was a considerable lack of confidence in understanding by many of the research group students in regard to many of the attributes at the outset of the project (figure 2), including those prioritised by their future employers. on average across all the skills, 8.75 students reported having confidence in their understanding of the graduate attributes, compared to a significantly higher 12.75 reporting not being confident. with the exception of communication and team-work, none of the stakeholder prioritised skills ranked highly in terms of student confidence. therefore it can be argued that at this point in their development, students who attend for either a work-placement or employment interview would struggle to articulate their skill-set in the language typically used at interviews and in employment advertisements. dunne, j. (2017). work placement reflective assessments and employability enhanced through highlighting graduate attributes. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 8(1), 40–59. 47 0 5 10 15 20 25 global citizen ethical motivated self-starter excellent communicators innovator collaborative workers entrepreneurs leader critical thinker problem solver creator of new knowledgedecision maker emotionally intelligent active team players strategic thinkers resilient disciplinary knowledge work related learning reflective practitioners digitally literate not confident confident figure 2: initial self-confidence in understanding of graduate attributes by the research group (rg) students discussion of thematic analysis of control and research group blogs whilst there is some numerical aspect to the analysis, it is not intended that the findings be analysed in any strict numerical sense. for example, the coding has not been analysed with regard to word count being an indicator of level of discussion in relation to any of the given topics. the data was instead used to uncover broad trends in the assessments in order to gain an understanding of any changes that may have occurred in the blog assessment writings of the research group compared to the control group. this is appropriate owing to the qualitative nature of the study, as well as for robustness given the delimitation that only a random sample of the data has been double blind coded. from the coding analysis, the total references made to graduate attributes by the control and research groups combined was 359 references. this is shown in table 3. this double coding did not highlight any discrepancy in relation to the board trends. dunne, j. (2017). work placement reflective assessments and employability enhanced through highlighting graduate attributes. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 8(1), 40–59. 48 table 3: overall references to graduate attributes specific attributes blog sources references communication 89 139 emotional intelligence 54 100 motivation 38 43 work related learner 31 36 collaboration 10 12 team work 9 9 innovator 8 9 critical thinking 5 6 ethical 4 5 to investigate if there was any difference in the references to the various attributes by each group, the results from an nvivo matrix query that has analysed the data in table 3 and separated it into references to each attribute made by the research group and the control group individually is presented in table 4. table 4: breakdown of references to graduates attributes by research and control groups graduate attribute control group research group communication 67 72 emotional intelligence 50 50 motivation 8 35 work related learner 12 24 innovator 0 9 collaboration 6 6 critical thinking and problem solving 0 6 ethical 0 5 team work 4 5 the trends indicated by the data in table 4 suggest that there has been little difference in references alluding to emotional intelligence or communication attributes between the control and research groups. however, there is a perceptible, albeit small, increase in references alluding to ethical behaviour, innovation, problem solving and critical thinking by the research group. these findings do suggest a greater awareness and breadth of attributes being reflected upon by the research group. however, returning to the description of employability by hillage and pollard (1998), it is also important that students have the ability to explicitly articulate skills and map their experiences appropriately to a future employer. it is interesting therefore to investigate to what extent the graduate attributes are being explicitly discussed, compared to implicitly, within each group. as described by the codebook in table 1, the open coding references to graduate attributes were coded on into statements that were made explicitly or implicitly. explicit statements naturally included those that named the attribute directly. it also included those where a skill development had been identified by the blog author and there dunne, j. (2017). work placement reflective assessments and employability enhanced through highlighting graduate attributes. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 8(1), 40–59. 49 was very obviously a reference to a graduate attribute development or demonstration. implicit references were coded for when it was the researcher coding the blogs that identified the development or demonstration of a graduate attribute, as opposed to the blog author identifying it. overall, statements relating to graduate attributes have been made far more frequently by implicit insinuation (214 statements), compared to overt statements related to skills development or demonstration (134 statements). the difference between these two types of statements can be illustrated by reviewing references from each category. for example, the following blog taken from the control group, which relates to increasing prices for medical card prescriptions, there is reference to graduate attributes. it is possible to identify emotional intelligence in the authors writing, but this has not been identified or elaborated upon in the blog and is therefore an implicit reference: exasperated, the man said it was getting difficult for him to afford his medication each month. i sympathised with him and asked the pharmacist if there was anything we could do. the man appreciated this gesture and i was struck by how much it meant to him to save such a small amount [of money]. this would be of particular concern to me for people like old age pensioners. these people may be living on their own, and have very limited means. i would fear that, in an attempt to live on a very limited budget, these people would cut back on their recommended medication. [cg1] on the other hand, examples of blogs in which the author has made an explicit reference to the demonstration or development of a graduate attribute can be seen in below in examples taken from the research group. in this first example, describing a situation where a customer had to be informed of potential dangers of medication interactions, there is explicit reference to graduate attributes: i realise that i used my emotional intelligence to tell the lady there was a possible interaction but i saved her the stress by not telling her how harmful the interaction may be. [rg1] whilst in the following example relating to the sale of near out-of-date stock, there is a clear indication of reference to ethical behaviour. even though ‘ethical’ is not mentioned directly, it is still an explicit reference to the demonstration of an attribute: as a friend i would rather have said nothing to the pharmacist so that the other technician didn’t get in trouble but as a technician i felt that i couldn’t knowingly hand out almost expired medication. to me, this was a moral issue. should i look out for my friend’s interests even though it meant going against the store’s code of conduct? i knew that my job as a technician came first, even if the other technician was annoyed over my actions. i had to put personal feelings aside and go with what i knew was right. [rg2] to understand if there is any noticeable difference in blogging behaviour in relation to the manner in which graduate attribute statements are being made, the results of an nvivo matrix query that separates the explicit and implicit references into the research and control groups is shown in table 5. this data shows that the control group’s statements are mostly made implicitly, whereas the research group are much more likely to make explicit statements, with these being made about as frequently as implicit ones. dunne, j. (2017). work placement reflective assessments and employability enhanced through highlighting graduate attributes. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 8(1), 40–59. 50 this suggests that the research group appear to have developed a greater capacity to be able to frame an experience in terms of skills development and thus refer to it explicitly in their reflective writing. presumably, as per the findings for the increase in the breadth of skills being referenced (table 4), this increase in likelihood for explicit reference by the research group is a result of the action research project. their curriculum and their participation in the project allowed a greater emphasis on graduate attributes including activities to support their development, compared to the control group’s experience. table 5: breakdown of graduate attribute statements into implicit vs explicit by research and control groups implicit explicit control group 115 32 research group 99 102 to explore this still further, the explicit references were further coded-on depending on whether they were actually ‘named’ or whether the attribute was ‘unnamed’ despite the direct intimation to the attribute in the reference. a query to examine if there was a trend in the behaviour between the research and control group in relation to the likelihood that they will expressly name a skill being developed within their blogs as a whole was carried out, and the results are shown in table 6. this query shows a trend that the control group’s explicit reference to skills development is not concurrent with the overt use of the name of the graduate attribute, whereas the opposite is true for the research group, who have made considerably more references where skills have be transparently named. table 6: blogs containing explicit references broken into named and unnamed control group research group explicit and named 2 72 explicit but unnamed 23 5 to gain a more complete understanding of the types of attributes being explicitly referenced by both groups, a series of nvivo queries were run which catalogue the data according to the most frequently discussed attributes. this is outlined in table 7. table 7: analysis of most commonly referenced graduate attributes for explicit vs implicit statements by research vs control group graduate attribute control group research group communication explicit 11 30 implicit 56 36 emotional intelligence explicit 8 13 implicit 42 34 motivation explicit 2 20 implicit 6 12 work related learner explicit 7 18 implicit 5 7 dunne, j. (2017). work placement reflective assessments and employability enhanced through highlighting graduate attributes. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 8(1), 40–59. 51 as has already been elaborated above (table 4), communication and emotional intelligence skills are most frequently discussed by both groups, and as can be seen below in table 7 they have most commonly been implicitly insinuated. typical implicit references to communication are shown below, and really reflect the student retelling of the day to day events of the pharmacy which involve their interaction with customers, and other members of the pharmacy team: just to make sure that it would be suitable with the antibiotic i double checked what i giving to the girl by telling the pharmacist what the problem was and what i suggested for her to take. [cg4] whilst characteristic explicit references include the following, which fall into named and unnamed categories respectively: while looking back on the situation i realise how important communication skills are especially when dealing with the elderly as things need to be explained clearly and examples must be shown if necessary [rg3] i am strongly of the opinion that as healthcare professionals, we need to know the audience to whom we are delivering advice to. it is important to alter the way you deliver information to each individual. [rg4] it is apparent that the statements that have been made explicitly in these typical cases also appear to be more analytical in nature. examples of typical implicit references to emotional intelligence are: sometimes, i try to envision what it must be like for them [methadone patients] living with this addiction every day and still having to fulfil tasks, such as raising children and arriving at their places of employment as many of these patients work and have respectable jobs. [cg5] whereas a similar reference to the one above, but in the explicit category is: i feel that this situation allowed me to develop some emotional intelligence. i could understand why the customer [methadone patient] felt the way he did. perhaps he has felt he has been treated differently by people because he was a drug addict? [rg5] here the student's ability to monitor their own and others' emotions, to discriminate among them and to use that information to guide their thinking and actions has been demonstrated, as defined for emotional intelligence by mayer and salovey (1993). furthermore, a recent report by por, barriball, fitzpatrick, and roberts (2011) into the relationship between emotional intelligence, and stress and well-being in student nurses suggests that an increased feeling of control and emotional competence assists student nurses to actively assume effective coping strategies to deal with stress, thus increasing their subjective well-being. whilst the current study relates to pharmacy technicians who are in a different and less stressful environment to nurses, they nonetheless experience challenging situations such as dealing with recovering addicts as outlined in the examples above, and also armed robberies and other criminal activity such as prescription forgery. continuing to support discussions and reflection as a pedagogy to develop emotional intelligence as a learned skill should assist in producing emotionally-competent graduates (horton-deutsch & sherwood, 2008). dunne, j. (2017). work placement reflective assessments and employability enhanced through highlighting graduate attributes. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 8(1), 40–59. 52 the next attribute to be considered is motivation. the data in table 7 shows a considerably higher rate of explicit discussion of motivation by the research group, with much of the discussion related to students showing initiative, for example: i was pleased with how i used my own initiative to take matters into my own hands and competently handle it. when the pharmacist who had dispensed the medication came back i told him about what happened and he said he was happy with what i did. [rg6] whilst it is encouraging to see students reflect on incidents where they could demonstrate motivation, it is important to recognise that aspects of motivation, especially intrinsic motivation, are linked to personality, which is enduring over time, although environment plays a role (boudreau, boswell, & judge, 2001). assisting students to identify their personality type, for example using the extensively validated neo personality inventory (costa & mccrae, 1992) could consequently provide them with a more informed decision about the most suitable career-path, including in this case whether to opt for hospital or community pharmacy placement. this is turn could lead to improved job-satisfaction, which is considered important for extrinsic motivation (boudreau et al., 2001). this will be considered in future review of the curriculum. work-related learning was another attribute that a query demonstrated a high level of explicit discussion in the research group, compared to the control group (table 7). in this case the latter group was also quite inclined to discuss this in an explicit way. much of the discussion in this area related to the development of accuracy skills in dispensing while on placement, for example: overall i am happy about my progress in improving my accuracy skills as they are key to being a successful pharmacy technician [rg7] however, there were also several examples of the skill being discussed in a more named sense, for example in relation to hospital weekly cross-departmental discussion meetings: it is my observation that these meetings are very well attended demonstrating an interest in ongoing, continuing professional development. [rg8] the students generally, and particularly those in the control group, have discussed the remaining graduate attributes considerably less frequently, as was clear in table 4. nonetheless there were some very insightful comments in the blogs relating to the remaining attributes. a selection of these has been presented below. while collaboration was not named as a skill by any of the control group, a small number of references clearly indicate collaborative working, such as: i wrote about this topic as i find it a very interesting task in the pharmacy. it includes ordering stock, maintaining stock levels and talking directly with the dietician and clinical nutritionist. [cg6] whereas there were several named explicit references to it by the research group, for example a reference similar to that above also discussed collaboration, but this time it is named: i felt i communicated well with the dieticians and pharmacist and worked well under the pressure and multi tasked well. i could have saved a lot of time had i asked for help. i could have collaborated with my colleagues to get back on schedule rather than allowing things to snowball. this shows how important it is to work as a team and not to take on too much too soon. [rg9] dunne, j. (2017). work placement reflective assessments and employability enhanced through highlighting graduate attributes. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 8(1), 40–59. 53 this is yet another example where the student has been actively articulating the development of a skill, and this adds to employability in terms of that discussed by hillage and pollard (1998) and toland (2011). the research group also more often discussed the related skill of teamwork explicitly, although the numbers of references to this are small, as shown in table 4. indeed, one blog in particular has captured the essence not just of the concepts of teamwork versus collaboration, but indeed of the participatory action research project broadly: at the start of the college year we worked on a project to decide and assess what the most important graduate attributes were for future pharmacy technicians. this list was then sent around to those in the profession to get their opinion on what they felt a good technician should be. what was valued highly on this list was a ‘collaborative worker’. the definition for this is a, ‘willingness to pool resources with others and understand the benefits of a collegiate working environment to reach a common goal.’ until recently i found it hard to see the difference between a collaborative worker and an active team player (someone that takes full participation in the team, keeping the team’s interests in mind and focusing on the end goal). however, within the past week the differences have become much clearer for me…[rg2] the blog continues to discuss a situation whereby the pharmacy’s very experienced technician employee went on annual leave, leaving the student technician to work alongside a less experienced employee. the blog details the different skillset both had based on their relative previous experiences, and also the anxiety both felt to maintain high standards in the busy pharmacy. it didn't take long before both of us felt the pressure and stress but we realised that by working together and pooling our knowledge, we were a much more productive team. for the rest of the week we have worked in partnership with one another….i see now that i may have been relying too much on the senior technician to help me. without her there this week though, i have realised that i am more capable than i thought. now that i have seen for myself how beneficial being a collaborative worker is in the pharmacy, it has made me think about the other graduate attributes that were voted most important. i have been looking for how i can apply and develop them during my time there. is anybody else thinking about these attributes or have examples of where they would apply in our work? although few blog assessments considered the action research project as a whole to this extent, there was certainly a perceptible influence of the project in several blogs. the remaining three attributes were not discussed at all by the control group, and whilst not being a very large area of discussion for the research group, nonetheless show that the cohort have been influenced by the action research project and the stakeholder survey. this was a perceptible change from previous years, when blogging predominantly dealt with singular critical events and the student’s immediate response, as opposed to ongoing practice and professional development. overall, the findings in relation to graduate attributes show that the students have been influenced by the project to improve their awareness and articulation of their skills, and this has impacted positively on their work placement assessments. this is in agreement with hughes and barrie (2010) who advocate for ensuring that students are aware of the objectives of including graduate attributes in a curriculum, and ensuring their active participation in the assessment process. it also agrees with treleaven and voola (2008) in terms of placing value dunne, j. (2017). work placement reflective assessments and employability enhanced through highlighting graduate attributes. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 8(1), 40–59. 54 on graduate attributes being developed, and being put in the context of students’ future careers. all students have had the opportunity to reflect and find evidence for the development of their own skills, but also to discuss and debate with their peers through the blog commenting forum, which also provided them with additional peer examples which they can learn from and use to frame their own experiences in a similar fashion. this teaching and learning strategy aligns more generally to several of the factors that hughes and barrie (2010) have identified as being a requirement for meaningful assessment of graduate attributes, at least for those that can be implemented at modular level. ‘conceptualisation’, or perceptions of the very nature of graduate attributes are fundamental to the ways in which they are taught and assessed. in this project the students and the teacher have together developed a common understanding of graduate attributes through devising suitable definitions in a collaborative manner. this allows for a more transparent and fair inclusion of graduate attributes in the assessment strategy. furthermore, the opinion of key ‘stakeholders’ has influenced the curriculum design though focusing learning activities on prioritized graduate attributes. the use of the ‘capstone’ work placement module as a ‘highimpact activity’ as a means to assess the development of graduate attributes through a reflection process also aligns to the recommendations of hughes and barrie (2010). conclusions and future work in conclusion, the findings show that emphasising graduate attributes within a curriculum can have a marked effect on the reflective assessment of students when they go on workplacement. students have an increased tendency to frame their placement experiences in terms of graduate attributes, as well as core skills developed in the curriculum. this should allow students to articulate their skills in a more explicit and concrete manner, and find evidence for their development. consequently, this should impact positively on their employability in terms of initially securing employment. furthermore, hopefully it may encourage them to continue the process of reflection on practice throughout their career as life-long learners, and continue to find evidence for their skills development. on-going research into establishing if there is a link between increased levels of discussion on graduate attributes and depth of critical reflection will be reported in due course. future work will include consideration of how to build on the activities related to the action research in order to integrate and assess graduate attributes formally in the curriculum in a sustainable way, for example through a professional development eportfolio. this may include careers management workshops, volunteering or service learning, self-assessments for skills development and personality type, ethical debates, and further support for critical reflection, including the use of the blogs from the research group as exemplars. dunne, j. (2017). work placement reflective assessments and employability enhanced through highlighting graduate attributes. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 8(1), 40–59. 55 acknowledgements the author thanks dublin institute of technology for support through the school of food science and environmental health, and the learning, teaching and technology centre, particularly the ma in higher education programme team, and the research advice of dr. jen harvey. the author also acknowledges the consultancy, support and training in use of nvivo from ben meehan from qdatraining. dunne, j. (2017). work placement reflective assessments and employability enhanced through highlighting graduate attributes. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 8(1), 40–59. 56 references aberdeen. (2014). graduate attributes. retrieved from http://www.abdn.ac.uk/graduateattributes/ baldwin, m. 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(2015). assuring graduate capabilities. retrieved from http://www.assuringgraduatecapabilities.com/ http://www.abdn.ac.uk/graduateattributes/ http://dx.doi.org/10.1006/jvbe.2000.1755 http://www.careers.dept.shef.ac.uk/pdf/skillslist.pdf http://www.dit.ie/lttc/aboutthelttc/lttcspotlight/ditgraduateattributes/ http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.nepr.2013.06.004 http://www.hud.ac.uk/hhs/research/template-analysis/ http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/0160-2896(93)90010-3 http://www.enhancementthemes.ac.uk/themes/21stcgraduates/outcomes.asp http://www.assuringgraduatecapabilities.com/ dunne, j. (2017). work placement reflective assessments and employability enhanced through highlighting graduate attributes. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 8(1), 40–59. 57 por, j., barriball, l., fitzpatrick, j., & roberts, j. (2011). emotional intelligence: its relationship to stress, coping, well-being and professional performance in nursing students. nurse education today, 31(8), 855-860. doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.nedt.2010.12.023 reason, p., & bradbury, h. (2008). the sage handbook of action research: participative inquiry and practice (2 ed.). london: sage. smith, k., clegg, s., lawrence, e., & todd, m. j. (2007). the challenges of reflection: students learning from work placements. innovations in education and teaching international, 44(2), 131-141. the open university (2014). employability skills descriptions. retrieved from http://www2.open.ac.uk/students/help/employability-skills-descriptions toland, a. (2011). he stem employability skills review. retrieved from birmingham: treleaven, l., & voola, r. (2008). integrating the development of graduate attributes through constructive alignment. journal of marketing education, 30(2), 160-173. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.nedt.2010.12.023 http://www2.open.ac.uk/students/help/employability-skills-descriptions dunne, j. (2017). work placement reflective assessments and employability enhanced through highlighting graduate attributes. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 8(1), 40–59. 58 appendix dit graduate attributes and corresponding definitions created during the knowledge development cycle. [note: subsequently created dit official definitions can be found here: http://www.dit.ie/teaching/graduateattributes/] dit graduate attribute a graduate who can demonstrate …. engaged: global citizen respect for human diversity, and can work within a multicultural setting, with an appreciation of international social, political and economic issues. ethical an awareness of moral issues, and an ability to work within an accepted code of conduct of their chosen discipline or profession. motivated selfstarter an ability to work on their own initiative without constant supervision, whilst having an enthusiastic and positive attitude to work. excellent communicator an ability to identify the most effective way to convey their message orally and in writing at an suitable level, using appropriate media, and who displays a willingness to listen to others to assess their understanding. enterprising: innovator ability as a creative initiator and improver of concepts and ideas, with the capacity to invent solutions to current issues and challenges. collaborative worker willingness to pool resources with others and understand the benefits of a collegiate working environment to reach a common goal. entrepreneur a willingness to take risks, and to seek and identify opportunities to develop and apply an enterprising mind-set to new initiatives. leader an ability to influence, enable and empower others towards making a vision a reality in a respectful, confident, approachable and trustworthy manner. enquiry-based: critical thinker an ability to question and analyse data from many sources, to challenge ideas, and apply logical reasoning to formulate arguments. problem solver an ability to identify and analyse problems from a variety of standpoints to clarify and overcome barriers in order to implement effective solutions. http://www.dit.ie/teaching/graduateattributes/ dunne, j. (2017). work placement reflective assessments and employability enhanced through highlighting graduate attributes. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 8(1), 40–59. 59 creator of new knowledge creative and innovative qualities, and whose curiosity motivates their desire to conduct research in order to establish new information and understanding. decision maker an ability to make confident and unbiased decisions based on appropriate data and accepts responsibility for the outcomes. effective: emotionally intelligent use of emotional and social skills to control their feelings when faced with challenges, to develop and maintain relationships with others, can show empathy and be aware of how other people are likely to react. active team player full participation in their team, who can give and receive feedback, and who keeps the team's interests in mind and focuses on the team's goals or end result. strategic thinker use of a logical and objective approach to information, who is able to plan ahead, considering the long term objectives and consequences. resilient a mind-set and behaviour to enable them to persevere when faced with personal or professional difficulties, to manage and mitigate the impact of challenges while moving to a position of greater control expert: disciplinary knowledge can demonstrate theoretical knowledge and apply skills with precision in their chosen subject at internationally-recognised standards at the level required by their qualification. work based/work related learner application of disciplinary knowledge and skills to the workplace, can learn from on-the-job training and context based activities, and who demonstrates interest in on-going continuing professional development (cpd) throughout their career. reflective practitioner an ability to review their performance, evaluate it against suitable criteria (e.g. regulations, theory) and allow this evaluation to influence future performance. digitally literate an ability to recognise when information is required, and locate, evaluate and use information appropriately, whilst being proficient in the use of a range of ict packages as well as discipline specific technology. shekhawat, g.s., sturm, s., & dunham, a. (2017). ‘i do and i understand’: the importance of reflective placements for the selfperceived work readiness of health sciences students. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 8(1), 188– 201. 188 ‘i do and i understand’: the importance of reflective placements for the self-perceived work readiness of health sciences students dr giriraj singh shekhawat1, dr sean sturm2 and dr annette dunham1 g.shekhawat@auckland.ac.nz; s.sturm@auckland.ac.nz; a.dunham@auckland.ac.nz 1school of population health, university of auckland, auckland 2centre for learning and research in higher education, university of auckland abstract poplhlth 302: health service placement is a community health placement program that forms the capstone course for the bachelor in health sciences (bhsc) at the university of auckland. it aims to enable population health students to develop through experience the competencies that they will need to be employed in a broad range of roles in the health sector, including health policy analysis, health management, health information and health promotion. it provides students with the opportunity to gain a critical understanding of an organisation through day-to-day engagement with the provision of health services, and thereby to transition from university to work and to develop life-long learning attitudes and skills. eighty-three students enrolled in the course completed a questionnaire before and after their placement about their skills, confidence and readiness to participate in the health workforce, and their knowledge of it and the health needs of the nz population. a mixed methods analysis of the data confirmed that students’ perceptions of their work-readiness improved over the course of the placement, in particular, where transferable skills such as confidence, time management, networking, the application of theory in practice, and team work were concerned. keywords: experiential learning; work readiness; reflective practicum; health sciences; higher education introduction the confucian adage ‘i hear and i forget; i see and i remember; i do and i understand’ has become an axiom of experiential learning. but the ‘and’ of ‘i do and i understand’ begs the question: how do students get from ‘i do’ to ‘i understand’? the answer lies in the nature of the ‘reflective practicum’ that experiential learning offers, whereby students ‘learn by doing’ under supervision through ‘reflection-in-action’ and ‘reflection-on-action’ (schön, 1987, p. xii; see beard & wilson, 2013). work placements can offer just such an opportunity because they allow students to reflect not only on their potential role as employees in a certain workplace and context, but also mailto:g.shekhawat@auckland.ac.nz mailto:s.sturm@auckland.ac.nz mailto:a.dunham@auckland.ac.nz shekhawat, g.s., sturm, s., & dunham, a. (2017). ‘i do and i understand’: the importance of reflective placements for the selfperceived work readiness of health sciences students. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 8(1), 188– 201. 189 on how their academic knowledge can be applied and transformed in the workplace (smith, clegg, lawrence, & todd, 2007). consequently, work placements can enhance the workreadiness of students who complete them (wilton, 2012) and answer to employers’ oft-voiced concern that graduates need to be work-ready on being employed (hager & holland, 2012). our study examined the reflections on their work-readiness of students completing a community health placement programme, and what those reflections suggest for educators concerned with pathways through and out of higher education. poplhlth 302: health service placement is the capstone course for the bachelor in health sciences (bhsc) at the university of auckland. it aims to enable population health students to develop, through the experience of a community health placement, the competencies they will need in order to be employed in a broad range of roles in the health sector, including health policy analysis, health management, health information and health promotion. in addition, it provides students with the opportunity to understand a given health sector organisation through day-to-day engagement with its provision of health services, and thereby to transition more effectively from university to work, and to develop life-long learning attitudes and skills. in our study, two cohorts of about 30 students who were enrolled in the course completed a questionnaire before and after their placement about their skills, confidence and readiness to participate in the health workforce; and their knowledge of the health workforce and the health needs of the nz population. we found that, overall, students reflected more positively on their work-readiness after the community health placement than before it, and supported the incorporation of placements in their population health programme. literature review there exists a burgeoning literature that explores employers’ oft-voiced concern that new graduates should be work ready on being employed (see, for example, hager & holland, 2006). it has shown that disciplinary knowledge alone is not sufficient to ensure that graduates get a job and do it effectively; hence, there has been a growing emphasis on the understanding and application of job-related knowledge and skills in university study, particularly in students’ final year of study (crebert, bates, bell, carol, & cragnolini, 2004). work placement opportunities at that point in the degree can be a platform for students to apply and reflect on the disciplinary and generic skills that they have learned in class. for this reason, the incorporation of work placements in undergraduate degrees is becoming more and more common, and is seen to benefit both graduates and employers. it is also thought to directly influence graduate employability because it offers students a ‘head start’ in their careers and facilitates the development of generic skills such as teamwork, communication, critical thinking and problem solving (wilton, 2012). however, there is no clear consensus about the concept of work readiness, its components, and how to teach for it. firstly, the terms ‘work readiness’, ‘work preparedness’ and ‘graduate employability’ are often used interchangeably. secondly, although the terms ‘generic attributes’ and ‘transferable skills’ are most commonly used to describe the components of work-readiness, these components are often not directly taught or assessed in the classroom, in particular, the personal attributes and relational skills (gardner & liu, 1997). nonetheless, there is broad acceptance that work-readiness can be defined as the extent to which graduates are perceived to possess the attitudes and attributes that make them prepared or ready for success in the work environment (caballero, walker, & fuller-tyszkiewicz, 2011, p. 42). the attributes, attitudes and skills that inform it may include motivation, maturity, personal growth/development, organisational awareness, technical focus, interpersonal orientation, attitudes to work, problem-solving, shekhawat, g.s., sturm, s., & dunham, a. (2017). ‘i do and i understand’: the importance of reflective placements for the selfperceived work readiness of health sciences students. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 8(1), 188– 201. 190 adaptability and resilience (caballero et al., 2011). work readiness has thus been linked closely with success in the workplace, namely, the potential to perform well at work and hence to advance in a career (caballero & walker, 2010). according to harvey, moon and geall (1997), employers expect effective employees to be confident communicators, good team players, critical and creative thinkers, problem-solvers and individuals capable of adapting to and initiating change. increasingly, however, they are unsatisfied with the quality of graduates, who are seen to lack many of these attitudes, attributes and skills, in particular, creativity, problem-solving, and communication (ac nielsen research services, 2000). there thus appears to be a gap between what employers say they need and what universities are teaching (jackson, 2013). for this reason, analoui (1993) recommends a closer alignment between universities and the workplace to ensure that this gap is bridged by the effective development of relevant attitudes, attributes and skills. work placements for undergraduate students are perceived as an effective way to do so, both by governments (see, for example, national committee of inquiry into higher education, 1997) and researchers (see, for example, crebert et al., 2004). both employers and students have responded positively to the introduction of work placements. employers rate those graduates who have undertaken work placements as more work-ready (harvey, moon, & geall, 1997). students tend to perceive themselves as more work-ready and better placed to advance in their career as a result of work placements; in addition, they tend to be offered a higher level of responsibility by their supervisors and employers (crebert et al., 2004). students see work placements as enabling them to integrate practical and theoretical knowledge, clarify their career plans, familiarise themselves with work practices and cultures, acquire skills directly relevant to their work, and enhance their attractiveness as job candidates (nove, snape, & chetwynd, 1997). however, we would argue that students’ perceptions of work-readiness must be informed by reflection, as smith et al. (2007) have suggested: the pedagogical benefits of work-based experiences depend largely on the extent to which students reflect on them and the extent to which they take understandings derived from an academic context and relate these to work (p. 132). context poplhlth 302 is a one-semester capstone course for the bachelor in health sciences (bhsc) at the university of auckland. the bhsc is a unique non-clinical program that provides a multidisciplinary understanding of health, healthcare and health services in aotearoa/new zealand, and how to improve health services and outcomes. graduates are employed in a broad range of roles including, but not limited to, health policy analysis, health management, health information and health promotion. the course provides students with the opportunity to explore such roles in a placement in a contemporary health service setting. they are expected to gain a critical understanding of the host organisation or service through exposure to a range of its dayto-day activities such as carrying out assigned work, observation, reviewing of non-confidential service documents, shadowing staff members to gain an understanding of what they do, sitting in on meetings, asking questions and having discussions with staff members. students are expected to achieve a number of learning objectives:  to demonstrate a critical understanding of a specific health organisation or service and the broad influences on its development of health systems, economic, societal and political contexts.  to develop skills in influencing health service decisions through carrying out assigned work, shekhawat, g.s., sturm, s., & dunham, a. (2017). ‘i do and i understand’: the importance of reflective placements for the selfperceived work readiness of health sciences students. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 8(1), 188– 201. 191 report writing and oral presentations.  to develop skills in communication, working in teams, reflective practice and life-long learning related to the placement. these learning objectives reflect the bhsc graduate profile, in particular, the ‘general intellectual skills and capacities’ (including ‘[a]n ability to engage in reflective practice’) and the ‘personal qualities & professional integrity’ it seeks to develop. students are required to spend not less than sixty hours in the host organisation and a further sixty hours in coursework, including an induction, four small-group seminars and assessments. there are four assessments, all of which are compulsory: 1. a learning portfolio that includes reflective blogs on learning and ‘reflective development reflections’ on skills development (40%); 2. an organisational report that describes and analyses the host organisation (20%); 3. an organisational report that addresses a project assigned by the host organisation (30%); 4. an oral presentation about the project (10%). all the assessments explicitly task students to reflect on their work-readiness during the placement. for example, the reflective blog criteria require that students do as follows: personally reflect on the experience [of your placement]. for example: what have you learned from this experience? what have you learned about the work of this particular organisation? what have you learned about the health and social sectors that you did not know before? what have you learned about the skills, knowledge and personal attributes of people working in the sector need? these reflections are assessed on ‘clear evidence … of experiential learning: identifying, describing, reflecting on and learning from experiences in the placement.’ the assessment criteria are designed to foster students’ reflection-on-action, namely, how they think about an experience, analyse it and produce personal theories about it after it has happened (beard & wilson, 2002, p. 197). study methodology the study was modest and exploratory. it aimed to capture the reflections of two cohorts of students (semester one and two, 2016) in poplhlth 302 on their work-readiness before and after the completion of a community health placement. to this end, an eleven-item questionnaire was developed (see appendix), based on a validated self-check tool developed to assess the readiness of physiotherapists to work in primary health care in aotearoa/new zealand (stewart & haswell, 2013). the first ten questions of the questionnaire called for responses on a 6-point likert scale from ‘strongly disagree to strongly agree’ (1: strongly disagree; 2: do not agree; 3: neutral; 4: agree; 5: strongly agree; and 6: not applicable). the questions concerned students’ skills, confidence and readiness to participate in the health workforce, and their knowledge of the health workforce and the health needs of the nz population. a final open-ended question asked students to describe how the placement impacted their work readiness. the questionnaire was carried out with ethics approval from the university of auckland, administered by the author not involved in teaching the course, and analysed by the authors. the quantitative data for each question was averaged and comparisons made between the results (primarily the ‘agree’ and ‘strongly agree’ results) before and after the placement. in accordance with boyatzis’ (1998) inductive approach to thematic analysis and braun & clarke’s (2006) guidelines for thematic analysis, the qualitative data for the final open-ended question was open-coded into themes, shekhawat, g.s., sturm, s., & dunham, a. (2017). ‘i do and i understand’: the importance of reflective placements for the selfperceived work readiness of health sciences students. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 8(1), 188– 201. 192 which were then reviewed, defined, ranked in terms of importance and summarised. results and discussion eighty-three students enrolled in poplhlth 302 completed the study. the results include data from the 2016 semester one (n = 36) and semester two (n = 47) cohorts of poplhlth 302. we combined the responses because a similar pattern of response was observed for all the items during semesters one and two – except for two items. on average, semester one students rated their knowledge of the demographic profile of the new zealand population (m = 4.40, sd = 0.52) more highly than did semester two students (m = 4.00, sd = 0.50), which is a significant difference (t(33) = 2.12, p = 0.04). similarly, semester one students also rated their knowledge of the main health needs of the non-maori population (m = 4.40, sd = 0.84) more highly than did semester two students (m = 3.64, sd = 0.70), which is again significant (t(33) = 2.74, p = 0.01). students’ perceptions of their work-readiness improved on all ten questions over the course of the placement. the two items that improved most – over 50 per cent – were questions 1 and 3: ‘i know what skills are required to participate fully in the health workforce’ and ‘i feel confident to participant fully in the health workforce.’ for these questions 55.15 per cent and 50.02 per cent more students respectively responded ‘agree’ or ‘strongly agree’ on completion of the placement. the fact that so few students felt that they had the necessary skills (24.03%) and confidence (19.72%) to participate fully in the health workforce prior to their work placement supports the finding of eley (2010) that medical interns similarly did not perceive themselves as work-ready prior to their internship. however, by the end of the placement, more students perceived that they had the necessary skills (55.76%) and confidence (69.74%) to participate fully in the health workforce. several other items improved over the course of the placement. for question 4 (‘i feel ready to work on a health initiative with a local health organisation or service’), 46.86 per cent more students felt ready to work on a health initiative on completion of the placement. in response to the questions ‘i am well-informed about the range of health and social services’ (question 9) and ‘about the range of current health initiatives in new zealand’ (question 10), 27.61 per cent and 37.75 per cent more students respectively responded positively on completion of the placement. in terms of having the skills to participate fully in the health workforce (question 2) and to feel confident to integrate the knowledge learned in previous courses in an actual health setting (question 5), 31.73 per cent and 39.49 per cent more students respectively responded ‘agree’ and ‘strongly agree’ by the end of their placement. the final three items improved more modestly (less than 10%) over the course of the placement. the data suggests that the students already perceived themselves as well-informed about the demographic profile of the population of aotearoa/new zealand (question 6: 85.56%) and the main health needs of the māori (question 7: 84.03%) and non-māori population (question 8: 67.08%). because the ratings were high on these items, there was not much scope for improvement compared to other items (question 6: 94.36%; question 7: 86.68%; question 8: 73.76%). also, there was already strong awareness about the health needs of māori and nonmāori population and the demographic profile of the aotearoa/new zealand population due to the thorough exploration of these topics in other courses in the bhsc program. that most students perceived themselves – paradoxically, but not unexpectedly – as better informed about the health needs of the māori (minority) population that those of the non-māori (majority) population (73.76%) suggests to us that we need to make students aware that majority populations (and students from those populations) can be blind to their status and needs as a population because shekhawat, g.s., sturm, s., & dunham, a. (2017). ‘i do and i understand’: the importance of reflective placements for the selfperceived work readiness of health sciences students. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 8(1), 188– 201. 193 they perceive health services to be targeted towards minorities. table 1 summarizes a t test on the combined response across the two semesters of the 35 students who consented to their responses being coded before and after the community health placement (times 1 and 2, respectively). the students’ scores increased from time 1 to time 2 on all ten items, although the difference was statistically significant (p < 0.05) for only eight items. the two items where the difference was not significant were about being well-informed about the main health needs of māori and non-māori. the increase from time 1 to time 2 in item 1 exhibited a large effect size (cohen’s d); that in items 6, 7 and 8 exhibited a very small to small effect size. the increase in all other items demonstrated a medium effect size (cohen, 1988; sawilowksy, 2009). table 1. contrast of time 1 with time 2 for students perceptions on the work readiness scale (n=35). time 1 time 2 95% ci cohen’s d m sd m sd t(34) p ll ul 1. i know what skills are required in the health workforce 2.54 0.95 4.00 0.87 -8.30 0.000 -1.81 -1.10 0.82 2. i have the skills to participate fully in the workforce 2.80 0.83 3.66 0.80 -4.90 0.000 -1.21 -0.50 0.64 3. i feel confident to participate fully in the workforce 2.80 0.99 3.80 0.72 -5.32 0.000 -1.38 -0.61 0.67 4. i feel ready to work on a health initiative 3.23 0.84 4.20 0.90 -4.79 0.000 -1.38 -0.56 0.63 5. i feel confident to integrate knowledge from my course 3.40 0.91 4.40 0.65 -6.10 0.000 -1.33 -0.67 0.72 6. i am well-informed about the nz demographic profile 4.11 0.53 4.37 0.65 -2.32 0.027 -0.48 -0.03 0.37 7. … about the main health needs of māori 4.17 0.66 4.31 0.83 -0.84 4.060 -0.49 -0.20 0.14 8. … about the main health needs of non māori 3.86 0.81 4.09 0.74 -1.31 1.990 -0.58 -0.13 0.22 9. … about the range of health and social services in nz 2.97 0.66 3.51 0.95 -3.28 0.002 -0.88 -0.21 0.49 10. … about the range of current nz health initiatives 2.86 0.85 3.66 0.87 -5.68 0.000 -1.09 -0.51 0.70 note. ci = confidence interval; ll= lower limit; ul= upper limit. shekhawat, g.s., sturm, s., & dunham, a. (2017). ‘i do and i understand’: the importance of reflective placements for the selfperceived work readiness of health sciences students. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 8(1), 188– 201. 194 on average, the greatest increases in scores over the course of the placement were for items that referred to work skills and the confidence to apply them (items 1–5). we would assume that this was because the course focussed on developing skills in practice on the placements. the increases in scores for items about being well-informed (items 6–10) were modest in comparison, probably due to the scores for these items being on average noticeably higher than those of the other items initially. the exception to this trend is item 10, which began lower and increased the most of this set of items. we would assume that this was because students became better informed as they heard regularly from their peers about health initiatives in debriefing groups and oral presentations during the course. with respect to the other items that referred to being wellinformed (items 6–9), we would assume that students’ scores for these items were higher because students enter what is a capstone course relatively well-informed about population health needs in aotearoa/new zealand due to their learning in other courses during their degree. the placement experience would then serve to enhance rather than significantly increase their perception of being well-informed. overall, we would argue that it is in the domain of work skills and the confidence to apply those skills that the greatest advances can be made through participation in the health services placement course. the final, qualitative question asked students to describe how their community health placement impacted their work readiness. overall, the data it produced supported and deepened the quantitative data. it occasioned very positive responses, this response being typical: in the beginning, i was very unsure of what to expect from my placement. now, after doing almost 50 hours i am more prepared and more confident in being a part of a health workforce. to draw out the themes in the data, we applied braun & clarke’s (2006) guidelines for thematic analysis. two researchers worked together to analyse the students’ responses to generate initial codes, which allowed for the responses to be grouped in the search for themes. the ten main themes were then identified and named, which represented what students perceived to be the major impacts of the placement on their work-readiness. after the third researcher had reviewed the codes and themes, an analytical narrative was constructed collaboratively. in descending order of their perceived importance to students, the themes were work experience, knowledge of the health workforce, work-ready skills, confidence, time management, communication, networking, reflection, applying theory in practice and teamwork (see table 2). table 2: students’ descriptions of how their placement positively impacted their work-readiness presented as themes themes sample of student dscriptions work experience definitely have more experience and have realized what type of work i want to do in the health sector after getting my degree. knowledge of the health workforce the greater exposure to the health workforce has helped me gain a better understanding of skills and knowledge required as i graduate…. work-ready skills ‘the practical experience i gained provided me with a lot of knowledge and capability i missed out on throughout the degree. it shekhawat, g.s., sturm, s., & dunham, a. (2017). ‘i do and i understand’: the importance of reflective placements for the selfperceived work readiness of health sciences students. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 8(1), 188– 201. 195 has helped improve skills that are essential when working in the health sector.’ confidence ‘helped to build confidence with working with others and good practical experience in the workforce.’ time management ‘makes me more aware of what skills are needed + time management.’ communication ‘it has made me realise/understand what is expected of me/how to communicate with people in an effective manner.’ networking ‘i feel confident networking and meeting with people making effective working relationships and presenting myself to the workforce.’ reflection ‘i have been able to apply the theory from class and see how it does or does not reflect what some people in communities think and the way they live.’ applying theory to practice ‘it has allowed me to apply theoretical knowledge practically and realise my actual understanding of my knowledge.’ team work ‘the placement has improved my work readiness by developing skills such as … the nature of collaboration….’ the data illuminated how students perceived the placements to have positively impacted their work-readiness. work experience, namely, ‘practical experience’ or ‘put[ting] skills to use in a real world setting,’ emerged as the leading impact of placements for students. students tended to take work experience to mean knowledge of the health workforce and work-ready skills. one responded that i am now familiar with how the system works in a more tangible way; another, more circumspectly: i now have a better understanding of what jobs are available and the skills required in the health care sector. i also now understand the wider context, the organisations are situated in and how they and the work they do is influenced by wider health targets organisations and initiatives. according to one student, it provided ‘knowledge and capability’ that was missing from the degree: the practical experience i gained provided me with a lot of knowledge and capability i missed out on throughout the degree. it tested another’s adaptability: [it was g]ood to be put out of my comfort zone. several students responded that work experience enabled them to learn which skills were shekhawat, g.s., sturm, s., & dunham, a. (2017). ‘i do and i understand’: the importance of reflective placements for the selfperceived work readiness of health sciences students. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 8(1), 188– 201. 196 necessary for work and to practise them, as one wrote: the greater exposure to the health workforce has helped me gain a better understanding of skills and knowledge required as i graduate. such work-ready skills involved simple skills like ‘how to run a meeting, confidentiality practice, communication skills, etc.’ and more complex ones like ‘planning and leading a communitybased project.’ further, practising these skills was thought to increase one’s confidence, not only in ‘working with others’ (teamwork) and ‘networking and meeting with people,’ but also in learning new on-the-job skills: i am aware that to start working in health you don't have to know everything, as you will learn a lot on the job. some of these impacts align with the simpler generic attributes, attitudes and skills demanded by employers, as summarised by crebert et al. (2004; after harvey et al., 1997): to be able to function in the workplace, be confident communicators, good team players’(p. 150). they align only to a degree with the more complex attributes, attitudes and skills: [to be] critical thinkers, problem solvers and, in addition, to be adaptive, adaptable and transformative people capable of initiating as well as responding to change (p. 150). it might be expected that the latter attributes, attitudes and skills are perhaps more challenging for students to notice and reflect on, and more likely to emerge on reflection after graduation or on the job. happily, however, reflection was thought by students to play a significant role in the impact of placements on their work-readiness. this reflection took three forms: reflection-on-action, self-reflection and meta-reflection. firstly, reflection took the form of reflection-on-action. according to one student, reflection allowed them to critically evaluate the ‘theory’ taught in class in practice: i have been able to apply the theory from class and see how it does or does not reflect what some people in communities think and the way they live. such reflection exemplifies schön’s (1987) concept of ‘reflection-on-action,’ whereby students think about an experience, analyse it and produce personal theories about it after it has happened. for him, such reflection becomes practical when it feeds into their ‘reflection-in-action,’ whereby they make sense of an experience while it is happening. ideally, according to smith et al. (2007), the feedback loop that results can generate a cycle of reflective practice, or a ‘reflective transfer cycle,’ in which the transfer of academic knowledge into the placement and vice versa makes knowledge which was tacit explicit (p. 133). the idea, raised in the last student quotation, that one would apply theory in practice to evaluate it embodies just such a reflective cycle of ‘explicitation.’ secondly, reflection took the form of self-reflection. one student suggested that reflecting on the placement led them to evaluate their learning: …it has allowed me to reflect back on my skills and evaluate what skills i lack and i have currently. another, commented that it [d]eveloped [their] self-reflection skills. such reflection embodies the shift from what jennifer moon (1999) calls the stage of working with meaning, that is, reflecting on the meaning of an experience to turn it to a purpose or to represent it, to the stage of transformative learning or reflecting on one’s – and others’ – assumptions in, and processes of, understanding it (pp. 145–146). finally, reflection took the form of ‘meta-reflection’ (zuber-skerritt, 2015) when it turned to the shekhawat, g.s., sturm, s., & dunham, a. (2017). ‘i do and i understand’: the importance of reflective placements for the selfperceived work readiness of health sciences students. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 8(1), 188– 201. 197 course itself, as it did for students who responded to the course’s supposed ethnic bias and the direct relevance of its placements to the job: [the placement] also highlighted the degree’s lack of coverage of all the populations in nzs health needs. i feel i know a lot about māori and pacific but no other population groups. [it m]ade me realise the importance of what i have learnt at university and how it can apply to my future work, but i also felt underwhelmed by the work i did – like, it’s not similar to what i will do in the future. such reflection can feed forward into students’ future learning: it enables them to reflect on what they ought to be learning to best enhance their work-readiness, and to share these reflections with those who are tasked with facilitating that learning. the different modes of reflection demonstrated by students thus show that work placements can allow students to reflect not only on their potential role as employees in a certain workplace and context, but also on how their academic knowledge can be applied and transformed in the workplace (smith, clegg, lawrence, & todd, 2007). for this reason, they can enhance the workreadiness of students who complete them (wilton, 2012). conclusion the present study investigated the perceptions of students of a capstone community health placement course (poplhlth 302) about their work readiness. the results were promising. both the quantitative and qualitative data supported the significance of work placements and their impact on work readiness. overall, students reflected more positively on their work-readiness after the community health placement than before it, and supported the incorporation of placements in their population health programme, in particular, to assist them in developing both the necessary skills to be work ready and an understanding of what to expect from work after graduation. students perceived that their work-readiness improved through the practice of transferable skills such as confidence, time management, networking, the application of theory in practice, and team work. furthermore, they considered that reflection – on how theory worked in practice (reflection-on-action), on the nature of their learning (self-reflection) and on the course itself (meta-reflection) – played a significant role in the impact of the placements on their workreadiness. this suggests that educators concerned with pathways through and out of higher education would do well to integrate opportunities for reflection into work placements. a forthcoming study will follow up with the students 3–6 months after graduation to address whether there is any change in their perceptions of their work-readiness and how the community health placement contributed to it – and to compare data from those who have and haven’t found employment in community health services or organisations. it will also include data from the employer supervisors on their perceptions of the contribution of the placements to students’ workreadiness and employability. disclosure statement no potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors. shekhawat, g.s., sturm, s., & dunham, a. 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(2017). ‘i do and i understand’: the importance of reflective placements for the selfperceived work readiness of health sciences students. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 8(1), 188– 201. 200 appendix impact of community health placement internship on the work readiness of poplhlth 302 students instructions: circle the most appropriate option on a six point scale, where 1 = strongly disagree, 2 = do not agree, 3 = neutral, 4 = agree, 5 = strongly agree, and 6 = not applicable q.1 i know what skills are required to participate fully in the health workforce. 1 2 3 4 5 6 q.2 i have the skills to participate fully in the health workforce. 1 2 3 4 5 6 q.3 i feel confident to participate fully in the health workforce. 1 2 3 4 5 6 q.4 i feel ready to work on a health initiative with a local health organization or service. 1 2 3 4 5 6 q.5 i feel confident to integrate the knowledge learned in my previous courses in an actual health setting. 1 2 3 4 5 6 q.6 i am well-informed about the demographic profile of the new zealand population.* 1 2 3 4 5 6 q.7 i am well-informed about the main health needs of the maori population. 1 2 3 4 5 6 q.8 i am well-informed about the main health needs of the non-maori population. 1 2 3 4 5 6 q.9 i am well-informed about the range of health and social services in new zealand. 1 2 3 4 5 6 q.10 i am well-informed about the range of current health initiatives in new zealand. 1 2 3 4 5 6 shekhawat, g.s., sturm, s., & dunham, a. (2017). ‘i do and i understand’: the importance of reflective placements for the selfperceived work readiness of health sciences students. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 8(1), 188– 201. 201 describe how does the community health placement internship has impacted your work readiness: ng, k.w., & so, j.c. (2017). impact of secondary education reform on tertiary students’ generic competencies: a case-study of associate degree freshmen in hong kong. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 8(1), 106–122. 106 impact of secondary education reform on tertiary students’ generic competencies: a case study of associate degree freshmen in hong kong k.w. ng1 and joseph c. h. so1 ccmaggie@hkcc-polyu.edu.hk; ccso@hkcc-polyu.edu.hk 1hong kong community college, hong kong polytechnic university abstract this paper examines the correlation between curriculum reforms and the development of generic competencies among hong kong tertiary students (or secondary leavers who were admitted to associate degree and higher diploma). a total number of 3626 freshmen completed a set of self-assessment questionnaires, which were used to analyse the correlation between five generic competencies, across three academic years from 2010 to 2012. five of the generic competencies, which were highlighted in the proposed new three-year new senior secondary (nss) academic structure, were measured and compared between students from different academic backgrounds. the finding of the study indicated significantly higher scores in generic competencies for the traditional hong kong advanced level examination (hkale) secondary school curriculum in 2012 compared to earlier cohorts, whilst in general no significant difference was found between students from the traditional curriculum and the new academic structure of the hong kong diploma of secondary education (hkdse) in the mixed ‘double cohort’ year of 2012. the result points to the potential early impact of nss on students’ generic skill development across both the old and new curriculum. keywords: curriculum reform hong kong, senior secondary education, generic skills, college education. introduction major curriculum reform is initiated by governments to address, inter alia, the global marketplace and social change. in turn, each reform leads to adjustments of associated curricula, thereby enabling students to meet the challenges of globalization, international competition, and the knowledge-based economy. in 2001, in order to better prepare students’ competitiveness in the face of rapid economic growth in china and other parts of the world in the 21st century, the hong kong curriculum development council proposed a reform of the curriculum for secondary and tertiary education which focused on students’ whole-person development: an emphasis that responded to the growing cry for generic skills development in global education. the new curriculum framework—a three-year new senior secondary (nss) academic structure—aims to provide more opportunities for students to explore their aptitudes and potential through multidisciplinary learning experiences. in order to achieve this, the senior secondary and higher education system was restructured from the traditional curriculum mailto:ccmaggie@hkcc-polyu.edu.hk mailto:ccso@hkcc-polyu.edu.hk ng, k.w., & so, j.c. (2017). impact of secondary education reform on tertiary students’ generic competencies: a case-study of associate degree freshmen in hong kong. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 8(1), 106–122. 107 (seven years of secondary plus three years of tertiary education) to a new academic syllabus of six years of secondary plus four years of tertiary education. previously, the traditional system functioned as a dual selection and filtering mechanism. the first public examinations at the end of form five, known as the hong kong certification of education examination (hkcee), filtered one-third of the students into the two senior secondary years to progress their education and sit the second public examination, at the end of year seven. known as the hong kong advanced level examination (hkale), this provided the university admission qualification. hence, students from the traditional system were required to sit two separate examinations for university admission and approximately onethird of hkcee examinees could continue their hkale studies; whilst students under the nss systems are required to take only one public examination known as the hong kong diploma in secondary education (hkdse) at the end of form six. this structural change in the secondary school system was followed by a modification in extending the higher education system from a three-year to a four-year undergraduate curriculum. the chief concern behind such reform lies in the focus on nurturing students’ all-round skills and learning attitude. literature review and context the prime task of education in the globalization era is to nurture the younger generation as lifelong learners (bates, 2002), and the school curriculum has played an increasingly important role in teaching generic skills, which are essential in the knowledge generation (benjamin et al., 2012). an international city such as hong kong cannot afford to lag behind in the quest for quality education in response to globalization and must therefore engage in the ongoing review of the education curriculum (chen, 2001; mok & chan, 2002). curriculum reform is a long term and difficult process towards the improvement of teaching and learning so as to achieve continuous development of students in the new education system. one of the key factors in making curriculum reform a smooth and successful transformation is the combined efforts of different parties. researchers have been trying to examine the impact of such wholesale changes of secondary and higher education in hong kong and have contributed some useful discussions. for instance, fullan (2001), discussed the importance of the involvement of different parties including principals, teachers, and students on educational change. successful implementation of educational reforms actually hinges on these parties. the curriculum reform can help secondary and tertiary students develop a variety of skills: adaptability, creativity, independent thinking and life-long learning capabilities. thus, the relationship between education reform and the holistic development of younger generations with a variety of skills and attitudes which will equip them to compete globally, has become more important than ever. review of recent education curriculum reform in hong kong the reforms of this study are not the first major amendments that the hong kong government has called for of the secondary school curriculum. after the implementation of nine years of compulsory education from 1978, there were increasing concerns that education policies be focused on enhancing school quality and effectiveness (tsang, 1997). in the late 1990s, the government introduced the direct subsidy scheme which aimed to offer flexibility in management and curriculum development to semi-private and private schools (education commission, 1998; yuen, cheung, & wong, 2012). however, the public schools constituted the majority in the sector and reforms would be needed if changes were to cover the mass education population (yuen, cheung, & wong, 2012). at the turn of the century, the then chief executive of hong kong sar tung chee-hwa proposed a major educational reform and requested that the education commission comprehensively review the academic structure, the curricula and the assessment mechanisms. the resulting report in 2000 was titled ‘learning for life, learning through life: reform proposals for the education system in hong kong’ (chan, w., 2010). the ng, k.w., & so, j.c. (2017). impact of secondary education reform on tertiary students’ generic competencies: a case-study of associate degree freshmen in hong kong. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 8(1), 106–122. 108 education commission openly stated the urgency to carry out an overhaul of the hong kong education system, citing ‘that learning is still examination driven’, and ‘school life is usually monotonous’ which hindered learning effectiveness. it thus proposed a reform based on the following principles: student-focused, no loser, quality, life-wide learning, and society-wide mobilization (yuen, cheung, & wong, 2012). follow-up consultation was conducted by the curriculum development council at the end of 2000 which suggested a restructuring of the secondary school curriculum which, for the first time, explicitly emphasised the development of general skills in the student learning process. nine generic skills were identified as learning outcomes: collaboration skills; communication skills; creativity; critical thinking; information technology skills; numeracy skills; problem-solving; self-management; study skills (curriculum development council, 2000). it became the prototype of the new senior secondary (nns) curriculum to be implemented later. generic skills development under the nns curriculum whole-person development, mainly cultivated by the development of generic skills, has constantly been highlighted in government documentation and reports on the new education reform, which was outlined in the nns. the key components of nns, implemented since 2009, include eight key learning areas (chinese language, english language, mathematics, science, technology, arts, physical, and personal, social and humanities), together with the cultivation of generic skills and values and attitudes, which was considered a whole-person development (education bureau, 2010). upper secondary students taking the nss curriculum are now required to participate in a new assessment framework within three years, including four core subjects (mathematics, english language, chinese language and liberal studies), two or three elective subjects, one component of school-based assessment, and other learning experiences (ole). the nss curriculum incorporates a new compulsory subject of liberal studies which aims to enhance students’ awareness of contemporary social issues through encouraging self-directed learning, critical thinking, and an understanding of the role of the individual in society (curry, 2012). moreover, the implementation of a new component of school-based assessment and the ole, which forms an integral part of the curriculum, aims to ensure the necessary exposure of students for a broad and balanced curriculum and nurture whole-person development (education bureau, 2010). its aim is to strengthen students’ generic skills with the flexible learning arrangement, which aligns with the primary objectives of the entire curriculum reform. students now undertake 405 hours of extra-curricular activities within the three years of nss curriculum, and they also complete a student learning profile (slp). the 405 hours benchmark occupies 15 per cent of the total curriculum time and must be allocated to five categories in the following distribution: moral and civic education, community service and career-related experiences (total 135 hours altogether), aesthetic development (135 hours) and physical development (13 hours). these new components of the new senior secondary curriculum framework aimed to enable students to attain the following seven learning goals for whole-person development and stretch the potential of each student to: 1. be bi-literate and trilingual with adequate proficiency; 2. acquire a broad knowledge base, and be able to understand contemporary issues that may impact on their daily life at personal, community, national and global levels; 3. be an informed and responsible citizen with a sense of global and national identity; 4. respect pluralism of cultures and views, and be a critical, reflective and independent thinker; 5. acquire information technology and other skills as necessary for being a life-long learner; ng, k.w., & so, j.c. (2017). impact of secondary education reform on tertiary students’ generic competencies: a case-study of associate degree freshmen in hong kong. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 8(1), 106–122. 109 6. understand their own career/ academic aspirations and develop positive attitudes towards work and learning; and 7. lead a healthy life-style with active participation in aesthetic and physical activities (curriculum development council, 2009). these learning goals, and the new curriculum as a whole, emphasise the improvement in generic competencies of students through a non-traditional classroom learning experience, designed to prepare them for an increasingly globalized and rapidly changing world. echoing the education commission report, the education and manpower bureau (2005) stated clearly that they intended to implement different plans to shift from over-emphasising academic studies to focus on whole-person development. the action plans were eventually adopted by pioneer schools in hong kong, using school publicity, community promotion, and external review to facilitate the achievement of generic skills including collaboration, communication, creativity, critical thinking, it, problem-solving, self-management, and study skills (chan, 2010; cheng, 2009; law, 2003), before its full implementation. such a focus on generic skills and holistic development was a watershed that marked the difference between students from the traditional hkale curriculum and those from the hkdse curriculum. research has since been conducted to study the early impact of this new curriculum reform (chan, 2010; chan & luk, 2013; yuen, cheung, & wong, 2012). in particular, yuen, cheung and wong (2012) pointed out that the implementation of curriculum reform at school level, and subsequently students’ learning experiences, were subject to the principals’ and teachers’ agreement on teaching approaches and the schools’ objectives. there has also been increasing attention on the impact of individual subjects. liberal studies, a new subject which was presumed to be a major training in several key generic skills, fell short of expectations in terms of finding the right balance between curriculum design and implementation (fok, 2016). yeung, lee and lam (2012) discussed the teachers' perception about the nss senior secondary science curricula, and the many challenges they faced including assessment of learning outcomes and skills development. similar studies were conducted to provide a critical analysis of the english language components of the nss curriculum with evaluation from both teachers’ and students’ perspectives (carless & harfitt, 2013), and also of mathematics (leung, leung, & zuo, 2014). more importantly, it is worth considering the development of the generic skills of students to reflect the impact of the reforms. cheung and lau found an increase in the scores on creativity under the nss curriculum reform (cheung & lau, 2013), which matched the major goal of nss. also, yuen, cheung and wong (2012) reviewed the first phase of the nss curriculum reform. they found that developing generic skills to prepare students to compete the challenges has become the distinguishing feature of education reforms from the school principals’ perspective. however, the progress made by secondary students was perceived to be less significant than their primary counterparts, as frontline teachers and panel heads did not believe that secondary students made huge improvement in generic skills. in particular, they viewed the progress in critical thinking and self-learning abilities less favourably compared to the development in it, reading habits and healthy lifestyle (yuen, cheung, & wong, 2012). another study on the nss mathematics curriculum showed that a lack of teaching and learning strategies, and comprehensive assessment forms, hindered the nine generic skills development among students within the curriculum framework (leung, leung, & zuo, 2014). ng, k.w., & so, j.c. (2017). impact of secondary education reform on tertiary students’ generic competencies: a case-study of associate degree freshmen in hong kong. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 8(1), 106–122. 110 generic skills development in relation to nss and tertiary education the new secondary curriculum reform also brings in new challenges for the tertiary education sector. since students from both the old and new secondary education system completed their studies together in 2012 (with hkale the last year on offer, and also the first batch for hkdse), two cohorts of students would be competing together for entry to tertiary education in the same academic year. under such circumstances, which was called ‘double cohort’ or ‘dual cohort’, where hkale and hkdse students studied concurrently, both groups of students were nurtured in the same schools despites going through dissimilar curricula, leading to a shared school life and learning experience. this required careful curriculum design from the tertiary education sector, since their education backgrounds, including the breadth and depth of content knowledge and skills, and learning experiences, might be different. colleges and universities needed to respond to their seemingly distinct education backgrounds–yet perhaps mutually affected learning experience-and adjusted their curricula and co-curricular activities accordingly, so as to benefit both groups of students. hence, our study of the first batch of hkdse graduates, along with the comparison of hkale students from 2010 to 2012 who studied alongside the hkdse counterparts, will be a timely effort to evaluate of the effect of the new curriculum on students’ holistic development. more importantly, such intense competition for university admission by both hkale and hkdse groups of students has also produced a large number of tertiary students who went through an alternative study pathway. whilst the top students were directly admitted to universities through outstanding public examination results, there was a large portion of secondary graduates who had satisfied the minimum entry requirement for local universities, yet were unable to obtain places in undergraduate programs. they took an alternative route of community colleges, which offered associate degree programs that prepared them for further undergraduate study. these students represented the average to above-average performers, albeit not outstanding, in both hkale and hkdse/nss curriculum, and their learning outcomes and generic skills development would be useful in evaluating the overall development among the generation. in the light of nns’s goal of cultivating generic skills, which are rapidly gaining attention in the tertiary education sector around the globe, it is useful to examine its development as an indication of how students progressed from two different secondary education systems and improved after finishing the early years of tertiary education. also termed as ‘transferable skills’ or ‘generic attributes’, these skills are in nature multifunctional and, once acquired, can be applied strategically in different learning disciplines and working situations (barrie, 2006; chamorro-premuzic, 2010; tait & godfrey, 1999). the assumption is that, if the new education system does have an effect on students’ overall growth, students from the nss would at least possess better awareness on, if not better development in, generic skills. hence, an enquiry into their generic competency will provide useful information for further research into the characteristics and needs of secondary students in forthcoming years under the new nns curriculum. methodology research questions in investigating whether the new curriculum provides a better generic skills development environment for students than the old curriculum, it is useful to trace back to the generic skills competencies from the earlier graduates of hkale to the latest in hkdse. the freshmen of college students (i.e. immediate graduates of secondary education) were selected for this purpose of comparing their performances with the latest graduates. the central research questions included the following: ng, k.w., & so, j.c. (2017). impact of secondary education reform on tertiary students’ generic competencies: a case-study of associate degree freshmen in hong kong. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 8(1), 106–122. 111 1. did hkale students in the ‘double cohort’ show better generic skills development than their earlier generations? 2. did nss students undertaking hkdse show better generic skills after their graduation from secondary education compared to their hkale counterpart in the same cohort (i.e. ‘double cohort’ in 2012)? background in this study, we investigated students from a community college affiliated with a largescale tertiary institution in hong kong from 2010 to 2012. the college which was multidisciplinary in nature, offered two-year associate degree and higher diploma programs across various disciplines (arts, science, social sciences, business and a number of specialised areas e.g. design) for local students after their graduation from secondary education. students who enrolled in the college must have met the minimum entry requirements: pass in one a-level subject or two as-level subjects in hong kong advanced level examination (hkale) or equivalent qualifications. as for students from the new hong kong diploma of secondary education (hkdse), i.e. nss curriculum, they must have obtained level 2 or above in five hkdse subjects including english language and chinese language. most students choose to pursue senior-year undergraduate studies after their graduation and in most cases they enrol in undergraduate programs in the cognate disciplines of their previous qualification. students were required to complete 60 credits throughout their study, among which 60 per cent were ‘general education’ subjects covering areas in language, creative and critical thinking, quantitative analysis and information technology literacy. the remaining 40 per cent of credits were discipline-related subjects which were designed to enhance students’ specific skills and knowledge in their subsequent academic discipline (science, computer and information technology, business, humanities, design, etc). in addition, students were strongly encouraged to actively take part in over 300 co-curricular student activities being offered by the college as part of their tertiary education learning experience through an award system. sample participants were randomly selected from students who commenced their studies in three consecutive academic years from 2010 to 2012; thus the survey was carried out in three phrases. participants were all freshmen enrolled in 35 associate degree programs offered by the college. a total number of 1376 freshmen, who had enrolled in the first year of a twoyear associate degree program within three months during the 2010/11 academic year, were surveyed in october 2010. for the 2011 cohort, a total of 933 students participated in the survey which was conducted from september to october in 2011 of the 2011/12 academic year. a further 1317 freshmen were recruited to conduct the survey in the ‘double cohort’ year of 2012 in october 2012, among which 817 (62.0%) were graduates from the traditional hkale curriculum, whilst 500 (38.0%) were graduates of the new hkdse curriculum. measure the survey adopted a set of self-assessment inventory-the self-assessment of all-round development (saard) questionnaire-to assess the generic competencies of respondents (fung, lee, kwan, & wong, 2006; fung, lee, & wong, 2007). one reason for choosing saard was its relevance to the local context, as it was designed by and adopted to evaluate the generic skills for students in other local universities. another reason was its reliability and validity (fung et al., 2007) in addition to providing a comparatively comprehensive coverage on most generic skills that concern educators and policy makers ng, k.w., & so, j.c. (2017). impact of secondary education reform on tertiary students’ generic competencies: a case-study of associate degree freshmen in hong kong. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 8(1), 106–122. 112 today. it consisted of 56 statements covering 14 areas of generic competencies, which were grouped into five major domains: 1. social skills (communication, interpersonal effectiveness, leadership, teamwork); 2. social and cultural awareness (cultural appreciation, global outlook, social and national responsibility); 3. intellectual development (creative thinking, critical thinking, problem solving); 4. physical and psychological development (eq and psychological wellness, healthy lifestyle); and 5. aspiration of learning (entrepreneurship, lifelong learning). as the focus of this study was the analysis of the early impact of secondary education reform on tertiary students’ generic skills, the skills that were most related to the nine generic skills stated by the curriculum development council (2009) formed the basis of the study. consequently five generic competencies were measured: social and national responsibility, cultural appreciation, global outlook, critical thinking and healthy lifestyle, which align with the learning goals of the senior secondary curriculum framework. these five generic competencies match most of the seven core learning goals of whole-person development set out by the curriculum development council in 2009 (point 2 for global outlook; point 3 for social and national responsibility; point 4 for critical thinking as well as cultural appreciation; point 7 for healthy lifestyle). the saard is a 7-point likert –type scale self-assessing questionnaire, asking participants to reflect upon how well the respondent believed he or she was capable of accomplishing the statements (1=not well at all; 7=very well). each statement assessed only one area of generic competency, and each domain of generic competency consisted of 4 statements. all statements were listed in random order. points marked in each statement were converted into scores (multiplied by 4), resulting in a minimum of 4 marks and maximum of 28 marks for each statement. the score of each generic competency was the mean score of all four statements, and all four statements must be answered for that particular generic competency to be considered a valid assessment. if one or more of the statements of a generic competency was not answered by the respondent or deemed invalid, the mean score of that particular generic competency for that particular respondent would not be calculated and counted towards our analysis. the current study analyses five out of the 14 generic competencies of the entire saard, as they were highly related to some of the core learning objectives of the hkdse curriculum reform. they will be used to measure the holistic development of students to illuminate outcomes of the new curriculum. these five generic skills are namely: social and national responsibility, cultural appreciation, global outlook, critical thinking, and healthy lifestyle. the confidentiality of data collected was ensured to the students, as their personal identities were not recorded, and only their year of entry and programs enrolled would be acquired during the surveys. they were informed about the research and their rights before agreeing to participate, and could withdraw from the survey anytime they wished. they were also reassured that their responses in both surveys would not affect any assessment in any subjects throughout their studies, nor would they be disclosed to any program leaders or staff members who were responsible for handling marking and grading of student results. results questionnaires from four groups of students across three cohorts who entered the college from 2010 to 2012 as freshmen were analysed in this study, and their mean scores compared across five generic competencies to determine the possible impact of education reforms on their holistic development. the five generic competencies studied across the three different cohorts of freshmen were: social and national responsibility, cultural ng, k.w., & so, j.c. (2017). impact of secondary education reform on tertiary students’ generic competencies: a case-study of associate degree freshmen in hong kong. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 8(1), 106–122. 113 appreciation, global outlook, critical thinking, and healthy lifestyle, which were aligned with the nine competencies stated by the new curriculum reform. comparison of freshmen from hkale (2010-2012 cohort) in order to assess if there was variation between students coming from the same secondary education system before the implementation of the new curriculum, the mean scores on five generic competencies among freshmen from the 2010 and 2011 cohort, as well as 2012 cohort (i.e. ‘double cohort’) students who graduated from the hkale curriculum, were observed and compared. the mean scores and standard deviation of 5 generic competencies across these three groups of student is shown in table 1. table 1: descriptive of five generic competencies between freshmen from 2010 to 2012 under the hkale education curriculum in saard survey variable n m sd social & national responsibility 2010 1361 19.27 3.52 2011 930 20.10 3.41 2012 815 20.99 3.23 cultural appreciation 2010 1336 18.88 4.06 2011 927 19.10 4.40 2012 808 19.66 4.39 global outlook 2010 1369 18.72 3.60 2011 929 18.84 3.78 2012 813 19.53 3.73 critical thinking 2010 1364 19.22 3.00 2011 932 19.58 2.82 2012 811 20.27 2.78 healthy lifestyle 2010 1363 18.68 3.81 2011 930 18.95 4.03 2012 817 19.43 3.93 social and national responsibility corresponded to the learning goal of ‘to be an informed and responsible citizen with a sense of global and national identity’ in the nss curriculum. table 1 indicated that there was a gradual increase of scores from 2010 to 2012 in students’ sense of social and national responsibility. freshmen from the 2010 cohort received a mean score of 19.27 (sd=3.52), compared to 20.10 (sd=3.41) in 2011 and 20.99 (sd=3.23) in 2012 cohort. ng, k.w., & so, j.c. (2017). impact of secondary education reform on tertiary students’ generic competencies: a case-study of associate degree freshmen in hong kong. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 8(1), 106–122. 114 this illustrated a continuing improvement in the sense of social and national responsibility among students. cultural appreciation corresponded to the learning goal of ‘to respect pluralism of cultures and views, and be a critical, reflective and independent thinker’ in the nss curriculum. table 1 showed that freshmen in the 2010 cohort received a mean score of 18.88 (sd=4.06) in their cultural appreciation, which was similar to freshmen in 2011 (m= 9.10, sd=4.40). freshmen in 2012, on the other hand, had a mean score of 19.66 (sd=4.39), which was higher than the previous two cohorts. global outlook corresponded to the learning goal of ‘to acquire a broad knowledge base, and be able to understand contemporary issues that may impact on their daily life at personal, community, national and global levels’ in the nss curriculum. the result indicated that there was a similar trend in the development of global outlook as well as their scores in cultural appreciation. table 1 showed that freshmen in the 2010 cohort received a mean score of 18.72 (sd=3.60), and those in 2011 had similar scores (m=18.84, sd=3.78). freshmen in 2012, however, appeared to have a higher mean scores of 19.53 (sd=3.73) compared to the previous two cohorts. critical thinking corresponded to the learning goal of ‘to respect pluralism of cultures and views, and be a critical, reflective and independent thinker’ in the nss curriculum. table 1 indicated that there was also a gradual increase of scores from 2010 to 2012 in the aspect of critical thinking. freshmen from 2010 cohort obtained a mean score of 19.22 (sd=3.00), and was increased to 19.58 (sd=2.82) in the 2011 cohort and 20.27 (sd=2.78) in the 2012 cohort. this illustrated a continuing improvement across three years. healthy lifestyle corresponded to the learning goal of ‘to lead a healthy life-style with active participation in aesthetic and physical activities’ in the nss curriculum. table 1 showed that the scores between freshmen in 2010 (m=18.68, sd=3.81) and those in 2011 (m=18.95, sd=4.03) were similar. however, freshmen in 2012 had a mean scores of 19.43 (sd=3.93), which was higher than the previous two cohorts. in order to compare the mean scores of 5 generic competencies among freshmen from the same hkale background, a one-way between-subject anova was conducted on scores of each generic competency. the result found that there were significant differences on all five generic competencies at the p<.05 level for three groups of freshmen from 2010 to 2012. for social and national responsibility, significant statistical difference was found between three groups of freshmen [f(2,3103) =65.629, p=.000]. similar results were also found on the mean scores of other four generic competencies: cultural appreciation [f(2,3068) =8.451, p=.000], global outlook [f(2,3108) =12.826, p=.000], critical thinking [f(2,3104) =33.186, p=.000], and healthy lifestyle [f(2,3107) =9.525, p=.000]. since significant differences were found in the means scores of all five generic competencies between freshmen from three different years of entry, post hoc analyses were conducted to assess further differences amongst groups in these five generic competencies. pairwise comparisons among the three groups of freshmen were conducted using bonferroni with the significant level at 0.05. the post hoc analyses of 5 generic competencies by bonferroni across these three groups of student are shown in table 2. ng, k.w., & so, j.c. (2017). impact of secondary education reform on tertiary students’ generic competencies: a case-study of associate degree freshmen in hong kong. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 8(1), 106–122. 115 table 2: post hoc comparisons by bonferroni of five generic competencies between freshmen from 2010 to 2012 under the hkale education curriculum in saard survey (n=3118) variable cohort (i) cohort (j) md se p social & national responsibility 2011 2010 .82814* .14522 .000* 2012 -.89141* .16378 .000* cultural appreciation 2011 2010 .21352 .18193 .722 2012 -.56117* .20483 .019* global outlook 2011 2010 .11865 .15680 1.000 2012 -.68314* .17716 .000* critical thinking 2011 2010 ..35726* .12306 .010* 2012 -.68817* .13906 .000* healthy lifestyle 2011 2010 .27472 .16616 .295 2012 -.47968* .18733 .031* * p<.05 social and national responsibility based on the bonferroni result, it was found that the mean scores in social and national responsibility was significantly different between 2010 and 2011 freshmen (md=.83, p < .05) and also between 2011 and 2012 freshmen (md=.89, p < .05). hence, 2012 freshmen scored significantly higher in social and national responsibility than those in 2011, who also possessed a significantly higher mean score compared to their 2010 counterparts. this illustrated a continuing increase across three years among hkale students. cultural appreciation the bonferroni result illustrated that the mean scores in cultural appreciation between 2010 and 2011 freshmen (md=.21, p=.722) was statistically insignificant. however, significant difference was found between 2011 and 2012 freshmen (md=.77, p < .05). therefore, it was found that hkale students from 2012 cohort possessed significant difference from their counterparts in previous two years. global outlook the bonferroni result of global outlook showed a similar trend found in cultural appreciation. it was found that the mean scores in global outlook between 2010 and 2011 freshmen (md=.19, p=1.000) was statistically insignificant. however, there was significant difference between 2011 and 2012 freshmen (md=.68, p < .05). therefore, it was found that hkale students from 2012 cohort possessed significant higher mean scores from their counterparts in both 2010 and 2011. ng, k.w., & so, j.c. (2017). impact of secondary education reform on tertiary students’ generic competencies: a case-study of associate degree freshmen in hong kong. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 8(1), 106–122. 116 critical thinking table 2 indicated that, according to the bonferroni result, there were statistically significant differences between three groups of students in critical thinking. the mean scores was significantly different between 2010 and 2011 freshmen (md=.38, p < .05) , and also between 2011 and 2012 freshmen (md=.69, p < .05). hence, 2012 freshmen scored significantly higher in social and national responsibility than freshmen in 2011, who were also scored significantly higher compared to their 2010 counterparts. this demonstrated that there was a continuing increase across three years among students from hkale background in terms of the generic competency of critical thinking. healthy lifestyle the bonferroni result in table 2 showed that the mean scores in cultural appreciation between 2010 and 2011 freshmen (md=.21, p=.722) was statistically insignificant. however, it was found that there was significant difference between freshmen from the 2011 and 2012 (md=.77, p < .05). therefore, it was observed that hkale students from 2012 cohort possessed significant higher mean scores in the generic competency of healthy lifestyles from their counterparts in previous two years. comparison of freshmen from hkale and hkdse further analysis was conducted to determine whether the scores in these generic competencies would be different from those who were directly affected by the new hkdse curriculum. the complete independent-samples t-test result of these five generic competencies in the saard survey on freshmen in 2012, in accordance to secondary curriculum, is shown in table 3. table 3: independent samples t test of five generic competencies in relation to 2012 freshmen from hkale and hkdse in saard survey (n=1316) variable m sd t df p social skills (n = 1316) social & national responsibility .872 1312 .383 hkale 20.99 3.23 hkdse 20.83 3.31 cultural appreciation .824 1303 .410 hkale 19.66 4.39 hkdse 19.45 4.29 global outlook 1.109 1308 .267 hkale 19.52 3.73 hkdse 19.30 3.54 critical thinking 2.057 1307 .040* hkale 20.27 2.78 hkdse 19.95 2.61 healthy lifestyle .995 1314 .320 hkale 19.43 3.93 hkdse 19.21 3.92 * p<.05; hkale=hong kong advanced level examination; hkse=hong kong diploma of secondary education ng, k.w., & so, j.c. (2017). impact of secondary education reform on tertiary students’ generic competencies: a case-study of associate degree freshmen in hong kong. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 8(1), 106–122. 117 social and national responsibility table 3 indicated that no significant difference could be found among two groups of freshmen in terms of social and national responsibility. the mean scores (t=.872, p=.383) between freshmen with hkale and hkdse background were found insignificant. cultural appreciation the result also showed no significant difference in the generic competencies of cultural appreciation. the mean scores o (t=.824, p=.410) between freshmen with hkale and hkdse background insignificant. global outlook the result again indicated that no significant difference was found between the mean scores of these two groups in global outlook (t = 1.109, p = .267). critical thinking the result showed that freshmen graduated from the hkale curriculum scored significantly higher in critical thinking (m=20.27) (t=2.057, p < .05) than their counterpart who graduated from the hkdse curriculum in the same year. healthy lifestyle the difference on mean scores between the two groups was found insignificant in this area. freshmen from the hkale curriculum did not score significantly higher than their hkdse counterpart (t=.955, p=.320). discussion the following section discusses the results and findings in relation to the context of nss curriculum in hong kong. comparison of freshmen from hkale (2010-2012 cohort) in summary, the statistical analyses showed that there was a general difference between freshmen from three different cohorts who took the hkale curriculum for the last three consecutive years of the old curriculum. regardless of the statistical difference between their counterparts in the 2010 and 2011 subgroups, freshmen in the ‘double cohort’ 2012 year, who graduated from the last year of the hkale, scored significantly higher than the other two subgroups of students. importantly, such significant difference was observed in all five generic competencies when compared to freshmen in previous two cohorts, which indicated that they had an overall better self-awareness and self-evaluation of these generic competencies. since these five competencies were highlighted by the edb as some of major generic skills for holistic student development in the new hkdse curriculum, such significant improvement shown by hkale students in this ‘double cohort’ year showed a possible impact of the nss curriculum, as they might have also been affected by it despite not studying in the nss curriculum themselves. before the implementation of the nss curriculum, there had been calls for a new focus for secondary education which highlighted the development of generic skills during students’ learning experiences, giving students a more holistic learning trajectory (curriculum development council 2000). the introduction of nine generic competencies, cultivated through eight key learning areas, the other learning experiences (ole) (education bureau, 2010) and the new liberal studies subject, put extra emphasis on the fostering of self-directed learning, critical thinking, creativity, and an understanding of the role of individual in society, all of which were reflect in earlier research (cheung & lau, 2013; curry, 2012). despite reservation about the implementation strategies of the nss and the challenges faced by frontline teachers (leung, leung, & zuo, 2014; yuen, cheung, & ng, k.w., & so, j.c. (2017). impact of secondary education reform on tertiary students’ generic competencies: a case-study of associate degree freshmen in hong kong. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 8(1), 106–122. 118 wong, 2012), our study shows that the new curriculum actually affected those who were studying under the old curriculum. hkale students who studied together with their hkdse counterparts in the same secondary schools might have benefited from sharing their learning experience in the school life, mutually affecting each other when participating in the informal curriculum and extra-curricular activities. comparison of freshmen from hkale and hkdse in the light of such significant improvement in five generic competencies among the ‘double cohort’ freshmen who studied the hkale curriculum, the comparison of results between two groups of students from this ‘double cohort’ would provide a useful indication, if not confirmation, of whether the nss curriculum did affect students’ generic skills development. according to the analysis, there was no statistically significant difference in most generic competencies between tertiary freshmen from the old and new secondary education curriculum in ‘double cohort’ year of 2012. the only significant difference was found in critical thinking, which favoured the freshmen who graduated from the hkale curriculum. their mean scores in social and national responsibility, cultural appreciation, global outlook and healthy lifestyle, which were among other aspects of holistic development targeted by the nss curriculum reform, were statistically insignificant. hence, in summary, it can be concluded that the tertiary students who graduated from hkale and hkdse curricula in 2012 did not differ significantly in major aspects of holistic development apart from critical thinking. further analysis and discussion can be drawn from the results on both analyses. firstly, the result proved that, despite not showing significant impact on the holistic development of hkdse students as yet, the newly implemented hkdse curriculum may have already affected the last cohort of hkale students who studied alongside their hkdse classmates in the secondary schools, which was also discussed earlier in the analysis of hkale students across the last three years of the old curriculum. the fact that freshmen with a hkale background in 2012 displayed unanimously significant improvement in most of the generic competencies when they commenced their tertiary studies may perhaps be credited to their better exposure and knowledge of holistic development by studying together with hkdse students in the nss curriculum. the second observation goes back to the question of whether the new nss curriculum offered better generic skills development to the first cohort of hkdse students than the old curriculum. the result showed that, contrary to what might have been expected, no significant differences were found in four out of five generic components between students from hkale and hkdse, with critical thinking the only component that demonstrated a difference in favour of hkale students. the overall mean scores by hkdse students were also slightly lower, although regarded statistically insignificant, compared to their hkale counterpart in each component. thus, according to the result, hkdse students did not possess the expected better self-awareness and development of holistic development than students from the hkale prior to the education reform. the result reiterates some of the observations in earlier research which cast doubts over the early impact of the nss on student development in general, and can be explained by a number of factors. chan and luk explained in their research findings on hong kong curriculum reform that students accustomed to the traditional spoon-fed learning approach may find it difficult to adapt to the inquiry-based approach in the nns curriculum, and may take years to learn and adopt a new mindset (chan & luk,, 2013). therefore, while hkale students in 2012 had attained better awareness and development of these generic skills through a gradual immersion in the new school setting, hkdse students faced a completely new curriculum which they were not familiar with. the learning goals and development of certain generic skills highlighted by the nns curriculum may not demonstrate a sharp improvement of holistic development on hkdse students, since they ng, k.w., & so, j.c. (2017). impact of secondary education reform on tertiary students’ generic competencies: a case-study of associate degree freshmen in hong kong. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 8(1), 106–122. 119 may need time to understand new learning objectives and pedagogies under a new educational framework that differs radically from their junior secondary education. thus there may have been a premature expectation that the hkdse students would outperform their hkale counterparts in generic skills development. yuen, cheung and wong (2012) questioned the impact of cultural values on students when they adapt to a new curriculum, and further discussed the factors that would affect the successful implementation of the new curriculum reform (cheung & wong, 2012). the current findings of the study indicated some early positive signs of improvement in the generic competencies under the curriculum reform, although collaboration between teachers, headmasters and students will be needed to strengthen the impact on the next generations of students. the educational reforms include school-based management, school-based curriculum and integrated curriculum; hence principals and teachers have to participate in different training programs, become familiar with the new system and meet certain requirements of this reform (cheng, 2009; cheung & wong, 2011). these parallel initiatives from the managerial and educational fronts provide room for improvement to the traditional hkale students, and the nss students, at the same time, can enjoy the initial benefits of the curriculum reforms. similarly fok (2016) argued that the introduction of liberal studies as a compulsory subject did not have the expected impact on nurturing a variety of generic skills as it failed to find a right balance between curriculum design, school and teacher expectation, and implementation strategies. similar problems could also be found in other subjects such as english and mathematics (carless & harfitt, 2013; leung, leung, & zuo, 2014). this resulted in the seemingly insignificant impact on the development of generic skills among hkdse students, as shown in our results. it appears that nurturing generic skills through academic subjects needs better incorporation with the entire curriculum, which again depends on the transformation of cultural values of different stakeholders in accepting a new teaching philosophy and new pedagogies. limitations there are, however, some limitations of this study. one possible limitation is that it reported the self-evaluation and self-awareness of tertiary students’ generic competencies resulting from curriculum reform. the impact of the new curriculum reform was thus based on the perception of students themselves. although the students' self-assessment plays an important role in the study of the curriculum reform, evaluations being conducted by their secondary teachers when they graduated from secondary schools would provide a fuller understanding of their generic skills development. another limitation lies in the range of students. this study focused on the average to above-average secondary graduates, and excluded the elite students studying in the major universities, as well as those who struggled and performed below-par in the hkale or hkdse and thus did not attend tertiary education. understanding their generic skills development from a number of perspectives and data sources would provide a more comprehensive evaluation of the nss curriculum. several directions for future studies are suggested. for example, it would be useful to investigate the development of students’ generic skills and attitudes over the long-term and consider the impact of these on student achievement. similarly, the involvement of and collaboration between different stakeholders, including school management, frontline teachers and parents, should be examined to give more breadth to the study and therefore more comprehensively evaluate the impact of the new curriculum reform. conclusion this paper has studied the generic skills of tertiary freshmen across three academic years (from 2010 to 2012) as a reflection of the impact of the nss curriculum reform on secondary education students. the study was carried out in three phrases. five generic ng, k.w., & so, j.c. (2017). impact of secondary education reform on tertiary students’ generic competencies: a case-study of associate degree freshmen in hong kong. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 8(1), 106–122. 120 competencies, which were highlighted as a focus in the nss academic structure, were measured and compared between students from different academic backgrounds. the result of the study leads to several conclusions about generic competencies and their relation to the changing secondary education curricula in hong kong. first, the result indicated a gradual improvement in these five generic competencies in students across three years from 2010 to 2012 for the traditional hong kong advanced level examination (hkale) secondary school curriculum. the hkale students in 2012 outscored previous cohorts with statistical significance on all five generic skills, which illustrated a stronger overall competency. second, overall there was no significant difference found between students from the hkale curriculum and the new academic structure of hong kong diploma of secondary education (hkdse) in 2012. it was suggested that they might be influenced by the students of hkdse, despite not studying the same curriculum, but sharing school life and mutually influencing their learning experiences, which possibly led to a similar generic skills development trajectory and impact. curriculum reform requires constant feedback and review to enhance the effectiveness of the teaching and learning. the educational reforms under consideration have been implemented for ten years. it is the right time to conduct a thorough review of its progress, and research as such may lead to modifications or adjustments that can further improve the teaching and learning effectiveness for both educators and students. the hong kong education bureau and schools should provide quality professional development for their teachers and continuous review of the structure, curriculum and assessment to build the capacity to meet the requirements of the reform. the present study has examined the students' generic competencies of the first cohort of the curriculum reforms. further studies will be valuable to investigate the continuous impact of this curriculum restricting. acknowledgment the authors gratefully acknowledge the invaluable contributions of the student affairs office of the hong kong polytechnic university for authorizing the use of the saard questionnaires for the purpose of this survey. in addition, the research was subsidized by the research committee of the college of professional and continuing education, without its generous contribution the project would not have been made possible. ng, k.w., & so, j.c. 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(2017). when do university students and graduates know what careers they want: a research-derived framework. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 8(1), 3– 21. 3 when do university students and graduates know what careers they want: a research-derived framework shelley kinash1, linda crane1, john capper2, mark young3 and ashley stark1 skinash@bond.edu.au; lcrane@bond.edu.au; jcapper@divinity.edu.au; m.young@latrobe.edu.au; astark@bond.edu.au 1bond university, 2the university of divinity, 3la trobe university abstract this paper reports on research which was conducted to explore how university students and those who had graduated and been subsequently employed, made career decisions. specifically, through interviews and focus group discussions with 22 university students and 28 graduates from australian undergraduate and postgraduate courses in a variety of disciplines, four questions were explored: do university students know their own desired postcourse employment, or in other words, what they want to be after graduation; if so, at what point in their student experience do they come to this decision; what elements come into play in university student career decision-making; and to what extent do students and graduates feel that their career decision-making is supported by their universities? research was grounded in, and results aligned with, the ‘chaos theory of careers.’ the main findings were that at the enrolment-stage of university and during their studies, most students were pessimistic about their career outcomes and felt largely unsupported in identifying suitable career goals. however, the outcomes after graduation were unexpectedly positive in that, by this point most had identified career goals and were in careers they had desired. most of the research participants who had been in their careers for an extended length of time were casual academics who were dissatisfied with their career progression and status. although they had identified academic career goals and secured employment in their chosen industry, they were disappointed by continuous short-term contracts and what they perceived as poor career supports extended by their university employers. a ‘university student and graduate careerknowledge framework’ was derived. the key takeaway from this research was a set of recommendations for universities regarding how to better support students to make career choices. keywords: graduate employability, career development, transition, higher education, students, graduates, career choice introduction providing strategies and supports to ensure that graduates are employable has become a major priority of universities (bennett, richardson, & mackinnon, 2015; brewer, flavell, harris, davis, & bathgate, 2014; brown & carasso, 2013; jollands et. al., 2015; kinash et al., 2015; oliver, 2015). however from the students’ perspective, perhaps universities are focussing on the wrong question. how can the services, strategies and approaches to mailto:skinash@bond.edu.au mailto:lcrane@bond.edu.au mailto:jcapper@divinity.edu.au mailto:m.young@latrobe.edu.au mailto:astark@bond.edu.au kinash, s., crane, l., capper, j., young, m., & stark, a. (2017). when do university students and graduates know what careers they want: a research-derived framework. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 8(1), 3– 21. 4 improving employability be effective if students do not know what they want to be? career development experts believe that selecting a particular career path and choosing the related education and training required for that path are important career developmental tasks associated with transitioning from adolescence to adulthood (creed & hughes, 2012, p. 148). an emerging theme in the published graduate employability literature is that many students do not have a clear sense of career options and therefore can lack career goals (daghbashyan & hårsman, 2014; dias, 2011). literature there are a number of studies which have explored the career choice and goals of university students. creed and hughes (2012) analysed the relationship between various career survey instruments completed by 130 first-year university students at one australian institution. their main findings were that career compromise (e.g., acceptance into a degree program that was not first choice) increased career distress and decreased perceptions of employability, but that supportive strategies such as career guidance and increasing self-presentation skills can buffer these effects (see also sornapooman & fyfe, 2015). however the research methodology was restricted to psychometric instruments and did not inquire into how the students came to their course choices and/or how this related to their career choices. wu, tsai and chen (2014) analysed data from 614 undergraduate science majors across 12 universities in taiwan. statistical analysis of instruments showed a positive relationship between career guidance, vocational self-concept and self-perceived employability, leading the researchers to conclude that universities should support career development, emphasising information about graduate occupations. similar to creed and hughes (2012), the research methodology was to use psychometric instruments and did not inquire further into why the students chose science, what occupational choices they were making for graduate careers, and how they arrived at these decisions. researchers have surveyed and/or interviewed either students and/or those who have graduated from university undergraduate or postgraduate degrees to report motivations and patterns for course and/or career identification. dias (2011) interviewed 30 students who enrolled in electrical and computer engineering at one university in portugal. rated in order from most to least important, the students’ motivations for choosing engineering as their course of study were: being an engineer, engineering as an interest, social mobility and finding a job. giles, ski and vrdoljak (2009) analysed survey data from 1206 graduates (32 universities) from australian postgraduate degrees in science, engineering or technology. the top three reasons for enrolment in a research postgraduate degree were said to be: benefit to future careers, enjoyment in learning and undertaking research, and interest in the subject matter. these researchers subsequently conducted 123 case studies revealing that one of the key motivational factors for enrolling was to commence an academic career. context of the study the research presented in this paper builds-on and extends the significance of this body of empirical literature in three ways. first, both students and graduates were included to investigate multiple phases of the student/graduate/employee career journey. second, students and graduates from multiple institutions across australia, a wide range of disciplines and industries and from both undergraduate and postgraduate courses participated in this research so that diversity and complexity could be considered. third, in-depth interviews and focus groups were conducted with students and graduates so that their experiences, thoughts and emotions were captured from their point of view. the unique contribution of this research to the intersecting body of literature on graduate employability and career development is that the experiences, thoughts and emotions kinash, s., crane, l., capper, j., young, m., & stark, a. (2017). when do university students and graduates know what careers they want: a research-derived framework. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 8(1), 3– 21. 5 described by students and graduates have been interpreted and applied to map a framework of university student and graduate career-knowledge. this framework is firmly grounded in the ‘chaos theory of careers’ (pryor & bright, 2003). this theory includes four main elements which inform the framework presented in this paper – complexity, change, constructiveness, and chance (p.13). people, their various experiences, the employment context and therefore career decisions are complex with many variations of pathways, stops and starts. people change their mind: in the early stages of their course students may form a particular idea of what they want to do upon graduation but have an entirely different goal closer to graduation. societies and cultures co-construct meanings and relative values of courses and careers. for example, students with the highest grades in high school often apply for medicine, law or engineering because these courses have the most rigorous entry standards and the associated careers have higher incomes and thereby status. during their studies (and other aspects of life that occur) students discover facets of themselves, such as social justice orientations, that shift and change these career goals. finally, there is an element of chance in every career journey. for example, they happen upon an extra-curricular experience that changes their career goals or employment vacancies that were once abundant are no longer available and new industries and opportunities emerge, an aspect also supported by this study. pryor and bright wrote, …the future is not somewhere a long way off, the future is emerging with each action we take and each response we make to changes in the complex dynamical systems of which we are a part or which intrude onto the fractal patterns of our lives (p. 18). aligned with this theoretical orientation, the framework presented in this paper illustrates the complex and ever-changing routes of career decision-making of university students from application through graduation into careers. research aims and methodology in 2014, research was conducted to inquire into australian university graduate employability from the perspective of students, those who had graduated from undergraduate or postgraduate degrees (hereafter called ‘graduates’), employers, educators and career development professionals (kinash, et al., 2015). interestingly, some findings which emerged were not hypothesised nor intentionally queried in the original data collection and analysis. it appeared from the data that students and graduates did not feel that they had a ‘handle’ on their career goals and were troubled by this uncertainty. furthermore, they appeared to be critical of university student support for not providing what they perceived as needed career guidance. a secondary analysis of the original data was therefore conducted to explore the following questions: 1. do university students know their own desired post-course employment, or in other words, what they want to be after graduation? 2. if so, at what point in their student experience do they come to this decision? 3. what elements come into play in university student career decision-making? 4. to what extent do students and graduates feel that their career decision-making is supported by their universities? the chosen methodology for this research was hermeneutic phenomenology whereby interpretations were made based on exploration of the personal experiences described by students and graduates. hermeneutic phenomenology is concerned with the underlying details of human experience as it is lived, aiming to achieve a sense of understanding and the establishment of salient themes (van manen, 1997). participants interviews and focus groups were conducted with 22 university students and 28 graduates as part of a larger strategic research project about graduate employability commissioned by the kinash, s., crane, l., capper, j., young, m., & stark, a. (2017). when do university students and graduates know what careers they want: a research-derived framework. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 8(1), 3– 21. 6 australian government, department of education and training. in regards to sampling, purposive efforts were made to ensure research diversity, including multiple institutions, disciplines, employment type and gender. research participants were recruited directly through researchers approaching students, graduates and employers at university career fairs and indirectly using educator and other higher education collegial contacts (i.e., staff referring their students and graduates). all recruitment, data collection and dissemination were conducted in strict adherence to approved ethical procedures through the lead institution. information on participant demographic details is provided in table 1. table 1: participant demographics participant male female undergraduate postgraduate students (n = 22) 7 (32%) 15 (68%) 13 (59%) 9 (41%) graduates (n = 28) 14 (50%) 14 (50%) n/a n/a as demonstrated in table 2, students and graduates who participated in this study represented an overall total of nine different fields of study. eight graduates were working for multi-national corporations, four in theology, three in universities, three as start-up entrepreneurs and two in the public service. table 2: participant fields of study participant law business ir arts food sciences divinity it engineer ing research students (n = 22) 7 6 1 5 4 0 0 0 2 graduates (n = 28) 2 5 0 7 1 4 2 6 1 note. ir = international relations. it = information technology. some students studied across multiple fields, so the overall total will not add up to the original sample size of 22. data collection interviews and focus groups were a maximum of one-hour in length. they were conducted as interactive interviews whereby a set of questions was used as a starting point, but allowed, following the lead of research participants, for emerging themes (ellis, kiesinger, & tillmanhealy, 1997). few questions were asked directly about career identification and identity so that themes emerged out of the data rather than responses being led. sample questions/probes included: what opportunities does/did your university provide you to enhance your graduate employability; what is good about the graduate employability supports your university offers/offered; and what should be improved about these graduate employability supports. kinash, s., crane, l., capper, j., young, m., & stark, a. (2017). when do university students and graduates know what careers they want: a research-derived framework. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 8(1), 3– 21. 7 analysis multiple interpretive lenses were used for the secondary analysis reported in this paper, including using unstructured discourse analysis (alvesson & sköldberg, 2000). this interpretative approach provided particular data probes: how the research participants responded and the order in which their responses emerged are informative. which descriptors within the questions were most salient in the responses of which participants? (kinash, 2006). furthermore, using the analytic approach of shaddock (2014) each full transcript was manually thematically analysed independently by two of the researchers. a third researcher confirmed 80 per cent agreement between the thematic codes and frames and created a master analysis. results university entry many of the students commented on their state-of-mind upon entering university. with regard to this most of the students who commented said that upon enrolment, they did not have a specific career goal or a sense of what courses would lead to what careers, but that they desired this knowledge. career services did not appear to have been extended to any of the students prior to, or early after, enrolment. one of the students, reflecting on the way in which advising is currently structured, commented as follows: …we’d have to know that from the beginning, what we want to do, otherwise career supports aren’t going to help.’ among the few students who expressed that they started university with a specific goal, they indicated that their choices were influenced by family as opposed to guidance from the education system. sometimes the family influence was perceived positively, such as the aboriginal student who said that his decision to pursue education as a discipline was inspired by family explaining: …having that positive support, positive role model in my life who pushed me to go on and be a teacher where i could go back and work with my mob and empower them through education. for other students, the familiarity of family influence was perceived as limiting. one student explained her course-change being family career-related: i started originally in hospitality because the majority of my family is coming from that background.’ many students expressed a desire for personalised career counselling prior to university enrolment. these students said that they would have liked combined course/career advice. a few students specified that they would have liked a career advisor getting to know them and then suggesting careers that might suit their strengths and passions, and finally, advising which courses could be expected to lead to those careers. other students said that they should not be expected to choose careers, and thereby courses, prior to university enrolment. these students said that they would have benefitted from a smorgasbord approach to their first-year where they tried various options prior to making a decision. furthermore, these students said that for this model to work, first-year university subjects would need to be aligned with career skills so that students could make informed career choices based on the roles and responsibilities they would actually be undertaking upon graduation. for example, one student commented: kinash, s., crane, l., capper, j., young, m., & stark, a. (2017). when do university students and graduates know what careers they want: a research-derived framework. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 8(1), 3– 21. 8 whether or not it’s actually what you want to do, rather than taking classes and just learning in the classroom and then going into the workforce.’ another student said, ‘but i think it needs to be more that … you should be doing different disciplines and hard skills at a young age. people i think would have a better sense of what they actually like and what they want to do in the future. during university the expressed indecision about career options at the point of enrolment seems to have continued into the degree for many students, and throughout the entire degree to the point of graduation for some. for example, one student who had appeared to have made up his mind as the degree progressed said that he wished that he had identified his goals sooner with the following comment. looking back, i probably should have been focused a bit earlier … but wasn’t largely because i didn’t really have a clear idea of what i wanted to do specifically at that stage.’ others expressed that they were close to graduation and still didn’t know what they wanted to be. a theme pursued by a number of students was re-defining their identities alongside making career choices. one student happily shifted into an altruistic path, commenting: if you met me a year ago, i was a completely different person. social contribution was not something i was interested in. i was interested in success, money, that’s it. then i [got involved in] a leadership development organisation. for other students, the reverse occurred and these students expressed a sense of loss: i am currently being forced into moulding myself to be just in the same line as everybody. a mature-age student said, we wanted to be global citizens and didn’t want to be working for the man. …we were attracted to working for the united nations … so we’re all probably in our 30s right now feeling a little bit disgruntled.’ part of the students’ indecision about career pathways appears to be connected to insecurity about getting hired. in other words, students questioned whether they had wisely chosen courses and associated careers in the face of graduate unemployment rates. when asked whether they expected to be employed in the discipline of study, only two students replied with a confident and unqualified ‘yes’. five students were not asked because they were already employed, two in entrepreneurial capacities. five others replied ‘no’. the remaining ten students were not sure. overall, participants had a highly emotive response to this question, expressing themselves with comments such as these: it’s so scary to think that you won’t get a job in that industry. i wouldn’t accept a job that was totally different but i would be willing to accept something that is not ideal for the moment and just to work to get that later. the three bachelor of arts students were among those replying ‘no’ and they explained that initially they were not ‘disillusioned’ because each had chosen his or her degree just to follow an interest, but as graduation was looming, each was increasingly concerned. two of the arts student commented as follows: i found out half way through that it wasn’t going to advance my job opportunities. kinash, s., crane, l., capper, j., young, m., & stark, a. (2017). when do university students and graduates know what careers they want: a research-derived framework. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 8(1), 3– 21. 9 i’ve changed my mind twice since i started the diploma and then i thought ‘no this is ridiculous, i’ll do a bachelor’ and then, ‘now what am i going to do?’ and then realise that what i picked as a major is not really going to be that suitable. well, who’s going to employ me? throughout the time you’re always evolving what you’re going to do in the end. a few students expressed that they were so concerned about graduate unemployment that they were contemplating stepping-out of the career journey by continuing as a perpetual student or giving-up on university altogether, for example: i should be graduating sometime very soon … but i’m in the process of changing my mind. i’m not sure if i’m going to continue or not because i’m finding searching for a job very daunting.’ if you’re a mature age student you get to the end and think, ‘well i’ve only got this amount of years that i’m employable and i might as well just keep studying – nobody is going to give me a job. there were some students who expressed that while taking their degree, they had clearly identified their career goals. one student explained that her career decision-making came about through experiencing the curriculum and content in this way: i went to a guest lecture once and she said she did work with barnacles and i wouldn’t have even thought that’s possible but it’s good to find out all these weird career pathways that you wouldn’t even fathom just going to day to day classes.’ another student shared a more personally structured route to his decision. i just took a step back and re-evaluated what i was doing and for the first time in my life i actually wrote down my goals and where i want to be, and so i just started seeking opportunities. this theme of ‘doing it for oneself’ was expressed by a number of other students. for example: i’d say every sort of practical achievement i’ve gained during these years in university has been by me saying, ‘look, i need to take control of what i’m doing’. i did have a careers advisor … but it was more or less up to me, which was really super daunting because i’ve been a mother all of my life and haven’t worked, just part-time jobs here and there, and then a university degree, and so i’m thinking, ‘how do i adapt what i’ve just learnt to try and get a job … as i haven’t really had any experience.’ students were vocal that they did not feel that they had been supported to make and achieve career goals through university student services commenting as follows: i think that to be honest i think that the general careers and employability kind of department at the university is not that good. … maybe they could have different people who specialize in specific areas. … he didn’t have any specific information and he didn’t seem to have any contacts or anything in industry. it’s up to us to apply straight to these people, where i think it would be nice to get the help from the hub and say, “okay i’m interested in doing this particular job, how do i go about it? can you give me more information on the actual employer, what they’re looking for? kinash, s., crane, l., capper, j., young, m., & stark, a. (2017). when do university students and graduates know what careers they want: a research-derived framework. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 8(1), 3– 21. 10 other students made suggestions for a way forward: universities need to find a balance between stepping back and letting the individual do what they want and sitting on your shoulder and saying you should be doing this now, you should be doing that. still give you the room to sort of look around but also nudge you every now and then. in an ideal world it would be good if they had for example if this particular cohort came in, they had a set of people sort of tracking their degrees so you could sort of get that bump like, ‘hey you’re at the point now where you should try to get some work experience.’ student wish-lists for student career services appeared to be more discipline/industry specialisation and knowledge, as well as shifting some of the career identification and job search responsibilities onto the staff rather than the students. early career whereas few students expected their careers to be directly related to their degrees, notably seventeen (61%) of the graduates perceived that their degrees were indeed related. one of the graduates said, i am very happy. it was what i was aiming for. disconnect between degree discipline and career industry appeared to be course-related. the two arts graduates were among those who stated that their careers were unrelated to their studies. several of the postgraduates had completed bachelor’s degrees in the arts, and then masters or phds in areas where they said that they felt more secure about gaining employment. one graduate explained that she did not ‘regret’ studying arts as an undergraduate but did not want to be ‘left at the bottom of the career food-chain’ and thereby pursued a postgraduate degree in law. the majority of graduates were reasonably satisfied in what, for most, were early careers. those working for multi-national corporations and the public service were highly satisfied with the formalised early career supports and rotations put into place for them. those engaged in theological pursuits expressed a spiritual cohesiveness in pursuing their callings. entrepreneurs were enthusiastic and optimistic, but had not yet achieved financial viability (i.e. the start-up endeavours were not paying their salaries). those who were least satisfied were those employed by universities. these graduates said that they had aspired to full-time academic careers. one ‘resigned’ himself to a professional staff position. another ‘piecedtogether’ contracts at multiple universities. during careers within this research, the participants who had graduated quite some time before and had been working in their careers since, were mainly working in universities. they were mostly dissatisfied with universities as employers, working conditions and staff career supports. some were re-evaluating their career options and goals. one research participant had been working at the same university for ten years and was vocally disgruntled. she was pursuing her phd but did not hold any optimism that this would change her employment status. she said that for ten years she was forced to work multiple pieced-together three-month contracts and sustain fears of an insecure financial future. she said: i would go anywhere where there’s a permanent position. however, i’ve been told by the workforce that i’m unemployable because of discrete disciplinary expertise so i’ve spent 10 years perfecting a cv that’s suited to academia, which essentially, i’m told that i can’t even get a job answering phones with. she was clearly unhappy about university supports in her transition from study to an academic career. while her views were the strongest among those interviewed, this view was common kinash, s., crane, l., capper, j., young, m., & stark, a. (2017). when do university students and graduates know what careers they want: a research-derived framework. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 8(1), 3– 21. 11 to all of the interviewed graduates who wanted to pursue academic careers. she further commented: when you’re graduating as a social scientist, you’re basically graduating as an academic. there was essentially no career development that takes you from your degree into academia. other than pushing someone off a cliff. discussion shared experiences and patterns emerged in the students’ and graduates’ descriptions of their career decision-making (depicted as a framework in figure 1 below). while the students’ and graduates’ described experiences clearly clustered into four phases (university entry, during university, early career and during careers), beyond this structure, the other elements of career decision-making were highly variable and individual. as described by borg, bright and pryor (2006) careers rarely follow logical and linear paths, especially modern careers (p. 57). just as careers do not follow clear, structured paths, the descriptions shared by the students and graduates in this research, indicated that neither do career decisions. the unpredictable experiences and unforeseen events shared by the participating students and graduates in this research is consistent with the findings of borg and colleagues. for example, one of the interviewed students in this research described joining a leadership development organisation. this student described this involvement as entirely changing his career goals and perspective. the framework presented below therefore includes the words ‘and life’ in the experiential boxes alongside university ‘courses’ and ‘subsequent study’ during careers. the ‘and life’ addition recognises that there is no clear separation between the university student experience or within one’s career and other aspects such as family, friendships and social activities. as can be seen in the complex responses of students to career decision-making, each of these contexts and the interplay between them can shift the students’ and graduates’ ideas and goals. returning to the structure of the four phases of career decision making, the first phase described by the research project participants was ‘university entry’ represented in the model as ‘student enters course.’ the students in this research stated that they expected a contribution from universities at this point where they are given ‘pre course advice’ that would relate to career outcomes and influence their career decision-making. the framework features a double-sided arrow between ‘pre course advice’ and ‘student enters course’ because the students expressed a desire for career information that would help them decide which course to select and then once they had selected the course, they wanted further advice, as their awareness of career opportunities and options expanded. at this point the framework is aspirational rather than descriptive in that students expressed that they were not provided with career-related ‘pre course advice’ either before or after they had chosen an academic discipline. in other words, at the current time, the double-sided arrow between ‘pre course advice’ and ‘student enters course’ should be visually depicted as broken or blocked, as the students participating in this research do not believe that they were provided with any careerrelated advice that would aid their decision as to which course to choose. the framework continues to a decision-tree whereby the response to the question of whether the ‘student knows own desired post-course outcome’ is ‘yes,’ ‘no,’ or ‘uncertain.’ many of the students participating in this research were clear that this early career direction is important to them. the participating students said that they acknowledged that career goals shift and change, but they wanted clearer information about the likely career outcomes from prospective universities before they decided on a university and a course. they wanted the focus and security of an initial goal. in other words, the most common framework pattern for these research participants was that ‘no’ they did not ‘know own desired post-course outcome.’ kinash, s., crane, l., capper, j., young, m., & stark, a. (2017). when do university students and graduates know what careers they want: a research-derived framework. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 8(1), 3– 21. 12 the journey as depicted by the framework continues, in that regardless of whether the students start out with articulated career-goals, they are in the context of ‘course and life’ that further shapes their decisions (dias, 2011; pryor & bright, 2003). the students in this research said that both their course and life experiences influenced their career choices. sometimes this was perceived positively and sometimes negatively. for example, one student felt that his course was not inspiring him towards leadership and change, but instead, that his learning experience meant being forced into moulding myself to be just in the same line as everybody. as described in the results section, another student talked about being a mother and how this influenced her career choices. as depicted in the framework, students who entered their course knowing ‘own desired post course outcome’ can shift into no longer knowing or uncertainty, students who started out with no clear career goals might have found them or moved to a middle ground, and so forth. the most common framework pathway for these students was to stay or arrive at the ‘no’ in regards to whether the ‘student knows own desired post course employment.’ the desired stimulus from the university at this point is careerrelated ‘during course advice.’ the university structures experienced by the students participating in this research appear to have given students the impression that it was the mandate of formal career advisors (as opposed to their educators, heads of school or other such faculty-based roles) to give students ‘during course advice.’ many of the students complained that they did not find this advice helpful and the most common concerns were that advice was prescriptive or passive rather than instrumental and that it was not course or industry specific. the next phase, as described by the research participants and depicted by the framework, is early career or after graduation, where the student enters ‘post course employment.’ the various pathways and arrows chart the journeys of the participating students and graduates in that a few expressed that they knew their ‘own desired post course employment’ prior to entering the course, stayed on that pathway throughout their course and despite intervening life circumstances, and then followed the ‘enters expected post course employment’ pathway. some of the students in this research continued on this pathway during their career and even though they changed employers, engaged in subsequent informal and formal postgraduate studies and experienced various life circumstances, they ‘continued in the same career.’ however, this straight-forward pathway was less common among the graduates participating in this research. the pathway that more graduates had appeared to have travelled was not ‘knowing their own post course employment’ upon course entry and continuing as uncertain during the course. positively, the majority of research participants who had graduated said that they had successfully attained employment and that their careers were of their choosing and therefore in their selected discipline. the early career part of the journey therefore appeared to be a turning-point in the student-graduate career cycle. not all of the participants who were able to discuss the ‘during career’ phase were as satisfied. these participants were working in academic careers and the progression of their careers was not to their choosing. the final factor depicted on the framework is ‘vocational guidance’. the participating students who secured employment with a multi-national corporation or other such large businesses were particularly satisfied by the ‘vocational guidance’ provided by structured graduate employment programs or initiatives. some graduates, for example, described moving through rotations and trying out different departments, teams and roles which they said greatly supported their within-career decision making regarding specialisations. the employees who were least satisfied with ‘vocational guidance’ were those working for universities, which were described as offering no career advice or support. the irony did not escape some of the research participants, in that the universities, which they conceptualised largely as provided career-relevant education, were in their estimation the weakest employers, in that they do not appear to provide ongoing ‘vocational guidance’ to their employees. kinash, s., crane, l., capper, j., young, m., & stark, a. (2017). when do university students and graduates know what careers they want: a research-derived framework. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 8(1), 3– 21. 13 figure 1: university student and graduate career-knowledge framework in the following section of the paper, each framework phase is described in greater detail, aligning career theory with the outcomes of this research. kinash, s., crane, l., capper, j., young, m., & stark, a. (2017). when do university students and graduates know what careers they want: a research-derived framework. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 8(1), 3– 21. 14 university entry the current system in most parts of australia is structured such that students are expected to make a career choice while still in high school and then apply for direct entry into a course that will lead to that career option, or cluster of options. as reported in the results section, one student explained, we’d have to know that from the beginning, what we want to do, otherwise career supports aren’t going to help. creed and hughes (2012) further explained, in australia, university students apply for university entry in the year prior to admission. typically, they would think about the occupation they want, explore the university courses that would progress their occupational goals, and rank order their desired courses on their application form (p. 153). for some participants in this research, that pathway was fairly straight-forward, such as for the six engineering graduates. for others, such as the twelve arts students and graduates, the career options, opportunities and pathways were less obvious, and from the students’ perspectives, their related anxiety increased the closer they came to graduation. furthermore, beyond the type of degree, the research participants described other factors that complicated their career decision making. these reported factors were consistent with those described by creed and hughes: for some students, the transition can be straightforward … for many, however, the process is more complicated … students might not be accepted into their most desired university or university course, might experience family pressure to follow a particular path, might not manage or like their course, or might develop doubts and new ideas resulting from their experiences and personal maturation (p. 153-154). students participating in this research described these and other transitional factors. for example, as quoted in the results section, one student said, i started originally in hospitality because the majority of my family is coming from that background. he appeared to choose a familiar family-based pathway and then change upon enrolling and learning more about himself and other career options. in order to progress to these transitional factors, the future student is expected to start with an initial career goal (dias, 2011). most of the students participating in this research said that they did not feel that they were adequately supported and equipped with career-outcome knowledge to make their respective course selections. the university entry phase of the careerknowledge journey is depicted in figure 2 as part of the overall framework. figure 2: career-knowledge framework: phase one – university entry kinash, s., crane, l., capper, j., young, m., & stark, a. (2017). when do university students and graduates know what careers they want: a research-derived framework. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 8(1), 3– 21. 15 during university there are many processes at play during a student’s trajectory through a course that inform and can further graduate employability. it appears as though advising, real life scenarios and activities, engagement and placements, and integration of formal learning and personal maturation allow for a more integrated approach for students in considering post course employment (bennett et al., 2015; brewer et al., 2014; brown & carasso, 2013; jollands, et.al., 2015; kinash et al., 2015; oliver, 2015). for example, a number of the interviewed students and graduates commented on the impact of a single ‘accidental’ subject such as business planning; the conversations and developed networks through this single subject were experienced as clearing what some described as ‘clouds’ of confusion regarding careers. as expressed by research participants, much advice about post study employment derived from random anecdotes in class, advice from family and friends, and observations in part time employment and extra-curricular activities. a strong emergent theme was that during-course advice was often advertised as available through university career centres, but was not accessed by students until late in their studies, or not at all. many of the interviewed students and graduates appeared to focus so much on the end of study that they paid minimal attention to post-study life, job searching or career counselling. these patterns of career-development experiences and decisions during university are depicted in figure 3. figure 3: career-knowledge framework: phase two – during university early career as presented above, after appearing to experience career anxiety as students, the majority of graduates who participated in this research expressed satisfaction in their careers and appeared to be relieved (and somewhat surprised) that they managed to obtain careers of their choosing. notably, this outcome was consistent with that found by giles, ski and vrdoljak (2009). these unpredicted outcomes may be because students and graduates are not aware of what researchers such as caballero and walker (2010) have found to be the case in that employers are prepared to hire graduates who do not have expertise, or even experience, in specific fields or competencies, but show overall potential and thereby positive graduate kinash, s., crane, l., capper, j., young, m., & stark, a. (2017). when do university students and graduates know what careers they want: a research-derived framework. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 8(1), 3– 21. 16 attributes. these researchers wrote, ‘graduates are often selected for their perceived general potential, rather than for a specific role within the company’ (p. 15). in other words, whereas students may believe that they need to choose a specific role and job title and then learn and develop skills and competencies that make them employable, many employers appear willing to recruit based on more generic eligibility criteria and then train for particular specialisations. the early career experiences of university graduates are depicted in figure 4. figure 4: career-knowledge framework: phase three – early career during careers as stated in the results section, the majority of the research participants who were beyond the ‘early’ stage of their career journey were casual academics. their dissatisfaction with the conditions and status of their employment in terms of repeated short-term contracts was consistent with what is reported in the literature by researchers such as giles et al., (2009). many of the postgraduates in their research had enrolled to pursue academic careers and most ‘moved from job to job on short-term contracts’ (p. 82). furthermore, the research participants commented on the ‘…highly divisive nature of short-term contracts: a two-tier system is created not only of opportunities and expectations but also of perceived personal worth and value’ (p. 83). one of the deleterious consequences of the casualisation of the australian academic workforce (beyond the negative impact on employee self-esteem and kinash, s., crane, l., capper, j., young, m., & stark, a. (2017). when do university students and graduates know what careers they want: a research-derived framework. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 8(1), 3– 21. 17 quality of life) is what is commonly known as ‘brain-drain.’ among the sample of 1206 graduates from australian postgraduate studies in science, engineering and technology in the study by giles et al., (2009), one third reported moving overseas at least for some time to further their career. mentoring was revealed as a key ameliorative strategy, in that among the 123 case study participants, those who received formal, quality mentoring reported achieving greater career progression and quality career experience. during their careers, the students in the research reported in this paper had similar experiences to those reported in other studies and are depicted in figure 5. figure 5: career-knowledge framework: phase four – during careers kinash, s., crane, l., capper, j., young, m., & stark, a. (2017). when do university students and graduates know what careers they want: a research-derived framework. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 8(1), 3– 21. 18 conclusion the data analysis of this study has revealed that most of the participants in this research did not clearly know their own desired post-course employment goals until graduation and were then positively surprised that their first careers were consistent with their choices. the elements that came into play in their decision-making were consistent with the chaos theory of careers including complexity, change, constructiveness and chance. the students’ and graduates’ career decision-making journey including the theorised elements were mapped to derive a university student and graduate career-knowledge framework. overall, students and graduates did not feel that their career decision-making was appropriately supported by their universities. a key theme was that students felt that they needed, and did not receive, career advice prior to course selection. the highest emotive response came from graduates now working as casual academics for universities-as-employers. they did not feel that universities modelled positive and productive career-related employment practices in that they felt that their university careers were largely unsupported and unadvised. as with the other findings, this outcome was consistent with what has been previously published in the literature; furthermore, there is an urgency to rectify this career-related shortcoming. based on the results and analysis, six recommendations have been articulated. the final recommendation was articulated to address the challenge of career supports to casual academics (regarding university as employer of graduates) and the other five address the other key student and graduate identified university student experience ‘deficiencies’ in the context of career development.  create a graduate employability portfolio whereby it is a leadership responsibility to build connections and capacity between: marketing/student recruitment/enrolment; faculties and programmes; university services; and alumni offices.  provide regular career development/update sessions including the staff from each of these areas.  host regular networking functions between graduated, current and future students, mapping and beginning with the degrees/disciplines where graduate career outcomes are most problematic.  create a digital repository of degree/discipline-specific career videos. for example, featuring law graduates – ‘i graduated from law in 20xx and here’s what my career looks like. my key advice for law students if you want to follow a similar path is…..’  create a new position in the higher education sector for career learning advisors (clas). the cla’s primary responsibility would be to meet with future students to help them connect the dots of the career/study journey. furthermore, clas would have a case management function whereby they would check-in with current students and graduates and facilitate introductions and referrals to personalise further supports and services.  formalise a career development support program with a strong component of mentoring to support early career academics and those attempting to transition from the casualstream to progress in quality academic careers. notably, students and graduates appeared to unconsciously subscribe to a largely vocational model of university education. very few students had appeared to examine whether or not it is the role of universities to prepare students for future careers. there appeared to be a nearly unanimous notion that career preparation was the main, if not sole, purpose of university. furthermore, while students criticised university career services and provided recommendations for improvement, there appeared to be an unquestioned belief that the current structures are the only possibility for career services. in other words, there was nearly no mention of whole-of-university responsibility for career development nor embedding graduate employability into curriculum and assessment. kinash, s., crane, l., capper, j., young, m., & stark, a. (2017). when do university students and graduates know what careers they want: a research-derived framework. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 8(1), 3– 21. 19 a limitation of this research was that it was cross-sectional; for further research, it is suggested that individual students are followed through their career choice journeys in a longitudinal manner. furthermore, the disciplinary sample sizes were not large enough to compare career choices across disciplines, suggesting another basis for further research. despite these limitations, a range of factors influencing career perceptions and decisions have been identified and woven into a practical framework from which support strategies can be drawn. a critical element at all stages is communication – without clear direction that career intentions and outcomes are an integrated element of a course, students may not understand the implications of the information and may not take maximal advantage of the opportunities. kinash, s., crane, l., capper, j., young, m., & stark, a. 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(2020). students as colleagues: the impact of working on campus on students and their attitudes towards the university experience. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 11(1), 37–49. 37 the journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability issn: 1838-3815 (online) journal homepage: https://ojs.deakin.edu.au/index.php/jtlge/ students as colleagues: the impact of working on campus on students and their attitudes towards the university experience luke millard1 corresponding author: luke millard (luke.millard@bcu.ac.uk) 1birmingham city university, http://orcid.org/0000-0002-9426-674 abstract this paper considers research that engaged with a university wide population of students who were employed on campus to better understand why they chose to work alongside their studies; how this impacted upon their attitudes to study and the university, and the benefits for those students. this paper reveals that the primary motivation to work on campus is the development of skills; considers the nature of those skills and behaviours; discovers the changing relationship between student workers and university staff; and discusses how engagement leads to an enhanced sense of student confidence and belonging. the paper concludes by considering the implications for the university and sector and how the outcomes might be best deployed for impact on those students who would most benefit. keywords: students, employability, confidence, skills, belonging, colleague, relationships introduction over 70% of the undergraduate student population at birmingham city university (bcu) engage with paid work opportunities alongside their studies (uk engagement survey 2017). for some students this employment equates to a full time job that enables them to finance their lives and their ability to study (nus 2012). as a university, the implications are far reaching as it challenges the notion of the full-time student devoted to their discipline, and also how a university might best adapt to this situation, to engage with and support that student. this research considered one element of that picture, and one possible solution, through a population of students who were employed on campus by the university. this research explores the reasons why students choose to work on campus alongside their studies, how this impacted upon their attitudes to study and their relationship with the university, and what benefits they drew from the experience. developing the jobs on campus approach the need for students to find work alongside their studies was partially driven by the uk government policy when it introduced the white paper putting students at the heart of the system (dbis, 2011). this reinforced the market-led approach to higher education in the uk, which began in 1998, with the introduction of student payment of tuition fees. as these fees increased over time and additional governmental financial support has been withdrawn, there has been a move in the uk for students to seek employment to support their studies and the needs of their student lives (nus 2012, nases and nus 2012). the outcome sees payment of the tuition fee deferred until after https://ojs.deakin.edu.au/index.php/jtlge/ http://orcid.org/0000-0002-9426-674 millard, l. (2020). students as colleagues: the impact of working on campus on students and their attitudes towards the university experience. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 11(1), 37–49. 38 the student completes their degree, but the additional removal of bursaries for the majority of academic programs has had the additional impact of meaning students need to pay for accommodation and lifestyle expenses from their own or parental resources. the pound in your pocket (nus 2012) states many students are struggling to make ends meet, concentrate on their studies and stay the course, because financial support is systematically inadequate across both further and higher education. the research detailed in this paper sought to reveal whether this financial hardship is a key driver for students seeking employment alongside their studies or whether additional drivers took priority. the concept of students paying substantial tuition has been well established in the usa. one of the responses of universities there has been to create student employment opportunities within the university so that students can work on campus to support their studies financially within an educationally supportive environment. investigations across the sector as to whether anything like this approach had been explored in uk higher education revealed that the higher education funding council for england (hefce) had undertaken exploratory work around the topic (sullivan, 2008) and had produced a report based on work with universities in the usa. one of the universities highlighted in the hefce report was northwest missouri state university (nwmsu). a visit to nwmsu by bcu staff had a significant impact on those involved as it showed what could be possible. the situation in missouri was very different to that of bcu but the ambition and commitment shone through and was something to which a university could aspire. nwmsu saw the need to create jobs so that students could afford to study and live at the university, but also recognised the value of engaging students through employment and how this could enhance the nature of the university and its sense of community. whilst there is a history of students working alongside their studies on university campuses in the usa and elsewhere, as evidenced by perna (2010) and wang et al. (2010), this was a relatively new phenomenon in the uk and therefore there was limited research. in particular, the uk higher education system has very little history of strategically funded, institution wide campus student employment services. american universities, such as nwmsu, had identified the multi-layered benefits of such programs for both the student and the university. as sullivan (2008) states students and staff were clear that an experience of the world of work before graduation helped make students more employable. he also reported that: a point repeated many times by students in interview was, mostly, they believed that working as well as studying helps make them better students. this was a surprising finding. students explained that they managed their time better because they had to. students believed they had a better experience and led fuller lives than students who did not work (p.9). hefce saw the potential of student employment in 2008, but little had developed in the uk at that time with the exception of job shops on campus which mainly supported external employment opportunities (nases, 2012). at the time of starting this research, the strategic engagement of students in on campus employment had only been adopted by a very small number of uk universities, but this number is now growing. it would appear that the uk higher education sector has started to recognise that through student employment on campus, universities can have a profound impact on student employability and development, not to mention the benefits to the university itself. drivers for students seeking employment the move to students working significant numbers of hours alongside their studies in the uk was predictable as the model of higher student fees had existed in the usa for many years. perna (2010), stated that work is a fundamental part of life for many undergraduate students (p. i). her collaborative research (perna, cooper, & li, 2007) revealed that 75% of dependent undergraduates and 80% of independent undergraduates in the usa worked whilst they studied. within europe the millard, l. (2020). students as colleagues: the impact of working on campus on students and their attitudes towards the university experience. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 11(1), 37–49. 39 situation is slightly different and varies between countries. simón, díaz and castejón (2017) report evidence drawn from 23 countries that around 60% to 70% of students work in anglo-saxon and nordic countries and between 20% and 30% work in southern europe (p.285). not only do students work, but in some places they work significant hours. perna et al. (2007) report that in the usa, the dependent graduate works an average of 24 hours per week, whilst independent undergraduates work virtually full time jobs with 34.5 hours. perna (2010) saw employment and working alongside your studies as being the norm for us students. she also challenged those institutions that that did not recognise this shift as failing to recognise that higher education is generally not the primary life environment of working students (2010,p. i). this continues to offer a fundamental challenge for the higher education sector in the us and uk as it seeks to reconcile the historical perspective of a full-time student against the increasing demands placed upon their time by society and the needs to support their education and their student lifestyle. one of the challenges for developing on campus employment opportunities is the potential for it to have a detrimental impact on student studies. astin (1993) found that working off campus could be negatively associated with completing an undergraduate degree, but that working on campus was positively associated with student retention and completion of studies. riggert et al., (2006) confirmed this and identified that the effects of on-campus employment were characterised as positive in nature (p.69) through students having less distance to travel to work, being able to study around their work, and through students having more flexibility around when they can work by working for a more understanding employer. factors that impact on why a student may choose to work on campus can be determined by extrinsic and/or intrinsic motivations. the motivations for students working on campus are likely to vary between individuals from the financial (simón et al., 2017) to the development of employability skills to a more altruistic engagement. the relationship between extrinsic and intrinsic motivations is contested in the literature as there are suggestions that extrinsic motivations destroy the intrinsic. however, kember (2016) notes that there is still no consensus as to whether extrinsic motivations undermines intrinsic (p. 25). there is a suggestion that some extrinsic motivations, such as wanting to gain an excellent job on completion of a university career, could be seen as being complementary and co-existing alongside more ‘noble’ intrinsic motivations around interest in the subject. for example, lewis (2010) suggests that on-campus employment is one type of college experience that can promote engagement and goes further to suggest that employment may provide an opportunity for a student to engage with certain learning domains more frequently (p.156) and therefore enhance skills development in those areas whilst receiving payment. the intervention in february 2012, the university applied to the higher education academy’s change academy program to develop an initiative that would create a student employment service on campus. the focus was to create an employment service that put students at the heart of the university through placing them in job roles across all aspects of the university’s provision. through this action the university hoped to build a greater sense of community between staff and students. the belief was that such an opportunity could improve student satisfaction and success, impact on the sense of learning community through new staff/student relationships, and help students gain a better, graduate level job. the idea originated through the university’s work in student engagement that saw students work alongside academic staff on pedagogically related initiatives (freeman, millard, brand, & chapman 2014; millard & hargreaves, 2015; curran & millard, 2016). in 2010 the student academic partners (sap) initiative was awarded the times higher education award for outstanding support for students and in 2013 the collaborative nature of this student engagement work was recognised when the university and students’ union won the first higher education academy (hea) and millard, l. (2020). students as colleagues: the impact of working on campus on students and their attitudes towards the university experience. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 11(1), 37–49. 40 national union of students institutional partnership award. these awards recognised the sector leading partnership work, between staff and students, which sought to improve the quality of the student learning experience. these partnership activities were embedded within the sap program that was, originally, run collaboratively with the students’ union, and supported up to 40 projects each year. this saw the employment of around 200 students each year in sap projects. evaluation around the sap program provided data that suggested that students were gaining wider benefits from these activities than was initially planned (nygaard, brand, bartholomew, & millard, 2013). through the evaluation process, students identified changing relationships with staff and the creation of a greater sense of learning community, but discussions with students and staff also revealed that additional learning experiences were taking place that were more focused around skills development and employability learning. the creation of employability focused learning experiences had not been a principle behind the rationale for the creation of sap, but it was rapidly developing as a key strength of the program. students and staff reported consistently on the project management, communication and leadership skills that were being developed through the student roles in which they engaged. methodology the research took a case study approach and, after having gained ethics approval from the university, engaged with the university’s ‘jobs on campus’ program. this is a distinct, institutional program and the investigation focused on a time period from march 2015 to may 2016. the program employed around 800 students in that year and the quantitative survey targeted the 384 students who were employed at the date of the survey point. the survey received responses from 153, a 40% response rate. the students were drawn from all faculties across the university and were studying in a wide range of undergraduate degree programs. the jobs in which students were employed varied from mentoring and co-creator roles in sap, to administrative assistants, technicians, demonstrators, library shelvers, event assistants, junior researchers and marketing support posts. the survey requested significant student demographic detail before asking the pertinent questions around their views to working on campus. the questions asked are detailed below. student survey questions:  on average, how many hours of paid work do you undertake per week at the university?  do you have additional paid employment outside of the university? if so how many hours do you work on average per week?  what is the postcode or area for the place you work at outside of the university? (e.g. b42 2su or perry barr)  what type of paid work do you undertake outside of the university?  do you also undertake any voluntary or caring work? if so how many hours per week on average?  on average, how many hours per week of study do you undertake at the university (classroom, library, study groups etc on campus)?  on average, how many hours per week of study do you undertake away from the university campus?  where do you learn and/or study most effectively?  what is your primary motive for working on campus at bcu? millard, l. (2020). students as colleagues: the impact of working on campus on students and their attitudes towards the university experience. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 11(1), 37–49. 41  as a result of working on campus, i believe that: o i have a better relationship with staff than if i were only a student o i work harder at my academic studies o i am more likely to ask questions of my lecturers o i am more understanding of the university (if things are not perfect on my course) o i am more motivated to succeed at the university o i feel like i belong more at the university than if i were just a student o i am more satisfied with my university experience o my time management skills have improved o i am better at prioritising my work o i am better organised o i spend more time studying on campus o my confidence has grown o i have talked to my university work colleagues about my academic studies and gained support or advice from them o i am unable to participate in other university activities (clubs) that i feel that i would like to o i feel isolated from other students on my course o i have less time to study o i think it will have a negative impact on my academic results the research followed a mixed methods approach that consisted of a quantitative survey of students employed on campus that then informed the running of three qualitative focus groups with a total of 14 students. cresswell (2009) identified that the situation today is less quantitative versus qualitative and more how research practices lie somewhere on a continuum between the two (p. 4). for this research the focus groups enabled attitudes and behaviours to be studied and allowed a variety of views to evolve that could be further stimulated by the shared experience. participants were recruited by an email call for volunteers across the student population that had been surveyed previously. this resulted in 14 volunteers stepping forward. the participants self-selected into three groups on the basis of their availability, rather than any particular personal characteristics or their subject of study. kamberelis and dimitriadis (2011) suggest the reason for the use of this research technique when they state that focus groups afford researchers access to social-interactional dynamics that produce particular memories, positions, ideologies, practices and desires among specific groups of people (p.559). the focus groups took a maximum of two hours and saw students asked a set of questions that further explored the outcomes of the survey. these are detailed below: identity: what were your reasons for taking a job at the university? please list in priority order. skills: what skills did you develop whilst working at the university? behaviours: how did working at the university impact on your academic studies and why? community: how did your relationship with staff alter as a result of you working on campus? attitude: when working at the university, how did your attitude towards the university change? what is the best aspect of working as a student on campus? would you take unpaid work at the university? millard, l. (2020). students as colleagues: the impact of working on campus on students and their attitudes towards the university experience. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 11(1), 37–49. 42 each student recorded their individual response to each question on an answer sheet and was then asked to debate their view with the other students in the group to identify a common position. this summary position was also recorded by one of the students on a new sheet that allowed the researcher to collect individual and group perspectives. results student characteristics the survey sought to identify the demographic characteristics of the students who featured in the survey to see if any information could be identified as to why a student might work on campus. two thirds of students who completed this survey were female and the ethnicity spread between white british students and non-white almost exactly mimicked the university population where, in 2016/17, internal university data revealed that 45 per cent of students were recorded as being from the black and minority ethnic population. this is reassuring for a university that seeks to be inclusive and enable all student groupings to be able to access jobs on campus. the majority of surveyed working students on campus were between the ages of 20-24. this would seem appropriate, as new, younger students are likely to settle into university life in their first year and become more aware of opportunities once they know how the university operates. the biggest single group of students who completed this survey were in their second year (45%) with the remainder split equally between first and final year students. this reflects something about the jobs offered as many university managers recruiting students target second years as they have an awareness about the institution whilst not being weighed down with concerns about preparing for their assessments in their final year. the work of astin (1993, p. 196) that identified a negative impact of working away from campus on student academic performance was a key prompt as the jobs on campus service was developed. therefore, participants in the survey were asked about whether they undertook any paid employment in addition to their university campus work as this may influence perspectives. of the 153 students who took part in this survey, 83 (54%) also worked off-campus. these individuals were asked on average how many hours they work per week. in total, 63 responded. students reported that they worked hours in additional jobs that ranged from one to 20 hours per week. one of the reasons for creating the opportunity program was to enable students to gain sufficient paid employment opportunities on campus so that they need not work away from the university. it would appear that the university was unable to offer sufficient employment opportunities to prevent this exodus from campus. however, it could also be that students seek a variety of working experiences to support their development. students were asked, on average, how many hours paid work they undertook per week at the university. results shows that between one and 10 hours of paid work is most commonly undertaken by opportunity students on campus, accounting for 75% of the students working on campus. only 15% of students worked for a period of time of between 16-20 hours. due to program timetables and other commitments, limited working hours would be expected. it also supports the earlier identified need for students to find work off campus, as there may have been insufficient hours of work available on campus. student motivations when asked about their primary motive for working on campus at birmingham city university 54% of students answered that the key reason was to develop skills to help them get a job. this showed that a large number of students undertaking work experience opportunities were principally taking their futures into consideration as they strove to grasp experiences that may make them more employable. astin (1993, p. 235) recognises this desire within his research that showed a significant positive correlation in self-reported job related skills through students who held a part-time job on millard, l. (2020). students as colleagues: the impact of working on campus on students and their attitudes towards the university experience. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 11(1), 37–49. 43 campus. the second most popular motive behind employment on campus was to earn money as 31% of students identified this reason whilst a further 14.4% stated they wanted to give something back to the university. when this subject was taken to the focus group interviews the outcomes revealed that a combination of these factors was often at play as students made the decision to work on campus or not. at an individual response level, feedback revealed that comments were consistent and followed three paths that focused upon financial survival, flexibility and skills development. this can be embodied in the response from one student who stated that: …to be able to leave the external job (supermarket), be able to buy essential things (food), be able to work with other students and staff and have a positive impact. a key strength of the jobs on campus program would appear to be its ability to fit around a student’s study program. comments recorded across individual responses included: work fits easily around study hour. university working hours are flexible. flexibility. one student offered a prioritisation order that revealed a multiplicity of reasons for taking a job on campus: 1. money 2. flexibility 3. personal development 4. cv opportunity/employability. this was echoed in another who explained that s/he wanted to: …enhance my employability and cv, to earn money, to meet new people and work with others outside the university. the comments from students at the focus groups exhibited a combination of extrinsic and intrinsic motivations, but with an emphasis on the extrinsic. impact on student behaviours the research asked students about their typical study hours and the impact campus employment has had on their study habits since working at the university. when asked about campus employment in relation to their studies just 24% felt they had less time to study whilst over 65% of students felt that their typical study hours had not been affected. the remaining 11% were unsure. this question suggests that whilst campus work enables development of practical experience, it also allows students to retain focus on their course of study during these periods of employment. it also supports another outcome where 55% of students stated they spent more time studying on campus as a result of working there. the creators of the jobs on campus program wanted it to generate a positive impact on the student learning experience and students’ attitudes towards studying. this was viewed as an important indicator of the benefit for students of working on campus. 64% of students in the research felt that they worked harder at their academic studies because they worked on campus. alongside their studies, students were asked if campus employment had affected their ability to take part in other university activities. this revealed similar results as almost 80% either disagreed or strongly disagreed with the statement ‘i am unable to participate in other university activities that i would like to’. this indicated that students believe that they are able to balance effectively a range of activities (clubs, studies, and employment) during their time at bcu. when asked if students felt isolated from their peers as a result of campus employment, over 90% either disagreed or strongly disagreed. it is important that students are always connected with fellow students during their studies, not just from an educational perspective but also a social perspective. these answers suggest that despite undertaking campus employment (and possibly millard, l. (2020). students as colleagues: the impact of working on campus on students and their attitudes towards the university experience. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 11(1), 37–49. 44 additional activities), students are still engaging with their peers effectively. this is vital as the success of a jobs on campus program requires students to feel that they remain integrated within the university community and their course cohort (furr & elling, 2000) to enable that sense of belonging (thomas, 2012) to mature and embed within the student perception. finally, students were asked if they felt campus employment would have a negative impact on their academic results. 91% of students felt that campus employment would not have a negative impact on their academic results whilst less than 5% thought it would. timberlake and frank (2006) talk of student employment at university enabling students to bring together academic work and real world problem solving (p.137) and leading to a strengthening of peer to peer relationships. these outcomes would suggest that when undertaking employment with the university, students are able to study successfully and participate in the university community whilst retaining a strong connection with their peers. student development and attitudes to the university the research showed that since undertaking part-time employment at the university over 85% of students felt their relationship with university faculty and staff had improved. in the focus groups, the issue of the relationship with staff at the university provoked a great deal of feedback. the need for universities to develop more effective relationships between students and staff is becoming increasingly important as external metrics, through tools such as the uk national student survey, seek to measure the nature of the relationship. through the focus groups, students offered insights into how their relationships with staff had changed, making the following comments: staff see me on the same level. i get access to staff rooms which means i can go to my tutors and speak to them. …relationship with staff greatly improved while working. …better, stronger relationships. i started to understand staff workload. i became more connected to staff and as a result i have been able to work on further projects with staff, creating more professional relationships. i became closer to members of staff and treated them more like friends and colleagues rather than just staff members. these comments suggest that a higher level of personal and community connections was being made through this new means of engagement. one of the strongest indicators from the survey was that since undertaking employment on campus almost 90% of students felt a greater sense of belonging towards birmingham university, with over 55% selecting ‘strongly agree’. in the focus groups, students spoke of the development of pride and engagement with the university as evident in these comments: …the university became more a personal thing, something i represented, rather than something i attended. …my attitude towards the university has become more friendly and healthy through coordination during work and on projects. …i became aware of more issues in and around my course, student projects and the wider university. student employees were asked to assess perceptions of their own development as a result of working for the university. the four areas evaluated were time management, organisation, confidence and the ability to prioritise workloads (see figure 1). students had identified that the need to gain employability skills was one of the main reasons for taking a job on campus, and therefore the identification of their perceived skills development was important. millard, l. (2020). students as colleagues: the impact of working on campus on students and their attitudes towards the university experience. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 11(1), 37–49. 45 78% agreed that their time management skills had developed since working for the university, of which 31% strongly agreed. similar results were also displayed when analysing the development of workload prioritisation (77%) and organisation skills (80%). these comparable scores could be a result of the integrated nature of the relationship between the three skills sets and suggests a level of consistency across student scoring. the survey also revealed that over 53% of students strongly agreed their confidence had grown; the largest of any development. another 35.9% ‘agreed’ with this, meaning almost 90% of students supported this statement. the students in the focus groups also highlighted a key learning piece around developing confidence including some quite specific comments from students around ‘being able to give a speech to an audience’ and ‘i am not intimidated standing in front and speaking to large crowds’ and ‘voicing opinions in a professional environment’. figure 1: student key skills development analysis the analysis section replicates the previous results component to enable reflection on the outcomes and draw in supporting literature. student characteristics the survey data suggested that students who worked on campus were more likely to be living on campus in student accommodation and would not be commuter students. the three highest scoring areas of residence have significant university or privately owned halls of residence for student accommodation. students who move to the city and do not have the local job connections, that may be part of the commuter students’ employment history, could be more likely to be interested in a university provision as they are unlikely to have those local connections with employers. this could have significant implications for a university that was seeking to engage more diversely with its local communities or conversely, and was seeking to attract students from a national or millard, l. (2020). students as colleagues: the impact of working on campus on students and their attitudes towards the university experience. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 11(1), 37–49. 46 international context. however, whilst this research can generalise, to an extent, it is clear that individual decisions and circumstances will always mean that the factors that influence a student’s decisions will be personal to that individual student as they consider the myriad of relationships and circumstances that would lead to generating such a decision. this outcome echoes the findings of the national union of students’ report (thomas & jones, 2017) that highlights the split lives of commuter students who have a life, job and social networks within their own community and visit the university purely to engage in educational experiences. those students do not wish to mix their home and university lives and this could see a reluctance from those commuter students to engage with work on campus as this function has already been addressed in their local community through a job that may have started well before the student joined the university. the survey revealed that the combination of on campus, off campus employment and potential volunteering/caring duties was different for each individual student and required them to have the ability to manage these commitments so that they did not adversely impact their academic studies. the question that should be considered and may concern universities is which of these take primacy in the student mind. would a student be content to work significant hours and be able to afford to study and live at university and as a result see their academic award at a lower level? the decision making process of the individual student will determine that answer. student motivations, behaviours and development student responses for why they chose to be employed on campus resonated with the suggestion of kember (2016) and biggs (1987) that extrinsic drivers were likely to take precedence in the student mind. it is likely that for many students the need to survive financially is the primary driver for undertaking any form of work alongside their academic studies. however, once this extrinsic need for finance to enable students to continue to learn has been achieved, other drivers can be considered by students and can form components of how students identify and rationalise the benefits of working on campus. students spoke of developing a new relationship with colleagues and the university. roberts and styron’s (2010) asserted that an enhanced relationship with staff would help create a greater sense of connectedness between student and the institution could be a significant benefit of employing students within a university for many reasons ranging from retention of students and student success through to the influence that they may have over others students on their program of study. students hinted at a move from professional recognition and acceptance to genuine collegiality and even the development of friendships as the boundaries between staff and student started to blur. the breaking down or blurring of boundaries through this employment opportunity could be seen as a benefit for those universities seeking to create a greater sense of community between students and staff and enhance membership of the university (mcmillan & chavis, 1986). this is an important outcome as thomas (2012) points to universities needing to generate in students a strong sense of belonging to ensure retention and student success and this sense would appear to be enhanced strongly through working on campus. astin (1993) stated that his research indicated that having an on campus job would tend to bring the student into contact with a wider variety of fellow students and staff (p. 230), which supports the development of a sense of being part of something more than just attendance at a place and has been reflected in the findings from students. this is supported by the results around enhanced student academic effort that relates to the work of zhao and kuh (2004) who identified increased academic effort being evident in students who feel part of a community at university and who have generated those relationships. the results around student key skills development were encouraging for anyone seeking to enhance student development practices. timberlake and frank (2006) identified core skills that students develop through working alongside academic study, highlighting that, depending on the job role fulfilled, students gain many transferable skills including planning, organising, problem solving, co millard, l. (2020). students as colleagues: the impact of working on campus on students and their attitudes towards the university experience. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 11(1), 37–49. 47 ordinating, public speaking, working with others, communicating orally and in writing and coping with frustrations (p. 143). this would reflect the evidence provided by dallam and hoyt (1981) that highlighted the impact on student time management practice through working and echoes the insights of sullivan (2008) from the hefce visit to us universities. the impact of such skills development could be impactful on a student’s academic success as well as their professional behaviours. the strong increase in student confidence levels represents an important result for students as generating self-belief (zepke & leach, 2010) is a crucial development for students seeking to grow and develop. as students develop and learn more about themselves through working on campus they develop a stronger sense of self leading to clarity and stability, and a feeling of warmth for this core self as capable, familiar and worthwhile as highlighted by chickering and reisser (1993, p. 50). this level of comfort would certainly support a sense of student belonging within an institution. timberlake and frank (2006) echoed this view when they identified that students achieve confidence, communication skills and connections as some of their biggest gains (p.143) when they work alongside their degree. it might be argued that for students attending a newer university and seeking to compete with students from more established ‘research focused’ universities in the job market, this is a crucial development that provides them with the belief and self-effficacy to show the talent they have developed when competing with students from other places for jobs. this is echoed in the work of chickering & reisser (1993) who highlighted ‘a key developmental step for students is learning to function with relative self-sufficiency, to take responsibility for pursuing self-chosen goals, and to be less bound by the opinion of others (p.47). that creation of inherent self-confidence is a significant output of the jobs on campus experience and one of which the sector should be cognisant. conclusion this research suggests that when students choose to work on campus, they do so for a variety of reasons. the type of student who accesses such roles is likely to be a campus-based student who does not have existing employment ties within the area. this would appear to have some logic as commuter students could already have a long standing and worthwhile job. however, this does offer some challenges for universities as they seek to engage with their entire student population. in addition, the findings reveal that students strongly believe that working on campus will not hinder their academic development and that they are able to still engage with their peers and the other social activities of an engaging university life. these findings are heartening and challenging for universities as they consider the impact of such a program on campus employment. perna (2010) asked universities to consider ways to transform employment into an experience that can enhance students’ intellectual development (p.33). she felt that the combination of economic and personal pressure on students means that universities should reconceptualise the working experience to offer more benefit to students’ educational outcomes. the opportunity to utilise student jobs on campus as part of student placement/work experience activity should be addressed by universities as it could better integrate the experience within the intellectual and academic development of students. for all universities, the finding that 90% of students in the survey agreed that their confidence had grown as a result of working on campus is important. the focus groups reinforced this outcome with students talking of not being intimidated when speaking to large groups and of developing the ability to voice their opinion in a professional manner. cook-sather et al. (2014) confirm this finding as they reported that students who in engage in partnership activities exhibit enhanced confidence, motivation and enthusiasm and deepened understanding of, and contribution, to the academic community (p.100). perhaps the development of confidence and the desire to work harder at their studies is also related to the fact that three quarters of students talk to their new work colleagues about their studies. students identified that the ‘relationship with staff greatly improved while millard, l. (2020). students as colleagues: the impact of working on campus on students and their attitudes towards the university experience. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 11(1), 37–49. 48 working’. these conversations may have been brief or in depth, but the opportunity for a mentoring relationship to develop through shared understandings is a welcome outcome for this area of work. this could also have the further benefit as identified by jarvis, dickerson and stockwell (2014, p. 220) of helping students learn skills and techniques around how they might learn and enhance educational outcomes. in addition, the way in which working on campus impacted on students’ attitudes towards the university is significant for universities seeking to develop such an offer. the generation of a greater sense of connectedness or membership was explained by mcmillan and chavis (1986) who stated membership is the feeling of belonging or sharing a sense of personal relatedness. aligned with this membership was a sense of mattering, of making a difference to the group and of the group mattering to its members (p.4). the new relationships that student colleagues make with university faculty and staff can often be seen through a mentoring lens and an enhanced sense of membership and belonging can be generated for those students who need it most. this may be even more important for the more economically deprived parts of the student population. in the uk, and as the nus (2012) report suggests: excessive working hours are associated with poor wellbeing and with origination in areas with low higher education participation rates (p.4). studies in spain (simón et al., 2017) have found that a significant portion of those who work are motivated by necessity, especially to help family finances (p. 291) and over half the students reported that it would not be possible to study without such an income. for universities, such as bcu, the impact could be great as the widening participation focus of the university attracts a significant proportion of students who could ascribe to come from economically deprived backgrounds. this creates a challenge for universities, but also, perhaps, an opportunity through a student jobs on campus focus to better integrate these particular students into the fabric of the university, build confidence and belonging, and thus enable academic and professional success. references astin, a. w. 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(2010). improving student engagement: ten proposals for action. active learning in higher education, 11(3) p 167–177. zhao, c.m., & kuh, g. (2004). adding value: learning communities and student engagement. research in higher education, 45(2), 115–138. zlotkowski, e., longo, n.v., & williams, j. (eds) (2006). students as colleagues: expanding the circle of servicelearning leadership. providence, usa: campus compact, brown university. https://www.nus.org.uk/pagefiles/12238/piyp_summary_report.pdf file:///c:/users/study/appdata/local/temp/lgmf%20101%20report%2011.pdf https://www.advance-he.ac.uk/knowledge-hub/ukes-2017-report https://www.advance-he.ac.uk/knowledge-hub/ukes-2017-report thompson, d. (2016). supporting students’ learning on short project placements. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 7 (1), 42-57. 42 supporting students’ learning on ‘short project’ placements dr david w. thompson1 d.w.thompson@wlv.ac.uk institute of education, university of wolverhampton, england. abstract much of the research into higher education and its role in work-based learning (wbl), and especially in supporting undergraduate students on placements, has focussed on longer term internships and sandwich courses. research has also focussed on subject areas that have traditionally been associated with the above; for example, business, health, and engineering. by contrast, the aim of this study was to gather data from students on a much shorter period of placement, categorised as a ‘short project’ (brennan & little, 1996). furthermore, the data recovered was from students studying within the social sciences paradigm, undertaking an undergraduate degree in education studies (not teacher education). the social sciences and humanities more generally have not been discussed to any great extent within the context of research on placement or work-based learning (see smith, clegg, lawrence, & todd, 2007); the subject of education studies is not covered at all by previous research. this paper considers the different ways practitioners might blend learning and support university students’ experiential and academic learning in this short project format. the results suggest that even a relatively short period of structured placement can be of significant benefit to students although for many respondents, face-to-face contact in the form of lectures and tutorials is still an important component of a blended approach to wbl. keywords: placement, work-based learning, higher education, reflection, blended learning introduction the aim of this research is to develop a greater understanding of higher education (he) students’ placement experiences outside of the more traditional year-long sandwich/internship model. specifically, the focus is on ways in which students can be supported through a range of support tools and pedagogic practices that help students maximise their placement experience within a credit-bearing module that requires assessments to be passed, and therefore contributes to students’ degree classification. research and teaching in the united kingdom relating to work experience and placements in he has mainly focused on longer term internships and sandwich courses. in the past, typical subject areas that have encouraged this form of work-based learning (wbl) included business and management, engineering, and languages. there has been less attention paid to shorter periods of placement at he level, as well as a lack of acknowledgement of a much wider range 1 dr. david thompson, senior lecturer, university of wolverhampton, institute of education, faculty of education, health and well-being. walsall campus, gorway road, walsall, west midlands, united kingdom, ws1 3bd. telephone: 01902322078. mailto:d.w.thompson@wlv.ac.uk thompson, d. (2016). supporting students’ learning on short project placements. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 7 (1), 42-57. 43 of subject areas; furthermore, it has been suggested that learning on placement is under researched (murakami, murray, sims, & chedzey, 2009, p.14). the locus of this research falls within brennan and little’s ‘short project’ category in their taxonomy of experience-led work-based learning (1996, p.7). the arts, business, languages, science and engineering are highlighted by the authors; many students in the health professions also undertake placement and field work as an important part of their studies. the social sciences more generally are not represented at all in brennan and little’s taxonomy and appear to feature relatively little in subsequent research (however, see smith, clegg, lawrence, & todd, 2007 for research into sociology students’ experience reflecting on wbl). this paper, therefore, aims to shed light on under-researched aspects of work experience at higher education level by focussing on (i) pedagogies of reflection and blended learning supporting students’ experiences within a ‘short project’ approach to wbl; and (ii) the perspective from an education studies undergraduate degree course, a subject positioned within the social sciences paradigm. context a search through the united kingdom’s universities and colleges admissions service (ucas, http://www.ucas.com/) web site revealed around 100 he institutions offering education studies at undergraduate level. this was frequently as a joint honours award paired with a national curriculum subject or another complementary subject such as childhood studies, sociology, or community and youth studies, for example. data on the student experience on placement was collected in one post-1992 institution in england. the particular wbl module this research is derived from is credit-bearing and articulates with the institution’s learning and teaching and employment strategies. the following were important learning outcomes of the module: developing students’ capacity for critical reflection; providing students with opportunities to reflect on a meaningful period of wbl; developing confidence and skills sets for students to take control of their learning and guide their professional development; setting objectives for their placement and reflecting on their performance; and, articulating links between theory, policy and practice. facilitating these outcomes involved, amongst other things, developing an ‘action plan’ and ‘learning log’. these provided a structured approach to students’ experiential learning and enabled an exploration of the content they studied in lectures and seminars. it also facilitated the application of their theoretical learning to the context of their experience as practitioners. the module design, therefore, reflects duignan’s (2002) recommendation for a ‘formal-structure’ model of placement, as opposed to a laissez-faire approach. the module is underpinned with theories of critical reflection (schon, 1983; gibbs, 1988; kolb, 1984) that students study and employ as part of their personal and professional development. to achieve the objectives outlined above, a blended approach to learning was designed to help support students in achieving the module’s learning outcomes and maximise their wbl experience, especially whilst away from campus and working in their professional setting. there are numerous definitions relating to blended learning; for example, heinz and proctor (no date, pp.1-2) allude to a range of definitions such as the effective combination of different modes of delivery, models of teaching and styles of learning and the more simplistic, learning which combines online and face to face approaches. alternatively, it can be a mode of teaching that eliminates time, place, and situational barriers, whilst enabling high quality interactions between teachers and students… it echoes the practice of distance education (jeffrey, milne, suddaby, & higgins, 2014, p.122). the module delivery consisted of traditional lectures, tutorials, learning logs, an ‘action plan’ setting out two objectives for students’, online formative activities, the provision of an extensive handbook with advice and guidance, and additional advice and guidance regularly disseminated through the university’s electronic learning platform. students also received support from the institution’s careers department. http://www.ucas.com/ thompson, d. (2016). supporting students’ learning on short project placements. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 7 (1), 42-57. 44 unlike sandwich courses or courses with block placement, the full time students on this module were expected to continue with their campus-based studies at the same time as undertaking and completing their placement approximately one day per week. given that this presented a different approach to the standard lecture format and wbl models, a research project was set up that aimed to collect data on the student experience while undertaking a ‘short project’ placement and compare it to research conducted nationally and internationally. the aim of the project was to: (i) assess the value to students of a ‘short project’ (brennan & little, 1996) placement; (ii) explore the pedagogical framework of the module and the extent to which students felt supported in their experiential learning; and (iii) compare findings with published research. this paper will discuss the second and third aims, focussing on pedagogy and support mechanisms. literature placements have been a common feature of undergraduate degree programmes in the uk for more than 40 years (bennett, eagle, mousley, & ali-choudhury, 2008). reports published in 2001 and 2009 highlight how interest in a variety of wbl opportunities has grown (wilson, 2009). furthermore, it is becoming increasingly recognised that wbl in higher education is emerging as a distinct field of practice, supported by relevant pedagogies and concepts of curriculum and that universities are increasingly turning their attention to work experience and graduate employability (lester & costley, 2010, p. 561; hefce, 2003). more recently, studies have commented on the importance of work experience; observing that whilst there has been a decline in the practice of placement, short period ‘internships’ have become increasingly popular (wilson, 2012, pp.37-39). it is within this context that the research represented in this paper is placed. types of wbl a number of taxonomies have been developed which help to contextualise the different approaches to wbl. for example, the wilson review (2012, pp.37-41) discusses the value of sandwich courses, placements, the ‘consortium model’, ‘short period’ internships and extracurricular activities. brennan and little (1996) outline a spectrum of work-based learning across seven categories from brief encounter to continuing professional development (p.7). foster and stephenson (1998) outline different definitions that consider placements, sandwich courses, work experiences, wbl for students, and wbl for employees. blackwell, bowes, harvey, hesketh and knight (2001) highlight three main types of work experience within a higher education context: organised, but external to the study programme; ad hoc experience external to the study programme; and organised work experience that is part of the study programme (pp.281-282). the data for this research has been derived from this last category. the value of wbl research into placement experiences can be focussed in a number of different ways. for example, crebert, bates, bell, patrick, & cragnolini (2004) categorise three approaches: the value of the placement to the student, academic staff perceptions of placement, and benefits to students in terms of their careers. thus at one end of this spectrum students become learners at work with the notion that the placement ‘services’ the academic course; at the other end the focus is on the needs of employers and employees. originally, good practice guides focussed primarily on one-year placements developed over many years (for example sandwich courses), however, it is now widely recognised that work thompson, d. (2016). supporting students’ learning on short project placements. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 7 (1), 42-57. 45 based learning can usefully take place in much shorter time periods (wilson, j. 2009, p.5; wilson, t., 2012). research also suggests that: spending some months in employment—will usually improve the labour market situation for some of the graduates to some extent. the biggest positive impacts were found to be associated with work done over a longer period (over 8 months) and related to their studies’ (blasko, 2002, p.48, cited in smith et al., 2007). the value to students of experiential learning has been highlighted; undergraduates appreciate the opportunity to gain experience and skills in placements that generally have a ‘positive effect’ on students (murakami et al., 2009, p.14). in addition, there is significant anecdotal evidence about the efficacy of work experience in general and of embedded work placements in particular (blackwell et al., 2001, p.270; also see wilson, 2012). furthermore, bennett (2008) asserts that overwhelmingly, investigations have concluded that formal work placements bestow significant benefits on both the students and the firm; advantages include easier transition into employment, a stronger vocational identity and increasing selfconfidence (pp.105-106). similarly, pegg and colleagues state there is strong evidence to indicate that authentic work experience contextualises learning, has a strong influence on graduate employment, and should be integrated into course curricula wherever possible (pegg, waldock, hendy-isaac, & lawton, 2012, p.45). skills development has also been emphasised in terms of generic key skills of communication, team working and the development of ‘social competencies’. research on placements reinforces a concept of learning as a situated social activity involving development of social skills and management of social relations. therefore, experiential learning can be empirically observed in the situated development of social competence—the ways of managing and building social relationships in a given context (murakani, et al., 2009, p.15). learning as a socially situated activity places a person initially at the peripheral of a ‘community of practice’ (lave & wenger, 1999); this process of moving from the peripheral towards the centre can also inform our understanding of the student experience in relation to their experiential learning. wbl has also been critiqued; for example, for the simplistic utilitarianism that currently exists and the instrumentalist and rampant vocationalism where everything is subsumed to work (hyland, 2001, p.679; also boden & nedeva, 2010). increasingly, related policies are driven by national governments’ neo-liberal agendas, with universities having to respond with a greater emphasis on acknowledging and accrediting work-based learning, developing opportunities to increase the employability of their graduates, and monitoring trends in employment destinations for graduates; resulting in universities losing their independence and autonomy. there has been a growing discourse on the value and appropriateness of employability and wbl at the levels of both policy and practice (boden & nedeva, 2010; cranmer 2006; moreau & leathwood, 2007). one conclusion is that there are a number of competing agendas relating to wbl; these include employer demands, the race for competitiveness, skills, training at the expense of a universal education, and government policy driven by a perceived need for the uk to compete internationally in order to survive as an economic power (foster & stephenson, 1998, p.156). furthermore, a caveat is that wbl is potentially limiting if the opportunities provided by the workplace do not form a good match to learners’ aspirations, suggesting that work-based programmes can be disempowering visà-vis conventional university learning by trapping the learner into an employer-driven or instrumental agenda (lester & costley, 2010, p.569). reflective practice the idea that students should engage in reflection on their own practice is not particularly new within he. it has been advocated by a growing range of theoretical and practical support (boud & walker, 1998; moon, 2013). within the teaching and education profession it has become thompson, d. (2016). supporting students’ learning on short project placements. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 7 (1), 42-57. 46 increasingly common to engage in a pedagogy of critical reflection to help underpin experiential learning and continuing professional development (cpd), drawing on, for example, the work of kolb (1984) and of schon (1983). there is also a discussion regarding relevant pedagogies that support students on wbl programmes and help them get the most out of their experience. it has been suggested that there are ‘pedagogies for employment’ (pegg et al., 2012) with guides for practitioners and for those engaged in policy and practice. within the context of the field of education, such approaches can be identified in the work of pollard (2014), and mcgregor and cartwright (2011) and more generally moon (2013) and boud (2005). a pedagogical approach that incorporates elements of reflective practice require students to be active partners in the process and personal development planning is an important element. pedagogies for employment can be placed within the context of a more general debate about how teaching and learning in he is changing, and how it might look in the future. for example, how he can become more flexible in meeting the needs of a diverse student body (ryan &tilbury, 2013) and how the move towards on-line learning and students as co-creators of knowledge means there is less of a need for the traditional models of lecture, homework and assessment (barber, donnelly, & rizvi, 2013). pedagogies such as action learning and critical reflection underpin approaches to wbl in other fields, such as the health professions, for example. a corollary is that this moves away from didactic forms of teaching towards facilitation where the ‘sage-on-the-stage’ is substituted by the ‘guide-on-the-side’, potentially undermining the traditional role of the academic. paradoxically, however, it has been noted that lecture-based teaching methods are still important in developing theoretical and abstract contextual knowledge (pegg et al., 2012, p.32). these different pedagogical stances potentially create tensions and a difficult ‘transition’ for students and teachers, with the implication that a challenge needs to be met in terms of different styles of delivery, curriculum content, and assessment (yorke, 2010). nevertheless, important factors of an effective delivery of wbl include structure and a strong element of reflection (smith et al., 2007; pegg et al., 2012). it should also be noted that there are constraints to employing reflective practice; for example, some argue that it is time-consuming, there are too many other important commitments, and emotional barriers (for example facing up to weaknesses and aspects of professional practice that are not going so well, having to relive bad experiences), (mcgregor & cartwright, 2001, pp187-195). finlay (2008) highlights a range of ‘pedagogic concerns’ including that for some students they may not be ‘developmentally ready’ to engage in reflective practice which can prove counter-productive; furthermore, that where compulsion through assessment of reflective practice is demanded, reflections can be superficial, strategic and guarded (pp.13-15). irrespective of the advantages and disadvantages of reflection as a pedagogic practice, the quality of the work experience is important and needs to be an aid to the learning process that also has the potential to be transformative. it is the articulation of what has been learned that is the key (blackwell et al., 2001). yorke (2010) emphasises the importance of metacognition to the ‘pedagogical landscape’ in ways that cover students’ self-awareness and their ability to reflect, problem-solve and self-regulate their learning. further, a case is made to ensure that students undergo a deep learning experience that includes reflection-in-action and reflectionon-action (smith et al., 2007, p.133). this assists the process of moving from surface to deep approaches to learning; a transformative approach to learning, rather than just working with meaning (smith et al., 2007, p.134,139). however, these processes are not always evident; the research of murakani and colleagues (2009) suggests that the placement experience is not always a ‘change process’ for students: this question of change and learning can pose a difficulty to some, if not all, especially when they were not given a set of criteria to measure change in the individual (p.19). the points alluded to above apply to taxonomies that classify a range of different approaches to placement and work experience for students in higher education. however, given the nature of shorter placements, it is worth considering to what extent different types of support thompson, d. (2016). supporting students’ learning on short project placements. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 7 (1), 42-57. 47 mechanisms and a clear structure is increasingly significant in helping students achieve a meaningful experience on a shorter timescale. methodological approach an important aspect of the research was to acquire qualitative data that helped understand how students engaged with the module support mechanisms and blended learning approach, designed to support their professional development and maximise their experience whilst on their placement. it was felt that listening to the student voice was especially apposite as students were required to write an assessed piece of work, based upon their experiences. the standard and generic quantitative format of collecting module feedback had many advantages, but was of limited use for exploring the module-specific student experience in more depth and limited when applied to modules that are more specialised or diverse in their delivery. in order to acquire richer data, a research project was set up with a methodology designed to collect qualitative data on the value of the placement experience to students. the data collection method contained an element of pragmatism that combined quantitative and qualitative data techniques (flick, 2008). data collection the research project focused on student perceptions of what was particularly effective in terms of pedagogical approaches and support, outside of the lecture/seminar based delivery traditionally used in higher education. furthermore, the extent to which students might prefer various forms of learning as part of a blended approach that facilitated tutor-student interaction whilst students were away in placement settings, was also investigated. a dual approach to data collection allowed both ‘structure’ (quantitative) and ‘process’ (qualitative) features (flick, 2008) to be combined. in terms of structure, questions related mostly to issues surrounding delivery, content, and support in ways that took into account students’ responses quantitatively. the process approach related to the student experience in a qualitative way that allowed students’ voices to be heard in much more detail, and included a focus group interview. the aim was to invite an honest, personal comment from respondents, the content of which might include ‘gems’ of information that would not otherwise be collected, (cohen, manion, & morrison, 2011, p.392). a further aim was to triangulate data sets that provided a snapshot of the feedback surrounding student placements. students were asked about how the placement informed their career aspirations, the mechanisms of support whilst in placement and what their preferences were in terms of teaching and learning. finally, students were asked about the module and general support whilst on placement and what they enjoyed most about their experience. questionnaire data was collected through an on-line survey that contained multi-choice questions, likert scale responses and questions that encouraged open-ended responses in the students’ own words; the latter building in a strong qualitative dimension. the online survey was conducted at the end of students’ placement. the questions were designed to collect a wide range of information relating to the students’ experiences on the module and in their chosen placement. students were given the opportunity to respond anonymously. whilst outlining some quantitative statistics that represent an overview of students’ placement experiences, this paper concentrates on an analysis of the open-ended qualitative data in the questionnaire and focus group responses. this enabled a deeper engagement with the feelings and experiences of students during placement. thompson, d. (2016). supporting students’ learning on short project placements. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 7 (1), 42-57. 48 focus group interview to assist triangulation, a focus group interview was undertaken with five students at the end of their placement; the aim was to provide more qualitative and thick description to the data in the questionnaires, to provide a greater orientation to the research and greater coverage (cohen et al., 2011, p.436). the focus group followed a semi-structured interview design that enabled researchers to discuss key issues uncovered in the questionnaire and in the literature, whilst providing a flexibility that encouraged students to discuss and explore themes that they wished to raise (denscombe, 2010). themes included: choice of placement; career pathways; thoughts about the module; and the support it offered and what more could be provided to help support the placement experience. guiding questions that helped structure the interview related to a discussion on their ‘career trajectory’ and how their aspirations may have been affected by their placement, a discussion of their feelings about the module and the existing support offered, what they disliked about the module, what further support mechanisms they would like to see and what other changes they would like to make. finally, students were given the opportunity to raise any other issues that were pertinent to their experience but not covered throughout the rest of the interview. the students’ permission was sought, and granted, for the interview to be digitally recorded. the interview was then transcribed. data analysis an inductive approach to data analysis was taken, moving from a detailed investigation of the specific and particular towards more general conclusions. the data was annotated and coded (denscombe, 2010) in terms of key words, frequencies of occurrence, and commonalities in the responses, resulting in a number of themes following a familiarisation process with the data. the open coding and axial coding of the qualitative data followed a process comparable to a grounded approach to collecting data (strauss & corbin, 1997; glaser & strauss, 1967); in particular, accepting the principles that researchers cannot be entirely neutral (strauss & corbin) and researchers need to make sense of the data (denscombe, 2010). this methodology commonly uses the process of data collection, note taking, coding, constant comparison, and saturation, for example. this process involved developing a set of emerging themes from a range of data following several stages of analysis including; generating natural units of meaning, classifying, categorising and ordering these units of meaning, structuring narratives to describe the contents, interpreting the data (cohen et al., 2011, p.555). categories were developed, connections made between them, and the results were compared to their relationship with the literature. small qualitative samples clearly have their limitations, especially in terms of extrapolation. however, through a process of constant comparison, the researcher considered a level of saturation (where no new insights are produced) to have been achieved, and therefore this enabled a relatively confident discussion of the implications of the data and how they relate to the theory and practice of placement and wbl. data presentation and analysis out of a total of 180 students undertaking the module and going out on placement in one academic year, 51 (28%) completed the survey and five students agreed to participate in the focus group. the type of placements students participated in reflected the fact that these undergraduate students were studying on education-related courses and expected to be employed within the education sector; however, there was a range of different experiences undertaken. the most popular placement was primary school (57%), followed by early years (22%), then secondary (7%); 14 per cent responded as ‘other educational organisation’ and placements outside the education sector. no-one stated they had a placement in a further education college. students were asked to comment on what ‘other’ areas of employment they arranged a placement in. this, in fact, revealed an overlap with the previous categories; thompson, d. (2016). supporting students’ learning on short project placements. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 7 (1), 42-57. 49 for example, ‘sure start centre’ (early years), ‘special school primary’ and ‘ofsted’ (office for standards in education). initially, students were asked which current formats they preferred. all formats (see above) were designed and blended to support students’ learning throughout their placement experience. students were asked to nominate up to three preferences. there were 124 responses; the action plan and reflective learning logs (23% each) being the most popular. lectures (20%) received a similar response. the handbook (13%) followed in popularity. emails and on-line support rated relatively low by comparison. these quantitative responses were triangulated with the qualitative open-ended free text comments in the questionnaire, and the focus group interview. action plans and learning log the results indicate that students valued the structured nature of the approach to learning that helped focus their experience and consider their career options, encapsulated by the action plan and learning logs. the action plan asked students to consider a skills-based objective and a knowledge-based objective they would like to achieve on placement. it also required students to consider a strategy for meeting those objectives. the positive outcomes of the action plan were recognised by the students. several commented on the focus it provided: i had a target i knew i aimed to reach. it helped us focus and helps our future (employability). i was aware of the things i needed to develop and focus upon. others appreciated the opportunity for self-reflection: writing a reflective diary (was a particularly useful approach, as was) support with reflective processes. allowed self-exploration is the reason why i felt it worked well. it just prepares you to stand back and view with a deeper understanding. the opportunity to personalise the goals was also recognised by students who commented: being able to develop an action plan enabled me to concentrate particularly on something i was interested in learning about. understanding the importance of reflection and being confident and professional (was important to them and their employment chances). some of the focus group responses were also pertinent. for example, it was observed that undertaking tasks and a summative assignment meant they had to ‘knuckle down’ and ‘evaluate the whole way through’. as er commented: it helped me focus and meet targets i set for myself. eu was more specific as she reflected on the aims and objectives she was asked to set out in her action plan: i think the fact that we had aims at the start… what we wanted to achieve while we were there… because we had aims and had to write about it i did try… so it was more beneficial…to write an assignment at the end felt i evaluated it more. ac added that he felt that the opportunity to link theory to practice was useful: in the action plan you had some theoretical… in your goals… you have to set out theorists… i found on placement i really started to notice things and mentioning things and that started to help the development…had i just gone to add something thompson, d. (2016). supporting students’ learning on short project placements. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 7 (1), 42-57. 50 to my cv i probably wouldn’t have developed my skills as much…it helped me focus and meet the targets i set for myself. reflective practice whilst not discussing reflection as a tool in very specific terms, the focus group students alluded to the whole process of working to a structured plan that implied they had clearly reflected on their experience. for example, eu said: for me it was useful in confirming that i didn’t want to do primary… it saved me doing p.g.c.e. (post graduate certificate in education leading to qualified teacher status) and wasting my time … helped me make my (career) choices earlier. pb and eu commented respectively: it has made me stop and think about the teaching profession it made me think if it’s what i want to do (as a career). the responses outlined above underpin the quantitative data that suggested the action plan and reflective pedagogies were important aspects of the blended approach. it was felt that attempting a process of structured reflection helped students to arrive at conclusions regarding to what extent they successfully met their objectives, and if they did not, why? it also helped them to consider routes into professional employment and their strategies for their continuing professional development. as one student put it: understanding the importance of reflection (in the education sector) and being confident and professional was important. however, whilst the quantitative data pointed to theories of reflection as being important in supporting students’ development, this was not always borne out in the free-text messages, where a consistent theme was more lectures and tutorials and more research that informs our understanding of this paradox would be welcomed. lectures and face to face contact students’ responses indicated that lectures also played an equally important part in their learning. in fact, the qualitative responses revealed that students still relied upon, or expected, more traditional forms of learning and teaching, even though the main thrust of the placement module was experiential work-based learning. when asked how the module could help further their placement experience, and what aspects of learning and teaching were particularly useful in supporting their placement, a common and consistent theme emerged around the lecture component of this blended approach. for example, there were regular comments asking for more lectures: lectures are very useful in supporting me more contact to keep the ideas fresh more lectures distance learning doesn’t help my learning style more taught sessions i believe i would have benefited from more contact with lecturers having meetings, chats or tutorials with our tutors on a regular basis to discuss placement. thompson, d. (2016). supporting students’ learning on short project placements. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 7 (1), 42-57. 51 as one student put it: i feel more contact with lecturers would have been helpful because you forget… after a while you do not think about the fact that you are doing placement for university. this theme surfaced consistently, despite the teaching programme on the placement module retaining 65 per cent of the total lectures experienced on traditional campus-based module provision. some students indicated that they would like to receive visits by lecturers to their placement venue, even though this was not a teacher education programme where their performance had to be assessed in terms of fitness of purpose for teaching. there were alternative views; for example, one student noted that the learning was: more personal experience based, so therefore not much teaching was required. electronic contact two students commented on the usefulness of regular contact electronically, but generally similar responses were few. in some respects, the data relating to a preference for lecture contact, but also the acknowledgment that experiential learning is core to this module, represents some-what polarised views. additional research with larger data sets might help shed further light on this issue. some students (15%) also chose practical support mechanisms such as the placement handbook and regular contact via email (12%) as useful. the handbook was a forty-two page guide detailing all aspects of the placement experience and advising how students can facilitate and structure their experiences. typically, email communication included suggestions for recommended reading, information, advice and guidance on making students’ placement more effective, reminders and guidance on formative and summative assignments, information on placement opportunities, and tutorial arrangements. given that the core element of this module was work-based learning, researchers wished to explore some of the ways students could be further supported with blended electronic and distance learning. as the main feature of the module was the students’ placement experience, it was felt that asking students in what ways they prefer to be supported through electronic mediums was important. students were asked about a range of electronic support; including simply more email contact, more on-line activities, social media platforms such as facebook and twitter, the development of smart phone apps, generic learning platforms and the on-line messaging and meeting software skype, students were also asked to suggest other formats they might find helpful. in some ways the results are paradoxical. for example, students suggested more on-line activities (35% of responses) and yet the two formative exercises, both on-line, were not popular; furthermore, in an earlier question online support was not a highly rated option. nevertheless, students indicated they wanted more correspondence via e-mail (35% of responses), despite a wealth of alternatives such as the generic on-line learning platform, as well as social media. however, the use of the popular facebook social media platform was ranked third in terms of support options (13% of responses) and certainly above other platforms both inside and outside of the institution. in the free text responses, a small number of students referred to more on-line forums and more email correspondence as ways in which the module could have done more to help, although this type of response was fewer in comparison to more personal contact time through tutorials and lectures. when asked to nominate the most important thing the module could have provided, throughout the 24 freetext responses none referred to additional e-learning or distance learning activities. when asked more specifically about on-line and distance learning there were just seven free-text thompson, d. (2016). supporting students’ learning on short project placements. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 7 (1), 42-57. 52 responses. respondents highlighted email correspondence, and one person suggested a web page where lecturers are free to talk. in fact, some still stated: more opportunities for face-to-face tutorials… more lectures (and as one person typically observed)… i would not like any other method of correspondence, i feel we do get a lot of emails, which is good. maybe more lectures in general would be beneficial. other issues finally, students were given the opportunity to comment in more general terms and raise issues of their own, not guided by the survey questions. answers were varied, but despite earlier comments on electronic support, by far the most popular response to this question related to the provision of more traditional forms of delivery. more than anything else students commented (at least 10 out of the 26 who responded) that they would prefer either more lectures, smaller group seminars, more discussion with lecturers, more group work and tutor meetings. this coincided with other comments such as more help with assignments and visits by the tutor to the placement location. only one student commented that the module could have had more on-line delivery. in conclusion, taking into account qualitative feedback within the questionnaire, quantitative responses, and the focus group interview three key themes emerged. these were that faceto-face contact was by far the most highly valued of all the formats designed to support their experiential learning; students appreciated the existing lectures, the content and support delivered through this format. secondly, a structured approach to their experiential learning had facilitated their understanding, developed their skills in a planned and measured way, and also seemed to be a motivational tool; it helped students value the placement far more than had it taken a more laissez-faire approach (duignan, 2002). thirdly, the underpinning of students’ learning with theories of critical reflection was valued as a means of helping students to make sense of their experiences and contextualise their theoretical learning. there was also some evidence to suggest this helped students consider their professional development and their employment trajectory in the future, although further research would help confirm this. discussion there is a danger that such a short period of experiential learning, in whatever subject discipline, may not achieve its potential value if the placement lacks focus or the duties expected or objectives sought from the experience are not entirely clear. it is the articulation of what has been learned that is the key. that, in turn, depends upon initial purposefulness and then upon regular reflection that involves others. it is enhanced where students are used to thinking metacognitively (blackwell et al., 2001, p.282). yorke (2010) supports this position asserting that professional jobs (graduate-level jobs in particular) require the application of metacognition in various ways (p.42) and that this has become a significant feature of the pedagogical landscape… professional jobs require incumbents to apply metacognition and hence a strong case can be made that the teaching approach adopted should foster it (p.7). in the delivery of the placement module, theories of reflection that were applied together with the action plan were pedagogical tools designed to articulate a metacognitive process that helped students move from surface to deeper learning, as well as provide structure and focus to their experiences. this is in line with the findings of smith and colleagues who comment moving from surface to deep approaches to learning; a transformative approach to learning, rather than just ‘working with meaning’… can result in an ‘upgrade’ to learning (p.134,139) ‘putting theory into practice’ also helped students apply aspects of their theoretical studies in ways that brought important academic topics to life, such as school inclusion, special thompson, d. (2016). supporting students’ learning on short project placements. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 7 (1), 42-57. 53 education needs, or curriculum delivery, for example. structuring their experiences with plans, objectives and learning diaries helped provide direction and focus. there was an emerging sense (from the focus group discussions at least) that students started to become ‘active partners’ in their learning as they began to consider to what extent the objectives they set for themselves had been met, and how their learning informed their ideas about education and their potential career trajectories. it is some-what paradoxical to suggest students were becoming active partners and yet clearly the evidence indicates they preferred more traditional delivery and face-to-face contact with lecturers. further research on this theme is required, if we are to fully understand the transformation towards being active partners and therefore in turn how institutions support this journey. whilst it has been suggested that placement represents a move away from traditional forms of teaching to facilitation, there has been some acknowledgement that lecture-based teaching methods are still important in developing theoretical and abstract contextual knowledge (pegg et al., 2012, p.32). pegg and colleagues (2010) further suggest that the move from traditional didactic teaching methods to facilitation and coaching can be a difficult ‘transition’ for students; feedback from students in this research appears to corroborate this view. lecturers may need to carefully ‘rethink’ their pedagogical approaches, assessments and curriculum (yorke, 2010). yorke’s (2010) suggestion that a heavy reliance on lectures is anachronistic (p.9) in light of the greater emphasis on virtual learning environments is understandable, as is ryan and tilbury’s views on flexible and new pedagogies, as is the observation by barber and colleagues on the importance of developments in on-line learning. however, based on students’ responses presented in this paper, there is still some way to go to wean students off traditional forms of provision, if indeed that is what should happen. at the very least, virtual environments need to be developed that will facilitate much more the personal contact aspect, or substitute face-to-face interaction. there were advantages students referred to in the support of their experiential learning that were delivered through a blended approach. despite this it was clear that many students still regarded contact through the more traditional delivery of lectures and seminars as very important. generally speaking, students appreciated the existing lectures and the content and support delivered through this format, it was simply that they preferred more of it. mcgregor and cartwright’s (2011) suggestion for a framework for reflection on learning objectives is important within the context of this research (pp.153-154). whilst the authors apply this to teachers and teacher training, it can also be adapted more generally to the needs of other students and has the potential for wider appeal and application. evidence from this research indicated that many students were convinced that reflection served as a useful tool to aid their placement experience and ultimately their professional development, as well as feed into their assignment. furthermore, moon (2006) discusses the advantages of different structured forms associated with learning journals that help the student move on and go beyond the stage of description (pp.46-47). this helps provide students with a focus to their wbl and develops a deeper and metacognitive approach to learning. it has repeatedly been suggested that the quality of students’ reflection is fundamental to the quality of learning. cowan (1998) has indicated that students may think that they know what skills they have and that they can be wrong. if that is the case, the question is how degree programmes can be designed to help scaffold students to be better at metacognition and at abstracting learning from experience (reflection). this research confirms that students still value traditional pedagogical approaches. within the context of a ‘short project’ placement at least, students regard it as highly beneficial if there is a significant element of face-to-face contact with academic staff, formalised as part of a teaching programme. however, it has been noted (pegg et al., 2012) that students are active partners in the educational process, and that there is a need to increase their awareness of the wider purpose of each activity in developing their skills, and the value of doing so; practitioners need to help facilitate students to take more responsibility for their experiential thompson, d. (2016). supporting students’ learning on short project placements. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 7 (1), 42-57. 54 work-based learning (p.30). furthermore, it is a difficult transition from didactic approaches to coaching and facilitation, where students again need to take more responsibility for their professional development. bridges need to be built between different pedagogical models. for example, action learning approaches can be strengthened by reflection and evaluation, but also by integration with more traditional didactic approaches (ukces, 2008). a balance is important; successful pedagogical approaches include experiential learning – an emphasis on exploration, learning by doing and reflection in authentic contexts – ideally mixed with rather than simply replacing existing approaches (pegg et al., 2012, p.45). what is pertinent here is the mixing or blending of approaches, rather than simply replacing one with another. of course it also depends on what, exactly, one means by ‘blending’; as we have seen, there are a range of definitions. fundamental to this is the question of how can we blend in ways that suggest a strong, dynamic, flexible, composite of teaching and learning approaches, rather than a simple mish-mash of learning styles. the use of action plans and learning logs and the positive reception that students gave these tools reflect smith’s (2007) observation that: the pedagogical benefits of work-based experiences depend largely on the extent to which students reflect on them and the extent to which they take understandings derived from an academic context and relate these to work-challenges (p.132). however, as lucas and tan (2007) conclude supporting the development of a reflective capacity is not straightforward… it is easy for the best of intentions to be thwarted (p.99). conclusion the results revealed a wealth of information about students’ perceptions of their placement experience and the support they received from campus-based and theoretically-orientated modules. their standardised feedback could not have revealed such in depth qualitative data. to a large extent the data suggests that students achieved a meaningful and productive experience from a relatively short period of placement. this research confirmed that students still value traditional approaches to learning and teaching; students regard it as highly beneficial if there is a significant element of face-to-face contact with academic staff, formalised as part of a blended teaching programme designed to support their experiential learning. furthermore, we have seen from both the literature review and the discussion that students’ development of a reflective capacity and the ‘transition’ away from didactic forms of teaching can be problematic. the data presented and the literature that has been discussed can be viewed as two sides of the same coin; unless we do more to help facilitate blended approaches, then it will be difficult to wean students off the more traditional provision, exemplified by the ‘sage-on-the-stage’ approach. the highly structured ‘action plan’ and critically reflective ‘learning log’ templates developed for students’ placement is at least a start and represents a move towards a more balanced composite of pedagogical approaches. the short-period placement in this study seemed to benefit students, partly as a result of its structure and focus. it is worth considering that whatever the type of placement a focussed, directed and structured approach to the work experience that is also assessed and creditbearing is not only particularly beneficial to students, but also motivational. this has implications for other settings and subject areas. the structure is helpful in shaping a workbased experience that has clear demonstrable value to students. more generally, the research concurs with wilson (2009) who concludes that useful wbl does take place over shorter time periods and can be of significant benefit to higher education students. whilst murakani and colleagues (2009) understandably observe that such experiences are not always a change process, the structured objectives and reflective theory underpinning the experience does allow the student to consider to what extent change has thompson, d. (2016). supporting students’ learning on short project placements. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 7 (1), 42-57. 55 happened through a carefully selected set of criteria. finally, it has been argued that there needs to be clear and associated continuation of this positive, experiential learning into the final year of study (pegg et al., 2012, p.36). more could be done to articulate this; examples might include how students apply research methodologies or ethical dimensions to the working environment, and how the placement experience could provide an opportunity to undertake some small scale research as part of their final year dissertation project. this would provide clear and strong applied and pragmatic strands right through undergraduates’ academic careers, whilst other modules concentrate more on theoretical underpinnings. it is important that the short project placement model is carefully designed to maximise students’ experiential learning and metacognitive processes, whilst also getting to grips with some of the problematic concerns of employing reflection already highlighted in this paper. this might offset the heavy reliance of some students on traditional teaching approaches and support, whilst encouraging a pedagogy that enables students to become more confident in becoming active partners in the learning process. thompson, d. 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(2012). a review of business-university collaboration. department for business, innovation and skills. crown copyright. yorke, m (2010). employability: aligning the message, the medium and academic values. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 1(1), 2–12. https://www.ucas.com/ employer perspectives of the current and future value of stem graduate skills and attributes: an australian study gerry m. rayner1 and theo papakonstantinou1 gerry.rayner@monash.edu; theo.papakonstantinou@monash.edu 1school of biological sciences, monash university. abstract graduate employability has become increasingly contentious as employers call for greater development, evaluation and benchmarking of student skills and capabilities in university courses. however, the increasing range of graduate attributes and competencies demanded by industry is further pressuring an australian higher education sector already stretched by greater student numbers and declines in government funding. given these circumstances, there is a need to better understand employer perspectives of the current and future value of vocational, interpersonal and generic attributes of science, technology, engineering and mathematics (stem) graduates. a survey of stem graduate employers showed that vocational skills, such as graduates’ abilities to contextually apply and develop knowledge, together with generic skills such as critical thinking and problem solving, were valued most highly. conversely, self-confidence and independence, along with numeracy and related skills, were valued least by the employers. however, attributes such as flexibility/adaptability, self-confidence, personal planning and organisation and developing knowledge relevant to the position were all predicted to become significantly more valuable in a decade’s time. the results of this study suggest that australian undergraduate stem curricula, which commonly focus on knowledge acquisition, be redesigned to provide students with opportunities to apply such knowledge more often, and in real life, industry-based contexts, such as workintegrated learning (wil) and industry-based learning (ibl) programs. through such initiatives, together with greater dialogue and collaboration between academics and employers, employability skills and attributes can be better inculcated in undergraduates, to the benefit of graduates and society as a whole. keywords: graduate employability, employer perspectives, stem education, graduate attributes, work-integrated learning introduction graduate employability has become an increasingly contentious issue (hinchliffe, 2009; ferns, 2012) as the tertiary education sector grapples with rapid change, and a range of other complex issues. these include the balancing of research and teaching, maintenance and assessment of academic standards amid competing pressures of reduced government funding and massification of undergraduate cohorts, and optimizing ict for effective learning and teaching delivery (christensen & eyring, 2012). as a consequence of the changes that are sweeping across the higher education landscape, the traditional model of a university degree the inculcation of discipline-specific knowledge and associated relevant skills and attributes has been called into question (boud, 2013; christensen & eyring, 2012). from a rayner, g. & papakonstantinou, t. (2015). employer perspectives of the current and future value of stem graduate skills and attributes: an australian study. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 6 (1), 100–115. 100 mailto:gerry.rayner@monash.edu mailto:theo.papakonstantinou@monash.edu graduate’s perspective, it is crucial that the changes occurring in higher education do not adversely impact the quality of their employability skills. in relation to this, graduate attributes can be categorised as vocational, interpersonal and generic. vocational attributes are knowledge and practical-related abilities acquired in a specific discipline; generic attributes are transferable across different domains; interpersonal attributes are life skills used to work and interact effectively with others (hernández-march, martín del peso, & leguey, 2009). over the past decade, employers have increasingly called for institutions to produce better skilled graduates (oecd, 2004; tomlinson, 2008), with the wish list of desired graduate attributes seeming ever lengthier. of generic skills, communication, critical thinking and problem solving appear to be most highly valued by employers (clegg, 2013; hodge, nadler, shore, & taylor, 2011; prinsley & baranyi, 2015), as they enable graduates to resolve complex problems in real-life contexts, such as the 21st century workplace (mclaughlin, kennedy, & reid, 2015). indeed, there may be connections among these attributes, as proficiency in writing is thought to enhance students’ critical thinking skills (quitadamo & kurtz, 2007). the transferability of such attributes from university to the workplace is also a crucial consideration, as it catalyses graduates’ ability to maximize their job productivity (jackson, 2014). however, while much has been learned about employer valuations of graduate skills and attributes (jackson, 2014), there appears to be very little known about the value employers place on graduates’ discipline knowledge: in particular, their application or further development of such knowledge in the workplace. in regard to stem education, while there have been increasingly vocal calls for graduates to be better prepared for the workforce, there still appears to be an emphasis on their acquisition of content knowledge (wieman, 2007; jones, 2014), at the expense of more work-relevant skills and capabilities applicable to real life settings. this is of particular significance to the considerable proportion of science graduates who enter non-science careers or professions (rodrigues et al., 2007). the difficulty of finding the optimal balance between knowledge acquisition and skills development is likely due to several factors, including the rapidly increasing body of scientific knowledge, and a perceived requirement for its subsequent integration into associated curricula. additionally, most university stem educators are themselves scientists and engineers, and not necessarily skilled in pedagogy and course design that incorporates more work-related skills and capabilities. as a consequence, stem undergraduates may be lacking opportunities to apply their content knowledge to contextually relevant situations. designing curricula to enhance graduate employability requires evidence-based approaches that will better inform stakeholders (universities, students and employers) about the most valued graduate skills and competencies (whelan et al., 2010). further, given the rapid rate of technological change, in addition to macro-industrial structures and regulatory oversight of graduate attributes, one cannot assume that current employer perspectives and valuations of graduate skills will remain the same a decade hence (skills australia, 2010). it is thus important to gauge employer perspectives of graduate skills priorities for the next decade, in order to provide potential signposts to enable fine-tuning of curricula and promotion of skills that will enhance graduates’ work readiness. given identified gaps in the literature around graduate employability, this study set out to better determine australian stem employer perspectives of the current and decadal value of a range of graduate attributes. at a broader level, this study sought to inform the debate around the structure of undergraduate stem curricula, vis-à-vis optimisation of curricula including the incorporation of wil, to enhance graduate work readiness and employability. rayner, g. & papakonstantinou, t. (2015). employer perspectives of the current and future value of stem graduate skills and attributes: an australian study. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 6 (1), 100–115. 101 methods employer survey structure this study assessed employer valuations of 13 graduate attributes, and their rankings of a subset of 10 attributes relative to one another. the rationale for this dual approach was that it enables comparison of attributes relative to each other. a survey methodology was adapted from nair and mertova (2009), incorporating both attribute valuations and rankings. this volunteer-response survey was emailed to 302 australian stem employers (predominantly melbourne-based) of whom 128 (42.4%) responded (table 1). the survey, which took approximately 15 minutes to complete, asked employer representatives to rank each of the 13 attributes (table 2) on a five point likert scale from one (not important) to five (very important). no inducements or incentives were offered to potential respondents, all of whom had a direct role in hiring stem graduates. the survey was administered under human research ethics approval # cf14/1703 – 2014000840. table 1: industry respondent discipline area (number in brackets indicates number of employers for each discipline subcategory; no number indicates 1 respondent) life sciences biomedical and biotechnology physico-chemical sciences mathematics and related biological research (18) medical research (15) analytical services (2) statistical services (2) heritage consultancy (2) pharmaceutical sciences (3) chemical r & d (8) transport research (2) water research (6) biotechnology (9) chemical manufacturing (7) engineering consulting (5) science communication (2) other (6) medical equipment (3) scientific sales (5) veterinary pathology climate science (2) other (11) geosciences defence / government (4) engineering r&d (5) engineering consulting (3) mining services (2) other (5) skills and attributes were grouped as vocational (discipline-specific knowledge or skills), generic (characteristic of all disciplines) or interpersonal (relevant to the individual). a subset of 10 skills and attributes was selected for employer ranking, determined on a scale of one to 10, with 10 being the highest and one the lowest ranking (table 3). no thematic coding of solicited comments was carried out, but specific comments were included where relevant. further perspectives were sought from respondents about the value of different degrees (e.g. bsc, masters, phd) and the quality of monash university science programs and graduates. rayner, g. & papakonstantinou, t. (2015). employer perspectives of the current and future value of stem graduate skills and attributes: an australian study. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 6 (1), 100–115. 102 table 2: graduate attribute groupings, together with definitions, example skills and references to relevant literature (v: vocational; g: generic; i: interpersonal) skill / attribute definition examples references discipline knowledge (v) a set of understandings which is more than broad knowledge of a scientific field all stem fields 1 apply discipline knowledge (v) use learned information and understandings in various situations graduate matching to an occupation inside the scientific domain 2, 3, 4 develop discipline knowledge (v) acquire information and understanding in a scientific field graduates need to be able to use new and emerging technologies 5, 6 problem solving (g) find solutions to difficult or complex issues the top 25 project; the chemistry collaboration project 7, 8, 9 critical thinking (g) objectively analyse and evaluate an issue in order to form a judgment the top 25 project; stem-based literature review 7, 8, 9 written communication (g) communicate by means of written symbols (either printed or handwritten) the top 25 project; stem-based literature review 7, 8, 9 oral communication (g) express information or ideas orally the top 25 project; stem-based plenary lectures 7, 8, 9 numeracy and quantitative skills (g) understand and work with numbers and related mathematical concepts correctly determine volumes, correlations, ratios, concentrations etc. 10, 11 personal planning, organisation (i) accurately estimate the time and effort required to complete one or more tasks graduate need to be able to use new and emerging technologies 6 teamwork (i) the combined action or actions of a group of people the top 25 project; veterinary science collaborative project 12, 13, 14 ethics (i) moral principles governing a person's or group's behaviour piltdown man hoax; veterinary science collaborative project 12, 13, 14 flexibility and adaptability (i) able to cope with changed circumstances, and to adapt to fit changed circumstances graduates need to be able to use new and emerging technologies 6 self-confidence and independence (i) confidence in self or abilities, freedom from aid, influence control, support of others independently undertake a wil placement 15 1: hernández-march, martín del peso, & leguey (2009); 2: jones (2009); 3: nagarajan & edwards (2014); 4: rae (2007); 5: heijke, meng, & ris (2003); 6: coll & zegwaard (2006); 7: clegg (2013); 8: hodge et al. (2011); ): prinsley & baranyi (2015); 10: black, yasukawa, & brown (2013); 11: saunders & zuzel (2010); 12: business council of australia (2011); 13: casner-lotto & barrington (2006); 14: schull, morton, coleman, & mills (2012); 15: rampersad & patel (2014) statistical analysis means and standard error measurements (sems) of data from employer surveys were calculated using a standard likert-type scale from 1 to 5 (for each attribute), with subset rayner, g. & papakonstantinou, t. (2015). employer perspectives of the current and future value of stem graduate skills and attributes: an australian study. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 6 (1), 100–115. 103 rankings from 1 to 10. one-tailed t-tests were applied to derived means, with differences considered significant if p < 0.05. research findings graduate attribute analysis vocational graduate attributes a very high proportion of employers agreed or strongly agreed (likert-scale score of 4 or 5) that currently, important vocational graduate attributes include: (i) discipline knowledge in a major field of study (84% agreed or strongly agreed that this was valuable); (ii) an ability to apply knowledge relevant to the discipline (91%); and (iii) an ability to develop knowledge relevant to the position (94%). an ability to apply knowledge relevant to the discipline, and an ability to develop knowledge relevant to the position, were valued significantly higher than discipline knowledge in a field of study (t = 2.1, p < 0.0001; t = 2.9, p < 0.0001 respectively) (figure 1). in regard to the future (decadal) valuation of vocational attributes, and contrasting with current employer perceptions, employers valued the ability to develop knowledge relevant to the position significantly higher than both discipline knowledge (t = 3.9, p < 0.0001) and the ability to apply knowledge relevant to the discipline (t = 1.4, p = 0.002) (figure 1). the ability to apply knowledge was similarly valued higher than discipline knowledge (t = 2.4, p < 0.0001). there was a significant increase in employers’ valuation, in a decade’s time, of graduates’ ability to develop knowledge relevant to the position (t = 1.2, p = 0.007). this is reflected in the higher proportion of employers who agreed or strongly agreed that this was a valuable attribute (current 94%, decadal 98%). figure 1: current and decadal employer valuations (means +/sem) of vocational attributes. (open and shaded columns represent current and decadal employer valuations respectively (n=128). n.s. denotes not significant, ** denotes p < 0.01) 1 1.5 2 2.5 3 3.5 4 4.5 5 discipline / content knowledge in a field of study apply knowledge relevant to the discipline develop knowledge relevant to the position a ve rg ae l ik er tsc al e ag re em en t vocational attributes n.s. n.s. ** rayner, g. & papakonstantinou, t. (2015). employer perspectives of the current and future value of stem graduate skills and attributes: an australian study. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 6 (1), 100–115. 104 generic graduate attributes generic graduate attributes which are currently highly valued by the surveyed employers were: (i) problem solving abilities (98% agreed or strongly agreed they were valuable); (ii) critical thinking skills (95%); (iii) written communication skills (91%); and (iv) oral communication skills (90%). by contrast, numeracy and related skills were the least valued generic attributes (71%). future (decadal) valuations of these attributes were, overall, approximately the same (98%, 97%, 93%, 92%, and 79% respectively). currently, problem solving and critical thinking skills are valued significantly higher than oral communication skills (t = 1.6, p = 0.001; t = 1.4, p = 0.003 respectively), and numeracy and related skills (t = 3.2, p < 0.0001; t = 3.1, p < 0.0001 respectively) (figure 2). in addition, written communication skills were more highly valued than numeracy and related skills (t = 1.8, p = 0.0002). with regard to employer perceptions of the future value of generic attributes, there was no significant increase or decrease from current-day valuations for any of the five attributes in question (figure 2). however, the current pattern of valuation of these attributes remains unchanged in a decade's time: numeracy and related skills remain the lowest valued of the generic attributes (figure 2). figure 2: current and decadal employer valuations (means +/sem) of generic attributes. (all other indications are as for figure 1.) 1 1.5 2 2.5 3 3.5 4 4.5 5 written communication oral communication problem-solving critical thinking numeracy a ve rg ae l ik er tsc al e ag re em en t generic attributes n.s. n.s. n.s. n.s. n.s. rayner, g. & papakonstantinou, t. (2015). employer perspectives of the current and future value of stem graduate skills and attributes: an australian study. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 6 (1), 100–115. 105 interpersonal graduate attributes interpersonal graduate attributes that were highly valued by employers were: (i) personal planning and organisational skills (92% of surveyed employers agreed or strongly agreed that this was valuable); (ii) an ability to work effectively in teams (91%); (iii) an understanding of ethical conduct (85%); and (iv) a capacity for flexibility or adaptability (85%). selfconfidence and independence, however, were valued lowest (76%) of this set of attributes. employers valued the ability to work effectively in teams more highly than a capacity for flexibility / adaptability (t = 1.5, p = 0.002), personal planning and organisational skills (t = 1.4, p = 0.003), and self-confidence and independence (t = 3.1, p < 0.0001) (figure 3). selfconfidence and independence was valued significantly lower than all other interpersonal attributes, both currently and in a decade hence (figure 3). employers predicted that flexibility / adaptability would be more valuable in ten years’ time compared to the present (t = 1.8, p = 0.0003), along with self-confidence (t = 0.9, p = 0.04) and personal planning and organisational skills (t = 1.0, p = 0.02). this finding is consistent with the higher proportion of stem employers who agreed or strongly agreed that these three attributes will become more valuable, when comparing decadal and current percentages (97% versus 85%, 83% versus 76%, and 96% versus 92% respectively). figure 3: current and decadal employer valuations (means +/sem) of interpersonal attributes. (* denotes p < 0.05, *** denotes p < 0.001, with other indications as per figure 1) 1 1.5 2 2.5 3 3.5 4 4.5 5 teamwork understanding ethical conduct flexibility / adaptability self-confidence and independence personal planning and organisation a ve rg ae l ik er tsc al e ag re em en t interpersonal attributes n.s. n.s. *** * * rayner, g. & papakonstantinou, t. (2015). employer perspectives of the current and future value of stem graduate skills and attributes: an australian study. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 6 (1), 100–115. 106 employer ranking of graduate skills and attributes of the ten skills and attributes, an ability to (i) apply knowledge relevant to the discipline and (ii) develop knowledge relevant to the position were ranked highest by employers (table 2). these two attributes also received the highest number of top (‘10’) rankings by employers. the third lowest and lowest ranked skills and attributes were (i) the ability to work in teams and (ii) numeracy and related skills, respectively, which also received the lowest number of ‘10’ rankings (table 3). while graduates’ ability to problem-solve, discipline knowledge and understanding of ethical conduct received the equal third highest number of ‘10’ rankings, these three attributes had significantly different mean rankings (table 3). this suggests a bimodal pattern of employer responses regarding an understanding of ethical conduct, the lowest ranked of the three. critical thinking, communication skills, and a capacity for flexibility / adaptability were intermediate in employer rankings, and flexibility / adaptability received the fourth highest percentage of ‘10’ rankings (table 3). table 3: mean (± sem) employer ranking (10 = highest, 1 = lowest) of selected graduate skills and attributes, and percentage of employers’ highest rank for each skill / attribute (n=118) (v = vocational, g = generic, and i = interpersonal skill / attribute) skill / attribute ranking % employers ‘10’ ranking ability to apply relevant knowledge (v) 6.6 + 0.3 21.2 ability to develop relevant knowledge (v) 6.5 + 0.2 13.6 problem solving (g) 6.1 + 0.2 12.4 critical thinking (g) 5.8 + 0.2 11.0 communication (g) 5.8 + 0.2 7.6 discipline knowledge (v) 5.4 + 0.3 12.7 capacity for flexibility / adaptability (i) 5.2 + 0.3 5.9 ability to work in teams (i) 5.0 + 0.2 4.2 understanding of ethical conduct (i) 4.5 + 0.3 11.9 numeracy and related (g) 4.1 + 0.3 3.4 employer comments on graduate skills and attributes when asked about which attributes are best inculcated in stem graduates, some relevant employer comments were that: problem solving, the ability to think critically and adaptability are key attributes that graduates need. (employer a) the best graduates are well rounded individuals with impressive scores as well as early vocational experience, they may have travelled, have broad interests and language skills. these attributes demonstrate a maturity and independence that employers will value. (employer b) rayner, g. & papakonstantinou, t. (2015). employer perspectives of the current and future value of stem graduate skills and attributes: an australian study. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 6 (1), 100–115. 107 overall, graduates who are well prepared for employment have been given the opportunity to apply their knowledge, skills and abilities to realistic scenarios in a practical setting. they have also gained experience working in teams. (employer c) in response to a question about what was lacking in stem graduates, five employers noted that: most graduates are unable to spot flaws in their own deliverables. practice in critical evaluation of their own or others’ work from a client’s perspective (especially management) would be beneficial. (employer d) most graduates i talk to have little to no training in efficient and proper writing skills and most graduates i employ require 'retraining'. (employer e) overall, graduates could improve their non-technical skills and attributes such as communication, interpersonal skills and self-awareness. (employer c) the interpersonal skills working in teams and understanding how that impacts performance. being work ready, understanding roles, oh&s and working for a manager how to get the best outcome for all. (employer f) as with all graduates some basic teamwork skills can be lacking. (employer g). interestingly, despite employers’ low valuation and ranking for independence and selfconfidence, two of them made positive comments on these attributes. they wrote: a skill which young graduates (from any university) often need to develop is being able to work independently and with minimal direction. even post-graduate students often get through their degrees by doing exactly what their supervisor tells them to do. this is not conducive to being able to independently solve problems once they get into the work force. (employer h) i feel that the biggest barrier with those students who have not been previously exposed to a commercial workplace, is an apparent lack of confidence. i.e. they deserve to be confident as the work they undertake is well within their capability; however just the manner they present may unfortunately be taken as a lack of self-confidence by some employees. (employer i) discussion and implications over the past decade, graduate employability has become an issue of increasing importance for higher education providers (rae, 2007; ferns, 2012; rampersad & patel, 2014). rather than designing courses that are highly valued by academics, we found that there is an urgent need for australian universities to liaise and communicate much more effectively with industry and employer groups. these discussions will provide greater clarity about the ‘state of play’ regarding the skills and attributes that will be most valued a decade from now. additionally, universities should have more valid means to authentically assess student work readiness as they progress toward graduation (oliver, 2015). finally, regardless of the degree of alignment between universities and employers, graduate capabilities must reflect the current and future priorities of the work place in order to enhance graduates workreadiness. rayner, g. & papakonstantinou, t. (2015). employer perspectives of the current and future value of stem graduate skills and attributes: an australian study. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 6 (1), 100–115. 108 vocational attributes employers’ high valuation of vocational-related skills is not surprising given that they are greatly sought-after graduate attributes (heijke, meng, & ris, 2003), and reflect graduates’ levels of knowledge and their ability to apply it. while this finding may reinforce a contention that the primary role of universities is to educate (boulton & lucas, 2011) and for employers to train, there is a need for institutions to provide students with an ability for metacognition – to know what they know and do not know (hargrove, 2013) – and suitable training for later employment (lam, 2007). this outcome is relevant to broader issues such as curriculum development and pedagogical approaches (jones, 2013), particularly in regard to the connection between these components and the enhancement of vocational skills. employers’ valuation of graduates’ ability to apply knowledge relevant to a discipline, and to develop knowledge relevant to the workplace, over purely discipline knowledge itself, is consistent with other findings (jones, 2009; nagarajan & edwards, 2014; rae, 2007). however, it is counter to the broader view that graduate attributes are largely generic and transcend disciplinary contexts (assiter, 1995; barrie, 2006; drummond, nixon, & wiltshire, 1998). employer prioritisation of graduates’ contextual application and development of knowledge and skills may relate to their capacity for higher order thinking, such as the analysis, synthesis, and integration of workplace-related information (krathwohl, 2002). greater proficiency in higher order thinking thus provides the context for ‘doing a job’ more successfully. in regard to rankings, the high value placed on graduates’ ability to apply knowledge to workplace environments is unsurprising, given its contextual relevance to the actual work being done by the graduate and the likely correlation between such skills and workplace productivity. that employers have ranked this attribute very highly for a long time (celuch & slama, 1999; stewart & knowles, 2000) is indicative of its ongoing importance, despite broader trends in stem curricula to an emphasis on knowledge acquisition. further, an ability to apply knowledge in different contexts is linked with higher order thinking skills such as critical thinking (dwyer, hogan, & stewart, 2014), a connection that reinforces long-held calls for greater inculcation of such skills in undergraduate curricula (ennis, 1987). the optimal vehicle for better inculcation of vocationally-related attributes in australian university stem curricula is through targeted capstone units or wil programs (papakonstantinou, charlton-robb, reina, & rayner, 2013), and/or increased effectiveness of existing wil programs (rayner & papakonstantinou, 2015) such that the learning tasks students do better resemble those that they will later undertake in the workplace (oliver, 2015). these requirements are likely to assume greater urgency given the rapidly changing nature of the workplace, and increased complexity that will accompany such change (skills australia, 2010). this urgency is echoed by the increased employer valuation of the future worth of graduates’ ability to develop knowledge relevant to the workplace, a decade from now. generic attributes the high value employers placed on graduates’ problem solving and critical thinking skills aligns with hodge et al. (2011), and may not be unexpected, as these attributes are also associated with higher order thinking (crebert, bates, bell, patrick, & cragnolini, 2004). in spite of this, problem solving and critical thinking are considered to be underrepresented in undergraduate science degrees (hager, sleet, logan, & harper, 2003; kim et al., 2013). if correct, the genuine inculcation of these skills in students may require redevelopment of stem curricula and associated practical activities, perhaps using identified threshold learning outcomes (jones & yates, 2010; jones, yates, & kelder, 2012) as templates for such. rayner, g. & papakonstantinou, t. (2015). employer perspectives of the current and future value of stem graduate skills and attributes: an australian study. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 6 (1), 100–115. 109 employers’ low valuation and concomitant low ranking of graduates’ numeracy and related quantitative skills (qs) is surprising, given calls by the australian academy of science (2006) for graduates to be better equipped with such skills. however, our findings are consistent with what has been previously reported (black, yasukawa, & brown, 2013; saunders & zuzel, 2010). as an illustration of this low priority, an academic intervention programme designed to enhance the employability of unemployed graduates focused on improving their general self-efficacy, rather than their numeracy and related skills (hazenberg, seddon, & denny, 2014). the contrast between our findings and the high value science academics place on qs may illustrate the differing priorities of academia and employers, given that such academics need to possess strong proficiency in statistics and related qs to successfully research and publish in their discipline. such disconnects between the worlds of employers and academia have long been noted (dunne, bennett, & carré, 1997), and may be difficult to resolve. interpersonal attributes employers’ low valuation of graduates’ self-confidence and independence does not align with its previously reported high regard by industry, and supposed association with attributes such as initiative, creativity, and an ability to ‘get the job done’ (rampersad & patel, 2014). while our findings conflict with what has been previously reported, the importance of graduate self-confidence may be industry-specific, or alternatively it could be that our results indicate a recent shift in employer attitudes towards this attribute. employers’ low ranking of an ability to work in teams and an understanding of ethical conduct is surprising, especially given the corresponding high levels of agreement that these skills and attributes are important, and the broad recognition of teamwork as a desirable graduate attribute (business council of australia, 2011; casner-lotto & barrington, 2006; schull et al., 2012). the discordance between our results and those observed elsewhere provides a potential opportunity for further investigation. employer predictions of the greater value of graduates’ flexibility / adaptability skills in ten years’ time is consistent with previous findings (coll & zegwaard, 2006), which reflects the rapidly changing nature of the workplace; particularly in the spheres of science and technology. it may also, to some extent, reflect employers’ own uncertainty about the nature of their future workplace, which was reflected in the intermediate employer ranking for this attribute. while calls for graduates to be more adaptable or flexible have been made for specific industries, such as oil refining (horne, 2008) and engineering (spinks, silburn, & birchall, 2006), this appears to be a poorly defined capability and requires considerable further research, particularly for science graduates. conclusions employers’ high valuation and ranking of vocationally-related skills, namely the development and application of knowledge in workplace contexts, unsurprisingly reflects their priorities and interests in terms of workplace productivity. conversely, the relatively mediocre rankings of generic skills, in particular numeracy and related skills is unexpected, given the considerable push for inculcation of such skills across all educational sectors. attributes such as flexibility and adaptability are unsurprisingly predicted to be of considerably greater value in the future, due to the rapidly changing nature of workplaces, driven largely by technology but also by broader economic factors. this study shows that while there is a need for considerably greater dialogue between industry and the tertiary education sector, this should not be demand-driven. this is because stem graduate employers still appear to highly value the pedagogical elements that universities do best: namely, the inculcation of relevant discipline knowledge and higher order thinking skills for the next generation of stem graduates. we believe that integration of authentic wil tasks into stem curricula will not threaten these elements of an undergraduate education, but rather enrich them. rayner, g. & papakonstantinou, t. 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(2017).the ‘personinbetween’ role of young graduates at ingos in vietnam. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 8(1), pp. 137–151. 137 the ‘person-in-between’ role of young graduates at ingos in vietnam thi quynh lan mai lanmtq@vnu.edu.vn vietnam national university hanoi orcid.org/0000-0002-1508-330x abstract in vietnam today one of the consequences of globalisation has been a proliferation of international non-government organisations (ingos). these are intercultural work environments where individuals must seek to understand the culture of others and try to share and find common ground as they strive to fulfil the goals of the organisations. these individuals need high levels of intercultural competence, particularly cultural mediation, important for the role of cultural intermediaries. drawing on theories of cultural mediation and cultural intermediaries, this research explores the intersection of different cultural worlds in the context of development projects at ingos in vietnam. the new graduates in the study reflected on their resources and skills to adapt development models to the local context, thus demonstrating important employability skills. this was particularly challenging given that in organisations such as universities, where the culture was described as rigidly hierarchical, skill training was restricted to following procedures to execute a particular task. however, in organisations like ingos with high degrees of employee autonomy, decision making is left to the discretion of staff who are required to demonstrate their own means of developing the skills. based on the findings of the qualitative research into young vietnamese graduates’ experiences of working at ingos, this paper argues that young graduates play a significant role in disseminating information, and at the same time promoting mutual understanding, forming culturally relativistic attitudes, and demonstrating cross-cultural empathy. they were not just gaining employment, but adding value to an enterprise. given increasing globalisation, this research makes an interesting argument for the inclusion of cultural literacy as a necessary employability skill for successful engagement in today’s world of work. keywords: graduate’s employability, ingos, cultural mediation, cultural intermediary, intercultural competence introduction over the last decade higher education has changed radically in responding to the demands of social, economic and political changes (bennett, dunne, & carré, 2000). in the new context, the mission of universities has shifted, and knowledge is no longer considered as singular (barnett, 2000). the traditional role of universities in producing knowledge has changed to give more focus to the demands of society. furthermore the development of information technology has resulted in rapid changes to the nature of work; graduates need to achieve attributes that help them not only to do the work corresponding with their disciplines, but also to be able to learn new skills and new knowledge (bennett et al., 2000; mailto:lanmtq@vnu.edu.vn lan, m. (2017).the ‘personinbetween’ role of young graduates at ingos in vietnam. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 8(1), pp. 137–151. 138 dunne, bennet, & carre, 2000). university to work transition can be a difficult process for both the new graduate and the employer. in vietnam, two important surveys on the perspectives of the employers organised by the united nations development programme (undp) (2007) and the international labour organization (2010), reported that many vietnamese enterprise owners believed that they had to re-train most of their staff on all levels, regardless of their educational background – tertiary or post graduate (undp, 2007). there is a need for highly skilled and trained staff to meet the human resource demand for current economic development in vietnam. however, little attention has been given to the views of new graduates: what do they perceive to be their graduate attributes and how do they believe university prepared them (or failed to prepare them) for work, particularly in their important role in society as change agents? the social and economic context of vietnam today is encouraging the emergence of a cosmopolitan workforce, which means the traditional boundaries between nations lose their validity (beck, 2006). in recent years more and more university graduates in vietnam are working in multicultural organisations. this is one of the consequences of globalisation which has resulted in a proliferation of international business and international non-government organisations (ingos) operating in vietnam. the ingos, the site for this study, represent the kind of fast changing, multi-disciplinary, multicultural work contexts emerging in vietnam. these organisations function as an important gateway for vietnamese graduates into other careers. this paper presents the findings from interviews with young graduates working at ingos in vietnam. this is a part of a larger exploratory study that investigates vietnamese graduates’ work experience in multicultural environments of ingos in vietnam. ingos in vietnam throughout the world, the mission of non-government organisations (ngos) is to provide either humanitarian support to emergency spots or to implement development projects. the traditional humanitarian values and principles of ngos are to help the disadvantaged and people in difficult circumstances, and to assist local people to have a greater say in what activities are carried out, be more involved in such activities, and thus develop a stronger civil society and contribute to the processes of democratisation (willis, 2011, pp. 108-110). still, the work of (i)ngos can be subject to criticism, because ideas are imposed by outsiders (fernando, 2003), or the projects developed are heavily dependent on external experts (salemink, 2006). nonetheless, ngos have some fundamental features, such as being independent from the direct control of any government; not constituted as a political party; non-profit-making; non-violent and with no links to criminal groups (willetts, 2009). from an anthropological perspective, richard (2009) argues that ngos successfully position themselves as the intermediaries between stakeholders. . in vietnam, ingos operate in a particular socio-political context that distinguishes their work from ngos in some other countries. the state created the framework of ingo operations but still controls the political space available to them (ghosh, 2009; gray, 1999). a government body (vufo) was established to cooperate with, facilitate and regulate ingos. ingos in vietnam collaborate with ministries, provincial and district authorities and also form partnerships with mass organisations at grass-root levels (such as the women’s union or the farmers’ association), to facilitate them to carry out campaigns initiated by the state and to implement thousands of projects and credit programs for poor people (norlund, 2007, p. 22). as employers, ingos offer new graduates the opportunity to work in fast-changing, multidisciplinary, intercultural work contexts. the presence of ingos in vietnam can be dated back as early as 1948 when ingos provided assistance for war affected groups of people (dang, 2009; nguyen, 2001). at the end of the war, most ingos closed offices and foreign staff left (nguyen, 2001). following the 1986 social and economic renovation (doi moi), vietnam’s relationship with the external world had achieved some major improvements, signalled by the 1994 lifting of the embargo lan, m. (2017).the ‘personinbetween’ role of young graduates at ingos in vietnam. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 8(1), pp. 137–151. 139 on vietnam, which facilitated possibilities for ingos wishing to support vietnam. the number of ingos increased rapidly in responding to immediate needs, however the government and its agencies lacked sufficient resources to handle them (dang, 2009; salemink, 2006). following this ad hoc provision, ingos introduced development projects to disadvantaged communities. in these projects, new and modern models effective in other parts of the world, were adapted to fit the local context. for example, the grameen bank (bank for the poor) in bangladesh was replicated in vietnam through credit-savings projects by ingos such as action aid, save the children uk, and oxfam, and was then institutionalised by the vietnamese government into the vietnam bank for social policies. today, ingo programs are active in all 61 provinces and centrally-administered cities of vietnam, supporting activities from the national level to the hamlet and household level, and at every level in between. by 2014, there were about 300 ingos with offices operating in vietnam, covering key areas of need, namely health, education, natural resources, income generation, human services, social development, and natural disaster prevention. the ingo directory 2007, reported around 2,200 vietnamese staff working in different ingos in vietnam (vufo-ngo, 2007). vufo-ngo resource centre statistics revealed a good mixture of nations among ingos operating in vietnam. of the ingos currently operating in vietnam, 40 per cent come from the us and canada, 40 per cent from europe, eight percent from australia and new zealand, six per cent from asia and the remaining six per cent are multi-national or ingos from other parts of the world (lovrekovic, 2010). this data confirmed a typical feature of the ingo workplace where a small number of international expatriates often held positions to advise the large number of vietnamese staff. it is important to note that in vietnam there are 54 different ethnic groups living together, most of whom have settled in rural or remote areas in difficult geographical and social conditions. many of these ethnic groups have their own languages and cultures. very often, they are the primary targets of development projects. this ethnic diversity of the target groups, together with a similar diversity of the human resources at ingos, make the work context at ingo projects culturally diverse. researchers argue that people working in such intercultural contexts need a particular set of intercultural competencies (byram, 1997; tingtoomey & kurogi, 1998). hunter, white and godbey (2006, p. 283) conceptualised intercultural competence as the ability to identify cultural differences, collaborate across cultures, and effectively participate in both social and business settings in other countries. byram (1997) and deardorff (2006) have investigated theoretical and developed models of intercultural competencies, and emphasised the increasing importance of intercultural competence in the contemporary globalised workforce. in byram’s (1997) work, the concept of intercultural competence denotes the attributes a person needs to become interculturally, communicatively competent and to be able to see relationships between different cultures, both internal and external. in a survey conducted by lloyd and härtel among 1,200 employees of one organisation in australia, the relationship between an individual and the team in culturally diverse work teams was significantly improved through three facets of intercultural competence, including cognitive competencies, affective competencies and behavioural competencies (lloyd & härtel, 2010, p. 869). similarly, the importance of intercultural competence in multicultural teams is reconfirmed in cross-cultural research in several european countries (reid, 2012). in the spain component of reid’s research, requirements such as cooperation, collaboration and mediation of the global work contexts are intensified through four stages of intercultural learning, including ‘never-ending’ learning, ‘constant’ learning, ‘unlearning’ and ‘relearning’ processes (reid, 2012, p. 159). gow and mcdonald (2000) demonstrated that both employers and academics valued highly essential graduate attributes for the modern workplace; nonetheless intercultural competence has not received much attention. lan, m. (2017).the ‘personinbetween’ role of young graduates at ingos in vietnam. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 8(1), pp. 137–151. 140 graduate attributes in recent decades, universities in many countries have been under considerable pressure to clarify the nature of the education they offer to their students. an extensive body of research has developed to address these new demands, reinterpreting the university’s purpose and role, in an effort to explain graduates’ potential contribution to society (barnett, 1990). in 2004, barrie argued that previous research on higher education systems, processes and graduate outcomes had been predominantly descriptive; that is there had been a lack of a conceptual framework or theoretical underpinning (barrie, 2004; bennett et al., 2000). there is little evidence to support assertions that so-called core or transferable skills are necessarily outcomes of all higher education programs, or to underpin the identification of good practice in skill development in higher education or employment settings. the work of bennett, dunne and carré is an exception to the general lack of attention to conceptualisation, and provides a foundation for more research (bennett et al., 2000). derived from initiatives by employers and staff in higher education, these authors conceptualise generic skills as the main skills thought to be those associated with ‘management of information’, and in particular, communication. it is necessary to highlight that what is emphasised at university by universities, and what is emphasised by employers, is not always the same (eraut, 2004). a large body of research on employers’ perspectives about graduate attributes throughout the united kingdom (uk), the united states of america (usa), australia and europe, demonstrates that employers value high level skills. for example, yorke and harvey’s (2005) research around the employability of the graduates in the uk demonstrates that in the context of social change and massification of higher education, employers are looking for graduates with generic attributes in addition to degree or program knowledge. employers value the attributes which assist the graduates to adapt to the workplace, to be flexible in moving between different jobs, and to move ‘one’s repertoire of knowledge’ onward (yorke & harvey, 2005). these desirable attributes are often independent of the degree subject, and consist of interactive attributes, including communication skills, interpersonal skills and team working, as well as personal attributes, including intellect and problem solving, analytic, critical and reflective ability, willingness to learn and continue learning, flexibility and adaptability, risk-taking and self-skills (harvey cited in yorke & harvey, 2005). hernández‐march, martín del peso, and leguey (2009) state that companies seek graduates who have the ability to work in a team and relate with co‐workers, clients, and collaborators skills that, in many cases, prove to be more important than graduate’s technical knowledge. bennett et al. (2000) argue that the skills that individual graduates developed are constrained or enabled by work circumstances. in the recent decade, rapid social, economic and political changes have urged higher education to focus on providing graduates with skills that meet the demands of the industry (bennett et al., 2000; dunne et al., 2000). work environments have a significant influence on the skill development of graduates. in organisations where the culture was described as rigidly hierarchical, skill training was restricted to following procedures to execute a particular task. in contrast, in an organisation with higher degrees of employee autonomy, decision making was left to the discretion of staff and they were required to organise their own development of required skills (bennett et al., 2000). kalfa and taksa (2015) criticise the assumption held by some universities that ‘graduate attributes’ are transferable into students’ human capital and, therefore, their employability. these authors argue that skills are socially constructed, acquired and transferred through multiple contexts. notably, most of the existing research on graduate attributes targets academics and/or employers (e.g. andrews & higson, 2008; barrie, 2006; harvey, 2005; hernández‐march et al., 2009), with the listed graduate attributes being expectations of academics and employers. however, little has been written on intercultural competence from the graduates’ perspectives. lan, m. (2017).the ‘personinbetween’ role of young graduates at ingos in vietnam. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 8(1), pp. 137–151. 141 the study context ingos, by the nature of the work they undertake, are an example of an intercultural workplace that requires a high level of intercultural competency. ingos project staff need to work in between different structures, resources and models, and to develop new models for specific projects. in vietnam the ingos and their projects are even embedded in the diverse contexts of vietnamese culture and society. since development studies is a new field in vietnam, social work, a cognate discipline, only began to enroll students in around 2006. therefore, most vietnamese staff employed in ingos have not been educated in development-related concepts, knowledge and skills before starting their jobs. therefore the challenges of working in an ingo are likely to be intensified, especially in the early stages of employment or a career. this raises questions about how universities and employers can assist new graduates to make the transition from formal education to such a workplace. this study aimed to explore vietnamese graduates’ experience of the intercultural work setting of ingos, and what they perceive to be their role(s) in the intercultural workplace of ingos. this research applied inductive qualitative methods to explore how young vietnamese university graduates experience their work in the intercultural environments of ingos. qualitative research can facilitate an understanding of the informants’ perceptions, and focuses upon discovering the nature of phenomena as humanly experienced (minichiello, aroni, timewell, & alexander, 1995). research method the research strategy consisted of two stages. firstly, the context of the ingo workplace was explored via job advertisements. twenty two ingo job advertisements for positions such as project assistant, research assistant, internship, project secretary, project officer, and project manager were collected during the period 2009-2013 from the official website of the vufo-ngo resource centre. these job advertisements were descriptively analysed to check the range and consistency of the requirements of different ingo positions, and the meaning of terms used in describing these positions. an analysis of the job advertisements revealed that the primary requirement in terms of qualifications for all job advertisements was a specific university degree (medical doctor, epidemiology, or health policy); or a degree qualification in a relevant subject (rural development/agro-forestry, natural resource management, foreign language, social science, social work, community development). english language skills were compulsory in all job advertisements. work-related experience was also required, even for intern positions (as a preferred point). in more senior positions and specialised jobs, the number of years of experience required could be from two to five years. this requirement was very challenging for graduates who had just finished a three or four-year university program. the scope of qualifications and duties in the job advertisements set the explicit requirements for staff working at ingos, and raised questions to be checked and further explored in the interviews with the university teachers, employers and the young graduates.secondly, based on the primary information of job advertisements, the context and experiences of ingo workplaces were explored via in-depth interviews. participants participants included international employers in ingos, young graduates working at ingos and university teachers. the employers were recruited via established contacts which had been made during the researcher’s 10 years of work experience in ingos in vietnam. many of these contacts had subsequently became key brokers to young new staff at ingos and were willing to participate in the study. top managers working at ingos were selected because they had the strongest impact on the decisions made in the organisation. the graduates in the ingos were then invited to participate in the study. following initial contact, a small number of young graduates agreed to be interviewed. the snowballing technique lan, m. (2017).the ‘personinbetween’ role of young graduates at ingos in vietnam. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 8(1), pp. 137–151. 142 was then used to locate other participants. the selection of the university teachers as participants was arranged so as to correspond closely to the types of project work at ingos, as demonstrated through job advertisements. the total number of participants was 35, comprising 19 young graduates (15 females and four males), eight university teachers and eight employers. the participants ranged across different age groups from 20-30 years (all 19 young graduates), 30-40 years (five university teachers), and 40-50 years and above (all employers and three university teachers). the gender mix of the group of young graduates reflected the overwhelming number of female staff at ingos, which was a result of ingos’ mission to empower women. it is the interviews with the graduates which form the basis of this paper. data collection and analysis interviews were conducted after the participants had read the research information and given consent to participate. each interview lasted from 45 to 60 minutes. all interviews were guided to explore the interviewee’s daily tasks, the difficulties in completing the tasks, and personal strategies employed to overcome barriers to task accomplishment. during the interviews, the graduates talked about their work history (the different positions they had held in the same or in different organisations), how they secured their jobs in the first place; the different problems they encountered at the initial stage of their career; and how they resolved those difficulties. analysis of the interviews in this first phase revealed various problems or challenges which the young graduates coped with, rooted in their inexperience, their lack of knowledge and skills, and their lack of high level intercultural communication skills, which an ingo intercultural workplace demanded. to develop a deeper understanding of the experiences of young graduates, the second phase of interviews was conducted with them from september to november 2012, using an interview protocol based on a ‘sense-making interview’ strategy developed by dervin (1992). an additional 14 graduates were interviewed in this phase. one or two weeks before the face–to-face interview with each participant in the field, a pre-interview talk by skype was conducted. the information of the pre-interview was transcribed and translated and the text analysed to identify potential words, concepts, sentences and themes to explore further in formal interviews. to shed light on how graduates apply their knowledge and skills, and experience, and respond to the workplace at ingos, the results of the interviews of the graduates were analysed in comparison with the interviews of the teachers and the employers. in their interviews the young graduates used words such as ‘liaise’, ‘convince’, ‘negotiate’, ‘compromise’ to relate key aspects of their mediation roles. they used the notions of ‘shock’, ‘confusion’, ‘anger’, ‘cultural differences’, ‘giving feedback’, ‘boss’, and ‘doers’ to classify issues that demanded attention and action. the common concepts that emerged from the analysis of the interviews with the graduates were ‘unawareness of cultural differences’, ‘inappropriateness of skills’, ‘shortage of appropriate knowledge’, ‘trial and error’, ‘being cautious’, ‘in-between position’, ‘advocating’ and ‘facilitating’. these are reflected in the discussion of the findings below. findings the following section discusses the findings from the interviews with the young graduates working at ingos. their stories (the names have been changed) uncover contradictions between their university study and work requirements at ingos. most of them experienced a traditional teacher-focussed teaching approach at their universities. however, the ingos workplace required graduates to be continuous learners, to have critical mindsets, to possess effective negotiation, communication and interpersonal skills, and particularly to be lan, m. (2017).the ‘personinbetween’ role of young graduates at ingos in vietnam. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 8(1), pp. 137–151. 143 culturally competent. young graduates’ stories exposed their hardship at the beginning of their work at ingos. inappropriate knowledge and skills although their difficulties varied, a common basis to their problems was identified as insufficient preparation for the intercultural work environment. the typical traditional teaching and learning approach at university was clear in ms hoa’s accounts. having graduated in 2006, with a major in english language, ms hoa was taught by a traditional learning approach where students mostly learned what the teacher instructed, as she explains: my teachers only asked us to search through internet, but did not explain how to search, how to use the keywords for searching what we were looking for (ms hoa, project assistant). consequently, graduates arrived unable to deal with the requirements of being independent in decision making at work. graduates also found it hard to apply their university knowledge and skills in strange work contexts. this was clear in the accounts of other participants as well, particularly those who graduated before 2010. as ms ba, (graduated in 2009, interviewed in 2012), and mr vi, (graduated in 2011, interviewed in 2012), commented: my background was foreign language. in the early days, when my supervisors asked me to comment [on the content of the draft of the training material], i felt i was not capable to give comments on this content (ms ba, project assistant). … when i started my job, i had to learn more. it was very difficult to use the university knowledge then (mr vi, project assistant). those young graduates also had to learn new knowledge and skills by doing or observing, like mr xuan, (graduated in 2006, interviewed in 2012), and ms hoa: i got a very short orientation. i thought it was not enough for me to become confident in doing the financial management role. i had to learn by doing (mr xuan, project manager). i observed others; i practiced giving a presentation at home. if i had to make a presentation to many people, i would practice at home in advance. however, i mainly learnt through observing others’ presentations. the senior staff also advised how to make a presentation (ms hoa, project associate). communication technology had developed dramatically within a short time and had changed the way many students studied. in 2006, when ms hoa was at university, the internet service was not so available that she had to rely on her teacher for internet searching skills. however, some more recent graduates enjoyed more advanced learner-focussed teaching approaches than their senior alumni. for example, ms dao (graduated in 2011, interviewed in 2012), confirmed that she used the internet daily in her study. indeed, she conducted an independent study together with a swedish exchange student to enlighten the local farmers in a village about the harmfulness of pesticide. although she did not study agriculture at her university, ms dao searched through the internet for the relevant knowledge about pesticide to teach the farmers. i only knew the basic concept that pesticide could have bad impact upon the water source and polluted the air which was inhaled by the human being. …..when i saw that the local people did not know some knowledge, i googled to lan, m. (2017).the ‘personinbetween’ role of young graduates at ingos in vietnam. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 8(1), pp. 137–151. 144 find the suitable knowledge for the local people (ms dao, interpreter/ project assistant). the university experiences of those participants who graduated from 2010 onwards also showed a trend of teachers applying new teaching approaches to develop students’ creativity. ms dao studied with a culturally diverse team of teachers, coming from abroad. they used teaching approaches different from the traditional vietnamese methods. her teachers expanded their lectures beyond the textbook contents, asking their students to explore new knowledge: i had to read a thick english book on micro economics, because the teachers taught knowledge beyond the textbook. this helped me to be independent, to have critical thinking skill and to know how to raise questions (ms dao, interpreter/project assistant). ‘in-between’ position: language and communication despite these more modern teaching approaches and their good command of english language at university, most of the participants (both female and male) had difficulties in interpreting and translating english at their first jobs. most of them started their careers in intern positions or positions such as interpreters or project assistants. translation in the context of ingos is not a simple transfer of meaning between people who do not speak the same language. young graduates need to mediate between international experts and local people whose cultural dispositions, practices and customs are not the same. the concept of cultural mediation means a process designed to manage and resolve conflicts between two or more parties (mckay, 2008). it is a facilitated negotiation process, in which both parties can identify their interests and needs, raise their ideas and opinions, and propose solutions for problems. the graduates in the current research even had to accustom themselves to the cultural practices of the international experts first to guide the parties through the process without determining the outcome (mckay, 2008, np). as in the words of ms mau, (graduated in 2006, interviewed in 2011), and ms dao: … when the international consultants contacted vietnamese people, i was their assistant. i was like the person in between. this meant that sometimes there were some expressions that were quite at odds with the culture of vietnam … i had to find out whether the international consultant had said inappropriate thing. if that i had to find ways to explain, as a kind of trouble shooting (ms mau, project assistant). as the interpreter, i was like a person in-between to solve the problem. in many instances, i had to please both sides. it was really difficult (ms dao, the interpreter). bochner argues that cultural mediation is essential in work that requires agreement between people from different cultures or different ethnic groups (bochner, 1981). cultural mediators do more than disseminating information between two or more parties; they promote mutual understanding, form culturally relativistic attitudes, produce cross-cultural empathy, spread international (or inter-cultural) goodwill and reconcile disparate cultural practices (bochner, 1981). bochner’s view of ‘cultural mediation’ is expanded by cronin’s (2004) position that the mediating practitioners’ role should be viewed as a negotiation between multiple regimes of mediation (p. 349). in the current research, graduates compared and contrasted cultural differences in the communication process between the vietnamese and international consultants, and developed the cultural literacy that enabled them to be successful cultural mediators. they recounted profound differences in people’s ways of thinking, analysing and understanding lan, m. (2017).the ‘personinbetween’ role of young graduates at ingos in vietnam. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 8(1), pp. 137–151. 145 activities and practices due to their cultural diversity. this often resulted in misunderstanding and confusion. for example ms mau experienced stressful miscommunication between her and the international boss due to culturally different ways of giving feedback: when you have a problem, the international experts give very direct feedback. at first i was unfamiliar with that way, i felt it tough…..the foreigners are very direct. initially i felt unfamiliar with this; there are instances when i felt very stressful, the work is very stressful (ms mau, project assistant). another girl, ms dang, (graduated in 2011, interviewed in 2012), was unsure of what to say when meeting a big boss: once, when a big boss came, we did not dare to be open in communication. it was not because of language barrier. it might be because he was a very big boss so we were worried that we might say something unnecessary [that might annoy him] (ms dang, project assistant). culture and cultural intermediaries people of the same culture can more easily understand each other because they are familiar with the same system of values. the research of leach (1976), triandis (2000), and tingtoomey (2012) points to this influence of culture on the communication process. they argue that collectivism and individualism influence intercultural communication processes, and that within each culture, different ethnic groups may display distinctive individualistic and collectivistic value patterns (ting-toomey, 2012, p.69). it was difficult for the person in the middle to understand the differences in the system of values of other cultures. those dealing with different ethnic groups had even more challenging tasks. they had to understand the two different cultures, while at the same time ensuring that they enable both sides to work together to come to a new understanding. for example, ms vu, (graduated in 2009, interviewed in 2010), experienced the differences between the concepts of planning and scheduling of the project staff and the local community: my ingo very highly appreciates the completion at deadline, because the progress of this work will lead to the result of the next activity. but sometimes – they [local partners] do not see the importance of the proposed timeline, following the objectives. they might not even like doing this first, doing that later […] sometimes they work by their own way, without complying with the original schedule (ms vu, project officer). in their functional role as the link between two or more cultural systems (bochner, 1981), some young graduates used their own experiences to localise foreign models of intervention and development. they became the cultural intermediary (bourdieu, 1984). the concept of cultural intermediary was used by bourdieu (1984) to denote a new type of worker who works between cultural production and cultural consumption. more recently, negus (2002) stated that while bourdieu’s concept privileges a group of occupations that come in-between creative artists and consumers, there are now many other occupational groupings that are crucial to processes of cultural mediation (p. 503). edwards (2012) argues that the role of public relations practitioners who formulate and disseminate information designed to influence values and attitudes about social and cultural roles, identities and practices, is a new form of cultural intermediary. the role of public relations practitioners in edwards’ research is similar to cronin’s (2004) conceptualisation of multiple-regimes mediation, and is applicable to explain the mediation role of young graduates in the current research. for example, ms hoa recalled her experience of translating and facilitating a training workshop where the experts introduced medical anthropology to the trainees using case studies from abroad, unfamiliar within vietnamese culture. neither the project staff nor the lan, m. (2017).the ‘personinbetween’ role of young graduates at ingos in vietnam. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 8(1), pp. 137–151. 146 trainees fully understood the new method. the learners were concerned that without local case-studies they could hardly disseminate the new method to the local people effectively. ms hoa brought these concerns to the trainer. the biggest gap, for example, was the fact that he [the expert] provided too many examples from australia; however, the vietnamese learners wanted to know about the vietnamese context…i incorporated opinions of all groups into a report and translated into english so that the trainers and the learners could discuss together (ms hoa, project associate). ms hoa also contributed to the discussion for developing local case studies by describing her observations of medical practices at her home village. she had formed the links between people of different cultures the experts, the vietnamese medical workers, and herself. she also skilfully crafted the medical anthropology method into one that suited the vietnamese local context. at this level, ms hoa had moved from cultural mediator to cultural intermediary (bourdieu, 1984). like ms hoa, other informants including mr ta, mr xuan and ms nguyen demonstrated the role of cultural intermediaries in their accounts. they mostly gained the necessary work knowledge and skills before performing as cultural intermediaries by adding relevant values to original (imported) project models or ideas. mr ta got a job as a field project officer position on child rights. in order to promote a better future for female teenagers in mountainous regions, his project set a goal to reduce the early marriage rate among young girls. although the legal marriage age in vietnam is 20 years for men and 18 for women according to marriage and family law, many ethnic groups maintain their customs of early marriage for young girls which could possibly lead to health risks for very young mothers. while translating and facilitating training on the harmfulness of early marriage, and the benefits of delayed marriage, mr ta tried to encourage learners to inform the consultant about their opinions and their views. i assisted in creating a more open environment among the learners. if the learners kept silent when the consultants raised questions, i warmed them up, or clarified the questions so that the learners understood the questions and could answer. the most important thing was the learners’ answers (mr ta, project officer). while clarifying the questions, mr ta contributed his understandings of the negative social and health impacts of early marriage among young girls in order to enlighten the local people. in doing that, he was involved in changing the behaviour pattern of the local community and raising their awareness of the benefits of delayed marriage. the case of mr xuan is another example of a cultural intermediary transforming a traditional practice. as the manager of the program for child nutrition promotion, mr xuan and his project team crafted a social franchise model to tailor the user-paid counselling services according to the clients’ needs. this was a very different approach from the traditional generic free nutrition counselling service being applied at most of state health clinics. mr xuan reasoned that the fee-paying service would make users more concerned about service quality. this model was new in vietnam so his project had to start up from the very beginning, from developing a brand name to training the providers: i understood that this model developed from the demand for improving child nutrition, particularly to reduce malnutrition and improve child growth ratios. to conduct social franchise work, the model needed to have a very unique brand name (mr xuan, program manager). his program trained the nutrition providers with updated knowledge on child nutrition to bring their services up to international standards. mr xuan’s functional mediation (bochner, 1981) lan, m. (2017).the ‘personinbetween’ role of young graduates at ingos in vietnam. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 8(1), pp. 137–151. 147 led to his engagement as an intermediary, in changing the health policy towards a ‘socialising’, sustainable, high quality, fee-paying and individually-tailored model. the case of ms nguyen, (graduated in 2004, interviewed in 2010), was an exceptional example of a cultural intermediary who applied her accumulated experiences to continuously craft new models. ms nguyen got her first job as a project assistant at an education project for ethnic minority children in a mountainous district. she energetically negotiated her hybrid model which combined developing a participatory method with the existing activities of the school parents’ association. she equated the involvement of the parents’ association in the local school activities with a participatory approach. her argument was that this type of parents’ association of school children had worked effectively in vietnam for a long time, so it was necessary to take this fact into account when applying the participatory method, as she explained: the participation method required that parents needed to be involved in the school process. …in theory, the child participation approach had its own principles; however, which activities should be done to ensure those principles?... we should not create completely new activities (ms nguyen, project officer). her model continued to prove its effectiveness in her second job where ms nguyen worked with her team to develop a new model of user-friendly libraries at primary schools in ethnic minority areas. not just disseminating information, ms nguyen negotiated her ideas and her lessons drawn from her previous projects, to influence the model. although some researchers claim that development might end up imposing alien models upon indigenous populations (fernando, 2003; mosse & lewis, 2006; salemink, 2006), mr xuan and ms nguyen’s successes in adapting new models into local contexts by using their abilities to analyse, critically evaluate and solve problems has proved their capabilities to mediate between the ideas of international experts and the practices and traditions of local people in their project sites. discussion the stories of the young graduates have illustrated the role of cultural mediator and cultural intermediaries in ingos contexts. in many situations there were significant cultural differences, manifested in super/ subordinate relations, imposition of foreign ideas and models, interpreting rules and other documents and giving culturally sensitive feedback. in these situations there is the potential for conflict to arise from the cultural differences within intercultural interactions. such problems mainly occur during the communication process in which people of different cultures need to exchange ideas to come to agreement (tingtoomey & kurogi, 1998). in the current research, the graduates became interculturally competent through their observation of the practices of international consultants and local people, or drawing lessons out of miscommunication situations. young graduates needed to mediate between different cultural norms, practices and customs of people from different cultures (bochner, 1981, ting-toomey, 2012). in their cultural mediation role, they did more than disseminating information rather promoting mutual understanding, and reconciling disparate cultural practices. it is noticeable that the cultural intermediary role was not explicitly stated by young graduate in their accounts. as it is not a formally recognised aspect of their work, young graduates had no language with which to discuss or name this aspect of their work, making it all more challenging for them. cultural intermediary roles were not usually performed in the very first job after graduation. as young graduates strategically acquired ‘on-the-job’ work knowledge and skills, they appeared to capitalise on these resources and moved on to other positions where they could apply their newly acquired knowledge and skills. lan, m. (2017).the ‘personinbetween’ role of young graduates at ingos in vietnam. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 8(1), pp. 137–151. 148 conclusion this research contributes to the theory of cultural mediation and cultural intermediaries by its insights into the way young graduates negotiated the local norms, customs and practices into the development models applied in their contexts. this research also highlights the importance of the intercultural dimension of the ‘global’ workplace. as cultural mediators and cultural intermediaries, young graduates disseminate information, and at the same time promote mutual understanding, form culturally relativistic attitudes and develop cross-cultural empathy. they were not just gaining employment, but adding value to an enterprise, in this case the effectiveness of ingos in vietnam. given increasing globalisation, this research makes an interesting case for the inclusion of cultural literacy as a necessary employability skill for successful engagement in today’s world of work. the young people cited in the study were clearly able to make a difference for vietnamese communities, bringing with them, both the technical skills and knowledge gained at university, and the abilities to analyse, critically evaluate and problem solve. the way the new graduates reflected on their resources to adapt the development models to the local context demonstrated the capabilities which enhanced their employability as graduates. the findings from this research also have an implication for the wider asian region in the globalisation era. as an ethnically diverse region, asian region cooperation promises plenty of opportunities for collaboration across cultures. universities should focus on developing intercultural competence for graduates to make them competent entering this employment market context. since this research focuses on young graduates working at ingos in vietnam whose projects are targeted specifically at vulnerable, local communities, it is difficult to generalise from the experience of the young graduates in this study. future research about intercultural competence should be on a much larger scale, exploring other types of workplace in all economic sectors including private and state businesses, all of which increasingly face the challenges of the intercultural interaction. acknowledgments this research was supported by a phd scholarship co-funded by the ministry of education and training of vietnam and the university of queensland, brisbane australia (ethics approval number: rhd/8-2010). the author acknowledges thoughtful comments and advice on earlier drafts from the anonymous reviewers. sincere thanks to the participants who were generous in contributing their time and efforts to the interviews. lan, m. 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(2005). graduate attributes and their development. in r. a. voorhees & l. harvey (eds.), workforce development and higher education: a strategic role for institutional research (pp. 41-58). san francisco: jossey-bass. http://www.staff.city.ac.uk/p.willetts/cs-ntwks/ngo-art.htm#part10 tee, l., ferns, s., & hughes, j.d. (2018). the capabilities that count for early professional success in pharmacy: a case study of graduates, employer and course team perspectives. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 9(1), 23– 40. 23 the capabilities that count for early professional success in pharmacy: a case study of graduates, employer and course team perspectives lisa tee1, sonia ferns1 and jeffery d. hughes1 l.tee@curtin.edu.au; s.ferns@curtin.edu.au; j.d.hughes@curtin.edu.au 1 curtin university abstract this study gathered and analysed the perceptions of graduates, employers, and the course team regarding graduate capabilities required for early professional success in pharmacy and the extent to which these capabilities are demonstrated in new graduates. the graduate employability indicator (gei) surveys were administered online to gather stakeholders’ perceptions about the bachelor of pharmacy offered at a large australian university. the gei asks graduates the extent to which their course experience contributed to achievement of the capabilities, and asks employers and course teams about the extent to which new graduates demonstrated the capabilities. this study also assessed the incentives and disincentives of the course team for assisting to develop work-related skills, attributes and personal qualities. in total, 95 graduates, 109 employers and 42 members of the course team participated in the survey. the findings indicated that graduates preferred earlier professional placement in the course. employers identified communication and professional skills as the most useful capabilities for new graduates. members of the course team identified benefits to the students, industry and university as the main incentives for developing graduate employability. both employers and course team members perceived the use of technology demonstrated by the graduates as important, however the graduates perceived this as much less important compared to other capabilities this study provided an evidence-based approach to engage the course team in curriculum renewal for the bachelor of pharmacy program. data collected using the gei tool provided valuable information for reshaping the curriculum structure. keywords: graduate capabilities, employability, perceptions, employers, teaching team, graduates introduction in an increasingly regulated environment, universities are facing enhanced accountability measures with the requirement to provide evidence of employability capabilities acquired by their graduates during their university experience. government and industry are questioning the value of investment in higher education with a perceived deficit of graduates’ preparedness for the workplace (rudd, swan, smith, & wong, 2007; evan-greenwood, o’leary, & williams, 2015). the demand for improvements in the sector requires universities to provide evidence of quality assurance and employability outcomes. with heightened focus on the employability capabilities of graduates, institutions are placing greater emphasis on curriculum reform. mailto:l.tee@curtin.edu.au mailto:s.ferns@curtin.edu.au mailto:j.d.hughes@curtin.edu.au tee, l., ferns, s., & hughes, j.d. (2018). the capabilities that count for early professional success in pharmacy: a case study of graduates, employer and course team perspectives. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 9(1), 23– 40. 24 curriculum reform the university in which this research was conducted embarked on a curriculum reform strategic project several years ago where an evidence-based approach was employed to highlight the strengths and expose gaps in the curriculum. the review involved the interrogation of pertinent data, which revealed how the degree needed to change to address issues related to quality. the university adopted constructive alignment (biggs, 2003), embracing an outcomes focused paradigm where curriculum reflected what students will be able to do upon completion, and how their accomplishments will be evidenced. outcomes are aligned to graduate capabilities ensuring relevant and contemporary learning experiences evidenced by authentic assessment profiles. clearly defined graduate attributes are essential for producing graduates with the skills necessary to be proficient employees and contributors to society (ewan, 2009). the ultimate educational outcome of an undergraduate pharmacy curriculum, is to produce graduates who have the knowledge, skills and attitudes to practice as a pharmacist. to ensure this, the world health organization stated in its document entitled ‘the role of the pharmacist in self-care and self-medication’ that: undergraduate pharmacy curricular should be reviewed and revised to ensure that students learn about the relevant aspects of information management and technology, behavioural sciences, and communication and health problem solving (the world health organisation, 1997, p. 12). the boundaries of universities need to be permeable, where engagement with industry partners is intentional, informing curriculum development and contributing to the student experience (van rooijen, 2011; ferns, campbell, & zegwaard, 2014). furthermore, accreditation of degree programs by professional industry bodies is integral to a high quality and relevant curriculum. according to ewan (2009) the process of professional accreditation provides ‘external validation’ of university programs. lifelong learning is recognised as a graduate capability that ensues beyond the walls of the educational institution. learning is a continuum where career development learning is strengthened and nurtured through employment. graduates are frequently critical of the disconnect between the university curriculum and the workplace (evan-greenwood et al., 2015). in response to this, higher education institutions are focusing on a quality student experience with a move away from didactic models of teaching and learning, to an integrated approach where theoretical aspects of the discipline are blended with practical experience. staff engagement in accordance with the australian pharmacy council accreditation standards (standard 11) for pharmacy programs in australia and new zealand, staff are required to plan, implement and evaluate the curriculum (australian pharmacy council, 2014, p. 11). staff should be capable of delivering contemporary practice, whilst coping with, and shaping future practice. it is critical that there are adequate numbers of academic staff with pharmacy registration, thereby ensuring the authenticity of the curriculum. furthermore, it is important that the course team is involved in the ongoing design of the curriculum, in consultation with industry stakeholders. this approach ensures that the pharmacy degree remains relevant and produces work-ready graduates. accreditation standards for pharmacy as the pharmacist role has moved from the supply of products to include the delivery of patient care, it appears that the greatest challenge for pharmacy educators is to ensure their pharmacy curricula remain relevant and work-ready focused. singleton (2015) states: all too often, students possess great discipline-specific knowledge but lack the skills essential to thrive in increasingly competitive and complex work environments in tee, l., ferns, s., & hughes, j.d. (2018). the capabilities that count for early professional success in pharmacy: a case study of graduates, employer and course team perspectives. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 9(1), 23– 40. 25 today’s world. employers are requiring skills that not only build upon traditional core content knowledge, but also include critical thinking and problem-solving skills, information and communication skills, interpersonal and self-directional skills, creative behaviors, inquisitive habits of mind, and the skills to utilise 21st century tools (p. 6). to this end, teaching and learning practices which are designed to overcome the problems of students trying to find the practical link between fragmented studies and ‘real-life’ are essential. ‘accreditation standards for pharmacy programs in australia and new zealand’ (australian pharmacy council, 2014) mandates that all courses provide experiential learning opportunities, and that these include placements in a community and hospital pharmacy. under accreditation standard 7, it is a requirement that formal relationships exist with health care providers, practitioners and services to facilitate access to appropriate experiential placements (p. 9). early exposure to clinical practice early exposure to clinical practice develops student competence through demonstrating how knowledge is integrated and applied in various practice settings, enabling learning from role models, and experiencing interdisciplinary and team approaches in the provision of health care. studies have shown that practice-based learning leads to an increase in empathy towards people with chronic diseases, enhanced self-confidence, and the development of a professional identity among students (the world health organisation, 2006). learning from experienced practitioners, whether it is in the classroom, during simulations or through clinical practice, is seen as an invaluable means of acquiring professional socialisation. the study this study gathered and evaluated the perceptions of graduates, employers, and the course team, regarding graduate capabilities required for early professional success in pharmacy, and the extent to which capabilities are demonstrated in new graduates. the study also assessed the incentives and disincentives of the course team to develop work-related skills, attributes and personal qualities of graduates. methods this investigation employed a mixed methods approach using a blend of quantitative and qualitative data. the qualitative data set complemented the numerical measures by enabling the respondents to freely express thoughts and opinions in an unstructured manner, thereby providing clarity of perceptions from a personal perspective. through using a mixed methods design, the qualitative data provided a deeper understanding of the findings ascertained through the quantitative data collection and analysis (creswell, 2012). data was collected through the administration of the graduate employability indicator (gei) surveys which were previously developed and validated (oliver & whelan, 2011). this instrument comprises a suite of three online surveys which gather the perceptions of graduates, employers and course teams in relation to the teaching, assessment, achievement and importance of employability skills in specific courses. survey responses provided evidence of the following stakeholders’ perceptions of:  graduates with up to five years’ experience the extent to which their course experience contributed to their achievement of the capabilities and overall workreadiness, and the importance of the capabilities to professional success;  employers the extent to which graduates demonstrated the capabilities and their overall work-readiness, and the importance of the capabilities to graduates’ professional success; tee, l., ferns, s., & hughes, j.d. (2018). the capabilities that count for early professional success in pharmacy: a case study of graduates, employer and course team perspectives. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 9(1), 23– 40. 26  the course team the extent to which graduates demonstrated the capabilities and their overall work-readiness, the importance of the capabilities to graduates’ professional success, their own confidence in teaching and assessing the capabilities, and personal incentives and disincentives for assisting students to develop workrelated skills. the 14 capabilities in the gei were drawn from item 12 in the australian university survey of student engagement (ausse) (coates, 2009) which was derived from item 11 in the national survey of student engagement (nsse) widely used in the united states (kuh, 2001). the gei asks graduates of up to five years ‘to what extent did your experience during this degree contribute to your development in the following areas?’ further it asks employers and course teams ‘to what extent do new graduates generally demonstrate each of the following?’ in addition, the gei also questions the stakeholder groups about their perceptions of importance: ‘how important do you think each of the following is to the employment success of new graduates of this degree?’ response categories for all items match the ausse and the nsse: namely very little; some; quite a bit; or very much. results are reported as percentage agreement with each response category. table 1 shows the 14 capabilities. table 1: graduate capabilities abbreviated title full text in survey 1. knowledge work related knowledge and skills 2. writing writing clearly and effectively 3. speaking speaking clearly and effectively 4. thinking thinking critically and analytically 5. quantitative analysing quantitative problems 6. using ict using computing and information technology 7. teamwork working effectively with others 8. independent learning learning effectively on your own 9. intercultural understanding understanding people of other racial and ethnic backgrounds 10. problem-solving solving complex, real-world problems 11. values & ethics developing a personal code of values and ethics 12. community engagement contributing to the welfare of your community 13. industry awareness developing general industry awareness 14. social contexts understanding different social contexts the gei surveys also gathered qualitative information from each of the stakeholder groups. graduates are asked:  what were the best aspects of this degree in developing your skills for employment?  how could the degree be changed to improve your skills for employment? employers are asked:  what skills, attributes and personal qualities do you consider to be the most useful for new graduates in this field?  which (if any) skills, attributes and personal qualities of new graduate attributes would you prioritise for improvement? course teams are asked:  what do you see as the main incentives for teaching staff to assist students to develop work-related skills, attributes and personal qualities?  what do you see as the main disincentives for teaching staff to assist students to develop work-related skills, attributes and personal qualities? tee, l., ferns, s., & hughes, j.d. (2018). the capabilities that count for early professional success in pharmacy: a case study of graduates, employer and course team perspectives. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 9(1), 23– 40. 27  what do you see as your role in assisting students to develop these attributes, skills and personal qualities?  what sort of staff development opportunities would increase your confidence to teach and assess work-related skills, attributes and personal qualities? the gei surveys were administered online for the bachelor of pharmacy. the surveys were opened on 8th september 2010 and 15th october 2012. the alumni office emailed the survey to graduates on behalf of the researchers. the head of school was approached to contact employers and relevant networks to optimise the likelihood that industry stakeholders would respond to the survey. a link to the survey was emailed to all staff with teaching responsibilities in the bachelor of pharmacy. staff also attended an information session where an explanation of the gei was provided and the value of the stakeholder data in informing the curriculum review process outlined. results demographic data in total, 460 graduates were contacted and 95 responded to the survey, representing a response rate of 20.7 per cent (although it is not possible to calculate a definitive response rate because the number of ‘live’ email addresses in the alumni database is unknown). graduate demographic information is provided in table 2. the graduate respondent group was predominantly female, aged under 25, and up to two years post-graduation. the majority of respondents were enrolled at an australian campus and working full-time. all but two were in employment related to their degree. of those not employed, the majority had previously worked in an area related to their degree. table 2: graduate demographic details (n=95) question possible responses n % gender male 34 35.8 female 59 62.1 no answer 2 2.1 age 25 or younger 58 61.1 26-35 33 34.7 36-45 2 2.1 45 or older 1 1.1 no answer 1 1.1 years since graduation 1 36 37.9 2 20 21.1 3 15 15.8 4 14 14.7 5 9 9.5 no answer 1 1.1 employment full-time 70 73.7 part-time 15 15.8 not employed 9 9.5 no answer 1 1.1 employers were contacted by the head of school. in total, 109 employers responded, although a response rate cannot be calculated as the initial number of employers contacted is not known. the respondent group was predominantly male employers, most were in the position of owner of a small to medium enterprise in the health and community services sector. more detailed employer demographic information is provided in table 3. tee, l., ferns, s., & hughes, j.d. (2018). the capabilities that count for early professional success in pharmacy: a case study of graduates, employer and course team perspectives. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 9(1), 23– 40. 28 table 3: employer demographic details (n = 109) question possible responses n % position in organisation executive manager 17 15.6 middle manager 9 8.3 owner of a small-medium enterprise 80 73.4 other 3 2.8 type of organisation small-medium enterprise 95 87.2 public sector 9 8.3 large private sector enterprise 4 3.7 no answer 1 0.9 organisation located in australia or new zealand 108 99.1 no answer 1 0.9 sector health and community services 72 66.1 retail trade 37 33.9 gender male 73 67.0 female 34 31.2 no answer 2 1.8 in total, 42 members of the course team responded to the survey. two thirds of the respondents to the course team survey were female, and the majority had recent industry experience. almost half of the respondents were employed on a sessional or casual contract with the remainder evenly divided between fixed term and continuing contracts. almost one third of the respondents had three years or less university teaching experience, while half indicated that they had more than seven years university teaching experience. detailed course team demographic information is provided in table 4 table 4: course team demographic details (n=42) question possible responses n % type of contract full-time continuing contract 13 30.9 part-time continuing contract 0 0.0 full-time fixed contract 4 9.5 part-time fixed contract 7 16.7 sessional/casual contract 18 42.9 years teaching at university 3 years or less 14 33.3 between 4 and 7 8 19.0 more than 7 20 47.6 extent of industry experience more extensive (5+ years) 30 71.4 moderately extensive (1 to 5 years) 9 21.4 less extensive (< 1 year) 3 7.1 recency of industry experience more recently 23 54.8 moderately recently 13 31.0 less recently 6 14.3 gender male 10 23.8 female 32 76.2 quantitative results graduates in general, graduates were less likely to report that capabilities were more developed than they were to perceive the same capabilities were more important (figure 1). the greatest tee, l., ferns, s., & hughes, j.d. (2018). the capabilities that count for early professional success in pharmacy: a case study of graduates, employer and course team perspectives. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 9(1), 23– 40. 29 discrepancies between importance and extent of development were in ‘intercultural understanding’, ‘contributing to the welfare of your community’ and ‘understanding different social contexts’ with a difference in percentage agreement between more important and more developed of 23 per cent to 25 per cent. figure 1: comparison of graduate perceptions of the extent the degree experience contributed to capability development (percentage agreement with ‘quite a bit’ or ‘very much’) with the importance of those capabilities (percentage agreement with ‘quite’ or ‘very important’) employers figure 2 shows a comparison of employer perceptions of extent and importance: that is, the extent to which the capabilities are demonstrated (percentage agreement ‘quite a bit’ or ‘very much’) versus the importance of each (percentage agreement ‘quite a bit’ or ‘very important’). ideally, the two data lines would be in close proximity, indicating that what is perceived as important is developed to a similar extent. the figure shows employers perceived that ‘using computing and information technology’ was commonly demonstrated by graduates, but most other capabilities were deemed to be more important, but less demonstrated. the greatest discrepancy between importance and extent of development was in ‘problem solving’ with a difference of 64 per cent agreement. a difference of 45-49 per cent was observed in ‘speaking’, ‘thinking’, ‘industry awareness’ and ‘social contexts’. figure 2: comparison of employer perceptions of the extent graduates demonstrate each capability (percentage agreement with ‘quite a bit’ or ‘very much’) with the importance of the capabilities (percentage agreement with ‘quite’ or ‘very important’) 0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100% 1. knowledge 2. writing 3. speaking 4. thinking 5. quantitative 6. using ict 7. teamwork 8. independent… 9. intercultural… 10. problem-solving 11. values and ethics 12. community… 13. industry… 14. social contexts developed more in course more important 0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100% 1. knowledge 2. writing 3. speaking 4. thinking 5. quantitative 6. using ict 7. teamwork 8. independent… 9. intercultural… 10. problem-solving 11. values and ethics 12. community… 13. industry… 14. social contexts demonstrated more more important tee, l., ferns, s., & hughes, j.d. (2018). the capabilities that count for early professional success in pharmacy: a case study of graduates, employer and course team perspectives. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 9(1), 23– 40. 30 course team as with employers, members of the course team perceived that ‘using computing and information technology’ was adequately demonstrated by new graduates (figure 3). discrepancies were evident in most other capabilities and closely reflect employers’ perceptions with the greatest discrepancy between importance and extent of development in ‘problem solving’ (64% difference of agreement). figure 3: comparison of course team perceptions of the extent graduates demonstrate each capability (percentage agreement with ‘quite a bit’ or ‘very much’) with the importance of capabilities (percentage agreement with ‘quite’ or ‘very important’) figure 4 presents a comparison of course team perceptions of their confidence in teaching and assessing each capability (percentage agreement with ‘quite confident’ and ‘very confident’). members of the course team expressed high levels of confidence in teaching and assessing most capabilities. figure 4: comparison of course team confidence in teaching and assessing each capability (percentage agreement with ‘quite’ or ‘very important’) 0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100% 1. knowledge 2. writing 3. speaking 4. thinking 5. quantitative 6. using ict 7. teamwork 8. independent… 9. intercultural… 10. problem-solving 11. values and ethics 12. community… 13. industry… 14. social contexts demonstrated more more important 0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100% 1. knowledge 2. writing 3. speaking 4. thinking 5. quantitative 6. using ict 7. teamwork 8. independent learning 9. intercultural understanding 10. problem-solving 11. values and ethics 12. community engagement 13. industry awareness 14. social contexts more confident teaching more confident assessing tee, l., ferns, s., & hughes, j.d. (2018). the capabilities that count for early professional success in pharmacy: a case study of graduates, employer and course team perspectives. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 9(1), 23– 40. 31 comparison of stakeholder perceptions figure 5 presents a triangulation of the stakeholder groups’ perceptions of the capabilities that are most important for professional success. the figure shows that the three stakeholder groups agree on the level of importance for most capabilities. discrepancies in the range of 20 per cent were seen in relation to using computing and information technology. both the employers and course team perceived that ’using computing and information technology’ was important to the success of a professional career and graduates demonstrated the capability, although graduates deemed it less important. figure 5: a comparison of graduate, employer and course team perceptions of capabilities perceived as more important to early professional success (percentage agreement ‘quite’ or 'very important') similarly, figure 6 shows a comparison of perceptions of the capabilities demonstrated more commonly by graduates (according to employers and course teams). the figure shows close similarity between employer and course team perceptions. employers and course team perceived that ‘using computing and information technology’ was commonly demonstrated by graduates. in contrast graduates perceived they demonstrated all other capabilities to a greater degree than employers and the course team. capabilities including ’thinking’, ’problem solving’ and ’quantitative’ were perceived as not well demonstrated by graduates. figure 6: a comparison of graduate, employer and course team perceptions of capabilities perceived as more demonstrated or developed (percentage agreement ‘quite’ or ‘very much’) 0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100% 1. knowledge 2. writing 3. speaking 4. thinking 5. quantitative 6. using ict 7. teamwork 8. independent… 9. intercultural… 10. problem-solving 11. values and… 12. community… 13. industry… 14. social contexts graduates employers course team 0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100% 1. knowledge 2. writing 3. speaking 4. thinking 5. quantitative 6. using ict 7. teamwork 8. independent… 9. intercultural… 10. problem-… 11. values and… 12. community… 13. industry… 14. social contexts graduates employers course team tee, l., ferns, s., & hughes, j.d. (2018). the capabilities that count for early professional success in pharmacy: a case study of graduates, employer and course team perspectives. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 9(1), 23– 40. 32 qualitative responses graduates graduates were invited to provide free text responses to two items:  what were the best aspects of this degree in developing your skills for employment?  how could the degree be changed to improve your skills for employment? in total 74 graduates provided qualitative response. graduate comments on the best aspects of the degree identified the work placement in the final year and acquiring knowledge to facilitate their role as a pharmacist (table 5). table 5: qualitative comments by the graduates on the best aspects of the course theme rank qualitative comments on best aspects of the course work placement (47/74 respondents) 1 qualitative comments very clearly illustrate that graduates highly value the fourth year work experience in form of placement – 66.2% of respondents, for example:  the many opportunities to partake in practical learning in the community/hospital. i found 4th year to be particularly beneficial in order to ready me for the graduate world, especially doing 3 rotations.  practical work experience at different pharmacies throughout final year of pharmacy degree benefited the development of skills and learned theoretical knowledge. knowledge (14/74 respondents) 2 19.7% graduate respondents indicated they appreciate the theoretical and pharmaceutical knowledge acquired in the pharmacy course:  the scope it covers, from pharmaceutical knowledge to business knowledge to the science behind it to management skills communication (7/74respondents) 3 graduates commented having the opportunity to gain confidence and further develop communication skill which is viewed as an important component of the profession as pharmacists – 9.9% of respondents:  presentations and oral exams to polish communication skills  make me more confident in communicating and patient counseling practical labs and tutorials (6/74respondents) 4 graduates also value the interactive tutorial and practical class:  small tutorial groups and discussion groups helped to improve critical thinking and problem solving skills, which are very important in working as a pharmacist graduates also valued the opportunity to develop communication skills to gain confidence in their role as pharmacists. whilst graduates valued highly the work placement component of the course, they recommended an increase in practical components in the form of placement and work-related practical laboratories/tutorials (table 6). specific comments indicated a desire for more hospital placements and a placement earlier in the course. some indicated a desire for more diversity in placements such as an international placement. comments also related to the need for increased opportunities to apply knowledge, more exposure to tee, l., ferns, s., & hughes, j.d. (2018). the capabilities that count for early professional success in pharmacy: a case study of graduates, employer and course team perspectives. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 9(1), 23– 40. 33 business, and learning experiences that focus on the social, ethical and psychological aspects in the role as pharmacist when dealing with medication to diverse cultures. table 6: qualitative comments by the graduates on aspects of the course which need improvement theme rank qualitative comments on aspects of course which need improvement more work placement (19/61) 1 graduates indicated that they would like opportunity for more placements and also for more hospital placement opportunity:  i think we could incorporate more practical components into the course. i like the idea of working at different areas of pharmacy in final year of pharmacy. i think that should be continued as it had definitely helped me to gain the experience i need before i enter the workforce. exposure to work placement in first year and restructure course to increase relevance in early years (10/61) 2 whilst majority of graduates comments are related to work placement, specific comment indicating a desire for an earlier introduction of work integrated learning was also indicated:  more work place rotations, preferably beginning early in the degree coupled by more hands on case study in a real setting rather than theoretical knowledge more hospital placement (6/61) 3 graduates indicated that they would like opportunity for more placement and also for more hospital placement opportunity:  it would have been good to get a hospital rotation but i realise there is just no room for the number of students. i would have preferred more, smaller rotations rather than 3 rotations all about 8 weeks long. application of knowledge (6 /61 respondents) 4 graduates commented they value having the opportunity to apply their knowledge and have desire for increased opportunity to apply knowledge in increase placement, practical lab and tutorials:  make it 5 years degree course and add more rotations since pharmacist need to practice and put his knowledge in to practice.  learn more practical components of pharmacy (counselling scenarios, disease states) earlier on in the degree so you can use this knowledge at your workplace. business unit (4/61) 5  implementing more units on business development and more exposure to the profession in early years of study.  the structure of the degree has already been changedprimary care is now taught in year 1 instead of year 2 which allows students to fit in to their part-time work more easily. from 2011 the fourth year students will have a choice in majoring in a business unit. i think that would help the graduates even more in their future employment. tee, l., ferns, s., & hughes, j.d. (2018). the capabilities that count for early professional success in pharmacy: a case study of graduates, employer and course team perspectives. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 9(1), 23– 40. 34 employers employers were invited to provide free text responses to two items:  what skills, attributes and personal qualities do you consider to be the most useful for new graduates in this field?  which (if any) skills, attributes and personal qualities of new graduate attributes would you prioritise for improvement? for convenience, these are referred to as most useful and needs improvement in this report. in total, 102 employers provided a qualitative response. of the 102 employers, 94 perceived that professional skills and attributes were the most useful capabilities and 73 identified communication as among the most useful capabilities for new pharmacy graduates. the various aspects of professional attribute are indicated in table 7. table 7: qualitative comments by employers on the most useful attributes for new graduates and those which need improvement rank most useful most useful of 102 respondents rank needs improvement needs improvement of 102 respondents professional skills 1 94 1 71 (i) empathy 36 11 (ii) positive attitude, willingness to learn, enthusiastic 38 11 (iii) self-discipline, independent, time management, organisational skills 52 12 (iv) accuracy, attention to details, dispensing skills 15 3 (v) leadership, industry, business management 12 16 (vi) it computer skill 3 1 communication skills 2 73 2 48 (i) communication in terms of language and clear communication 72 49 (ii) ability to counsel and personal relation skill 32 20 (iii) teamwork able to work and communicate as team 17 8 knowledge 3 34 3 17 problem solving/critical thinking 4 15 4 15 employers (34 of 102) also mentioned discipline specific knowledge and skills, and the ability to apply that knowledge in the workplace situation. employers frequently mentioned tee, l., ferns, s., & hughes, j.d. (2018). the capabilities that count for early professional success in pharmacy: a case study of graduates, employer and course team perspectives. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 9(1), 23– 40. 35 professional attributes, such as trustworthiness, empathy, flexibility and approachability. other capabilities mentioned as the most useful for new pharmacy graduates by employers were organisational skills, leadership and business/management skills. employer comments on the capabilities in need of improvement were similar to the comments made on the ‘most useful’ capabilities. employers frequently mentioned communication skills (48 of 102), professional skills (71 of 102), and ability to apply knowledge (17 of 102) and critical thinking (15 of 102) as capabilities in need of improvement, along with leadership and management skills (table 7). following are some of the qualitative comments from employers on useful aspects and those in need of improvement for the pharmacy profession. people skills in community pharmacy are essential. more importantly tailoring counselling to a particular person rather than a standard approach to all customers is vital. most customers coming into pharmacy have a medical problem of some nature. ability to smile and show empathy goes a long way towards helping them through their problems. another essential skill is the ability to apply knowledge gained from university in a practical environment i.e. the ability to solve complex real problems. new graduates are often lacking real life experience in retail, therefore, when being subjected to pressure from public and working environment, they feel disappointed and leave the career. they also need to gain confidence to face customers, but to do so, they need to equip themselves with updated knowledge and personal skills such as being emphatic, patient, listening skills, serving skills, communications skills and peer skills. in addition, they need to be able to integrate into the working environment, able to work with others. ultimately, they need to have the heart and the will. ability to communicate with staff and patients, attention to detail and accuracy in all areas of their work and the confidence to go about their daily tasks independently. work effectively as part of a team, willingness to help others and be proactive to complete tasks. clinical pharmaceutical knowledge, communication skills (verbal and written), organisation skills both personal and business focused and empathy with patients i think community pharmacists need to be naturally caring of others, inquisitive, empathetic and lateral problem solvers. excellent communication, especially active listening skills, are critical to provide the most appropriate counselling to the patient. the work can be extremely stressful, so being able to cope under pressure is essential. course team the course team members were invited to provide free text comments in response to the following:  what do you see as the main incentives for teaching staff to assist students to develop work-related skills, attributes and personal qualities?  what do you see as the main disincentives for teaching staff to assist students to develop work-related skills, attributes and personal qualities?  what do you see as your role in assisting students to develop these attributes, skills and personal qualities?  what sort of staff development opportunities would increase your confidence to teach and assess work-related skills, attributes and personal qualities? for convenience, these are referred to as ‘incentives’, ‘disincentives’, ‘role’ and ‘staff development’ in this report. in total, 21 members of the course team provided a qualitative response. members of the course team identified benefits to the students, industry and university as the main incentives for developing graduate employability. disincentives identified by the course team included time and workload constraints and student disinterest and capabilities. members of the course team identified increased industry experience as a tee, l., ferns, s., & hughes, j.d. (2018). the capabilities that count for early professional success in pharmacy: a case study of graduates, employer and course team perspectives. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 9(1), 23– 40. 36 potential staff development opportunity, along with workshops or training programs on teaching and assessment issues. examples of staff comments include: students need to know what is required to be a good pharmacist and become life-long learners. they will be the future healthcare workforce and drivers for change and need to have a passion to improve patients' quality of life through medicines and lifestyle interventions. it is very satisfying to see students who take their studies seriously and with much curiosity of what lies beyond their unit scope. it shows that the student will be able to excel well in the workplace environment as they would be able to handle the stress of learning new things and coping with various people at their workplace. discussion this paper reports the comparative perspectives of graduates, employers and course team members on the graduate capabilities required for professional success in pharmacy and the extent to which the capabilities are demonstrated in new graduates. there is currently an increased focused on the value and importance of graduate capabilities, with evidence linking achievement of capabilities to professional success (scott, 2005; phillips, 2014). the importance of work integrated learning (wil) as a mechanism for students to gain work-ready skills through the application of theoretical concepts in an authentic workplace scenario, is of national significance and considered an imperative by employers (smith, ferns, & russell, 2014). the national wil strategy (australian collaborative education network, 2015) is the result of collaboration between the australian collaborative education network (acen), peak industry bodies and universities australia, and highlights the political and economic drivers to promote wil across the higher education sector. wil continues to be the focus of several research projects, many of which are driven by industry corporations (edwards, perkins, pearce, jacob, & long, 2014). partnerships with industry are fundamental to successful wil and pivotal to successful student outcomes (van roooijen, 2011). consistent with employers’ perceptions, the graduates perceived all attributes as important and believed they needed to be more developed in the curriculum with the exception of discipline knowledge. most evident from this research is that graduates value highly the work placement during their course of study, with numerous comments on the need for more placement opportunities. this aligned with the employers’ perceptions that new graduates require improved professional skills and work experience. employers expressed the need for ‘more work experience and more practice for patient counselling skills because communication is the key to success in the future pharmacy career’. whilst the course team was confident in both teaching and assessing, they perceived deficiencies in the pharmacy course. this provided an impetus for review of the curriculum and implementation of a new course structure. some of the discrepancies included the preparation of graduates for employment from the point of enrolment. the pharmacy practice component needed a stronger pillar within the course structure. graduates also commented on the need for earlier exposure to industry and for ‘counselling experience from first year’. despite being reaccredited for another five years in 2013, the course team at the school of pharmacy had undertaken significant curriculum restructuring in response to feedback from graduates, employers and course team. the revised course structure for the bachelor of pharmacy introduces increased pharmacy practice components and a new pharmacy practice unit in the first semester of first year to enable early exposure to professional practice and opportunity for experiential learning. the professional skills perceived by all stakeholders as one of the most important for successful graduates was communication skills. the new course structure also depicts a stronger and better defined pharmacy practice component which is horizontally and vertically integrated with the therapeutics and pharmaceutics pillars. tee, l., ferns, s., & hughes, j.d. (2018). the capabilities that count for early professional success in pharmacy: a case study of graduates, employer and course team perspectives. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 9(1), 23– 40. 37 this approach will enhance the application of discipline knowledge into practice, another area reported as requiring improvement by all stakeholders. an interesting and significant finding was the perception of the importance of information and communication technology (ict), and the extent to which the use of technology was demonstrated in graduates. both the course team and employers perceived that the use of technology was important and was extensively demonstrated by graduates. however graduates perceived this as much less important compared to other capabilities. it is envisaged that this discrepancy in perception on the use of technology will diminish with the introduction of a more visible course structure, where the use of technology including using the dispensary tool, mydispensary, and other simulation activities to enhance experiential learning in the new bachelor of pharmacy curriculum. with the introduction of the new course structure, there is an opportunity for future research to investigate and gather evidence to determine whether changes to the student experience in response to the present research findings, positively impact on graduate outcomes. research could further explore the value and effectiveness of curriculum review in response to stakeholders’ feedback and importantly with a change in the education environment including the increasing use of ict and simulation technology. outcomes of gei data collected from this study provided valuable information to assist with curriculum renewal. the introduction of the new course structure for the bachelor of pharmacy aimed to develop a stronger professional practice stream, has been accepted well by industry as is evident through consultation with the pharmacy advisory group. the gei was used to inform curriculum renewal activities at the university through gathering feedback from stakeholders on employability outcomes of graduates and how the degree program could be strengthened by embedding work integrated learning. the instrument provided valuable intelligence from the perspectives of graduates, employers and teaching staff and provided the graphic evidence to prompt discussion and consultation on quality curriculum development (ferns, 2012). as an example, some graduates commented that the business unit should be a core unit instead of an elective. in response to this, the course team has introduced a core business component in the new course structure. limitations of the gei and further research whilst the gei was useful for the purposes of this study, the survey questions are too generic and could be customised to investigate current and specific issues relating to the pharmacy profession, including the importance of introducing a more significant business component in the course. the quantitative and qualitative data for this study were all derived from the online survey tool. in the future, a focus group discussion with stakeholders could be explored to strengthen evidence to inform curriculum development. benchmarking with other bachelor of pharmacy degrees in other institutions, both within australia and internationally, could also strengthen decisions around curriculum design. the gei provided interesting and useful data of graduate, employer and course team perceptions of the ‘capabilities that count’ for early professional success, the extent to which this course contributes to their development (from the graduates’ perspective), as well as the extent to which new graduates generally demonstrate achievement of the capabilities. they also provide evidence about course team perceptions of their confidence in teaching and assessing the capabilities. tee, l., ferns, s., & hughes, j.d. (2018). the capabilities that count for early professional success in pharmacy: a case study of graduates, employer and course team perspectives. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 9(1), 23– 40. 38 as with all surveys of this nature, the data are most useful when there are representative numbers of valid responses. the gei results reported here have limitations in this regard:  the potential respondents were limited to those graduates and employers who could be contacted using a ‘live’ email address;  the online survey responses did not require user authentication;  responses are limited to quantitative and qualitative online responses;  the data are lagging in the graduate and employer perceptions relate to graduates and course experiences of up to five years past; and  the survey tool is generic and needs modification for pharmacy programs to allow benchmarking across institutions to address accreditation standard requirements. in spite of these limitations, the results reported here provide broad indications of disparity in perceptions of the capabilities that count, and the extent to which they are developed in the course, and identified areas which might be further investigated using other research methods such as focus groups and stakeholder interviews. this conclusion focuses on where the greatest disparities might lie: it focuses on the potential gaps using the capabilities that count most (that is, what’s very important), and where most improvement might be needed. conclusion this study demonstrated that there were discrepancies in stakeholders’ perceptions of the level of attainment of key capabilities required of new pharmacy graduates to fulfil their professional roles, but not the importance of the capabilities. in response to this stakeholder feedback, changes have been made to the bachelor of pharmacy curriculum to enhance professional socialisation, and provide greater opportunities for the acquisition of knowledge and skills needed in contemporary pharmacy practice. acknowledgments. the research has been reviewed and approved by the curtin human research ethics review committee. approval reference: ctl-3-12. the authors acknowledge professor beverley oliver, deakin university for her contribution to the development of the benchmarking gei tool. tee, l., ferns, s., & hughes, j.d. 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(2018). the capabilities that count for early professional success in pharmacy: a case study of graduates, employer and course team perspectives. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 9(1), 23– 40. 40 van rooijen, m. (2011). transforming 21st century engagement: from work-integrated learning (wil) to learning-integrated work (liw). journal of cooperative education and internships, 45(01), 5–10. whelan, m., & reichelt-brushett, a. (2019). using internship placements to road test threshold learning outcomes for environment and sustainability. .journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 10(2), 36-49. 36 the journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability issn: 1838-3815 (online) journal homepage: https://ojs.deakin.edu.au/index.php/jtlge/ using internship placements to road test threshold learning outcomes for environment and sustainability michael whelan1 and amanda reichelt-brushett2 corresponding author: michael whelan (michael.whelan@scu.edu.au) 1school of environment, science and engineering, southern cross university, lismore, australia. orcid https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4310-3291 2school of environment, science and engineering, southern cross university, lismore, australia. orcid https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5212-7586 abstract in 2015 the threshold learning outcomes (tlos) for australian bachelor degree graduates in the discipline of environment and sustainability were released. this study road tested the environment and sustainability tlos in the workplace via environmental science students’ internship placement. the study, which incorporated surveys of hostsupervisors, students and teaching staff, was conducted over four years. the surveys enabled comparisons between the performance expected of a new graduate by employers with the level of performance students achieved while on placement. overall, hosts expect new graduates to be ‘capable’ performers (2.8 on a 5 point scale). hostsupervisors also rated the overall performance of interns as ‘capable’ (3.4/5). expected performance of a new graduate for individual tlos was compared with the performance of interns. students exceeded the expectations of host-supervisors for all tlos. in contrast, teaching staff rated the performance of students lower than students themselves and host-supervisors. fundamental differences in the way students are assessed in the workplace and the classroom may account for the difference in perceived student performance. the results of the surveys can be used as evidence that the degree is meeting the needs of industry and for graduates to undertake professional work in the environment and sustainability discipline. the methodology has the potential to be used in any discipline that has published tlos. the authors recommend that the australian qualifications framework is reviewed and a rubric that describes student behaviour is used rather than vague terms such as ‘well developed’. keywords: wil, employability, environment and sustainability, threshold learning outcomes, graduate employer expectations introduction in 2010, the australian teaching and learning council, learning and teaching academic standards project supported discipline communities to develop and articulate threshold standards. the standards were to define the minimum learning outcomes a graduate must achieve. the standards included discipline-specific knowledge, discipline-specific skills and discipline-specific capabilities. in addition, the standards included generic skills (e.g. teamwork) as they would be applied in the discipline (australian learning and teaching council, 2010). threshold learning outcome statements https://ojs.deakin.edu.au/index.php/jtlge/ mailto:michael.whelan@scu.edu.au https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4310-3291 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5212-7586 whelan, m., & reichelt-brushett, a. (2019). using internship placements to road test threshold learning outcomes for environment and sustainability. .journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 10(2), 36-49. 37 have been published for 28 disciplines (table 1). at this stage, the future of the australian threshold learning outcome statements is unclear in relation to the tertiary education quality and standards agency. similar initiatives have been undertaken abroad. harris (2009) summarized initiatives refining expectations of knowledge outcomes within subjects and disciplines, including the tuning process (europe) which identified threshold-level learning outcomes for a wide range of subjects, and the subject benchmark statements (uk), wherein subject-specific statements of learning outcomes are part of the national quality assurance framework (harris, 2009). table 1: threshold learning outcomes published for disciplines in australia. discipline (year of release) discipline (year of release) discipline (year of release) law (2010) geography (2010) history (2010) creative & performing arts (2010) accounting (2010) engineering and information and computer technology (2010) creative & performing arts (2010) public health nutrition (2010) science (2011) health, medicine and veterinary science (2011) architecture, building & construction, education (2011) building (2011) pharmacy (2011) education (2011) marketing (2012) sociology (2012) psychological literacy and global citizenship (2012) physics (2012) biology (2013) economics (2013) journalism, media & communications (2013) mathematics (2013) biomedical science (2013) chemistry (2013) agriculture (2014) finance (2014) environment and sustainability (2015) tourism, hospitality and events (2015) from: freeman and ewan (2014); office of learning and teaching (2015). the threshold learning outcomes (tlos) for environment and sustainability, published in 2015 (phelan et al., 2015), were developed in consultation with more than 250 individuals: industry representatives; academics in the discipline; students and indigenous representatives. the tlos for environment and sustainability, which were commissioned and endorsed by the australian council of environmental deans and directors, are presented in table 2. graduates are meant to meet, or exceed, all tlos on graduation to undertake professional work and as a pathway for further learning (phelan et al., 2015, p. 13). however, there is no definition of the descriptors ‘meet’ or ‘exceed’. table 2: threshold learning outcomes for environment sustainability (phelan et al., 2015, p. 13) domain threshold learning outcome abbreviated threshold learning outcome transdisciplinary knowledge 1. demonstrate a broad and coherent knowledge of: 1.1. environments at various scales, interdependencies between human societies and environments, and sustainability 1.2. key environmental and sustainability challenges and their drivers 1.3. holistic systems thinking and complexity. 1.1 know: human & environment 1.2 know: key drivers 1.3 know: holistic systemic 2. demonstrate an understanding of diverse whelan, m., & reichelt-brushett, a. (2019). using internship placements to road test threshold learning outcomes for environment and sustainability. .journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 10(2), 36-49. 38 understanding approaches to environment and sustainability, including: 2.1. disciplinary and transdisciplinary approaches to identifying and conceptualising environmental and sustainability challenges 2.2. different frameworks for knowing 2.3. their own and others’ values, knowledge, ethical positions and interests 2.4. the particular values, knowledge, ethical positions and interests of indigenous peoples globally. 2.1 system: conceptualise 2.2 system: frameworks 2.3 system: values 2.4 system: indigenous skills for environment and sustainability 3. demonstrate well-developed cognitive, technical and communication skills through: 3.1. addressing research questions by identifying, synthesising and applying appropriate knowledge and evidence from diverse sources 3.2. thinking critically and creatively in designing and evaluating sustainable alternatives and envisioning sustainable futures 3.3. applying tools, methods, skills and theoretical knowledge for environment and sustainability practice 3.4. working both independently and collaboratively 3.5. communicating with diverse groups in various contexts using a range of written, oral and visual means 3.6. engaging with indigenous approaches to environmental and sustainability challenges. 3.1 skills: research 3.2 skills: think critically 3.3 skills: apply tools 3.4 skills: teamwork 3.5 skills: communication 3.6 skills: indigenous ethical practice 4. demonstrate an ethical professional, public and personal conduct by having capacity to: 4.1. reflect on and direct their own learning and practice in the context of environment and sustainability 4.2. participate constructively in decisionmaking consistent with principles of sustainable development. 4.1 ethical: reflection 4.2 ethical: participate institutions may use tlos to map existing course learning outcomes against the discipline tlos to ensure that graduates meet the minimum standard required. the present study is part of that process. southern cross university has developed seven generic graduate attributes. for each graduate attribute, course learning outcomes were developed. there are 13 course learning outcomes in total. in a study that was conducted in 2014 the importance and perceptions of student performance of graduate attributes and learning outcomes were evaluated (whelan, 2017a). the 2014 study enabled the comparison of graduate attributes and course learning outcomes that were developed ‘in house’. at the time the survey was conducted the tlos for whelan, m., & reichelt-brushett, a. (2019). using internship placements to road test threshold learning outcomes for environment and sustainability. .journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 10(2), 36-49. 39 environment and sustainability were in development. the present study provided the ability to evaluate the performance of students against nationally recognised tlos and graduates preparedness for professional employment. context since the 1990s there has been a focus for universities to produce ‘work ready’ graduates (moore & morton, 2017). the focus led to the development of graduate attributes and employability indicators (e.g. oliver & whelan, 2011). as a consequence, pressure is placed on universities to provide evidence that they are producing ‘work ready’ graduates (tee, ferns, & hughes, 2018). past studies, which focused on writing skills of various disciplines (moore & morton, 2017), overall graduate performance in various disciplines (oliver et al., 2014) and pharmacy (tee et al., (2018) did not find significant gaps in the skills of graduates. in fact, evans-greenwood, o'leary and williams (2015) suggested that the biggest challenge facing educators, however, is in forging a new relationship with students and industry (p. 33). clearly, work integrated learning (wil) is a pathway to forging these relationships and has been identified as playing an important role in preparing graduates for employment (business industry and higher education collaboration council, 2007; jackson, 2013, 2015; rowe & zegwaard, 2017). consequently undergraduates approaching graduation who have participated in wil (i.e. internships) could be used to provide empirical evidence of employability (jackson, 2010). the use of surveys of industry and students can be used to not only to assess capabilities and perceptions of capabilities, but also to review and develop curriculum. azevedo, apfelthaler and hurst (2012) conducted a survey of employers in europe and, using a likert-type scale of 1 (strongly disagree) to 7 (strongly agree), asked them to judge the value, relevance and capability of a new graduate on eight competencies. the overall mean for all capability questions was 5.4/7. similarly tee, ferns and hughes (2018) recently published the results of an employability survey of pharmacy graduates. in their study, industry representatives, recent graduates and teaching staff were surveyed to compare the extent that graduates demonstrated capabilities and the importance of those skills to graduate success. the results of the survey and qualitative data collecting in the process were used to review the curriculum. while these studies focussed on the importance of skills rather than expected performance of a new graduate, a comparison of the importance of tlos and performance of environmental science students on placement has previously demonstrated that the results can be used in course design (whelan, 2016). research aims the objectives of the present study were to 1: assess the suitability of the tlos as an instrument to quantify the employability of graduates, and 2: quantify the performance required by potential employers for each of the environment and sustainability tlos and determine if students completing wil placements were meeting the expected performance level of employers. methods the degree the bachelor of environmental science is a three-year degree (australian qualifications framework level 7). it offers four major areas of study: coastal management; fisheries and aquaculture management; environmental resource management; and waste management and resource recovery. the internship program has been running as an elective in the degree since 2002. the internship unit requires the students to complete a placement of 280 hours. very few students are paid for their internship. students are encouraged to enrol in the internship towards the end of whelan, m., & reichelt-brushett, a. (2019). using internship placements to road test threshold learning outcomes for environment and sustainability. .journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 10(2), 36-49. 40 their degree. any student who has completed two years of the degree can enrol regardless of their grade point average. around 50 students enrol in the internship unit each year. the survey the present study used results of a survey that students and host-supervisors complete at the end of the students’ placement. the survey has been conducted since 2014 and a previous study (whelan, 2017a) road-tested graduate attributes and course learning outcomes. the present study is focused on environment and sustainability tlos. in 2015 the survey asked participants (host-supervisors, teaching staff and students) to indicate the level of importance they placed on tlos. the scale included: meaning unclear, not applicable, 0 (unimportant), 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 (great importance). they were then asked to rate student performance in a ‘skill area’ (i.e. tlo). all surveys used the definitions of performance (table 3) defined in the core skills for work developmental framework (department of industry innovation climate change science research and tertiary education & department of education employment and workplace relations, 2013). in 2016 the survey was changed and asked participants to indicate the level of performance they expect of a new graduate (rather than the level of importance) and compared expected performance to the actual performance (table 3) of students they supervised (whelan, 2016). additional questions that asked for an overall expectation of graduate performance and actual performance were also included. approval was granted by the human research ethics committee, southern cross university for both studies (2015 ecn-15-183 and 2016-18 ecn-16-199). table 3: descriptors of performance used in all surveys. descriptor value used a novice performer: has little or no practical experience of the skill area on which to base actions. is highly reliant on explicit ‘rules’ (e.g. instructions, processes, procedures, and models), guidance and support and priorities determined by others, to guide activities. 1 an advanced beginner: has some practical experience of the skill area and is beginning to recognise patterns (e.g. routines, regular responses, links and connections) that help understanding and influence action. is still reliant on explicit ‘rules’ and on assistance to identify priorities, but can apply these more autonomously in familiar, routine situations. 2 a capable performer: has sufficient practical experience of the skill area to identify patterns and organising principles and establish priorities for action. can comfortably apply the explicit and implicit ‘rules’ associated with familiar situations. adopts a systematic, analytical approach to tasks, especially in unfamiliar situations. 3 a proficient performer: has considerable practical experience of the skill area in a range of contexts and is moving from reliance on externally prescribed rules to recognition of principles that guide actions. organises knowledge and practical experience as patterns, concepts and principles, which makes it possible to assess, and respond to situations in an increasingly intuitive and flexible way. reverts to analysis and seeks guidance when making important decisions. 4 an expert performer: has extensive practical experience of the skill area, with both a big picture understanding and an eye for relevant fine detail. operates fluidly, intuitively and flexibly in highly complex situations, drawing on knowledge and practical experience organised into highly refined patterns, concepts and principles. uses a combination of informed intuition and analysis in different situations, recognising that ‘it all depends’. will often reconceptualise approaches and practices to produce more effective outcomes, while also recognising which rules and principles are always applicable. 5 from: department of industry innovation climate change science research and tertiary education and department of education employment and workplace relations (2013). whelan, m., & reichelt-brushett, a. (2019). using internship placements to road test threshold learning outcomes for environment and sustainability. .journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 10(2), 36-49. 41 all statistical analysis was carried out using spss version 25. one-way analysis of variance was used to compare means and tukey honest significant difference was used as a post hoc test. a paired t test was used to compare expected performance of a graduate with the actual performance of an intern for individual tlos. the euclidean distance was used to calculate a distance between groups of respondents in 15 dimensions (i.e. a score for each tlo). results importance of tlos the study in 2015 enabled detailed comparisons of the importance of individual environment and sustainability tlos between students (n=33), host-supervisors (n=14) and teaching staff (n=10) (table 4). table 4: comparison of the importance of tlos. threshold learning outcome host student teaching staff f ratio p 1.1 know: human & environment 4.1 4.6 4.0 2.46 0.095 1.2 know: key drivers 4.0* 4.7* 4.4 7.53 0.001 1.3 know: holistic 3.9 4.1 3.7 0.87 0.425 2.1 system: conceptualise 3.7 4.2 3.7 2.65 0.080 2.2 system: frameworks* 3.2a 4.1b 3.2a 5.75 0.006 2.3 system: values 3.6 4.1 3.8 0.99 0.379 2.4 system: indigenous 3.4 4.3 3.8 3.12 0.052 3.1 skills: research 3.9* 4.4 4.8* 4.28 0.019 3.2 skills: think critically 4.1 4.5 4.5 1.39 0.258 3.3 skills: apply tools 4.2 4.3 4.4 0.23 0.793 3.4 skills: teamwork 4.4 4.4 4.3 0.11 0.895 3.5 skills: communication 4.4 4.5 3.9 2.23 0.117 3.6 skills: indigenous 3.5 4.3 3.5 4.26 0.019 4.1 ethical: reflection 3.6* 4.3* 4.0 5.07 0.010 4.2 ethical: participate 3.9 4.3 3.8 1.81 0.174 overall 3.9 4.4 4.0 means that are significantly different (p<0.05) are marked with * or have a different superscript (a/b). there were four significant differences (p<0.05) in importance of tlos (table 4).  students placed greater importance on tlo 1.2 know: key drivers and 4.1 ethical: reflection than hosts.  students placed greater importance on tlo 2.2 system: frameworks than teaching staff and hosts.  teaching staff placed greater importance on 3.1 skills: research (4.8) than hosts.  overall, students (4.4) place greater importance on the tlos than hosts (3.9) and teaching staff (4.0). the euclidian distance between students and hosts and teaching staff were 4.6 and 3.4, respectively. while the euclidian distance between hosts and teaching staff was small (1.9). whelan, m., & reichelt-brushett, a. (2019). using internship placements to road test threshold learning outcomes for environment and sustainability. .journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 10(2), 36-49. 42 perceptions of student performance perceptions of student performance (hosts n=14, students n=33 and teaching staff n=10) in environment and sustainability tlos are presented in table 5. the values represent the levels of performance described in table 3. overall:  teaching staff had a lower perception of student performance than students and hosts.  there were seven significant differences between perceived performance of students.  there were no significant differences between students and hosts.  all the significant differences were due to teaching staffs’ lower perception of students’ performance.  perceived performance of tlos 1.3: know: holistic, 3.4: skills: teamwork and 4.1: ethical: reflection were lower than students’ perceptions.  teaching staff’s perception of performance of tlos 2.2 system: frameworks, 2.3 system: values, 2.4 system: indigenous and 3.6 skills: indigenous were lower than students and hosts (table 5). the differences between teaching staff and host-supervisors and students were highlighted by the euclidian distance between teaching staff and students (9.7) and hosts (6.1) compared with the close alignment between students and hosts (1.2). table 5: comparison of the perceived student performance. threshold learning outcome host student teaching staff f ratio p 1.1 know: human & environment 3.6 3.8 3.4 0.98 0.381 1.2 know: key drivers 3.6 3.8 3.5 0.76 0.473 1.3 know: holistic 3.5 3.5* 2.7* 3.39 0.041 2.1 system: conceptualise 3.6 3.6 3.0 2.25 0.116 2.2 system: frameworks* 3.1b 3.5b 2.0a 10.55 0.000 2.3 system: values* 3.7b 3.8b 2.8a 7.07 0.002 2.4 system: indigenous* 3.1b 3.2b 2.1a 7.79 0.001 3.1 skills: research 3.5 3.9 3.4 2.09 0.134 3.2 skills: think critically 3.5 3.6 3.1 1.11 0.336 3.3 skills: apply tools 3.5 3.8 3.4 0.97 0.387 3.4 skills: teamwork 3.9 4.4* 3.7* 4.02 0.024 3.5 skills: communication 3.7 3.9 3.2 2.73 0.075 3.6 skills: indigenous* 3.2b 3.1b 2.1a 4.50 0.016 4.1 ethical: reflection 3.2 3.8* 2.7* 8.42 0.001 4.2 ethical: participate 3.5 3.7 3.1 1.58 0.215 overall 3.5 3.7 3.0 means that are significantly different (p<0.05) are marked with * or have a different superscript (a/b). expected overall graduate performance vs actual performance of interns in answer to the question regarding the expected overall performance of a new graduate the hosts indicated that a ‘capable’ performer (table 3) was required (2.8/5) (table 6). students’ expected performance of a new graduate was slightly higher (3.2/5) but the difference was not significant (p=0.09). the actual performance of students on placement (3.4/5) reported by host-supervisors (table 6) was greater than the expected overall performance of a graduate (2.8/5), but the difference was not significant (p=0.06). students reported the same level of actual performance (3.4/5) as hosts. whelan, m., & reichelt-brushett, a. (2019). using internship placements to road test threshold learning outcomes for environment and sustainability. .journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 10(2), 36-49. 43 table 6: comparison of expected and actual overall performance hosts students performance mean s mean s expected 2.8 (n=18) 0.86 3.2 (n=62) 0.76 actual 3.4 (n=19) 0.96 3.4 (n=53) 0.84 s: standard deviation expected and actual performance of individual threshold learning outcomes there were no significant differences between hosts and students in actual performance for any tlo (table 7). there were 7 significant differences (p<0.05) where students had higher expectations than hosts. results from paired t tests of host-supervisors’ expected performance and evaluation of actual student performance revealed that student performance was significantly greater (p<0.05) than the hosts’ expectations for 14 of 15 tlos. table 7: comparison of expected and actual tlo performance. host perceptions of performance (n=30) student perceptions of performance (n=65) threshold learning outcome expected actual mean difference p paired t test expected actual 1.1 know: human & environment 2.93 3.17 0.23 0.02* 3.09 3.23 1.2 know: key drivers 2.94 3.19 0.26 0.09 3.23 3.32 1.3 know: holistic 2.57 2.97 0.40 0.01* 2.92 3.06 2.1 system: conceptualise 2.57 3.07 0.50 0.01* 2.92 3.12 2.2 system: frameworks 2.74 3.21 0.47 0.01* 2.90 3.02 2.3 system: values* 2.55* 3.48 0.94 0.00* 3.42* 3.65 2.4 system: indigenous* 2.39* 2.93 0.55 0.00* 3.03* 3.12 3.1 skills: research 3.03 3.42 0.39 0.03* 3.29 3.55 3.2 skills: think critically* 2.73* 3.29 0.56 0.00* 3.17* 3.39 3.3 skills: apply tools 3.00 3.38 0.38 0.05* 3.15 3.42 3.4 skills: teamwork 3.39 3.87 0.48 0.01* 3.80 3.88 3.5 skills: communication* 2.90* 3.42 0.52 0.01* 3.52* 3.50 3.6 skills: indigenous* 2.48* 3.07 0.59 0.00* 3.05* 2.94 4.1 ethical: reflection* 2.94* 3.55 0.61 0.00* 3.41* 3.47 4.2 ethical: participate* 2.68* 3.26 0.58 0.00* 3.17* 3.27 overall 2.79 3.29 0.50 3.20 3.33 *significant difference (p<0.05). road test: threshold learning outcomes for environment and sustainability the environment and sustainability tlos were developed using a rigorous and extensive process and were endorsed by the australian council of deans and directors (phelan et al., 2015). the present study enabled the performance of graduates to be assessed using this nationally recognised standard. an earlier study (whelan, 2017a) evaluated the course learning outcomes and graduate attributes that were developed ‘in house’. overall, the results from the previous study were similar but in the previous study the hosts perceived performance of students was whelan, m., & reichelt-brushett, a. (2019). using internship placements to road test threshold learning outcomes for environment and sustainability. .journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 10(2), 36-49. 44 approaching ‘proficient’ (3.8/5), while in the present study their performance was rated ‘capable’ (3.3/5). the complexity of the tlos may be a factor that contributed to a lower perception of student performance. combining skills within a tlo may have made it more difficult for students to demonstrate their skills. many of the tlos combine 3 or more skills (see table 2), but course learning outcomes and graduate attributes tend to be simpler as shown in the course learning outcome: demonstrate imagination, initiative and enterprise in problem-solving. tlo 3.2 is the closest to this course learning outcome: demonstrate well-developed cognitive, technical and communication skills through thinking critically and creatively in designing and evaluating sustainable alternatives and envisioning sustainable futures. as a respondent completing the survey it is easier to reflect on a student’s placement and remember how they solved a problem rather than associate tlo 3.2 to a task in the workplace. however, the simpler course learning outcome does not provide context for problem solving. problem solving while on placement may have had little bearing on how the student performs as a professional working in the discipline of environment and sustainability. tee, ferns and hughes (2018) also considered that the general employability indicators developed by oliver and whelan (2011) needed to be more discipline specific. it would be unrealistic for a host-supervisor to expect that a student who has completed 2.5 to 3 years of study to be working at an expert level for any of the threshold learning outcomes. for some tlos it is realistic that the student is proficient. for example, one would expect that after 2.5 years a student would be able to find information to conduct a literature review to a proficient skill level. however, this skill is incorporated into a more complex threshold learning outcome: ‘3.1 addressing research questions by identifying, synthesizing and applying appropriate knowledge and evidence from diverse sources’. road test: what skill level is required? the 2015 survey asked the respondents for the importance of a threshold learning outcome, but it did not ask the skill level required of a new graduate working in the discipline. in subsequent surveys these questions were replaced with questions that asked ‘what skill level is required of a new graduate?’ the importance values were quite high (4.0) in comparison to the expectations of a new graduate (2.8). while questioning importance may provide a course designer with areas of focus, it doesn’t provide a standard (i.e. descriptor of student behaviour). the graduate employability indicators asks respondents the importance of skills to graduate success (oliver & whelan, 2011). there may be tlos that are important, but the skill level expected of a new graduate is low. the study conducted by (azevedo et al., 2012) reported a value (relevance/capability) of competencies using a likert scale. the result 5.4/7.0 is very similar to the average importance found in the present study (3.9/5 or 5.5/7). changing the survey to focus on expected performance made it possible to compare expected performance of a new graduate with the perceived performance of the student on placement. results of the paired t test revealed that internship students were performing beyond the expectations of a new graduate (table 7). from the hosts’ perspective tlo 3.4 skills: teamwork was the most important. it was ranked of greatest importance (table 4) and highest in expected performance (table 7). this result is consistent with other studies (deloitte access economics pty ltd & office of the chief scientist, 2014; ferns, 2012; oliver, 2010; oliver, freeman, young, yu, & verma, 2014). the tlos related to indigenous studies were consistently ranked lowest by hosts (importance/expected performance). given the diversity of placements, this result was not unexpected. for example, a student on placement in a laboratory testing water samples may not be using skills associated with engaging or understanding the perspectives of indigenous people. in whelan, m., & reichelt-brushett, a. (2019). using internship placements to road test threshold learning outcomes for environment and sustainability. .journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 10(2), 36-49. 45 addition, hosts who are involved with issues involving indigenous people may not have high expectations of a new graduate. are teaching staff on track to deliver the graduates future employers want? the teaching staff surveyed taught core units in the degree and were responsible for the curriculum content and assessment. the 2015 study revealed that hosts and teaching staff placed similar levels of importance on individual tlos and were close when the euclidian distance was calculated. there was only one significant difference between teaching staff and hosts (tlo 3.1 skills: research). teaching staff consider research was significantly (p<0.05) more important (4.8) than hosts (3.9). the results of the present study are not consistent with oliver, whelan, hunt and hammer (2011) or tee et al. (2018). in these studies industry and teaching staff were well aligned and students perceived that they performed better than teaching staff and industry. in both oliver et al. (2011) and tee et al. (2018) industry representatives were evaluating graduates in general rather than individual graduates which is different from the present study where the host-supervisor were evaluating individual students. road test: tthreshold learning outcomes as a pathway to curriculum improvement results from the industry group surveys highlighted that the expected student performance is similar to how students perceive themselves and how host-supervisors perceive the students with average ranked expectations between ‘an advanced beginner’ and ‘a capable performer’ for each tlo. the results of the study provide evidence that the degree students are enrolled in is fundamentally sound and there are no specific gaps in the curriculum. the graduates of the degree have the skills that are relevant to their prospective employers because the tlos were developed in consultation with stakeholders who employ environmental science and management graduates (phelan et al., 2015). the graduates exceed the performance expectations of prospective employers. the internship is not selective, so a student who has passed two years of the degree with a grade point average below 4 (pass) is still able to enrol and complete their placement. generic skills such as teamwork, communication skills and problem solving that are valued by employers are embedded in the tlos. discussion any instrument used to determine the preparedness of a graduate for employment as a professional needs to be quantified by behaviour rather than vague statements of achievement. for example, the australian qualifications framework (aqf) describes the learning outcomes for all levels of post-secondary school learning from level 1 (certificate i) to level 10 (phd) (australian qualifications framework council, 2013). the graduates of bachelor degrees (level 7) will have broad and coherent knowledge and skills of professional work and/or further learning (australian qualifications framework council, 2013, p. 47). in the graduate attributes/course learning outcomes study (whelan, 2017a) and the present study, the skill level of the student was scaled using behaviour described by the core skills development framework (department of industry, innovation, climate change, science, research and tertiary education and the department of education, employment and workplace relations, 2013). this scale provided the host-supervisor the ability to differentiate performance based on behaviour. the document that describes the environment and sustainability tlos is somewhat vague when defining graduate behaviour. the environment and sustainability tlos state: the bachelor degree qualifies individuals who apply a broad and coherent body of knowledge in a range of contexts to undertake professional work and as a pathway for further learning (phelan et al., 2015, p. 13). whelan, m., & reichelt-brushett, a. (2019). using internship placements to road test threshold learning outcomes for environment and sustainability. .journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 10(2), 36-49. 46 however, there is no definition of ‘to undertake professional work.’ graduates are expected to demonstrate that they have met or exceeded minimum standard for tlos and to manage this, phelan et al. (2015) has recommended using frameworks such as aqf in conjunction with the tlos. the graduate employability indicators developed by oliver and whelan (2011) do not associate skills and knowledge of a graduate with behaviour and are vague when defining performance. respondents choose one of the following descriptors; very little, some, quite a bit, and very much, when they define the extent that graduates demonstrate knowledge and skills. comparing importance with performance is flawed because the definitions of the words imply they are measuring different factors. identifying gaps between importance and performance does not necessarily mean that graduates are not meeting expectations (whelan, 2016). for example, hosts considered that tlo 3.4: teamwork was the most important (4.4/5 – table 4) and perceptions of students’ performance was lower (3.9/5 – table 5). as a consequence, designers may consider reviewing teamwork in the curriculum. however, comparing expected performance (3.4/5 – table 7) with actual performance (3.9/5 – table 7) reveals that new graduates have the teamwork skills they need. interestingly, tee, ferns and hughes (2018) used the difference in importance between teaching staff, students and industry to review the curriculum. when expected performance was compared with actual performance it revealed that students are exceeding prospective employers’ expectation. these results are consistent with moore and morton (2017) where they found that overall writing skills of graduates were meeting the expectations of industry and with oliver et al. (2014) who found that on the whole industry were satisfied with graduates. the focus of teaching staff on research skills may be attributed to the cultural bias towards research within academia (bexley, james, & arkoudis, 2011; norton, 2013; probert, 2013; whelan, 2017b). evans-greenwood, o'leary and williams (2015) explained that the difference in attitude to research could be attributed to industry’s focus on problem solving rather than enquiry. the lower perception that teaching staff have of student performance contrasts with perceptions of the host and with the students’ perceptions of their own performance. the difference in perceived performance may be attributed to fundamental differences in the assessment of students in the classroom and in the workplace. first, teaching staff assess students as a cohort with the aim to assess students’ knowledge, skills and application of skills and knowledge. however, the host evaluates an individual student for a total of 280 hours of work and assesses how well they contributed to a common goal. secondly, teaching staff provide feedback to students on the completion of an assessment item and this feedback is then used by students to improve their subsequent assessments. in contrast to the teacher and student dynamic, the host and student relationship is more collaborative, both work together to achieve specific goals. as a consequence, students receive formative feedback as they progress. traditional assessment at universities is not usually a collaboration between students and teaching staff. finally, students on placement are learning without being assessed while at university they are learning to be assessed. given these fundamental differences the difference in perceived performance should be expected. limitations the present study has evaluated the performance of students at a particular university in a single degree. the scope of the study can be extended to include more universities and a more diverse range of degrees. as a purely quantitative study it is not possible from the data collected to explore how hosts, for example, determine the performance of a student on placement. a qualitative study involving focus groups would need to be conducted to explore how such a decision was made and if the complexity of the tlos was a factor in assessing the performance of students. tee, ferns and hughes (2018) and whelan, m., & reichelt-brushett, a. (2019). using internship placements to road test threshold learning outcomes for environment and sustainability. .journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 10(2), 36-49. 47 moore and morton (2017) were both able to explore the rationale of comments made by industry with qualitative studies. conclusion the results of the present study clearly define the behaviour that is required of a graduate to undertake professional work. it is recommended that there is a stronger focus on behaviour when assessing the skills of graduates and definitions used in threshold learning outcomes and the australian qualifications framework be reviewed to reflect graduate behaviour. the importance of a learning outcome is not equivalent to performance of a learning outcome. it is recommended that studies that aim to improve the curriculum using surveys of industry should focus on the level of performance rather than importance. teaching staff value research skills more than potential employers. the focus of universities on research performance (publications and grant income) may be at the detriment of the employability of their graduates. university rankings of graduate employability exist (qs world university rankings, 2018; the world university rankings, 2018) but they are generic and based on indicators associated with employability (e.g. employer-student connections, alumni outcomes and graduate employment success qs world university rankings, 2018) or feedback from employers (the world university rankings, 2018). however, it is recommended that an index that measures the employability of graduates in different disciplines be developed and used as a measure of teaching quality. this index could sit alongside the excellence in research australia (era) rankings which are focussed on research success that does not always relate to teaching quality. the interns meet or exceed expectations of their hosts and the internship is not selective, so a student who has passed two years of the degree with a grade point average below 4 (pass) is still able to enrol and complete their placement. it is recommended that grade point average is not used to restrict a student’s access to a placement experience. it has been reported that graduates fall short of the expectations of industry. surveys of students who completed wil programs and their host-supervisors provided evidence that graduates exceed industry needs and expectations. both potential employers and students consider that graduates are ‘work ready’. for any discipline where tlos have been developed and students have placement wil available, a survey of expected performance and actual performance could be used to provide evidence to determine if a degree is producing ‘work ready’ graduates. references australian learning and teaching council. 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(2018). students perceive team-based learning facilitates development of graduate learning outcomes and professional skills. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 9(1), 93-113. 93 students perceive team-based learning facilitates development of graduate learning outcomes and professional skills judy currey1,2,4, stephanie k. sprogis1,3, gabby burdeu1, julie considine1,3,4, joshua allen1, elizabeth oldland1,4 judy.currey@deakin.edu.au; s.sprogis@deakin.edu.au; gabby.burdeu@deakin.edu.au; julie.considine@deakin.edu.au; josh.allen@deakin.edu.au; elizabeth.oldland@deakin.edu.au 1school of nursing and midwifery, deakin university 2deakin learning futures, office of the deputy vice chancellor (education), deakin university 3centre for quality and patient safety research – eastern health partnership 4centre for quality and patient safety research, school of nursing and midwifery, deakin university abstract in tertiary education, generic professional skills should be developed along with disciplinespecific knowledge and skills. team-based learning (tbl), an active learning strategy, creates deep learning and enhanced student engagement; however, its effects on the development of generic learning outcomes are unknown. the aim of this study was to evaluate postgraduate specialty nursing students’ perspectives of how tbl impacts the acquisition of skills defined by the university’s eight graduate learning outcomes (glos). a descriptive exploratory design was used in this study. postgraduate nursing students in 2016-2017 at one university were invited to participate. data were collected via demographic survey, a ranking tool, and written reflections. data were analysed using descriptive statistics and content analysis. the response rate was 97.2 per cent (172/177). participants were mostly females (n=152, 88.4%) aged 25–34 years (n=115, 66.9%). student (n=156) rankings showed tbl contributed to the acquisition of critical thinking (n=90, 57.7%) and problem solving skills (n=56, 35.9%) the most. students (n=144) made 2719 comments regarding how tbl led to the acquisition of glos in written reflections. almost 98 per cent (n=2657) of all reflective comments were positive. all students mentioned at least one glo positively due to tbl. most positive reflections related to self-management (n=520, 19.6%) and communication (n=434, 16.3%). postgraduate specialty nursing students perceived tbl classes contributed to the acquisition of their university’s glos, particularly critical thinking, problem solving, and self-management skills. the active learning strategy of tbl facilitates learning and engagement, and the attainment of essential professional attributes which are highly valued by employers. keywords: team-based learning, graduate attributes; professional skills, active learning, higher education, reflective practice, employability, postgraduate education mailto:judy.currey@deakin.edu.au mailto:s.sprogis@deakin.edu.au mailto:gabby.burdeu@deakin.edu.au mailto:julie.considine@deakin.edu.au mailto:josh.allen@deakin.edu.au mailto:elizabeth.oldland@deakin.edu.au currey, j., sprogis, s.k.., burdeu, g., considine, j., allen, j., & oldland, e. (2018). students perceive team-based learning facilitates development of graduate learning outcomes and professional skills. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 9(1), 93-113. 94 introduction over the last two decades, there has been an increasing focus on the role of universities to prepare graduates for employment. the definition of employment has broadened from yorke’s original definition (2006) to now mean that students and graduates can discern, acquire, adapt and continually enhance the skills, understandings and personal attributes that make them more likely to find and create meaningful paid and unpaid work that benefits themselves, the workforce, the community and the economy (oliver, 2015, p. 56). academic leaders now specify that generic graduate learning outcomes must be translated into tangible learning and evidenced through assessments appropriate to the discipline. generic graduate learning outcomes common to universities include the skills of: written and oral communication; critical and analytical thinking; information literacy; learning and working independently and collaboratively; and engaging ethically and inclusively with communities, cultures and nations (oliver, 2011). for graduate health professionals, generic graduate learning outcomes such as well-developed team skills, reflective practice, self-management, and problem solving are critical for the development of essential behaviours known to improve the quality of healthcare (world health organisation [who], 2011). critical care nurses provide care for the sickest, most vulnerable patients in acute care hospitals and their educational preparation and provision of evidence-based care have a direct impact on mortality, complications, and other patient outcomes (henneman et al., 2010). graduates of postgraduate critical care nursing courses are expected to meet professional practice standards (nursing and midwifery board of australia [nmba], 2016), and the performance standards of specialty professional bodies (australian college of critical care nurses, 2015; college of emergency nursing australasia, 2013) in addition to university graduate learning outcomes. to accelerate postgraduate critical care nursing students’ attainment of graduate learning outcomes, and to enhance graduate employability and patient safety, a form of active collaborative learning, team-based learning (tbl) (michaelsen, parmelee, mcmahon, & levine, 2008) was implemented into the curriculum in 2009. background team-based learning is a highly designed teaching and learning strategy that maximises student preparation and participation, holding students accountable for their own learning before and during class. students spend time in class solving authentic problems in essentially self-managed, high-performing, permanent teams (michaelsen & sweet, 2011). the tbl strategy consists of a repeating sequence of four phases (summarised in table 1). in phase 1, students undertake pre-learning using instructor provided resources prior to coming to class. these resources include clear intended learning outcomes for the topic, the first step in constructing teaching and learning activities (biggs & tang, 2011). in the readiness assurance process (phase 2), students undertake and submit for grading a multiple-choice test of the topic’s core concepts. then students take the same test in their 5 to 7 member team. in phase 3, each team works together to solve the same significant, complex, authentic problems, applying knowledge acquired and demonstrated through phases 1 and 2. the teacher then facilitates a discussion, with teams defending their position in an inter-team debate. in this process, students refine and extend their thinking, leading to deeper learning, improved problem solving skills, and positive personal and team behaviours (haidet et al., 2012). within teams, students also give and receive periodic formative and summative peer evaluations of each member’s contribution and team behaviours (phase 4), encouraging reflection, self-management and improved team behaviours (michaelsen & sweet, 2011). currey, j., sprogis, s.k.., burdeu, g., considine, j., allen, j., & oldland, e. (2018). students perceive team-based learning facilitates development of graduate learning outcomes and professional skills. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 9(1), 93-113. 95 table 1: phases of team-based learning phase 1 pre-class learning phase 2 readiness assurance process phase 3 application of course concepts phase 4 peer evaluation independent student learning  study materials provided, including instructorset learning objectives individual and team multichoice test  individual test answers submitted for grading  teams take test and reach consensus by discussion  team answers submitted and graded  instructor feedback in class team assignment  cooperative problem solving  instructorfacilitated class discussion between teams formative and summative adapted from currey, eustace, et al. (2015) and michaelsen and sweet (2011). team-based learning facilitates deep learning and optimises student engagement in a number of disciplines including nursing, medical, pharmacy, business, and education (currey, oldland, considine, glanville, & story, 2015; dunaway, 2005; oldland, currey, considine, & allen, 2017; sisk, 2011). team-based learning engages learners, and produces improved student learning outcomes (dearnley, rhodes, roberts, williams, & prenton, 2018; reimschisel, minor, herring, & huang, 2017), including enhanced communication and team behaviours, and improved problem solving and critical thinking skills (currey, eustace, et al., 2015; nieder, parmelee, stolfi, & hudes, 2005; park, kim, park, & park, 2015). medical and nursing educators perceive tbl to be superior to lecture-based education in student learning (depth, breadth, retention, and application of knowledge), student behaviours (self-directed and active learning, and peer-to-peer learning and teaching) and student skills (accountability, leadership, teamwork, communication, problem solving, collaboration, and teaching) (oldland, currey, glanville, & considine, 2012; wu, farquhar, & compton, 2018). postgraduate critical care students’ similarly report that tbl shifted them to more active learning strategies, deeper learning, improved critical thinking and problem solving, and better communication, including enhanced listening and feedback skills (oldland et al., 2017). while students commonly perceive their tbl experience positively, and broadly identify development of numerous graduate learning outcomes, the role tbl may play in shaping their development of specific university graduate learning outcomes is currently underexplored. ascertaining the perceptions of postgraduate nursing students may provide further evidence of the role of tbl in the development of mature practice-ready graduates and may suggest areas for further development of graduate attributes across the curricula. methods aim the aim of this study was to describe postgraduate specialty nursing student perceptions of how team-based learning contributed to the development of professional skills defined by the university’s graduate learning outcomes (glos). the glos were: discipline-specific knowledge and capabilities, communication, digital literacy, critical thinking, problem solving, self-management, teamwork, and global citizenship. the definitions of each glo are presented in table 2. currey, j., sprogis, s.k.., burdeu, g., considine, j., allen, j., & oldland, e. (2018). students perceive team-based learning facilitates development of graduate learning outcomes and professional skills. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 9(1), 93-113. 96 table 2: definitions of graduate learning outcomes (deakin university, 2018) discipline-specific knowledge and capabilities  appropriate to the level of study related to a discipline or profession communication  using oral, written and interpersonal communication to inform, motivate and effect change digital literacy  using technologies to find, use and disseminate information critical thinking  evaluating information using critical and analytical thinking and judgement problem solving  creating solutions to authentic (real world and ill-defined) problems self-management  working and learning independently, and taking responsibility for personal actions teamwork  working and learning with others from different disciplines and backgrounds global citizenship  engaging ethically and productively in the professional context and with diverse communities and cultures in a global context design a descriptive exploratory design was used to address the research aim. approval to conduct the study was granted by the human research ethics committees at the study site (heag-h 173_2016). setting and participants the study took place in the calendar years of 2016 and 2017 at a university in melbourne, australia. participants were postgraduate nursing students undertaking the first year of the master of nursing practice in either intensive care, cardiac care, emergency care or critical care. students participate in tbl classes fortnightly during trimester, attending a total of 13 tbl classes for the year. these 177 students were invited to participate in the study on the final day of classes for 2016 and 2017. written informed consent was granted by participants. data collection participation in the research involved the completion of: 1) a demographic survey combined with a glo ranking exercise (10 minutes) and 2) a 300-word written reflection (20 minutes). demographic survey and graduate learning outcome ranking exercise students who consented to participate were required to provide demographic information and rank each glo according to the degree with which they perceived tbl aided the development of glos. descriptions of each of these outcomes were provided for the students’ reference during completion of this ranking exercise. currey, j., sprogis, s.k.., burdeu, g., considine, j., allen, j., & oldland, e. (2018). students perceive team-based learning facilitates development of graduate learning outcomes and professional skills. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 9(1), 93-113. 97 written reflection a written reflection is a pre-existing, mandatory assessment, worth 2.5 per cent, for all students in the course, irrespective of their involvement in this study. the primary purpose of the reflection assessment in the curricula is to assist in developing students’ reflective ability about how they learn and what they’ve learnt. students are required to reflect on how tbl may have contributed to their personal learning style, team behaviours, and clinical and professional behaviours. students are awarded the allocated marks if their work contains evidence of reflection, irrespective of whether their perceptions about tbl are positive, negative or neutral. students are informed explicitly that their perceptions about tbl have no bearing on their mark or relationships with tbl teachers, and encouraged to reflect honestly. for the purposes of this research, students were additionally and specifically asked to reflect on whether or not they perceived their participation in tbl classes contributed to their acquisition of the university’s glos. reflections of students who consented to participate were de-identified and provided for analysis; reflections of those who did not consent to participate were securely discarded. reflections were analysed by a research fellow (ss) and teacher (gb) not involved in grading reflections. the unit chair (eo) was blinded to students who did and did not consent to participate in this study, and analysed reflections for marks as per usual processes. data analysis descriptive statistics were used to summarise the demographic data and the glo ranking data using spss version 23 (ibm corp, 2015). de-identified reflections were analysed using content analysis techniques (elo & kyngäs, 2008). reflections were coded for the presence of positive or negative comments in relation to any of the eight glos. a positive reflection was defined as an instance where the participant expressed that their tbl experience provided opportunities to develop and/or positively influence the acquisition of the skills detailed in the definition of each glo (table 2). a negative reflection was defined as an instance where the participant expressed their tbl experience hindered or did not provide opportunities to develop, and/or impeded the acquisition of the skills defining a glo. the university’s definitions of the glos (table 2), were referred to consistently throughout this process to ensure accurate interpretation of the data. notably, a single statement could incorporate mentions of multiple glos, given that aspects of each glo potentially overlap. in instances where participants repeated similar sentiments in relation to a glo the repeated instance was counted as another independent reflection. this decision was because repeated references to the development of a glo were considered to signify particular importance. inter-rater reliability was performed on four reflections by the primary investigator (jcu) and the research fellow (ss) with a 94 per cent agreement reached. post discussion, the level of agreement was 100 per cent (suen & ary, 1989). the same inter-rater reliability process was completed between the research fellow and teacher (gb) with 96 per cent agreement reached, and after discussion 100 per cent agreement reached. results participant characteristics in total, 172 of the 177 eligible students consented to participate in this research and completed the demographic survey (table 3), giving a response rate of 97.2 per cent. of these, 156 (90.7%) students completed the entire glo ranking exercise, and 144 (83.7%) students consented to submission of their written reflection for analysis. most participants were female (n = 152, 88.4%), aged 25 – 34 years (n = 115, 66.9%), with a median of 4 years (q1, q3: 3,6) nursing experience. currey, j., sprogis, s.k.., burdeu, g., considine, j., allen, j., & oldland, e. (2018). students perceive team-based learning facilitates development of graduate learning outcomes and professional skills. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 9(1), 93-113. 98 table 3: participant characteristics (n = 172) n % female gender 152 88.4 age (years) (n = 171) ≤ 24 30 17.4 25 – 34 115 66.9 35 – 44 19 11.0 45 – 54 6 3.5 55 – 65 1 0.6 critical care area (n = 171) intensive care unit 85 49.7 coronary care unit 49 28.7 cardiac catheterisation laboratory 1 0.6 emergency department 18 10.5 combined unit 18 10.5 workplace (n = 170) metropolitan public 76 44.7 metropolitan private 75 44.1 regional public 15 8.8 regional private 2 1.2 rural public 2 1.2 rural private 0 0.0 mdn q1, q3 hours worked per week (n = 170) 32 30, 32 note. mdn = median; q1, q3: 25th, 75th percentiles. rankings of graduate learning outcome student (n=156) rankings indicated tbl contributed to their acquisition of critical thinking (n = 90, 57.7%) the most, followed by problem solving (n = 56, 35.9%), and teamwork (n = 45, 28.8%). conversely, students ranked tbl contributed the least to global citizenship (n = 103, 66.0%). table 4 shows student perceptions of the ranked order in which they perceived tbl classes contributed to acquisition of the eight glos. currey, j., sprogis, s.k.., burdeu, g., considine, j., allen, j., & oldland, e. (2018). students perceive team-based learning facilitates development of graduate learning outcomes and professional skills. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 9(1), 93-113. 99 table 4: rank order of perceived influence of team-based learning on acquisition of graduate learning outcomes (n = 156) *note: 1 = tbl supported this graduate learning outcome the most, 8 = tbl supported this graduate learning outcome the least. critical thinking problem solving teamwork communication disciplinespecific knowledge and capabilities self management digital literacy global citizenship ranking* n (%) n (%) n (%) n (%) n (%) n (%) n (%) n (%) 1 90 (57.7) 15 (9.6) 23 (14.7) 8 (5.1) 13 (8.3) 3 (1.9) 2 (1.3) 1 (0.6) 2 35 (22.4) 56 (35.9) 23 (14.7) 28 (17.9) 14 (9.0) 3 (1.9) 0 (0.0) 0 (0.0) 3 12 (7.7) 35 (22.4) 45 (28.8) 30 (19.2) 22 (14.1) 10 (6.4) 1 (0.6) 2 (1.3) 4 12 (7.7) 24 (15.4) 32 (20.5) 46 (29.5) 23 (14.7) 18 (11.5) 2 (1.3) 1 (0.6) 5 3 (1.9) 18 (11.5) 17 (10.9) 32 (20.5) 55 (35.3) 20 (12.8) 7 (4.5) 2 (1.3) 6 2 (1.3) 7 (4.5) 9 (5.8) 11 (7.1) 21 (13.5) 78 (50.0) 14 (9.0) 12 (7.7) 7 1 (0.6) 1 (0.6) 7 (4.5) 0 (0.0) 8 (5.1) 22 (14.1) 81 (51.9) 35 (22.4) 8 1 (0.6) 0 (0.0) 0 (0.0) 1 (0.6) 0 (0.0) 2 (1.3) 49 (31.4) 103 (66.0) currey, j., sprogis, s.k.., burdeu, g., considine, j., allen, j., & oldland, e. (2018). students perceive team-based learning facilitates development of graduate learning outcomes and professional skills. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 9(1), 93-113. 100 written reflections there were 2719 comments in written reflections by 144 students regarding tbl and the acquisition of glos. all 144 students made at least one positive reflection resulting in 2657 (97.7%) comments (table 5). of all positive reflections, self-management (n = 520, 19.6%) was the most common, followed by communication (n = 434, 16.3%), and teamwork (n = 431, 16.2%). digital literacy received the lowest number of positive reflections (n= 19, 0.7%). twenty-two students (15.3%) wrote 62 negative reflections about the influence of tbl on glo acquisition. these 62 negative reflections comprised 2.3% of all comments analysed. the negative reflections were most commonly related to discipline-specific knowledge and capabilities (n = 21, 33.9%), communication (n = 12, 19.4%), and global citizenship (n= 10, 16.1%) (table 5). all students who made negative comments had also made positive comments about tbl and glo acquisition. in addition to the quantifying student reflections, a content analysis was performed. findings in the form of a narrative summary of student reflections related to each glo is presented in the following section. table 5: team-based learning reflections for graduate learning outcome acquisition (n = 2657) positive reflections (n = 2657) negative reflections (n = 62) graduate learning outcome n % mdn q1,q3 n % mdn q1,q3 self-management 520 19.6 3 2, 5 8 12.9 0 0, 0 communication 434 16.3 3 2, 4 12 19.4 0 0, 1 teamwork 431 16.2 2 2, 4 8 12.9 0 0, 0 critical thinking 358 13.5 2 1, 3 1 1.6 0 0, 0 discipline-specific knowledge and capabilities 313 11.8 2 1, 3 21 33.9 1 0, 1 problem solving 294 11.1 2 1, 3 0 0.0 0 0, 0 global citizenship 288 10.8 1 1, 3 10 16.1 0 0, 1 digital literacy 19 0.7 0 0, 0 2 3.2 0 0, 0 note: mdn = median; q1, q3: 25th, 75th percentiles. self-management students reported tbl improved their self-discipline and overall motivation to prepare for inclass activities. students reflected that learning new material can be difficult, and tbl required some students to reconsider their approach to study. students frequently reflected that participation in tbl meant that they needed to take responsibility for their own learning, by changing or reprioritising study behaviours. moreover, several commented that tbl sessions had been so challenging and thought provoking, this motivated them to refine their own learning style. failure motivated some students to continue with their personal study and find ways to reach a satisfactory level of understanding. currey, j., sprogis, s.k.., burdeu, g., considine, j., allen, j., & oldland, e. (2018). students perceive team-based learning facilitates development of graduate learning outcomes and professional skills. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 9(1), 93-113. 101 tbl has enabled me to reassess my learning method, and thus adopt new techniques in order to maximise my learning… i used to focus on areas that only interest me, but now i have come to accept learning is not all about comfort. tbl has challenged me to ensure i was accountable and organised by being prepared for each session, so i could get the most out of the sessions. commonly, students reported motivation to complete pre-learning more thoroughly because of a sense of responsibility to their peers; they did not want to let their team down. with improved preparation for class, students felt motivated and confident to contribute to in-class discussions. they recognised that active participation could influence their peers and ensure all members of the team had the opportunity to learn the material. typically i haven’t found furthering my own knowledge a compelling motivator to study, but the knowledge that the team was relying on me to have prepared was enough. students reflected that tbl prompted them to become more self-aware. team-based learning helped some students identify their strengths and weaknesses as learners and team members. students’ own reflections about tbl performance, together with peer feedback, encouraged some students to be more honest with themselves about what they did not know. this sense of personal responsibility extended beyond the classroom and into the workplace. for some, tbl prompted reflection on personal workplace behaviours, and a personal motivation to improve how students carried themselves in the workplace. in the work place i wouldn’t receive such feedback, therefore i would have not realised that my personality traits could have contributed to suboptimal patient care and/or advocacy, so in that regard tbls brought to surface my weakness in order for me to make a change. you become more aware of how you come across to others improved self confidence in class and in clinical practice was reported by many students as a result of being involved in tbl. students felt empowered by the knowledge they had acquired, more at ease communicating with each other, and in front of the larger student cohort. this typically translated to feeling more capable in their workplaces. my clinical practice has benefitted…i am less afraid of making alternative suggestions re care plans. i feel better about putting my ideas out in the open and less fearful of making a “silly suggestion. clinically i feel so much more capable of applying the knowledge i have learnt to real patient scenarios. not all students noted an improvement in confidence and motivation to learn. some students reported a desire to return to traditional lecture delivery of new material, and felt that tbl did not suit their preferred learning style. a small number of students expressed the opinion that there was no benefit in group learning and those students preferred to remain independent. communication improved communication skills in the classroom and in the workplace were frequently mentioned in student reflections. for many students, tbl provided the opportunity to practice communicating confidently, clearly, and succinctly within a supportive team and classroom. currey, j., sprogis, s.k.., burdeu, g., considine, j., allen, j., & oldland, e. (2018). students perceive team-based learning facilitates development of graduate learning outcomes and professional skills. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 9(1), 93-113. 102 students reflected on the positive impact on confidence in oral communication skills as a result of in-class tbl activities. tbl enhanced my public speaking skills as i had always been afraid of speaking publicly. it provided a nurturing environment in which i was not afraid to speak out loud, and a safe place where i could ask the questions i wanted to ask. for many students, the new confidence in classroom communication translated to the student’s clinical setting. students reported feeling more capable of clearly articulating their opinions and recommendations for their patients to the multidisciplinary team. as a result of better communication skills, students reported becoming more effective advocates for their patients, more involvement in team discussions, and ultimately greater job satisfaction. now when i need to speak to doctors or have an issue with my patient i am physically more confident, standing taller and making eye contact. i now feel more comfortable speaking louder and voicing my concerns clearly. i know that before this i often mumbled or felt that my communication was jumbled or unclear… communication skills were improved for many students through the need to teach complex concepts to team members. students were motivated to help their team members understand concepts, and so needed to consider how best to deliver the message. to improve communication, students closely observed others around them, critiqued positive attributes evident in their peers, and were motivated to test new strategies in class and within the workplace. in addition, the opportunity to speak aloud key concepts deepened students’ own understanding. some considered the time constraints of tbl an advantage to prompt communication that was of greater precision and avoided conflict. …since completing tbl i have seen the enormous benefit that talking and questioning with peers has had on my own understanding. for some, tbl helped develop active listening skills and patience. feedback from peers and a greater insight into personal capacities highlighted the need to stop and listen, and to encourage quieter members of the team to contribute to discussions. some students recognised that they had a responsibility to ensure that all team members understood the content and had the opportunity to have questions answered. working in a team, you have to be respectful of each other…having time to listen and not argue with reason, having patience, valuing time as we only had a few minutes. i always knew of the importance of active listening, but never realised that in my excitement to ‘get things right’ that i was not helping others to voice their opinions and learn. a very small number of students described poor functioning teams characterised by conflicts and hierarchies. for some students, this meant they felt silenced. of those who explored this notion, many stated it was not resolved. conflict sometimes arose between students from different clinical backgrounds (e.g. intensive care and emergency nursing). i likened tbl to being in a high school tutorial with a cohort of disruptive teenagers...i eventually felt that it was not worth saying anything in tbl, because of the 'established hierarchy' who would make decisions for the 'group', regardless of what you had to say. currey, j., sprogis, s.k.., burdeu, g., considine, j., allen, j., & oldland, e. (2018). students perceive team-based learning facilitates development of graduate learning outcomes and professional skills. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 9(1), 93-113. 103 teamwork students reported recognising the features of a high functioning team, the individual’s responsibility to the team, and developing a greater appreciation of how team diversity led to better decision making. many appreciated the diverse backgrounds of their team members and quickly learned that ‘many heads were better than one’. some students found group learning difficult and challenging because of having to work with people they otherwise might avoid. however, over time students reported becoming more patient and accommodating, adapting to team dynamics and learning to get the best out of everyone. tbl has maximised the way i work with the team; it has helped me understand that the best solutions or answers are the ones that the team has worked thoroughly on. it has helped me value the contribution made by every member of the team and not just my own. i have loved the team work aspect of tbl to be engaged in passionate, heated discussions to achieve an answer was so satisfying and a bit thrilling. students recognised the link between tbl and the power of a team approach in the workplace to solve problems and effect patient quality and safety. students recognised their individual roles and responsibilities, and felt accountable to their fellow team members. some participants noted that tbl sessions helped moderate their behaviours during conflicts, disagreements and failure. for others, tbl provided an opportunity to develop and practice skills in leadership. i do believe tbl facilitated an easier transition into a new work place, enabling me to form working relationships with team leaders and the collaborative team faster. i began to sit back and try to encompass a role of facilitator, probing the quieter members to share their ideas, as it restrained me to not be as overbearing… i found myself display leadership skills by directing the team to meet time limits and keep focused in making consensus decisions. conversely, some students relayed frustration that their teams did not encourage equal participation. at times this meant that quieter students felt ‘left behind’ and undervalued. i did not enjoy the experience of being undermined by students who were outspoken and opinionated… critical thinking students reported an improved capacity for critical thinking, judgement of data, and analysing information in their day-to-day practice within the workplace. students, within their practice of specialist nursing, felt competent to question rationales, evaluate practice standards, and incorporate the principles of evidence-based practice. greater abilities for critical thinking led many students to evaluate their own clinical practice and the performance of their colleagues. tbl made me crave for more information rather than settling with the information provided… …i can better approach situations in my clinical area in a more exploratory way, rather than having a limited perspective… currey, j., sprogis, s.k.., burdeu, g., considine, j., allen, j., & oldland, e. (2018). students perceive team-based learning facilitates development of graduate learning outcomes and professional skills. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 9(1), 93-113. 104 i am consistently relating (disease) conditions, decisions and potential problems back to pathophysiology and putting the whole picture together, which is very satisfying. the collaborative problem solving of authentic case scenarios in tbl enhanced students’ critical thinking skills and enabled deeper analysis. this was often described as being ‘pushed to think outside the box’ and understand ‘the bigger picture’. students reported developing critical thinking when being asked to rationalise their answer. some reflected that they enjoyed the challenge of disagreeing with their team members and felt this led to deeper learning. many also reported experiencing unexpected ‘light bulb’ moments after discussions held in class. tbl was actually helpful in moulding my mind to think deeper and not to only rely on the surface of the concepts, it’s like helping us connect the dots but in a different way which i think i need because i felt like it forces me to think outside of the box or outside of the pre-learning material for that matter. the tbl process mimics the clinical environment thought processes… discipline-specific knowledge and capabilities the enhanced understanding of advanced concepts relevant to specialist nursing practice as a result of tbl was reported by many students. students made links between theoretical knowledge, confidence as a clinician, and an improved ability to advocate for patients and effective patient care. i now have the knowledge to stand behind my answer and perhaps guide the course of treatment for my patient. i feel better equipped to ask questions and seek clarification. tbl has empowered me to have a say about the treatment plan for my patient. the knowledge and other professional skills developed through participation in tbl were reported to have improved students’ ability to deliver an effective handover to oncoming staff; a key requirement in healthcare to ensure safe patient care. some students noted that improved specialist knowledge increased their capacity to educate and develop rapport with patients and relatives. notably, students observed becoming a valuable resource for colleagues, even those who held senior positions. the realistic case scenarios used in tbl were recognised as rich opportunities for learning, prior to experience in the clinical setting. exciting ‘light bulb moments’ were described where students suddenly grasped a challenging concept during a tbl class. students attributed much of their growth and depth of knowledge to peer learning during tbl. i feel there is value in making judgement errors during hypothetical scenarios so that i can learn from my mistakes before moving into clinical practice. other students expressed frustration with the teacher-facilitated discussion, particularly understanding the rationales for the correct and incorrect responses. several described this as ‘unnecessarily drawn out’ and repetitive, which resulted in inattention and a loss of motivation, possibly impeding learning. i sometimes found listening to other peers challenging…it would sometimes further confuse my understanding of a topic. currey, j., sprogis, s.k.., burdeu, g., considine, j., allen, j., & oldland, e. (2018). students perceive team-based learning facilitates development of graduate learning outcomes and professional skills. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 9(1), 93-113. 105 i felt like the painstaking process of the class chats were unnecessarily drawn out and not enjoyable. problem solving challenging, authentic case scenarios required students to become more innovative and open to new perspectives. students reported having to develop strategies to solve problems presented in tbl. they learnt to work together, and use the team diversity, to define the problem according to underlying principles and concepts. some reflected they had learned patience. others learned to take risks, even if they were not completely confident with their answer or understanding of a concept, many commented they ‘had a go’ at explaining it to their team or the whole class. tbl has challenged me and opened my mind into a new way of problem solving…getting down to the ‘but why’ not just settling for the ‘this is how we do it. importantly, many reflected that they used new problem-solving skills immediately in their clinical practice. i learned to put aside some time before the ward rounds at work and think about actual and potential patient problems, strategies/measures that could overcome these problems and then discuss with the medical team during the round… digital literacy only 6 students (9.4%) reflected that tbl positively contributed to their development of skills in digital literacy. students typically expressed that they gained greater appreciation for technology and its role in learning. some noted they had become more efficient and resourceful when searching for electronic resources to complement the tbl topic. other students stated that tbl did not assist with their digital literacy but did not offer reasons for this. global citizenship team-based learning participation had made some students more open, adaptive and accepting of others. for some, this translated to clinical settings with students admitted to becoming more trusting and respectful of their colleagues and their colleagues’ experiences. students who had previously been apprehensive of clinical advice given by their colleagues now conceded there were often ‘many ways to skin a cat’. students described becoming more open to collaborate with others beyond their immediate clinical area. the value of diversity in team performance became evident to many students through participation in tbl. students recognised that learning and academic success relied on engaging with all team members. there was an acknowledgement that differences were advantageous and ought to be nurtured and explored. many students reflected that their team was highly inclusive; a sense of comradery was often evident and they patiently supported each other while trying to grasp difficult concepts. the group dynamic also brought us together as a diverse and colourful bunch of individuals. everyone had something important to offer, and everyone had a different style of engaging and participating. tbl smacked me in the face with a prejudice…against other people’s opinions i didn’t even know that i had. so mostly i appreciated tbl in that it made me face the fact that just because somebody arrives at an answer in a different way currey, j., sprogis, s.k.., burdeu, g., considine, j., allen, j., & oldland, e. (2018). students perceive team-based learning facilitates development of graduate learning outcomes and professional skills. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 9(1), 93-113. 106 doesn’t mean that his or her way is wrong. it just means that it is different. and i really grew to appreciate these different ways of knowing and understanding that each person brought to the team. a few students explained that a minority of groups were exclusive. more outspoken members dominated the discussions and decisions, negatively affecting the overall experience of some. discussion the aim of this study was to evaluate postgraduate specialty nursing students’ perceptions of how tbl influenced the acquisition of professional skills defined by the university’s eight glos. the major findings of this study were that critical thinking and problem-solving were glos ranked highest by students as being influenced by tbl; digital literacy and global citizenship were the glos ranked lowest as being influenced by tbl; and self-management, communication, and teamwork were glos with the highest number of positive student reflections. the study participants were postgraduate critical care nursing students from one university; however, with characteristics typical of the critical care nursing population. current national data shows that 89.1 per cent of australian nurses and midwives are women (nmba, 2017), comparable to the 88.4 per cent female sample reported in this study. nationally, 24.6 per cent of nurses and midwives are aged 25-34 years (nmba, 2017), compared with two-thirds (66.9%) of participants in this study. this age difference, along with the years of nursing experience of the participants, reflects a common career trajectory in critical care nursing, whereby specialisation is undertaken at a relatively early career stage. team-based learning requires students to apply learned knowledge to solve significant, authentic and complex scenarios individually and within a team. participants in our study reported that tbl most strongly influenced development of critical thinking and problem solving skills which are desired outcomes of this teaching strategy. improvement in test scores in students undertaking tbl compared to traditional classrooms may be considered a proxy measure of problem solving and critical thinking. a recent systematic review of tbl in health professions education examined 85 studies related to learning outcomes and showed that student test scores either remained static (6 studies) or improved (79 studies) (reimschisel, minor, herring, & huang, 2017). in nursing, a randomised controlled trial by kim, song, lindquist and kang (2016) showed that third year nursing students assigned to tbl demonstrated advanced performance in thinking and problem-solving skills compared to control students who were assigned to traditional didactic teaching methods. the association between tbl and higher test scores has also been shown in several other nursing studies using quasi-experimental or pre-post test methods (bouterie harmon & hills, 2015; cheng, liou, tsai, & chang, 2014; mennenga, 2013). critical thinking and problem solving skills are underpinned by knowledge (pitt, pwois, levett-jones, & hunter, 2015); therefore the higher levels of knowledge acquired using tbl as a teaching strategy is a key factor in developing critical thinking and problem solving skills in graduates. student and faculty perceptions that tbl develops critical thinking and problem solving skills have been reported in the literature internationally in numerous cohorts across various disciplines (currey, eustace et al., 2015; currey, oldland et al., 2015; deardorff, moore, borges, & parmelee, 2010; mccubbins, paulsen, & anderson, 2018; nieder et al., 2005; oldland, currey, considine, & allen, 2017). participants in the current study ranked these two skills as those most strongly developed by tbl, a finding consistent with the literature about student perceptions of tbl. participants, as practicing clinicians, are very aware of their responsibility to critically think and problem solve to make multiple complex decisions in response to conditions of uncertainty and time pressure (arslanian-engoren & scott, 2014). currey, j., sprogis, s.k.., burdeu, g., considine, j., allen, j., & oldland, e. (2018). students perceive team-based learning facilitates development of graduate learning outcomes and professional skills. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 9(1), 93-113. 107 this role awareness may have contributed to participants ranking these two glos highest. this is a pleasing finding as these learning outcomes are identified as the number one and two skills most required in the workforce of 2020 by the world economic forum (2016). the glo of self-management represented the highest proportion of positive reflections in this study. self-management is defined as ‘working and learning independently, and taking responsibility for personal actions’ (deakin university, 2018). a hallmark feature of tbl is that students take personal responsibility for their learning, specifically pre-class preparation, and are accountable to their team (michaelsen et al., 2008). team-based learning has been shown to increase student engagement demonstrated through significant increases in time spent online viewing learning materials (whittacker, 2015), and time spent studying outside of scheduled classes (bouterie harmon & hills, 2015). the processes of tbl are designed to motivate students to take more responsibility for their learning, with students reporting an improved attitude to learning when taught using tbl (park, kim, park, & park, 2015). implementation of tbl has been associated with significant increases in self-directed learning scores, thereby promoting lifelong professional learning strategies (cheng, liou, hsu, pan, liu, & chang, 2014). students recognising tbl as supporting the development of self-management is a positive finding given the autonomous nature of critical care nurses’ decision-making and patient safety outcomes arising from those decisions. interestingly, 50 per cent of participants gave self-management a low ranking despite it featuring so frequently in reflections. this glo, and the way it is defined, may not have resonated with students as a primary purpose or outcome of tbl, given that most of their tbl interactions occur in a team context. it is evident that while students did not identify self-management as a highranking glo, the words they chose to reflect on how tbl may have contributed to their personal learning style, team behaviours, and clinical and professional behaviours, demonstrated characteristics of the glo. students reflected on their tbl experience in promoting strong teamwork and high-level communication skills. they described a sense of personal responsibility to teammates to ensure all members of the team had an adequate level of understanding, requiring selfmanagement to communicate information effectively. team-based learning has been linked with improved interpersonal and team-based behaviours and significant increases in team efficacy, team-adaptability skills, and team-interpersonal skills (huitt, killins, & brooks, 2014; park et al., 2015). however, a recent systematic review showed that of 13 studies that examined whether or not learners’ attitudes about team work changed after experiencing tbl, seven showed significant improvements and six studies showed little or no change in learner attitudes about team work (reimschisel et al., 2017). participants in this study who commented on teamwork and communication glos recognised that tbl improved individual abilities to work effectively in diverse teams, and that effective communication and teambased behaviours lead to highly functioning teams. it is possible that there was an element of social desirability in selecting critical thinking and problem solving as the highest ranking glos acquired through participation in tbl. the complex case scenarios and in depth conversations within teams, and between teams and class facilitators very clearly and explicitly focus on developing these two attributes. thus it may have influenced students’ perceptions of the importance of tbl in developing these two glos. it is likely that students, as critical care nurses, were seeking to develop critical thinking and problem solving in order to provide safe patient care as these attributes are highly valued in healthcare organisations and by the nursing profession. further, it is also possible that students remembered the processes of critically thinking and problem solving as their dominant memories of tbl. digital literacy and global citizenship were the glos least influenced by tbl, as ranked by students. team-based learning does not aim to develop digital literacy as defined in this study (table 2), so this is not a surprising finding. it is possible that students perceived they currey, j., sprogis, s.k.., burdeu, g., considine, j., allen, j., & oldland, e. (2018). students perceive team-based learning facilitates development of graduate learning outcomes and professional skills. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 9(1), 93-113. 108 already possessed a high level of digital literacy through everyday private use of technology, together with the expectations of digital literacy in the academic arena and in clinical practice. global citizenship is defined as ‘engaging ethically and productively in the professional context and with diverse communities and cultures in a global context’ (deakin university, 2018). it is possible that not all students fully understood the glo or recognised the role tbl may have had in developing this glo. students who did comment on this glo clearly recognised the development of global citizenship in the ability to work effectively in diverse teams that include members from different employing hospitals, undertaking different specialty programs (emergency nursing, intensive care nursing and cardiac nursing) and from different cultural and social backgrounds, reflecting the diverse nature of the nursing workforce. working with and within diverse communities and cultures is a usual part of clinical practice, and therefore students may not have seen these elements of the global citizenship glo as an area of development. there are no studies identified in the literature that specifically explore perceived acquisition of glos (which would vary between institutions), so it is not possible to compare our findings with other study results specific to this glo. it is arguable that aspects of ‘teamwork’ and ‘communication’ are common to ‘global citizenship’ and may have been acknowledged in the rankings ascribed to these other learning outcomes. most students reported positive experiences with tbl in their written reflections; however, the small number of negative reflections about tbl also require exploration. specifically, some students reported that they disliked tbl due to an attachment to passive lecture-style teaching and a dislike of group learning. these findings were not surprising; tbl is often resisted in the implementation phase as it is markedly different to the traditional learning styles that students may be used to (frame et al., 2015; michaelsen & sweet, 2012). for most of our students, tbl was a new construct reliant on a significant shift in thinking around learning processes. in other studies (frame et al., 2015; strayer, 2012) some students preferred passive learning styles over group-oriented active learning styles. frame et al. (2015) investigated pharmacy students’ perceptions of tbl versus traditional lecture-based learning and found that students were more likely to prefer passive learning styles if they were exposed to this prior to participating in tbl. therefore, timing may impact student perceptions of tbl. our students are postgraduate level students and it is possible that they were accustomed to passive learning styles prior to commencing this course. it is also possible that preconceived notions of what ‘group work’ entails, fuelled apprehension around tbl processes for some students (fink, 2002). we respect that students will always have individual needs and preferences, and acknowledge that it may take time for this learning style to be embraced. clear student expectations are set in the beginning of the course about why and how tbl as a form of active learning will be used. of note, tbl is one of several forms of learning in our course; no doubt other students dislike other forms too. our students participated in tbl for 13 classes over 7 months, and it may take longer than this for some students to engage in tbl and appreciate its benefits. there were also reports of poor team functioning secondary to conflict and hierarchical issues and student inattention. though this related to a very small number of students, the suggestion that some students felt dominated, undervalued, and discouraged from participating in tbl is very concerning as this may have impeded learning and damaged their self-esteem. it is worth noting that embedded in tbl is peer evaluation twice per trimester of study where such feedback can be given and addressed. while unfavourable, conflict within teams is sometimes unavoidable, and similar challenges may be faced in the workforce (frame et al., 2015). it is disappointing that some students reported that conflicts were unresolved. according to tuckman (1965), all teams go through the stages of forming, storming, norming and performing; perhaps some individuals perceived their team had not progressed past storming. reports of unresolved conflict suggest that our future cohorts may benefit from further education and support around conflict resolution and team building exercises prior to the formal commencement of tbl sessions (frame et al., 2015). in doing currey, j., sprogis, s.k.., burdeu, g., considine, j., allen, j., & oldland, e. (2018). students perceive team-based learning facilitates development of graduate learning outcomes and professional skills. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 9(1), 93-113. 109 so, these exercises may also optimise students’ problem solving, teamwork, and communication skills. other research has also demonstrated that the student experience of working within a team may improve over time (parmelee et al., 2009). as per recommendations, academics have an active role in team composition to ensure diversity in experience, preferences, learning styles and personality types (frame et al., 2015). nevertheless, not all these characteristics are evident to the teacher or student at the time of team formation. the comment around student inattention brings to bear responsibility by three parties to address: 1) the facilitator to ensure all students in the room remain engaged; 2) that the team manages its own members to engage in discussion; 3) that the students themselves lead the discussion to areas of their own learning need and/or recognise that other students have different learning needs. the latter is a key part of tbl – recognising and respecting the learning needs of peers. future work readiness and the necessity of graduates developing transferable skills within the discipline specific knowledge and skills of their university degree (oliver, 2011, 2015) has been a topic of commentary for the last decade. while the context for this study was postgraduate critical care nurses preparing for practice in healthcare environments, the glos we sought to develop are broad, generic and essential for almost any job in a competitive and changing market. recent reports have highlighted the skills most needed in the workforce to meet the requirements of jobs by 2020 and beyond (world economic forum, 2016). a report published by the foundation for young australians (fya) (2017a) contends that young workers need ‘enterprise’ skills to navigate complex careers across a range of industries and professions in a rapidly changing job environment. these skills include problem solving, digital literacy, teamwork and communication. in another fya report (2017b), it is predicted that by the year 2030 we will on average, spend double the time at work solving problems, spend 41 per cent more time on critical thinking and judgment, and utilise verbal communication and interpersonal skills for 7 hours a week each (up 17%). educational programs have an obligation to design teaching and learning activities that contribute to the development of these skills. these ‘enterprise’ skills are intentionally developed through tbl. there are some limitations that should be considered when interpreting the study findings. first, this study focused on student perceptions of glo acquisition so are self-reported data. second, there were two data collectors (ss and gb) and although rigorous inter-rater reliability was conducted, it is possible that there were differences in the judgements of the researchers given the subjective nature of the data. third, when the university definitions of the glos are considered, there are some areas of overlap which may have influenced student responses. further, although students were provided with the definitions of each glo, there was no way to verify that students read and understood the glo definitions. finally, students were openly and actively encouraged to be as honest as possible and reminded that their comments would be de-identified and have no bearing on their grades. however, there is a risk of social desirability and reporting bias that may have influenced students to articulate what they thought the researchers want to hear. conclusions a high proportion of postgraduate critical care nursing students perceive that tbl is beneficial to their development and acquisition of the university’s glos. critical thinking, problem solving, and self-management were strongly attributed to participating in tbl classes. digital literacy and global citizenship were the glos that students perceived were least acquired by tbl participation. student reflections were largely positive suggesting they perceive that tbl has a positive effect on glo acquisition. as an active learning strategy, tbl is instrumental in embedding so called soft skills which are known to be vital to the success of graduates in any workplace. the results of this work strongly suggest that tbl is advantageous to learning discipline specific knowledge, and in the development of key currey, j., sprogis, s.k.., burdeu, g., considine, j., allen, j., & oldland, e. (2018). students perceive team-based learning facilitates development of graduate learning outcomes and professional skills. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 9(1), 93-113. 110 professional attributes vital for practice in healthcare environments. in doing so, tbl is a key educational experience for our students to meet essential nursing professional practice standards and the expectations of the healthcare workforce. currey, j., sprogis, s.k.., burdeu, g., considine, j., allen, j., & oldland, e. (2018). students perceive team-based learning facilitates development of graduate learning outcomes and professional skills. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 9(1), 93-113. 111 references arslanian-engoren, c., & scott, l. d. 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(2019). a pre-post evaluation of an online career planning module on university students’ career adaptability. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 10(1), 42–55. 42 a pre-post evaluation of an online career planning module on university students’ career adaptability megan teychenne1, kate parker1, danielle teychenne2, shannon sahlqvist1, susie macfarlane2 and sarah costigan3 megan.teychenne@deakin.edu.au; k.parker@deakin.edu.au; d.teychenne@deakin.edu.au; shannon.sahlqvist@deakin.edu.au; susie.macfarlane@deakin.edu.au; sarah.costigan@deakin.edu.au corresponding author: megan teychenne 1deakin university, geelong, australia, institute for physical activity and nutrition (ipan), school of exercise and nutrition sciences 2deakin university, burwood, australia, learning futures 3deakin university, geelong, australia, school of exercise and nutrition sciences abstract indecisiveness and negative thinking regarding career pathways can hinder university students’ career planning, motivation, and mental health. students intending to enter the workforce after graduation therefore need to develop skills related to career adaptability (i.e. career planning, decision-making, problem solving/confidence and exploration), particularly since career planning and construction is linked to gaining employment. this study aimed to test the effectiveness of an online career planning module on students’ career adaptability. the career-focussed online module, based on the constructs of savickas’ (2005) theory of career construction, and tailored to students’ skills and interests, was developed and embedded into the university curriculum of a second-year exercise and public health-related unit. in 2018, 80 students completed the online module, along with preand post-intervention questionnaires assessing career adaptability elements including career planning, decision making, problem solving/confidence, and exploration. dependent t-tests were conducted to assess differences in these measures preand post-intervention. post-intervention, significant increases in career-planning strategies used (t(69)=5.45, p<0.001), career planning concern (t(69)=3.73, p<0.001), decision making (i.e. career path identification) (t(70)=3.86, p<0.001), decision making confidence (t(65)=2.69, p<0.01), and problem solving/confidence (t(65) = 2.16, p=0.03) were observed. further, 80% of participants identified jobs at post-intervention not previously identified pre-intervention (exploration) and 71% of participants perceived improvements in confidence regarding job ideas/making career choices. findings from this research indicated that completing a brief online career education module, tailored to an individual’s skills and interests, improved all dimensions of the participating students’ career adaptability. further research utilising longer-term follow-up and randomised controlled trial designs are required to confirm the reliability and transferability of the findings. keywords: higher education, career planning, graduate employability, e-learning mailto:megan.teychenne@deakin.edu.au mailto:k.parker@deakin.edu.au mailto:d.teychenne@deakin.edu.au mailto:shannon.sahlqvist@deakin.edu.au mailto:susie.macfarlane@deakin.edu.au mailto:sarah.costigan@deakin.edu.au teychenne, m., parker, k., teychenne, d., sahlqvist, s., macfarlane, s., & costigan, s. (2019). a pre-post evaluation of an online career planning module on university students’ career adaptability. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 10(1), 42–55. 43 introduction career planning and construction is an integral skill to develop, particularly for university students intending to enter the workforce after graduation. the employment landscape has significantly changed over the past decade, with a decline in the overall stability and security of work, particularly amongst young people (carney & stanford, 2018). this is despite approximately half of young adults in australia being tertiary educated (organisation for economic co-operation and development, 2018). the 2015 graduate destinations report showed that about one third of bachelor degree graduates in australia were still seeking fulltime employment four months after graduation (graduate careers australia, 2015), further highlighting a need for career planning and skill development to be better integrated into university courses. negative career thoughts and indecisiveness regarding their career pathways can impact on students’ mental and emotional health (i.e., leading to increased stress, anxiety, depression) (fouad, 2007; saunders, peterson, sampson jr, & reardon, 2000) and further hinder career planning, motivation and decision making (sampson, 2008). therefore, it is important that students are supported in the career planning and decision making process during their time at university. developing practical and effective job planning and seeking behaviours has been linked to gaining employment (kanfer, wanberg, & kantrowitz, 2001). universities hold a responsibility to provide opportunities for students to develop their career planning skills. one such approach is to embed career planning into the curriculum, which may be particularly important for students in broad vocational courses, such as health or exercise and sports science degrees (de hollander, mcguckin, sinclair, barnett, & sealey, 2018), for which career paths may be more challenging to define. although career education programs have been shown to result in improvements in career planning amongst high school students (miles, 2008; syedmohamad, 2005), few studies have examined the impact of such approaches for university students (talib, salleh, amat, ghavifekr, & ariff, 2015). we previously designed a tailored, career-focused interactive online module for students studying at the undergraduate level in the areas of exercise science and health promotion (teychenne et al., 2017), which included a number of features targeting the theoretical constructs from savickas’ theory of career construction (savickas, 2005). the theory suggests that constructing a career is guided by an individual’s vocational personality (i.e., careerrelated abilities, values, interests), life themes (i.e., career choice reflecting an individual’s identity) and career adaptability (savickas, 2005). the construct of career adaptability refers to the readiness to cope with predictable tasks (i.e. preparing for and/or participating in the role of the job) and unpredictable changes related to jobs and their conditions (savickas, 1997). this construct was targeted by the module given it is more likely to be influenced by career education programs and/or strategies, and includes four key elements: career planning (i.e. utilising strategies to achieve career goals), decision-making (i.e. making choices about career paths to pursue), problem solving/confidence (i.e. confidence to plan, seek and achieve career goals), and exploration (i.e., investigating potential career choices) (stringer, kerpelman, & skorikov, 2011). previously, the perceived feasibility and acceptability of the career planning module was evaluated using a mixed methods design (teychenne et al., 2017) and it was concluded that the online module was perceived to be a feasible and effective strategy to support university students in their career planning and job seeking behaviours prior to graduation. all students in the study (n = 22) reported that the module was user-friendly, engaging and informative. qualitative data additionally indicated that many students reported that prior to completing the module, they had little idea or preference about their future career options, and therefore valued the module as it helped them to explore possible career choices and pathways, tailored to their own values, attributes and personal interests. although the results of that pilot study teychenne, m., parker, k., teychenne, d., sahlqvist, s., macfarlane, s., & costigan, s. (2019). a pre-post evaluation of an online career planning module on university students’ career adaptability. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 10(1), 42–55. 44 were promising, the sample size and response rate was low and therefore generalisability was limited. further, it is not known whether this online career planning and education module, developed according to savickas’ (2005) theory of career construction, was also effective for enhancing students’ career adaptability. therefore, the primary aim of this study was to test the effectiveness of an online career planning and education module on students’ career adaptability (i.e. career planning, decision-making, problem solving/confidence and exploration). methods setting the study was conducted at a large victorian university, with four campuses and a high enrolment of off-campus (i.e. online) students. design a brief career education intervention, utilising a tailored, online module developed specifically for physical activity and health students, was evaluated using a pre-test post-test design to assess the effectiveness of enhancing students’ career adaptability. participants completed online questionnaires immediately before and after engaging with the interactive online career planning module. intervention delivery and components as part of scheduled course work during a two-hour seminar (tutorial) approximately mid-way through a teaching period in early 2018, students undertaking a second level physical activity promotion unit were required to complete the career planning and education module. this was linked to a small assessment task completed during the final exam. the interactive module enabled students to explore graduate and post-graduate entry jobs relevant to the field of physical activity, exercise and health. a second level unit was selected as students study the unit mid-way through their degree, and they therefore have some foundation knowledge and may be thinking about their future employment. however they still have time to implement changes in response to their career education. this approach of ‘front loading’ university courses with career planning and experiences has been suggested to enhance retention and learning (the study group on the conditions of excellence in american higher education, 1984). the module was designed based upon the four dimensions of the ‘career adaptability’ construct of the theory of career construction (savickas, 2005) (see figure 1) and details of the development and features of the online module have been previously reported (teychenne et al., 2017). in brief, the development of the module spanned 18-months. systematic searches of career/job search websites were initially conducted by the researchers over a 12month period, identifying relevant jobs in the field. video interviews were then conducted with professionals working in the jobs identified to provide further in-depth insight into the role. key selection criteria were used to link skills and interest areas to each job and an algorithm was developed (i.e. a skill/interest area was scored either 1 [if relevant to a specified job] or 0 [if not relevant to a specified job]), enabling a ranking system. savickas’ theory of career construction (savickas, 2005) was selected given that it targets improvements in flexibility and adaptability to cope with career/work-related challenges, which is reflective of the demands of the labour market , generally characterized by multiple transitions between job positions (i.e. non-linear career paths) (langher, nannini, & caputo, 2018; savickas & porfeli, 2012). table 1 presents a summary of strategies used to target each dimension of career adaptability. teychenne, m., parker, k., teychenne, d., sahlqvist, s., macfarlane, s., & costigan, s. (2019). a pre-post evaluation of an online career planning module on university students’ career adaptability. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 10(1), 42–55. 45 figure 1: theory of career construction (savickas, 2005) table 1: strategies implemented in the online career planning module and related elements of career adaptability strategy element of career adaptability a ‘choose your own career adventure’ quiz which helped guide students towards jobs based on their career interests, work-related skills and personal attributes.  career planning  decision making  career exploration a detailed overview of a selection of jobs (n=23) in the area of physical activity, exercise and health.  career planning  career exploration video interviews with professionals currently employed in the area of physical activity, exercise and health.  career exploration key selection criteria for each job identified, which could be completed, printed out and used as notes for future job applications and/or job interview preparation.  problem solving/confidence a job interview simulator including interview questions tailored to the jobs identified.  problem solving/confidence students independently worked their way through the module, first completing a series of questions designed to determine the students’ (a) area of interest, (b) setting in which they would like to work and, (c) the population group they would like to work with (see table 1). following this, students were presented with a comprehensive set of personal qualities and work related skills and for each, were asked to choose the three to five most relevant to them. teychenne, m., parker, k., teychenne, d., sahlqvist, s., macfarlane, s., & costigan, s. (2019). a pre-post evaluation of an online career planning module on university students’ career adaptability. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 10(1), 42–55. 46 based on their responses, students were then presented with a series of jobs that they could learn more about by reading a short summary and watching video interviews with professionals in the relevant field. students could then go through the mock process of applying and interviewing for their chosen job by addressing key selection criteria and participating in a simulated interview. approximately 40 minutes of class time was dedicated to completing the online module, which was reported by tutors to be a sufficient length of time for all students to complete it. students could (and were encouraged to) continue to access the module outside of class time via the unit’s online site to explore other career choices. participant recruitment this study was approved by deakin university’s human ethics advisory group (faculty of health). all students currently enrolled in the second year core physical activity promotion unit were eligible to participate in the study. the brief intervention was available to all students enrolled in the unit across three campuses and those enrolled off-campus using the university’s online teaching platform. participants were recruited via two avenues. in the first instance, an invitation to participate, including details of the study in plain language, instructions to access the preand post-intervention questionnaires and a link to the interactive online module was posted on the online unit site. secondly, students attending the week 7 seminar (on-campus and off-campus) were provided with the same information by the seminar instructor. students consented to participate via an electronic form prior to completing the baseline online questionnaire. the chance to win one of two $100 gift cards was offered to participants as compensation for their time. measures participants completed baseline and post-intervention online questionnaires immediately before and after engaging with the career-focused interactive online module (see table 2). demographic information participant demographic characteristics were collected via the baseline questionnaire. participants reported their sex, age, whether they had children living with them, mature-aged student status (e.g. enrolled in their university course after 21 years of age), international student status, currently in workforce, in workforce prior to this year, and if applicable, number of years in the workforce. career planning  career planning strategies: participants’ self-reported use of strategies for career planning was assessed at baseline and post-intervention using a seven-item scale developed for the current study. participants identified which of the following strategies they had used to develop their career readiness: a) completing key selection criteria for relevant jobs, b) undertaking practice job interviews, c) identifying personal strengths required for gaining a career in the field, d) searching for jobs, e) other. for each item participants responded yes = 1 or no = 0. the total number of strategies used was then summed to generate an overall score ranging from 0-5.  career planning concern: the concern construct sub-scale (savickas & porfeli, 2012) was used at baseline and post-intervention to assess participants’ self-reported ability to plan and prepare for their future career. the scale uses the common stem “how strongly have you developed each of the following abilities…” with response options ranging from 1 not strong to 5 strongest, for the following items: (a) thinking about what my future will be like, (b) realising that today’s choices shape my future, (c) preparing for the future, (d) becoming aware of the educational and career choices that i must make, (e) planning how to achieve my goals, and (f) concerned about my career. ratings for each item were summed to create a score from 6 teychenne, m., parker, k., teychenne, d., sahlqvist, s., macfarlane, s., & costigan, s. (2019). a pre-post evaluation of an online career planning module on university students’ career adaptability. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 10(1), 42–55. 47 36. the concern construct sub-scale has shown good internal consistency reliability (α=0.83) (savickas & porfeli, 2012). table 2: timing and measures of elements of career adaptability element of career adaptability item baseline postintervention career planning career planning strategies   career planning concern   decision making career path identification   decision making confidence   problemsolving/confidence problem solving/confidence   skills awareness   exploration career identification   student perceptions confidence regarding job ideas and career choices  degree to which the module helped career adaptability  decision making  career path identification: participants’ self-reported clarity on identifying a career path relevant to their course of study was assessed at baseline and post-intervention using one item which was developed for the current study. the item asked participants to indicate their current level of clarity regarding their future career path on a four-point scale from 1 i have no idea of what career path and job i will pursue to 4 i have a very clear idea of what career path and job i will pursue.  career decision making confidence: participants’ self-reported confidence in career decision making was assessed at baseline and post-intervention using a 4-item modified version of the ‘career decision making self-efficacy scale’ (betz, klein, & taylor, 1996). the scale uses the common stem how much confidence do you have that you could… with response options as follows: 1 no confidence at all to 5 complete confidence. sample item: identify some reasonable major or career alternatives if you are unable to get your first choice. the mean of the 4-items was calculated to generate an overall career decision making confidence score (range: 4-20), higher scores indicated greater confidence in career decision making. the reliability of ‘career decision making self-efficacy scale’ has been found to be acceptable (α=0.94) (betz et al., 1996). problem solving/confidence  career problem solving confidence: participants’ self-reported career problem solving confidence was assessed at baseline and post-intervention using a 3-item scale from the ‘career decision making self-efficacy scale’ (betz et al., 1996). the scale used the common teychenne, m., parker, k., teychenne, d., sahlqvist, s., macfarlane, s., & costigan, s. (2019). a pre-post evaluation of an online career planning module on university students’ career adaptability. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 10(1), 42–55. 48 stem how much confidence do you have that you could… with response options ranging from 1 no confidence at all to 5 complete confidence, to rate the following items: a) accurately assess your abilities, b) describe the job duties of the career/occupation you would like to pursue, and c) successfully manage the job interview process. to generate an overall career problem confidence score, the three items were summed (range: 5-15). the full scale has been found to be reliable (α=0.94) (betz et al., 1996).  skills awareness. in order to assess the impact of the intervention on students’ awareness of the skills required to enhance their graduate employability, participants were asked both at baseline and post-intervention: what skills/areas do you need to develop to enhance your chances of gaining employment in jobs relevant to your course? skills mentioned at both pre and post-intervention were scored zero, and each new skill cited post-intervention was scored 1. scores were summed to create an overall skills awareness improvement score. exploration to assess career exploration, participants were asked at baseline and post-intervention to identify as many possible career choices that their university degree could potentially lead to (an open-ended question). all jobs identified at both time points were reviewed by a researcher. to evaluate whether career exploration had improved (i.e., knowledge of potential career choices), at post-intervention each job re-cited was scored zero, and each new job cited was scored 1. scores were summed to create an overall exploration score. student perceptions of the career education module to evaluate participants’ perceptions of the impact of the module on confidence, following the intervention participants reported whether their confidence regarding job ideas and career choices had changed, with response options of: improved (1), no change (0), reduced (-1). participants then selected from a list of six possible options (including ‘other’ where another response option could be provided by the participant), the factors to explain the change. additionally, participants rated the degree to which the module helped them: a) explore different career options; b) make choices about their career (strongly agree (5) to strongly disagree (1)). responses for those two questions were dichotomised into two categories (agree and disagree). data analysis all statistical analyses were completed using stata 15 (statacorp, 2017). demographic characteristics of the sample were identified including: sex (% female), age (mean, sd) mature age status (% yes), international student (% yes), marital status (% married, de facto/living together, divorced, never married), children living with you (% yes), currently in workforce (% yes), in workforce prior to this year (% yes), years in workforce (mean, sd) and the course they were currently enrolled in (% bachelor of exercise and sport science, bachelor of exercise and sport science/bachelor of business (sport management), bachelor of health science). to detect if responses to the career planning, decision-making and problem solving/confidence scales significantly differed preand post-intervention, dependent t-tests (non-parametric equivalent) were conducted. to examine change in students’ awareness of skills required to enhance graduate employability (problem solving), participant responses were assessed qualitatively to determine whether they changed after completing the online module and if so, in what way. similarly, to examine change in ‘career exploration’, the number of career choices identified by participants at each time-point were summed and assessed qualitatively to determine whether any new jobs options were identified during the post-test questionnaire. frequencies of participants’ post-intervention perceptions of changes in career decision making confidence and exploration were also calculated. teychenne, m., parker, k., teychenne, d., sahlqvist, s., macfarlane, s., & costigan, s. (2019). a pre-post evaluation of an online career planning module on university students’ career adaptability. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 10(1), 42–55. 49 results of the 345 students enrolled in the unit, a total of 105 (30%) participants completed the baseline (t1) questionnaire and of those 80 (23%) also completed the post-intervention (t2) questionnaire. table 3 provides an overview of characteristics of participants who completed both t1 and t2 surveys and were included in the final analytical sample. although not explicitly assessed, there were no ad hoc reports of harmful intervention effects. table 3: demographic characteristics of participants in the final analytical sample (n=80) n (%) / mean (sd) male 40 (50%) female 40 (50%) age (years) 21.23 (5.78) mature aged student (yes) 15 (19%) international student (yes) 3 (4%) children living with you (yes) 5 (6%) currently in the workforce (yes) 50 (63%) in workforce prior to this year (yes) 49 (61%) years in workforce 5.4 (6.5) course currently enrolled in: bachelor of exercise and sport science 63 (79%) bachelor of exercise and sport science/bachelor of business 14 (17%) bachelor of health science 3 (4%) career planning table 4 presents the results from dependent t-tests. participants reported an increase of 0.63 in the number of career-planning strategies utilised after completing the career planning module (95% ci, 0.40 to 0.86), t(69)=5.45, p<0.001. there was an increase in career planning concern scores by a mean of 1.44 from baseline to post-intervention (95% ci, 0.67 to 22.21); t(69)=3.73, p<0.001. teychenne, m., parker, k., teychenne, d., sahlqvist, s., macfarlane, s., & costigan, s. (2019). a pre-post evaluation of an online career planning module on university students’ career adaptability. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 10(1), 42–55. 50 table 4: dependent t-test analyses examining means of career adaptability constructs at baseline (t1) and post-intervention (t2) construct item/question t1 mean (sd) t2 mean (sd) p career planning number of strategies used 1.67 (0.93) 2.30 (1.18) <0.001 career planning concern 21.07 (3.70) 22.51 (3.95) <0.001 decision making career path identification 2.80 (0.86) 3.06 (0.79) <0.001 decision-making self-efficacy scale decision making confidence 14.65 (0.36) 15.23 (0.35) <0.01 problem-solving/confidence problem solving/confidence scale 10.58 (2.24) 10.86 (2.18) 0.03 decision making career path identification increased (mean difference = 0.25; 95% ci, 0.12 to 0.38) from baseline to post-intervention; t(70)=3.86, p<0.001. participants’ decision making confidence also increased (diff=0.58; 95% ci, 0.15 to 1.00) after completing the intervention; t(65)=2.69, p<0.01. problem solving/confidence problem solving/confidence increased after completing the intervention (mean difference = 0.38; 95% ci, 0.03 – 0.73; t(65) = 2.16, p=0.03). further, at post-intervention 58% of participants reported they needed to develop at least one new skill to enhance their chance of gaining employment. the most frequently reported new skills included communication, interpersonal skills and teamwork. exploration participants identified an average of four jobs in the field during the baseline questionnaire. at post-intervention, 80% of participants (n=54) identified jobs that they hadn’t identified at baseline. of these, the average number of new jobs identified was three. student perceptions post-intervention, 70.6% (n=48) of participants reported that their confidence regarding knowledge of job ideas and making career choices had improved after completing the career planning module (see table 5). of those who reported an increase in confidence, the three most frequently cited reasons included; the module providing new ideas of jobs (81%), now having a better understanding of what the job involves (67%), and the module helped them to identify the jobs they don’t want to do (40%). three participants reported a reduced level of confidence after the intervention, with two out of three stating that they have a better understanding now of what the job involves and that the module clarified their misconceptions. when asked whether the module helped them make choices about their future career, 78% agreed. the majority (90%) of participants agreed that the module helped them to explore different career options. teychenne, m., parker, k., teychenne, d., sahlqvist, s., macfarlane, s., & costigan, s. (2019). a pre-post evaluation of an online career planning module on university students’ career adaptability. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 10(1), 42–55. 51 table 5: frequencies of post-intervention perceptions regarding career confidence (n=68) improved no change reduced confidence about job ideas/making career choices 48 (70.6%) 17 (25.0%) 3 (4.4%) reasons why confidence had changed or not yes no yes no yes no the tool provided new job ideas 39 9 5 12 1 2 the tool helped me identify jobs i don’t want 19 29 8 9 0 3 i now know exactly what job i want to do 7 41 2 15 0 3 i have a better understanding of what the job involves 32 16 2 15 2 1 the tool clarified misconceptions 14 34 1 16 2 1 ‘other’ 0 48 7 10 2 1 *tool = career planning and education module discussion this study examined the effectiveness of a brief intervention utilising an online career planning and education module for improving students’ career adaptability. the module specifically aimed to enhance the four key elements of ‘career adaptability’ comprising career planning, decision making, problem solving/confidence, and exploration. the overall findings of this study indicated that one exposure to the career planning and education module resulted in small and significant improvements in all elements of career adaptability. our findings provide evidence for the benefits of embedding career planning into the curriculum via an online module, for enhancing career adaptability in university students. career planning career planning incorporates the use of active strategies to achieve one’s career goals and the ability to prepare for a future career (savickas, 2013). after completing the online career planning module, participants reported having used a greater number of active career planning strategies and an increase in career planning concern (i.e. concern about future career planning and preparation) was also reported. these findings suggest the brief intervention provided students with opportunities to practice using career planning strategies and to plan how their career goals could be achieved, which are important skills for future job seeking. for instance, features of the online module provided opportunities for participants to complete key selection criteria, undertake practice job interviews and search for jobs in the area of their degree, which students may not previously have been exposed to. our findings are in line with previous studies which have found improvements in career planning after participating in career intervention programs (miles, 2008; syed-mohamad, 2005; talib et al., 2015). for example, one study investigating the effectiveness of a career education and development module in malaysian community college students (n=122; mean age: 20.41(0.73)), facilitated by a counsellor during nine two-hour classes, found significant increases in career planning ability in the intervention group in comparison to controls (talib et al., 2015). the results of our brief intervention are promising, given previous studies highlight the importance of university students developing strategies for planning career pathways rather than identifying a specific job, as most individuals experience multiple career transitions during teychenne, m., parker, k., teychenne, d., sahlqvist, s., macfarlane, s., & costigan, s. (2019). a pre-post evaluation of an online career planning module on university students’ career adaptability. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 10(1), 42–55. 52 their working life (langher et al., 2018). it is important to note, however, that career planning is an iterative and ongoing process that should be regularly revisited throughout university courses (and beyond) in order to foster career resilience (waddell et al., 2015). therefore, the impact of an interactive module such as the one described in this study should be evaluated within the context of an entire degree in which repeat exposure to career planning is available. decision making and decision making confidence results of this study demonstrate that completion of the online career planning module improved students’ clarity on career path identification and their decision making confidence. students’ perceptions of the module support these findings and suggest that engaging with the online module was useful for providing new career ideas, and for developing a better understanding of what certain careers involve. interestingly, it appears that the module also helped students identify those jobs they do not wish to pursue. findings from previous studies investigating career decision making and decision making confidence are inconsistent. for instance, a two year experimental study of undergraduate students (n =133) found that engaging in a career course intervention was effective for improving career decision making self-efficacy in comparison to a quasi-control group, however the intervention did not reduce career decision making difficulties (reese & miller, 2010). on the contrary, a meta-analytic review of nine studies investigating career intervention effectiveness found higher effect sizes for interventions when focusing on reducing career indecision rather than on increasing career decision-making self-efficacy (langher et al., 2018). problem solving/confidence this study found that there was a small increase in problem-solving/confidence after completing the online career planning module. further, after completing the module, more than half of participants were able to identify at least one new skill that they needed to develop to enhance their chance of gaining employment (including communication, interpersonal skills and teamwork). the ‘problem solving/confidence’ construct of career adaptability refers to efficacy, industriousness (i.e. diligence) and the process of finding solutions to somewhat complex issues (i.e. problem solving) (savickas, 2013). our findings suggest that the strategies used within the module to address this element (i.e. writing responses to key selection criteria and experiencing the ‘mock’ job interview) may be sufficient to increase this ability in students. however, given the difference in problem solving/confidence scores between baseline and follow-up was quite small (mean difference = 0.38), additional strategies may be needed to exhibit a larger change. one such strategy may be to provide the opportunity within the module for students to reflect on their experience of these processes. alternatively, it may be that further enhancement of problem solving/confidence may require greater engagement with the module (rather than only accessing the module once as was the case in this brief intervention) and therefore longer-term studies may be required to determine effectiveness. exploration findings showed that the module enhanced students’ ability to identify new career choices related to their university degree (i.e. exploration), which was further supported by students’ perceptions after accessing the module, with most agreeing it helped them to explore different career options. this is particularly important for degrees with broad vocational outcomes (e.g. exercise and sport science, or health science) in which many students have a limited understanding of relevant jobs in the field. although only one aspect of ‘exploration’ was measured, with other components such as inquisitiveness, risk taking, and taking an inquiring approach (savickas, 2013) still needing to be assessed in greater depth, findings were encouraging. previous research amongst students studying exercise and sports science teychenne, m., parker, k., teychenne, d., sahlqvist, s., macfarlane, s., & costigan, s. (2019). a pre-post evaluation of an online career planning module on university students’ career adaptability. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 10(1), 42–55. 53 related degrees has shown that providing students with career-related experiences early in their degree (e.g. work placement) can increase awareness of potential careers that may be pursued after graduation (de hollander et al., 2018). although not discounting the value of work placement experience, our findings suggest that students may gain career exploration skills via an online module, which could either be used to supplement the experience of work placement, or utilised when work placement is not able to be offered in existing courses. strengths and limitations the limitations of this study include a low (30%) response rate, which may limit the generalisability of findings. also self-report measures were used which can be influenced by recall difficulties and bias. further, not all measures used to assess constructs (e.g. exploration and career planning strategies) were previously validated/reliability tested, which could increase the possibility of measurement error. given that the brief intervention was conducted during a single class, students were time restricted and therefore it is not known if accessing the module for a longer period of time (or taking it multiple times) would result in a greater increase in career adaptability. although the sample size was sufficient to detect associations in the overall sample, the study was not powered to analyse dichotomised data based on demographic characteristics of the sample (e.g. whether or not participants were mature aged). finally, given that students completed the follow-up questionnaire immediately after working through the module, it is not known whether students actually used the skills and knowledge gained to seek employment, and whether doing so enhanced the likelihood of success. a key strength is the intervention (pre-post-test) study design with immediate follow-up, which provided a good indication of the short-term effectiveness of the module on elements of career adaptability. the retention rate (76%) was high, indicating that once students consented they were likely to complete the study. key strengths of the intervention include targeting students at a mid-point of their degree, embedding savickas’ theory of career construction throughout the intervention and evaluation (savickas, 2005), and that the intervention itself was ‘brief’ (i.e. delivered once in one seminar/tutorial). given that most units / courses have a great level of content to cover and therefore may not perceive that they have time to address career education, this study has shown that just one module in one unit can enhance career adaptability. conclusion given that developing effective job planning and seeking behaviours is linked to the likelihood of obtaining employment (kanfer et al., 2001) it is imperative that university students are equipped with these skills prior to graduation. implementing an online career planning module, tailored to students’ interests and skills, and embedding this into the curriculum, may enhance career adaptability, which could potentially lead to improvements in graduate employability (koen, klehe, & van vianen, 2012). further research with a control group, longer follow-up periods, and investigating effects of repeated exposure to the tool, are needed to confirm findings. teychenne, m., parker, k., teychenne, d., sahlqvist, s., macfarlane, s., & costigan, s. 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(2020). guanxi social-network ties: predicting graduate employment with internship host-organisations in china. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 11(1), 81–-92. 81 the journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability issn: 1838-3815 (online) journal homepage: https://ojs.deakin.edu.au/index.php/jtlge/ guanxi social-network ties: predicting graduate employment with internship host-organisations in china philip rose1 corresponding author: philip rose (prof.rose@hnulinton.org) 1 hannam university, republic of korea http://orcid.org/0000-0001-6349-3189 abstract globally internships are utilized to enhance the university learning experience and improve graduate employment. the expanding application of internships in the graduate recruitment and selection process has traditionally received less attention in the literature, and whilst this trend has crossed national borders, the transferability of this practice has largely been assumed rather than empirically substantiated. hence, this study investigates how a culturally specific form of social-networking, namely guanxi, impacts on employment outcomes from internships, for graduates within the chinese context. this study involved the collection of longitudinal data at two time intervals from intern-supervisor dyads (n=303), in order to determine the role of guanxi in predicting the conversion of an intern into an employee with their internship host-organisation. these findings highlight the role of cultural context in shaping and potentially undermining desired graduate employment outcomes from work-integrated learning initiatives such as internships. keywords workintegrated learning, internships, graduate employment, socialnetworking, guanxi, china introduction internationally student participation in work-integrated learning (wil) programs has become an increasingly prevalent component of the higher education experience. wil is used as an umbrella term that captures student activities which attempt to integrate academic programs with practical application in the workplace (khampirat & mcrae, 2016; nagle, lannon, & mcmahon, 2018). although, wil has expanded its scope beyond internships, they remain a foundational component of wil as a means by which university students can gain real world career relevant work experience in settings outside of the classroom and prior to graduation. it should be noted that when the term ‘internship’ is used, the level of structure and systematic integration with an intern’s academic learning is generally low, relative to other forms of wil such us co-operative education (d'abate, youndt, & wenzel, 2009). although the term internship was originally associated with medical students in the united states, large scale participation in internships has expanded across course majors and nations, becoming an integral component of the higher education experience globally (dessinger, 2006; jackson, 2018; rose, 2020b). in the present study internships are operationally defined as a credit bearing work placement completed by a student prior to graduation from a https://ojs.deakin.edu.au/index.php/jtlge/ mailto:prof.rose@hnulinton.org rose, p. (2020). guanxi social-network ties: predicting graduate employment with internship host-organisations in china. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 11(1), 81–-92. 82 degree program. paralleling, the growth of student participation in internships, a growing number of organisations now utilise internships as a core component of their graduate recruitment and selection strategy (cook, parker, & pettijohn, 2004; national association of college and employers (nace), 2018). despite the expanding role of internships internationally, less is known about the practice of internships in contexts outside of the west, as the majority of extant internship knowledge is founded on research conducted in western research contexts (zegwaard, 2012; zegwaard, 2019b). this bias in the research is tied to the traditional objective of scientific research of developing generalised theories which explain and predict phenomenon, independent of their context (hempel, 1965). however, the applicability of this objective has long been challenged in the context of socially-based phenomena (hickson, hinings, mcmillian, & schwitter, 1974; tsui, 2007). this objective has been particularly questioned in relation to asian workplace contexts, given the historical and cultural dominance of the west in establishing the extant body of contemporary employment related knowledge (tsui, 2004; van de ven & jing, 2012). coupled with the acknowledgement that variables within the asian context shape phenomenon in a manner which is distinct from the west (bae, rowley, & sohn, 2012; hofstede & hofstede, 2005; rowley, benson, & warner, 2004; tsui, 2007). such positions justify a more emic approach to research when exploring wil and employment within asian national contexts. an approach has been utilised in previous research that sought to highlight the potential role of national context in shaping the practice of wil and subsequent graduate employment outcomes in contexts such as china and south korea (rose, 2018c, 2019, 2020b). globally, stakeholders increasingly expect that higher education providers will design their educational programs with a view to enhancing graduate employment outcomes (business industry and higher education collaboration council, 2007; clarke, 2018; jackson, 2014). at the same time higher education student movements have become increasing globalized (shields, 2013; teichler, 2017). as a consequence, employability is no longer conceptualized only within western graduate employment contexts. for instance, ferguson and sonnenschein (2020) highlight the culturally distinct role that social-networking practices play in determining employment outcomes for australian vs chinese students upon graduation. the increased influence of social networks in china for graduates can be attributed to the central role a culturally distinct form of social –networking practice, known as guanxi, plays in all facets of chinese life. the term guanxi is translated as ‘connections’, ‘relations’, or ‘relationships’ (chen, chen, & xin, 2004; ren & chadee, 2017a, 2017b). more exactly, guanxi refers to particular ties rooted in a common background and experience that facilitate exchange (tsui & farh, 1997) and form the links in a chinese social world of intertwined relationships. these relationships impact on social and economic transactions (barbalet, 2017a; bian, 1997; hwang, 2004; jacobs, 1979; yang, 1997), including an established role in determining employment and career outcomes (bian, 1997; bian & ang, 1997; cheung & gui, 2006; yang, feng, meng, & qiu, 2019). against this backdrop, the present study aims to extend the previously limited research by situating graduate employment outcomes derived from educational programs within a specific national context. specifically, this study aims to investigate the influence of the contextually salient variable of guanxi in determining intern-employment outcomes with chinese hostorganisations. the results of this study will enable higher education providers to better calibrate their programs to specific cultural contexts, and hence optimise graduate employment outcomes for diverse student bodies, across national contexts. internships and guanxi the internship experience has been linked to post-hire retention, job performance and career progression (gault, leach, & duey, 2010). as a result internships are increasingly being used by more higher education providers as a means by which to attract and identify graduate employees who are able to perform in the post-hire period. despite the apparent suitability of internships as a recruitment and selection tool, the literature has largely neglected the process of employment via rose, p. (2020). guanxi social-network ties: predicting graduate employment with internship host-organisations in china. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 11(1), 81–-92. 83 internships, and has traditionally focused on a narrow range of employee selection methods including interviews (posthuma, morgeson, & campion, 2002), situational judgement tests (whetzel & mcdaniel, 2009) and assessment centres (thornton iii, & gibbons, 2009). however, the ability of these methods to predict post-employment behaviours, such as job performance, has been questioned given that they evaluate employment candidates in maximum performance, rather than in typical performance settings (arthur, glaze, villado, & taylor, 2009; macan, 2009; thornton iii, & gibbons, 2009). this has led to calls to broaden the scope of research to include alternative recruitment and selection methods that are capable of overcoming these weaknesses (thornton iii & gibbons, 2009). as an employee attraction, recruitment and selection strategy, the strength of internships is in their potential to facilitate the simultaneous evaluation of employees in an actual workplace setting over an extended period of time, whilst also allowing an intern to evaluate a potential future employer (resick, baltes, & shantz, 2007). however most research has focused on interns’ experiences in terms of learning outcomes and the acquisition of general career resources and outcomes, such as self-efficacy, rather than the process of conversion from intern to employee with the hostorgansiation (inceoglu, selenko, mcdowall, & schlachter, 2019). as interns occupy a blurred status of student, entry level employee and graduate employment candidate, much remains unknown regarding how an internship experience impacts on graduate employment with host-organisations. thus, the current study aims to contibute to a body of work seeking to better understand the process by which an intern is converted into a graduate employee (newman, rose, & teo, 2016; rose.p, 2018; zhao & liden, 2011a). in order to understand the process of conversion from student/intern to graduate/employee, an understanding of the influence of contextual variables in this process is required. a known contextual variable which is relevant to job seekers’ employment outcomes across national contexts, is social networks (burt, 1992; luo, 2000; xin & pearce, 1996). this is a variable which has been found to play an amplified role within the chinese employment context (barbalet, 2017b; chen, chen, & huang, 2013; chen & chen, 2004; luo, huang, & wang, 2012). due to the pervasive nature of guanxi within chinese society, guanxi is regarded as a core contextual and unique variable for researchers seeking to better understand the contemporary chinese employment and workplace context (ahmed, ismail, & amin, 2014; chou, han, & zhang, 2014; ferguson & sonnenschein, 2020). as previously stated, social-networks are known to influence employment outcomes for job seekers across national contexts (granovetter, 1995; rebick, 2000), given social-networks provide job seekers with both strong and weak network ties that can provide information and referrals leading to employment (granovetter, 1995; waldinger, 1996). in western employment contexts, weak ties such as those associated with acquaintances, provide more information regarding employment opportunities through having a wider spread, and thus have been shown to be more useful in gaining employment opportunities relative to strong ties (bridges & villemez, 1986; granovetter, 1973; montgomery, 1992). however, the converse relationship has been found within the chinese labour market, where strong ties such as with immediate family members and associated with strong guanxi, have been shown to be more predictive of advantageous employment outcomes (bian, 1994; bian & ang, 1997). therefore strong guanxi ties and networks act as social resources for job seekers, impacting on employment and career success and leading to assertions that socialnetworks play a culturally distinct role within the chinese employment context (bian, 1994; hwang, 1987; lin, 1982; xiao & tsui, 2007). the reason for the influence of strong social network ties in the chinese labour market context is twofold: the pivotal role of guanxi in chinese society coupled with the legacy of the centrallycontrolled labour market of the planned economy era (bian & huang, 2009; walder, 1986). in the planned economy era, strong personal ties with an individual who could exert influence on the employer were required in order to receive beneficial outcomes for job seekers. consequently, information regarding employment opportunities received through weak ties was irrelevant for job seekers in this era (bian, 1994, 1997). post-labour market de-regulation, strong ties or strong guanxi rose, p. (2020). guanxi social-network ties: predicting graduate employment with internship host-organisations in china. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 11(1), 81–-92. 84 were predicted to play a declining role in shaping employment outcomes (guthrie, 1998, 2002). however, research points to the sustained or even increasing impact of strong guanxi relationships in determining employment outcomes in china (bian & huang, 2009). however, less is known about the specific role of guanxi in influencing new graduate employment outcomes. prefaced on this contextual backdrop, this study proposes that pre-existing guanxi with an internship host-organisation that predates the internship will play an influential role in the process of conversion from student/intern to graduate/employee with the host organisation subsequent to the student’s graduation from university. method participants intern participants were recruited through the career offices of three universities located in china. the career offices provided the sampling frame and contact details of students scheduled to complete internships, subsequent to relevant internal review board ethics approval being obtained. at the time of recruitment, participants were students who had received an offer, but had not yet started the internship. all participants were undergraduate business school students from a variety of majors who were required to do internships as part of their degree course, the mean length of the internships was 3.21 months (s.d = 0.35). the participants were selected from within business school undergraduates, as this facilitated sampling from a wide range of internship experiences relative to more narrowly defined degree course internship programs such as engineering, or medicine. the internships did not follow a standardised structure or formalised integration with academic programs. as only 11.3% of the internships were part of a formal arrangement with the university, the internship experiences in this study match the standard definition of internships being lower in terms of formal structure and academic program integration, when contrasted with other forms of wil such as co-operative education. a further characteristic of the internships is that 53.4% received payment for their internships. a total of 1019 surveys were distributed to interns initially, of which 506 replied (response rate of 49.7%). after attrition, 306 intern-supervisor dyads were left in phase 2 of the study, on which analysis could be conducted. among the interns, 199 (64.4%) were female, and their mean age was 21.8 years (s.d = 63). the internship organisations represented diverse ownership structures and industrial sectors as shown in table 1 (below). procedure a paper-based survey was initially distributed to interns at the commencement of the internship to gauge the strength of their guanxi with the host-organisation predating the internship. at the same time participants were asked to provide their demographic information, information on the organisation in which the internship was conducted, and the e-mail contact details of their workplace supervisor. in phase 2, information was collected regarding graduate employment outcomes from both the intern and their host-organisations represented by supervisors. information was collected electronically via sms three months after the intern’s university graduation. both the interns and supervisors were provided with a cover letter ensuring them of the confidentiality of their responses and outlining the voluntary nature of the survey. a small gift of approximately 2.00 usd in value was given for participation in the study. rose, p. (2020). guanxi social-network ties: predicting graduate employment with internship host-organisations in china. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 11(1), 81–-92. 85 measurement pre-employment guanxi was measured using the 6 item pre-employment guanxi scale (rose, 2015) which was modified for internships (see appendix). conversion to employment was measured using an item developed for this study. the item for interns was ‘are you currently employed or soon to commence employment as a full-time employee at the host organisation of your internship?’ and for the supervisors, ‘is the (intern’s name) who previously completed an internship at your organisation, employed or soon to be employed, as a full-time employee at your organisation?’ interns’ and supervisors’ responses were indicated on a dichotomous scale. prior to distribution, the established process of back translation recommended by brislin (1981) was utilised to translate the english version of the survey into chinese, and ensure semantic equivalence between both versions. the chinese version of the survey was then piloted on interns who were not included in the final sample. on the basis of the pilot study, a number of minor modifications were made to the chinese translation of items. results table 2 presents the means, standard deviations and inter-correlations of the study’s variables (gender, age, payment, pre-existing guanxi and employment). the low correlations indicate that control variables and multicollinearity are unlikely to bias the results. in regards to the payment, there is a significantly negative correlation with guanxi, that is, students who utilised personal connections (guanxi) rather than formal channels to obtain their internship received less payment. a one-way anova was conducted to evaluate the effect of pre-existing guanxi with the internship host organisation on conversion to employment with the host-organisation subsequent to graduation. an analysis of the variance showed that a highly significant effect of pre-existing guanxi table 1: sample characteristics interns host organisations age ownership mean 21.82 state-owned enterprise 30.43% sd 00.43 domestic privately owned 39.13% gender foreign-owned 17.39% male 40.00% government departments 13.04% female 60.00% industry major manufacturing 13.04% accounting 19.98% information technology 8.69% finance 6.66% finance/banking 21.73% banking 13.32% hospitality/tourism 8.69% international business 19.98% civil service 13.04% marketing 13.32% international trade 17.39% tourism management 6.66% retail 17.39% business management 19.98% location host organisation representatives fujian 100% age mean 33.45 s.d 7.35 gender male 62.5% female 37.5 % rose, p. (2020). guanxi social-network ties: predicting graduate employment with internship host-organisations in china. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 11(1), 81–-92. 86 with the host organisation on conversion to employment with the host organisation subsequent to graduation, f (1,301) = 12.63, p = .000, as shown in table 3. table 3: anova results predictor sum of squares df mean square f p r2 95% ci [ll, ul] regression 2.96 1 12.639 12.639 .000 .040 [.021,074] residual 70.63 301 .235 total 73.60 302 note: n=303, ll and ul represent the lower-limit and upper-limit of the partial confidence r2 interval respectively discussion despite the widespread practice of internships globally, little is known regarding the practice and outcomes of wil in contexts outside of the west, thus the findings of this paper answer calls for research on wil contextualized to the asian region (rose, 2018a, 2020a; zegwaard, 2019a). futhermore, the study’s findings contribute to extending the limited work which investigates the process by which students/interns are converted to graduate/employees (beenen & pichler, 2014; newman et al., 2016; rose, 2018b). specifically, by placing this process within the specific cultural context of china, the findings of this study empirically substantiate the link between graduate employment outcomes and the contextual variable of guanxi. this finding echoes that of previous studies on the influential role of interpersonal relationships in economic interactions both in western and chinese contexts (burt, 1992; luo, 2000; xin & pearce, 1996). furthermore, these results support claims by other scholars that interpersonal relationships, captured by guanxi, are particularly influential in transactions which take place in china (bian, 1997; chen et al., 2013; luo et al., 2012; zhang & zhang, 2006), including employment outcomes (bian, 1997; cheung & gui, 2006; hwang, 2004; ren & chadee, 2017b; yang et al., 2019). the current study extends this linkage into a new employment context, namely the conversion of students/interns into graduates/employees and confirms research demonstrating the resilient impact of strong guanxi relationships in determining employment outcomes in the chinese employment market (bian & huang, 2009; yang, feng, meng, & qiu, 2019). table 2: means, standard deviations and correlations variables m sd 1. 2. 3. 4. 1.gender 0.64 0.48 2.age 21.43 0.63 -.043 3.payment 2.50 1.66 -.078 .056 4.pre-existing guanxi 3.20 2.07 .076 -.091 -.319** 5.employment 1.41 0.49 -.001 -.104 -.033 .201** note: n = 303 * p < .05, ** p < .01, ***p<.001 rose, p. (2020). guanxi social-network ties: predicting graduate employment with internship host-organisations in china. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 11(1), 81–-92. 87 the results of this study establish a sequence within which there is a highly significant relationship, between utilisation of guanxi to obtain an internship position and employment with the hostorganisation upon graduation (***p<.001). this result is consistent with the established practice of job seekers across employment contexts utilising social networks to gain employment referrals (granovetter, 1995; rebick, 2000). however this finding, in common with previous studies within the chinese context, suggests that the influence of strong-ties represented by guanxi on employment outcomes goes beyond that of providing referrals and information about job openings, associated with weak-ties, as this study included the dimension of influence/power, which is known to be instrumental in determining preferential employment outcomes from guanxi in china (bian, 1994; bian & ang, 1997; bian & huang, 2009). a side note of interest was that the majority of interns used their parents’ guanxi with the host-organisation, hence supporting claims that younger members of society are unlikely to possess sufficient personal guanxi with older members of society in this case host-organisation members, to enable influence on employment outcomes (chow, 2004; zang, 2003). the findings are particularly relevant to the conceptualisation of internships in a graduate recruitment and selection capacity, given that they reveal that contextual factors, external to the internships, may predetermine an intern’s transition into regular employment. the results also suggest that contextual factors can undermine the effectiveness of internships as a means to attract and screen for interns who match the organisation’s requirements. therefore, this study’s findings advance the important emerging body of research investigating host-organisations’ utilisation of internships as a recruitment and selection tool (beenen & mrousseau, 2010; resick et al., 2007; zhao & liden, 2011). the findings have practical implications for both host-organisation and universities. firstly, a host organisation should be aware that the utilisation of internships, as an effective means to recruit and select qualified graduate employees, may be undermined by the influence of guanxi. interns and graduates may perceive internship employment outcomes as predetermined, thereby discouraging interns who hope to gain employment via merit related to their internship performance. thus guanxi may negatively impact more widely on a host-organisation’s branding as both an internship provider and as an employer amongst university interns and graduates. to mitigate this risk, hostorganisations should ensure a level of transparency exists in their graduate employee selection process. this could include the formal evaluation of weighted selection criteria such as: internship performance; objective performance data from the internship; intern post-internship debriefs discussing selection criteria used; and future employment opportunities with the host organisation. for higher education providers, this issue may be mitigated by increasing the number of organised internship placements, rather than relying on individual interns to seek their own placements, within which guanxi is likely to play an enhanced role in determining the conversion of student/intern into graduate employee. the practical implications of this study are not limited to chinese higher education institutions, as china contributes the highest number of outbound students to international student movement and many of these student’s return to china to seek employment (teichler, 2017). thus, graduate employability can no longer be defined solely within the domestic context within which a student is educated. higher education providers should incorporate a higher degree of cultural sensitivity within their efforts to enhance graduate employability, in this case the recognition that chinese graduates may use networks of external links differently than other nationalities. consequently universities may seek to facilitate a chinese student’s leveraging of guanxi in their job seeking, for example universities could increase the opportunities for students to participate in internships in china to enable students to utilise their guanxi to open a potential pathway into graduate employment. rose, p. (2020). guanxi social-network ties: predicting graduate employment with internship host-organisations in china. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 11(1), 81–-92. 88 study limitations although this study used data from multiple sources at two time intervals in order to mitigate threats of common method variance, it is acknowledged that a number of limitations should be taken into account when making generalizations based on the findings. given the chinese context, it remains unknown without further testing whether the findings generalise to alternative graduate employment contexts. furthermore, future work building on the model tested in this study could explore additional unmeasured variables which may help to explain the pattern of results detected. for instance, external labor market conditions may influence intern to employee conversion, as perceived employment alternatives are known to influence graduate job seekers’ employment decisions (day, 2005; hulin, 1991). in addition, theories associated with the recruitment of external employment candidates, such as those associated with organisational attractiveness, special networks and recruitment information (rynes, 1991; zottoli & wanous, 2000), may provide fruitful avenues of future studies aimed at enhancing understanding of the impact of social-networks on the process of conversion of student-intern to graduate-employee. conclusion this study highlights the intersection between two contemporary trends in higher education, namely an increasing emphasis on graduate employability as an outcome of educational programs such as internships and the continued globalization of higher education. specifically, the study places the transition of interns into graduate employees as the focal outcome of the internship process, and situates this process within the specific national context of china, demonstrating the role of guanxi in graduate employment. thus, this study advocates for a conceptualization of graduate employability which is not constrained to the generic development of knowledge, skills and other qualities for employability presumed to be equally applicable across national contexts. rather it suggests a conceptualization of individual student employability which incorporates the distinct characteristics of a national context, to better calibrate programs such as internships to optimize graduate employment outcomes across diverse national contexts. references ahmed, i., ismail, w. k. w., & amin, s. m. 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(2000). recruitment source research: current status and future directions. human resource management reveiw, 10(4), 353–382. rowley, j. & munday, j, (2018). the evolved landscape of eportfolios: current values and purposes of academic teachers and curriculum designers. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 9(1), 3–22. 3 the evolved landscape of eportfolios: current values and purposes of academic teachers and curriculum designers jennifer rowley1, jennifer munday2 jennnifer.rowley@sydney.edu.au; jmunday@csu.edu.au 1the university of sydney, 2charles sturt university abstract as eportfolios are increasingly being used in universities to help develop self-reflective practitioners, academic teachers and students need to develop the skills and processes required to implement them. during 2015, a series of webinars was presented by a crossuniversity team to provide professional development for academic teachers, curriculum designers and other staff interested in initiating or extending eportfolio learning in their institutions. a survey was conducted with participants to gauge the depth of understanding and use of eportfolios in degree programs. the survey aimed to clarify participants’ perception of the value of eportfolio tools in australian universities, and to identify future directions for developing knowledge and learning related to eportfolios. through the survey questions participants were able to provide information anonymously about their knowledge and use of eportfolios. respondents were also invited to be interviewed. nine interviews, conducted in 2016, explored eportfolio-users’ opinions of the learning tool. the results indicate that teachers’ use of the eportfolio as a learning tool has evolved beyond that reported in the current literature. furthermore, when used for reflection, assessment and documenting professional standards, the eportfolio tool contributes to the students’ development of skills required to transition to future careers. keywords: eportfolios, reflective practice, digital literacies, higher education introduction and background this paper reports on a study designed to support the evolution of the well-documented eportfolio as a learning tool. the study consisted of two stages: an online survey followed by participant interviews. the data from the study reports increased confidence in those who use eportfolios in their entirety, rather than being limited to the purpose of a showcase or presentation, which were the original uses for hardcopy portfolios. eportfolios are increasingly used in universities to help develop self-reflective practitioners. parkes, dredger and hicks (2013) say this increase in usage is due to greater accountability for student learning. boesch, reynolds and patton (2016) suggest that the main reason for the increase in usage is the pressure on higher education institutions for student accountability, arguing for the capacity of eportfolios to demonstrate the education of the whole person, rather than discipline by discipline, by providing a platform to demonstrate the interconnection of knowledge (p. 443). at the same time, herring and notar (2011), in describing a successful eportfolio implementation, emphasised the need for the cooperative effort of professors, administration mailto:jennnifer.rowley@sydney.edu.au mailto:jmunday@csu.edu.au rowley, j. & munday, j, (2018). the evolved landscape of eportfolios: current values and purposes of academic teachers and curriculum designers. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 9(1), 3–22. 4 staff, teachers and students, all of whom required training, and for implementation strategies. however, ring and ramirez (2012) remind us that in addition to preparation for implementation, time, discussion and repetition are needed with academic assessors, in order to manage the assessment of eportfolios. this resonates with the experience of the authors of this paper who have embedded eportfolios in degree programs at their respective universities. one of the universities serves a large urban population and the other is rural with several campuses located hundreds of kilometres from each other. both institutions work heavily in the online space, but for different purposes. the urban university emphasises the growing need for an individual to create a virtual presence that can be shared broadly with several stakeholders, including prospective employers. the rural university also encourages the creation of an online sharable resource, but the majority of its students are studying in the online space to begin with, or in a blended mixed mode of on-campus and online. the learning design for the eportfolio in each institution reflects the current drive for graduates to account for professional skills to accrediting bodies as they cross the threshold to their chosen profession. research projects were undertaken within these institutions to ascertain the effectiveness of eportfolio learning and thinking and its value to students, graduates and prospective employers, particularly in regard to the evidence of the emergence of a growing professional ‘self’ by the creator of the eportfolio (rowley & munday, 2014). from 2011 to 2014 an investigation of eportfolios for creative arts, music and arts students in australian universities was funded by the australian government’s office for learning and teaching. the aim of this project was primarily to determine the effects of student created eportfolios in teaching music and other creative and performing arts students (olt, 2016). the outcomes of this multi-institutional project provided evidence that the eportfolio process contributed to arts students’ identities, the enhancement of learning in a technology environment and highlighted the impact on teachers and teaching, through eportfolios (bennett, rowley, dunbar-hall, hitchcock, & blom, 2016). one of the major outcomes from this earlier eportfolio project was the finding that academic teachers and curriculum designers wanted to learn more about eportfolio processes and platforms, in order to learn ways to introduce and/or embed them into their university degree programs. as a result, an extension project was funded by the same granting body to explore the needs of staff to better manage the implementation of portfolios across a range of disciplines in higher education. this further funding supported the development of a series of webinars and other professional development artefacts, which were presented by a crossuniversity team. the webinar presenters were all working extensively with eportfolios in four australian universities: two urban, the university of sydney (which led the project) and the university of western sydney; one regional, the university of canberra; and one regional and rural, charles sturt university. the webinars and the creation of the professional development artefacts were planned across the 2015 academic year to include face-to-face seminars in each institution together with virtual attendance from the others, and also included interested attendees from other australian universities. the main aim was to provide professional development for academic teachers and curriculum designers interested in initiating or extending eportfolio learning in their institutions, and each progressive seminar/webinar responded to, and extended, the learning of the attendees from the previous session. both projects resulted in data contributing to an open source website (eportfolioassist.com.au) for use across all stages of eportfolio practice for teachers, students and institutions. eportfolio practices to support and enhance quality learning and teaching were defined, refined and validated through both of these projects (olt, 2016). due to the strong positive response to the webinar series, the webinar leaders were interested in finding out more about participants’ understanding of eportfolios and the current ‘state of play’ for those academic leaders interested in, or currently involved in, implementing the processes of eportfolios into australian higher education degree programs. after gaining ethics approval, participants were invited to complete a survey and to volunteer for an http://www.eportfolioassist.com.au/ rowley, j. & munday, j, (2018). the evolved landscape of eportfolios: current values and purposes of academic teachers and curriculum designers. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 9(1), 3–22. 5 interview. the analysis of the data shows that there is a changing landscape around eportfolio practices across the australian higher education sector. the recent published literature has not indicated a dramatic change in the use or prevalence of eportfolios, and yet this paper provides evidence that the scene has indeed seen a change in staff attitudes and use. literature review it is apparent in more recent and robust literature that a move from the simple to a more complex application of eportfolio practice is emerging. the literature reviewed for this project includes research in: the history of the eportfolio; the need for continued and further professional development of higher education staff in designing and implementing curriculum that includes embedded eportfolio learning and curation; and the recognition that eportfolios are moving further away from simple electronic versions of resumes or showcase portfolios, and becoming more complex and flexible learning spaces for creators to save, collect, organise, design and share webpages for various and different audiences. history of the eportfolio dunbar-hall, rowley, brooks, cotton and lill (2015) identify the introduction of eportfolios to higher education as occurring in the 1990s as a replacement for paper-based portfolios. by 2005 the european portfolio initiatives coordination committee (epicc) was describing an eportfolio as a collection of student work stored in a digital format… (jokinen, 2006, p.3). since then, parkes et al. (2013) state that while platforms for eportfolios have changed, work with eportfolios has been sustained [and] refined (p. 99). across disciplines and throughout educational contexts, a need to collect evidence of learning has led to eportfolios being a popular method of assessment. traditional examinations test knowledge and at times allow students to provide application of that knowledge to a new situation. text based assessment practices such as assignments and essays give the learner a space to display some analysis of the topic and to cite sources that support that analysis. having progressed in educational practices there is now evidence to show that educators moving from these traditional measures of academic success are finding an electronic portfolio can also provide traditional accountability for student learning outcomes in assessments, as well as providing a rich source of evidence of deeper student thinking (buyarski & landis, 2014). an eportfolio allows students to take ownership of their learning by engaging in reflective thinking. eynon and gambino (2017) argue that allowing students to ‘feel’ ownership of their eportfolio is a critical way to enhance student learning. these researchers and many others encourage students to use colour and images and allow them to have some capacity to design eportfolios are not only giving academic teachers the opportunity to have students evidence their achievement in specific disciplines, but are also engaging students to develop a narrative of their understanding of what and why they learnt a particular aspect of their discipline (parkes, dredger, & hicks, 2013). eportfolios are consistently being used by teachers to ask students to evaluate their discipline learning and to reflect on how it impacts on who they are becoming professionally, and what they might look like in the future as a professional, as a result of that learning (nakonechny & ellis, 2012). today, eportfolios are many different yet connected things: …a range of… models in practice… in creative arts and in medical science… promoting identity formation and supporting employability… a conveyance of a person’s… professional genesis (yancey, 2016, p. vi). this gradual introduction of a new tool and thereby a new pedagogy into existing curriculums required a form of ‘stake holding’ from academic and educational staff which is reflected in the story of eportfolios in australian universities which emerged after a commissioned project in 2008 (hallam, 2008). in 2012 heinrich and bozhko presented arguments that institutions in australia and new zealand were using eportfolios to demonstrate they were promoting and supporting the importance of lifelong learning, but that learning support provided in higher education was still not sufficient. in 2017 yet another comprehensive look at the landscape of rowley, j. & munday, j, (2018). the evolved landscape of eportfolios: current values and purposes of academic teachers and curriculum designers. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 9(1), 3–22. 6 eportfolios in australian universities showed the extent of the change referred to in this paper, and the broader need for building professional capabilities (rowley, 2017, p. xiii). international academics have noted the ‘scene’ for eportfolio use in australia through literature published in the first decade of the 21st century (ring & ramirez, 2012). at this time, australian academics who were successfully using eportfolios were also sharing their understandings through international conferences and platforms (cambridge, 2010). whilst it is beyond the scope of this paper to gauge the impact that australian eportfolio research and design is having internationally, it is clear that more australian researchers are being published and cited in international journals (cross, 2012; hains-wesson, wakeling, & aldred, 2014; rawlings, 2016; munday, 2017; munday, rowley, & polly, 2017). professional development needs of staff as noted in a short document published by the australian eportfolio network in 2009, applying the idea of an incremental introduction of any new pedagogy is better serviced when staff have been afforded training and resources (qut, 2009). higher education academics, teachers and learning designers are involved in designing and creating eportfolio tools for different reasons (callens & elen, 2007). some tertiary teachers and designers are working with higher education students to enable the eportfolio tool to collect evidence of learning and good practice over time prior to credentialing them into a profession (gibson, 2006). some are working with postgraduate students to enhance reflection and higher order thinking; and others need to create eportfolios of their own to demonstrate abilities within their profession and to argue a case for promotion or leadership capabilities (danowitz, 2012). winberg and pallitt (2016) conducted a study with higher education staff working in vocational education to implement eportfolios. the participants in their study were keen to learn, and valued the possibilities of using an eportfolio in the future to apply for promotion or teaching awards. however, the study highlighted a number of problems for participants including the choice of eportfolio platform, flexibility, and concern regarding possible institutional scrutiny of artefacts that might be presented to demonstrate abilities. professional development is an imperative if learning and teaching strategies are to be effective as it allows a person to focus on their craft by providing new ideas for further exploration of such skills. eynon and gambino (2016) suggest staff are being hindered in their desire to further develop good pedagogic practice because they are rarely given the opportunity to do so and building and sustaining a high-impact eportfolio initiative depends on effective, pedagogy-focused professional development (p. 4). why is it that educational institutions value pedagogic professional development below that of mastering learning technology systems? it is not the technology that hinders the attaining of excellence in eportfolio practice; it is more likely to be the lack of opportunity for teachers to experience the powerful educational impact that the eportfolio has the potential to provide. this is in line with the view of eynon and gambino (2016) as see in the following: professional development designed to advance high-impact eportfolio practices can address a range of issues, from effective classroom teaching with eportfolio to training on eportfolio platforms, linkages with co-curricular learning or outcomes assessment, exploring disciplinary modes of inquiry and reflection, and making connections with other high-impact practices, such as first-year experience programs. it provides greater understanding of the broad usages of eportfolio and connects faculty members and student life professionals in a concerted focus on student learning and growth (eynon & gambino, 2016, p. 4). it is clear from this quote that eportfolio practices have the potential to address a range of emergent needs for staff in higher education. the barrier is often that staff have scant professional development and often have to rely on discovering the tool by themselves without the opportunity to experience an institutional wide approach to, and the benefits of, using rowley, j. & munday, j, (2018). the evolved landscape of eportfolios: current values and purposes of academic teachers and curriculum designers. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 9(1), 3–22. 7 eportfolio practices. to achieve the outcomes of the project explored in this paper it was necessary to identify key stakeholders in order to provide professional development workshops especially designed to empower the teachers who would introduce and or enhance eportfolio use in their degree programs. as a complex and flexible learning space the need for a format or program that is robust and flexible enough to collect files of various types and formats has been an on-going difficulty as technologies change rapidly. institutions have been exploring different products as eportfolios move from being electronic versions of resumes to enhanced flexible and portable documents that are easily modified and updated (halstead & wheeler, 2009). in reality, the digital space that eportfolio provides allows for a greater exploration by higher education staff to show students how to carefully curate their learning collections. hence, whatever technology is used to allow that method of learning to occur is somewhat irrelevant. what is important is how and why the students use such a learning space to transfer individual experiences into authentic learning to assist them, amongst other things, in transitioning from student to professional. so much around the essence of eportfolio thinking and processes involves reflective practice, and teaching staff without the correct understanding of the power of reflection can undersell the usefulness of eportfolio learning. through greater attention to the benefit of reflection, learners are able to value their experiences and gauge what those experiences mean to them personally. for students, taking ownership of their own learning and reflecting on that learning is a great skill to have when thinking about future careers. for staff, assisting the student to think critically about their futures can impact positively on the way curriculum is designed and implemented. reflection is a portal through which the teaching and learning continuum can benefit all involved. thus, staff engaging in reflective practice through professional development have the potential to promote enhancement of pedagogic skills. eynon and gambino (2016) see staff benefitting as reflective professional development deepens faculty and staff learning and helps them develop as practitioners (p. 6). encouraging students and staff to become reflective practitioners ensures that the eportfolio is a user-friendly tool with a learning space for multiple purposes and users. rogers (2002) proposed a model (figure 1) of staff and student reflection that encouraged both learners to see beyond the transmission of facts and into a space of authentic learning and pedagogic practice. figure 1: rodgers reflective cycle (rodgers, 2002, p. 235) rowley, j. & munday, j, (2018). the evolved landscape of eportfolios: current values and purposes of academic teachers and curriculum designers. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 9(1), 3–22. 8 reflection allows participants to connect experiences and integrate new knowledge (eynon & gambino, 2016, p. 8). in a practical way, individual reflections can take many different forms and those that are in a digital space provide flexibility in for example oral, artistic, or multimedia reflections. the greater understanding of the reflective process, the better the teaching staff and curriculum designers could be at engaging students in meaningful learning experiences. the research project along with a stable and flexible environment, some universities are beginning to establish professional development resources for academic faculty to promote reflective practice, critical thinking and support the introduction of eportfolios into programs of study. examples of professional development programs with structured outcomes around the complexity of eportfolio learning are being designed and implemented in response to this growing need and the embedding of extended eportfolios throughout degree programs (eynon & gambino, 2016; munday, 2014). the voices of staff interacting with eportfolios within their teaching, curriculum and or learning designer role provides the evidence in this study for robust professional development for staff in tertiary institutions. at the conclusion of the 2015 series of professional development webinars presented to those currently or intending to work with eportfolios, the researchers were keen to enquire further into the practices of those who attended (olt, 2016). specifically, the interest was in knowing to what extent the processes of eportfolios had been valued and used as teaching and learning tools. also, the enthusiasm of the attendees and their interest in attending the sessions led to a consideration of why there was such a high level of uptake of the tool, or series of tools. finally, the study investigated why staff sought the professional development webinars and workshops and volunteered for the survey and interview. was this the result of their interest and commitment to the possibilities of eportfolio or some other factors? the question this paper aims to address through an exploration of the data from higher education staff who engaged with eportfolio processes and products begins with: ‘is the eportfolio part of a new literacy or is it that this technology tool is being better utilised?’ this research aims to clarify whether or not this is, in fact, the case and suggests that as a tool promoting digital literacy, it has the potential to continue emerging for improved learning engagement. in addition, the research also aimed to determine whether academic teachers are more serious about the capacity of eportfolios to engage learners and enhance the learning experience across a broader space than in the past. discussions amongst the community of practitioners in australia (for example at the annual eportfolio forum) encouraged this exploration. more specific research questions for this project were: 1. to what extent has the eportfolio been valued and used as a teaching and learning tool by academic teachers and educational designers? 2. why was there still a high level of uptake of the tool by designers of curriculum? 3. why did staff seek the professional development webinars and workshops and volunteer for the survey and interview? method and approach to explore these questions, a mixed method approach was applied including: a survey, designed and facilitated through survey monkey, and interviews with interested participants. once ethical approvals were obtained through charles sturt university, potential participants were recruited via email from the 168 attendees at the webinar series. the survey responses were anonymous, and 47 were received. the survey included both quantitative and qualitative items (see appendix). survey items were developed by researchers via field notes taken during the webinars on questions raised by participants in conjunction with the exploration of the literature on research rowley, j. & munday, j, (2018). the evolved landscape of eportfolios: current values and purposes of academic teachers and curriculum designers. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 9(1), 3–22. 9 methods. from this, the researchers determined what they wanted to know, and therefore what questions to ask, and subsequently followed steps according to standard research methods (artino, la rochelle, dezee, & gehlbach, 2014). survey items were validated through trials with colleagues of the researchers. feedback from the trial allowed the researchers to refine the survey before distribution. survey items were designed to explore participants’ depth and understanding of eportfolios regardless of whether they were already users or intending to begin using eportfolios. the 22 questions were designed to gather information about the broad use of eportfolio products, applications and processes across a range of discipline areas. the survey particularly sought to gain a deeper understanding of the purpose and future directions of the eportfolio tool by those in australian higher education contexts. interview questions were developed by the researchers reflecting on data collected in the surveys and further refined after collegial feedback. interviews were conducted by the researchers once participants volunteered to be interviewed on their survey form. interviews were held via phone, skype and in person with both researchers present in most cases one interview was conducted with only one researcher present. the in-person interviews were held in the university offices of the researchers. if an interviewee agreed to be recorded then audio recordings were made of the interview and transcribed. the survey aimed to clarify the participants’ perceived value of the purposes of eportfolios in australian universities, and their views on the future directions for developing knowledge and learning. at the conclusion of the survey, participants were also asked if they were willing to be interviewed. nine gave their contact details and all were interviewed. the interviews were conducted in person or by distance through phone or online, and ranged in length between 30 and 60 minutes. the interviews were transcribed to form the basis of the data analysed for this paper. the responses to the interviews prompted the researchers to adopt a phenomenological perspective of the data where each response was considered within a narrative framework that positioned people’s stories as a component of their personal social spheres (connelly & clandinin, 1990) expressed in words, phrases and images. following dillon (2011), the narrative inquiry looked for processes of self-making (p. 213) by exploring personal meanings within, and commonalities and differences between experiences. results and discussion analysis of the interview data revealed that four main areas emerged: the first was that the definition of eportfolios was broad, although very interesting. the second area that emerged was the prevalence of eportfolio use being driven by the greater emergence of professional standards and requirements (for example, evidence of a competency) for these to be described and demonstrated. the third area was the satisfaction with the eportfolio process and product in the students’ learning lives. the final area was that the eportfolio was most powerful as a learning tool when used for reflection, critical thinking and assessment. survey results of the 47 surveys returned, none of the respondents identified as having no knowledge of eportfolio and its processes, and 84 per cent rated themselves as having a good to very good understanding of an eportfolio. the main disciplines reported in the surveys for the higher education programs were education (58%), health sciences (31%), and business studies (20%). eighty-six per cent of respondents had used, or were intending to use eportfolios with higher education students in degree programs. most were using them for multiple purposes including: for assessment (92%); for reflection (89%); to showcase (76%); and for ‘development’ (73%). this is significant as it complements responses given by the nine interview participants. other purposes that were reported were performance review, recognition of learning, developing digital competence, supervising of internships (as well as rowley, j. & munday, j, (2018). the evolved landscape of eportfolios: current values and purposes of academic teachers and curriculum designers. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 9(1), 3–22. 10 honours and master degrees), graduate employment, industry engagement, and collaboration. table 1: responses to questions 1, 4, 9, 10, and 17 (n=47) question frequency percent 1 41 84 4 9 difficult 10difficult 17daily use 40 23 28 8 86 51 59 18 table 1 provides a summary of the quantitative data supporting the divide between participants’ opinions on the technology. of those who completed the survey, on average, only 18 per cent were using eportfolios daily. also, 82 per cent of respondents said the platforms were easy to use, and 68 per cent agreed they were also easy for students to use. seventy-eight per cent of the respondents were happy with the current university supported platforms. a number of commercial platforms were being used, including pebble pad, mahara, moodle, wordpress, pathbrite, blackboard, and weebly. the qualitative survey revealed that participants’ definitions of an eportfolio varied from very simple to very complex. responses included, for example: collection of artefacts; an electronic repository where a person can collect a portfolio of their work and a powerful tool to capture learning and reflection. more complex notions included: it’s a chance to map and keep track of your professional development and growth over time. it enables you to collect, select, reflect and then connect evidence that you can digitally store and assemble differently according to your ever-evolving professional needs. eportfolio is a learning and teaching methodology suited to self-directed learning and professional development. i like the way it gives the learner space and freedom to explore, reflect, apply, synthesise and connect. it can handle ideas as well as facts. it is dynamic so that process as well as product can be evaluated. it supports a critical and reflexive approach to learning. it is deeply flexible in the way tasks can be tightly framed and scaffolded or left very fluid for the learner to play with aesthetic features and make the portfolio one’s own. a learner’s structured collection of artefacts for particular purposes and audiences. these can include using eportfolios to show the development of capabilities over time, providing evidence for validation of professional competencies, or to present exemplars of work for potential employers/clients. interview data nine participants agreed to be interviewed. the interview questions were semi-structured and were devised to provide further insight into the survey data. the interviews were recorded and transcribed. the interview data is presented under the four main areas that emerged during the analysis. rowley, j. & munday, j, (2018). the evolved landscape of eportfolios: current values and purposes of academic teachers and curriculum designers. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 9(1), 3–22. 11 evolution to a broader definition of eportfolio the interviewer asked participants to provide their definition of an eportfolio, whereas during the interviews participants talked about the features of the eportfolios they were implementing within their degree programs and their added value in relation to other forms of assessment. one participant responded as follows: a lot of our students don’t even respond to lecturer or tutor feedback on assessments. so, the tendency to revisit learning and revisit the outcomes of one’s learning is fairly scarce. if they’re involved in eportfolio, they actually have to, they can’t finish the task. at [my university] eportfolio tasks require them to revisit the learning opportunities and to make sensible informed connections and talk about how that learning relates to: things they already knew; things they’ve already done; things they’ve seen friends and family and colleagues and work mates do, if that’s relevant; and also make connections between the specific discipline that they’re asked to reflect on and all the other things they’re studying in a formal sense. (participant b: curriculum designer) several participants talked about earlier versions of eportfolios being lists of items collected together in order to provide evidence of accreditation for a profession. this is supported by hampe and lewis (2013) who describe the eportfolio as a place to record, store evidence of, and reflect on continuing activities, with the most challenging and least convincing aspect being the reflection. some went on to describe how these had now developed into more useful documents with narratives which demonstrated reflection and reasoning: historically in speech pathology, students had to complete a portfolio in the final year of the course and that seems like a box ticking exercise, very stressful and high stakes. whereas my definition of success would be that students can look back over time and see their development over the whole of the courses and that the eportfolio is the link between different units, the link between theory and practicum, helping to develop their competencies and integrate with all of their life more, develop reflection. at the moment, it’s tied to one unit each semester, but i’m always thinking, how do i get them to make those links with other units as well? are there ways to make them see it’s bigger than one unit? it’s the whole course. (participant a: medical and health sciences) both participants a and b are actively seeking ways to engage students in the processes of eportfolios and make them increasingly valuable. they want to expand the use and place of eportfolios within the degree program so that students can make connections that assist them to narrate or reflect on such new linkages. likewise, connaughton and edgar (2012) considered the value of reflection yet sought to find the relevance of reflection in current work practices – their study showed that reflective practice was enhanced over the course of a degree program. eportfolio and professional standards in the past, especially in the early introduction of eportfolio use, professional standards provided a list of skills students could present to a future employer. parkes et al. (2013) recognised the previous compilation of artefacts for eportfolios, yet proceeded to describe the move towards eportfolios as a ‘pedagogical space’ for developmental reflection (p.99). in this research, academic teachers are encouraging pre-service professionals to weave a narrative around standards and are devising curriculum to help them provide a compelling argument for future employment as seen in the following comment: the moment they start their undergraduate degree (as in o week) we are asking them to consider the skills they bring to the pre-professional study. we are already helping them understand they are on their way to becoming a member of the profession. we also ask them to find an image as a metaphor or symbol of themselves as teachers rowley, j. & munday, j, (2018). the evolved landscape of eportfolios: current values and purposes of academic teachers and curriculum designers. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 9(1), 3–22. 12 or pre-service teachers – we ask them to do this again at the end of the degree and the change is really evident, and they are able to talk about their change of thinking and the way they’ve developed which makes them ready to step into the profession. (participant c: teacher education) the advancement of the online platform means that students are able to collect evidence and data over a long period and create sharable and engaging documents that link to their collection rather than expect viewers (usually the teaching staff) to trawl through lists and files. not only are there purpose-built eportfolio programs being provided to students and staff by higher education institutions, but other internet tools are also being used that are freely available, albeit without privacy, security, and advertising (weber & evans, 2011; gross, 2012) as seen in the following: so, we’re using pebble and they can export it. they use workbook and the workbook they have is massive and employers are never going to look at it! we talked about how you could cherry pick your best pieces of evidence, make a showcase eportfolio with just one page with hyperlinks in it, that would be tailored to the application that you’re making and how you might put that link in your cover letter, and even if they never looked at it, they would be impressed that you had done something like that, and give you the edge. (participant a: medical and health sciences) …and i can imagine as an employer i would be thinking, ‘wow, compared to your contemporaries, you stand out!’ if you’re looking for that one person in 1000 people and they’ve got an eportfolio, they’re going to get the job, they’re going to get the scholarship, and they’re going to get the gig. (participant d: science) participants a, c and d all encouraged their students to collect as much evidence of their achievements as they could and scaffolded for their students how to choose items appropriate to the reader or viewer of the eportfolio. even though a collection of assets or artefacts is large, the eportfolio tool is flexible enough for narratives to be created specifically for an individual’s needs or requirements. in the early introduction of eportfolios, some researchers observed student and staff resistance to the volume of work required in learning to use the eportfolio platform (butler, 2006), but recent research, along with several of the interviewees, claim that the purposeful nature of the eportfolio and the recognition for academic support and resolving of workload issues heralds a change to these problems (mcallister & hauville, 2017). eportfolio processes and products embedded in professional life and practice several of the academic teachers who were interviewed talked about creating their own eportfolios as they were designing them for their students both for the virtues they were modelling for students and to explore their uses for their own professional work and identities as they applied for promotion or tenure (cambridge, 2012): …oh crikey, am i doing it right? and after a while it became a lot easier to do it, and also because i was thinking in terms of that i would need to present a showcase later on, there was lots of sorts of tips and tools and opportunities for me to look at other showcases around the world and decide for myself what is good, and from that i could see it would be a really powerful way of presenting the person that you really are, which is a lot different i find to a very dimensional linkedin profile that a lot of people have. (participant d: science) …my leadership portfolio, the first eportfolio. then i just tailored the cv to the role that i was going for, and tweaked that a bit for the level 9 role that i was going for, and it was really the only two changes that i made, and then i just put my links in my expression of interest with a password, because the selection panel could log on, rowley, j. & munday, j, (2018). the evolved landscape of eportfolios: current values and purposes of academic teachers and curriculum designers. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 9(1), 3–22. 13 because the selection panel were [my university] staff members, so they were able to log into the eportfolio page that links the selection criteria. (participant d: science) in learning, how to create her own eportfolio for her own professional needs, participant d was able to present herself as a model to her students and embody all the advantages the advanced tool provides. during the professional development sessions and webinars participants were encouraged to create their own eportfolios, not only to model good practice to students and colleagues, but also to encourage academics, curriculum and educational designers to engage in their own evidence gathering regarding their growth and competency. the interviewees who had created their professional eportfolios noted the work involved, but acknowledged the resulting value the portfolio had in their career promotions (winberg & pallitt, 2016) expanded purposes of eportfolio as previously mentioned the technology in the online space has advanced and eportfolio platforms have become more flexible, enabling the owner to be more creative. the survey asked participants if they used eportfolio for reflection, assessment, development and showcase (stefani, mason, & pegler, 2007). these were all very highly valued processes for the eportfolio, but respondents noted many more uses and explained in the interviews how complex an eportfolio could be, allowing the demonstration of other examples of higher order thinking processes, as is demonstrated in the quotes below: we’re getting them to think about what do they know, what skills have they already developed in their wider life, and how does that relate to the competencies of being a speech pathologist. and i think the ones that do really well in the eportfolio, they’re really seeing how everything they’ve done in their life has led them to this point, the skills they’ve already developed, the interests that they already have, which is that integrative learning stuff, they can see how that is leading them to this career choice. (participant a: medical and health sciences) because you set a task that wants critical analysis, and imagination, originality, and or course you have to do a rubric. and then they refer to elements of the rubric as actually question items: question one, provide an introduction, question two… they look at it as discrete blocks of question-answer format which is the very thing i’m trying to get away from, to get them to think more holistically and critically and practically. so, it’s this specifying the task, but getting them to tap into their own knowledge, their own mental model and experience. (participant e: business management) eportfolios are useful for life skills. they encourage development of confidence in writing and curating, whilst also helping emerging professionals to have a voice about the career and their learning to ‘be’.’ (participant f: teacher education) the above examples all emphasise the vocational nature of the higher order thinking skills that eportfolios afford. participant e, in particular, articulated the tension between the earlier ‘tick-a-box’ mentality of assessment versus the non-academic skills stated in each example, which employers say are crucial to the professions (cambridge, 2010). evolution toward career relevance after analysing both the survey and interview data, several key issues were noted that demonstrate the changed landscape of eportfolio use and design. there appeared to be increased use of eportfolios in the higher education institutions, and the participants in the study, as academic teachers and curriculum designers, were becoming more skilled at implementing them. the accountability noted in the background section of this paper is rowley, j. & munday, j, (2018). the evolved landscape of eportfolios: current values and purposes of academic teachers and curriculum designers. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 9(1), 3–22. 14 focussed on assessments to demonstrate the preparation of graduates for future careers. all of the interviewees emphasised the value of the eportfolio for raising the consciousness of the students to the need to impress potential employers and to collect evidence of achieving professional standards or competencies. in the following quote, we can see the value of an embedded eportfolio where students argue their abilities throughout the degree program: they have already written about it and thought about it every year for four years, so they have got a really clear way of articulating it in a way that makes sense to employers… they’re always setting goals for the next semester as well. so, they’re thinking about how they’ve shown it and where they’re going to go for the next step. and at the end of four years, they set goals for their first job. (participant a: medical and health sciences) the more complex nature of the eportfolio along with the emergence of embedded designs (where students continued to collect evidence of development and achievement) has influenced assessment practices of teaching staff. in addition, the students, or pre-service professionals are more intrinsically motivated to create more personalised and interesting documents for prospective viewers. ring and ramirez’ assertion (2012) that portfolio assessment provides multiple benefits for both the developer and the institution in the form of valid, holistic assessment… (p.91) was reinforced by interviewees and through the evidence provided in the qualitative definitions of the survey participants: but being forced to do it for assessment, and this fits with motivation literature as well, that if you are forced from an extrinsic perspective to undertake a task multiple times, you are more likely to develop an intrinsic satisfaction for what you are doing than if you were never engaged in the first place. (participant b: curriculum designer) the interviewees mentioned the continued engagement with the eportfolio and varied processes of eportfolio. as designers of eportfolio learning and assessment the academic teachers talked about ways to further engage students in thinking about their future profession and how they are differentiating themselves personally and professionally: … and getting them to think about ‘what evidence have i got that shows i’m developing my competency?’ and they have to assess themselves mid and end compass with a clinical educator. there’s an assessment as well. i think that gathering that information and thinking about that information really helps them understand how ‘i’m linking what i’m learning in the theory and applying it to practice’. (participant a: medical and health sciences) participants appeared to value the eportfolio for its increasing flexibility. as was noted in the literature review, there has been a need for more flexible and robust platforms for creating, maintaining and sharing eportfolios, so participants were asked which platforms they used. ring and ramirez (2012) discuss flexibility from both the academic teacher point of view for assessment as well as the student viewpoint with regard to the technology or the platform. several of the interviewees gave examples of students using their eportfolio beyond the work they were doing in their degree programs: and sometimes you get to talk to students who use it while they’re at [my university] to get a job at mcdonalds or as a barista or something… (participant b: curriculum designer) and so, it’s useful for understanding self, useful for understanding not only what you’ve learnt by how you’ve learnt, and understanding who you are in multiple capacities. because students say ‘i can use this for so many different things. i can see how i’d use it for getting a weekend job. i can see how i would use it when rowley, j. & munday, j, (2018). the evolved landscape of eportfolios: current values and purposes of academic teachers and curriculum designers. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 9(1), 3–22. 15 addressing selection criteria. and i want to share it with my family and friends and get them to tell me what they think’. (participant b: curriculum designer) for the last two specific research questions the study aimed to address, it appears the continued uptake of the eportfolio and the voluntary involvement in professional development webinars and workshops may be attributed to the maturing and evolved nature of the eportfolio. the eportfolio learning design is more complex because the tool has more possibilities for demonstrating and providing evidence for complex and higher order thinking skills. mcallister and hauville (2017) discuss an eportfolio program that began in 2004 and through the growth in understanding of the capabilities of the tool and its progressive embedding in units and courses conjures many different understandings and is a program comprising the process of critical reflection or critical self-enquiry… (p. 15). similar comments were made by one participant: …you’ve got the portfolio as a methodology – i like to think of it as a methodology. you know how in research – i’m really into epistemology and all that sort of stuff. you know some people talk about methodology in terms of methods, and i find that really superficial. people who are really solid researchers really talk about methodology in terms of the strong connection between your ontology and your epistemology and your methodology and that it all fits. (participant e: business management) the comparison to research methods in the above quotation reinforces the more complex nature of the eportfolio today – as both a literacy tool and a learning strategy that is being better used. in research, there are complicated processes of experimentation or exploration. likewise, the eportfolio now has the attributes of being more complicated and allowing the owner to make connections between reflective and developmental processes that in the past might not have been possible. as in research, the collected artefacts in an eportfolio may be collated and re-sorted to present new knowledge. however, we have concluded through the survey and interview responses presented here in this paper that it is new knowledge of a personal or professional kind being used more competently a higher knowledge of the ‘sense of self’ or ‘sense of professional self’ (rowley & munday, 2014). conclusion from the data analysis it is apparent that curriculum designers, academic teachers and others who completed the survey and/or were interviewed, were able to articulate what they had learned about eportfolio processes, benefits and potential uses. the research study sought an answer to the question: is eportfolio part of a new literacy or is it that this technology tool is being better utilised? this question was intentionally provocative to keep the conversation moving forward inside the world of portfolio development and digital literacies. it is evidenced here that the results of this investigation provide testimony from staff that the eportfolio had moved from being a ‘one-off’ novelty to an embedded teaching and learning tool that is being used in a multi-disciplinary way. evidence of a maturing of the users, specifically the academic educators and curriculum designers, indicates a move from traditional to contemporary approaches in the use of eportfolios; students are now carefully designing a narrative or story around who they are becoming as a result of their discipline studies rather than a list of achievements. the survey data in particular showed the capacity of the eportfolio space to be more robust as a part of the evidence of learning. participants’ responses demonstrated that the range of skills required of learners has grown in recent times, making the 21st century learner and learning space more authentic, and digital literacy has become an expectation. skills developed during the creation of an eportfolio assist students to transition away from scaffolded learning to a more independent means of exploring their own professional future work and identity. rowley, j. & munday, j, (2018). the evolved landscape of eportfolios: current values and purposes of academic teachers and curriculum designers. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 9(1), 3–22. 16 in response to the specific research questions, the evidence from this study indicates that the landscape is changing and that eportfolios are used more often in the contemporary higher education environment than in the past. furthermore, curriculum designers are constructing more complex and appropriate learning strategies for students during undergraduate study. rowley, j. & munday, j, (2018). the evolved landscape of eportfolios: current values and purposes of academic teachers and curriculum designers. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 9(1), 3–22. 17 references artino, a.r., la rochelle, j.s., dezee, k.j., gehlbach, h. 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(pp. i-iv). springer: isbn: 978-98110-1731-5. http://www.eportfoliopractice.qut.edu.au/docs/aep_conceptguide_academic_staff.pdf https://search-proquest-com.ezproxy.csu.edu.au/docview/1790516777?accountid=10344 https://search-proquest-com.ezproxy.csu.edu.au/docview/1790516777?accountid=10344 rowley, j. & munday, j, (2018). the evolved landscape of eportfolios: current values and purposes of academic teachers and curriculum designers. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 9(1), 3–22. 20 appendix survey questions: making eportfolios relevant: developing a professional identity. 1. how would you rate your understanding of what an eportfolio is? (very poor; poor; ok; good; very good): 2. in your own words, please define your understanding of an eportfolio: 3. have you used paper-based portfolios with higher education students? (yes; no): 4. have you used electronic portfolios with higher education students? (yes; no): 5. do you feel that electronic portfolios could be useful in your future curriculum design? please describe how, or if not, why not: 6. in which discipline area(s) have or do you use eportfolios? (you may select more than one if applicable) (education; nursing; midwifery; business studies; journalism; psychology; philosophy; social science; environmental science; veterinary science; other [please specify]): 7. for what purpose(s) have or do you use eportfolios? (you may select more than one if applicable). (assessment; development; reflection; showcase; other [please specify]): 8. what product/application do you currently use for eportfolios? 9. please comment on the ease of use of this product/application for you own use. (very difficult; difficult; easy; very easy): 10. please comment on the ease of use of this product/application for your students. (very difficult; difficult; easy; very easy): 11. please list the features that you feel are most difficult: 12. please list the features that you feel are most useful: 13. have you used other eportfolio products/applications prior to the one you are currently using? 14. what other eportfolio products/applications have you used? 15. please give a brief description or explanation of any particular issues that caused you to change to the product/application you are currently using: 16. in your opinion, what features should an eportfolio platform include? 17. during the past year, how often would you have accessed the eportfolio space provided by the university? (never; occasionally (2-3 times); sometimes (4-10 times); often (more than 10 times); almost daily): 18. please rate your experience of the eportfolio provided by the university over the past year. (mostly positive; somewhat positive; equal positive and negative; somewhat negative; mostly negative): 19. please indicate your level of agreement or disagreement with the following statements: the eportfolio learning is well integrated with weekly learning. (strongly disagree; disagree; neither agree nor disagree; agree; strongly agree); eportfolio activities encourage active learning; i can see evidence of student reflection and rowley, j. & munday, j, (2018). the evolved landscape of eportfolios: current values and purposes of academic teachers and curriculum designers. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 9(1), 3–22. 21 development through eportfolio; my students can gain feedback from their peers through eportfolio; i provide resources and templates through the eportfolio space. 20. which areas of students’ learning are affected through their use of eportfolio, and to what extent? (personal and intellectual; research and inquiry; communication; ethical, social and professional understanding): 21. please indicate your level of agreement or disagreement with the following statements: the eportfolio in the degree program is influenced by professional standards (strongly disagree; disagree; neither agree nor disagree; agree; strongly agree); the eportfolio in the degree program can be shared with prospective employers; the possibility of an employer viewing the portfolio has influenced the design of the collection and curation of the eportfolio; students nearing graduation have opportunities to present and share eportfolios with prospective employers. 22. please add any further comments you have about eportfolios and their use. 23. would you be willing to participate in a 30-60 minute individual interview about your experiences of and/or plans for an eportfolio? 24. thank you for indicating you are willing to participate in an interview. please provide your email address so we can contact you to arrange a suitable date and time. rowley, j. & munday, j, (2018). the evolved landscape of eportfolios: current values and purposes of academic teachers and curriculum designers. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 9(1), 3–22. 22 interview questions for eportfolio survey respondents this interview follows the survey about making eportfolios relevant and we ask you to reflect on your survey responses. the final question on the online survey asked you to ‘add any comments you have about eportfolios and their use’: 1. in what ways do you see eportfolios as a useful learning tool that benefits learning? 2. we are curious about the development of professional identity and the connection between the eportfolio and identity development. how do you think the eportfolio assists the learner to develop their professional identity? 3. the eportfolio is reported to assist students with their engagement in learning. to what extent do you think the eportfolio engages students? maybe give an example. 4. students are extrinsically motivated to prepare an eportfolio as it is embedded or there is an assessment task associated with it. what do you believe are or could be the intrinsic motivations for developing a portfolio? 5. portfolios are primarily private learning spaces and often the development of a personal eportfolio goes through stages before it becomes a showcase or public space. in your opinion, what is the potential for the portfolio to be both a tool for personal identity development and a tool for professional identity development? give examples. 6. it is often reported that eportfolio success will only be attained if it is scaffolded. can you describe your view for success of an eportfolio? 7. after considering all that you’ve told us, what other purposes do you believe eportfolios are useful for? why? 8. what did you think is the hardest thing about creating an eportfolio? why? 9. is there anything else from your experience of working with, or creating, eportfolios that you would like to tell us? bridgstock, r., grant-imaru, m., & mcalpine, a. (2019). integrating career development learning into the curriculum: collaboration with the careers service for employability. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 10(1), 56–72. 56 integrating career development learning into the curriculum: collaboration with the careers service for employability ruth bridgstock1, michelle grant-iramu2 and alan mcalpine3 r.bridgstock@griffith.edu.au; m.grantiramu@qut.edu.au; a.mcalpine@qut.edu.au corresponding author: ruth bridgstock 1learning futures, griffith university, queensland, orcid.org/0000-0003-0072-2815 2creative industries faculty, queensland university of technology 3student success group, queensland university of technology, orcid.org/0000-0003-4189-2167 abstract career development learning has a demonstrable positive impact on the graduate employability of higher education learners. this is particularly the case if it is integrated into the curriculum rather than experienced as an add-on or included in finite curriculum elements. however, integration of career development learning into curriculum is a significant and challenging undertaking in course design, and also in facilitation of learning experiences. academics manage crowded curricula in their disciplinary areas, and many also have external course accreditation requirements to deal with that may not include career development elements. in many institutions there is mixed understanding of what career development learning entails, no clear top-level strategic support, and unprecedented numbers of enrolled students across digital and on-campus provision. this article explores challenges and opportunities in integrating career development learning into curriculum in higher education, and identifies effective strategies for doing so at institutional, school, and program levels. it draws upon case studies comprising more than 30 interviews across nine universities in australia and internationally, exploring how cross-disciplinary collaboration between career development practitioners, learning and curriculum designers, and academic units can be effective in enacting curricular career development learning at scale. the article suggests strategies for institutional leaders, academics, and careers practitioners in higher education insitutions at different stages in the curricular career development learning journey. keywords: career development learning, careers services, employability, curriculum, course development, collaborative curriculum development, organisational transformation introduction this article explores the extent to which, and the ways in which, universities are integrating career development learning (cdl) into curriculum to foster graduate employability. career development learning is an important way that the graduate employability of learners can be enhanced, but there continues to be significantly diverse practice in cdl for employability in different universities. some are continuing to pursue co-curricular approaches, and others are increasingly seeking to include cdl in the curriculum of degree programs in different ways. one way that curriculum integration is occurring is through collaborative efforts between academic staff, careers services, and curriculum / learning designers, with the enabling strategic support of senior leadership. there are challenges and complexities associated with both curriculum integration of cdl and collaborative efforts for curriculum renovation. this article documents some of the ways that higher education institutions are navigating these challenges and complexities. mailto:r.bridgstock@griffith.edu.au mailto:m.grantiramu@qut.edu.au mailto:a.mcalpine@qut.edu.au bridgstock, r., grant-imaru, m., & mcalpine, a. (2019). integrating career development learning into the curriculum: collaboration with the careers service for employability. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 10(1), 56–72. 57 career development learning and employability career development learning is the acquisition of capabilities that are useful to the lifelong development and management of one’s career, grounded in an ongoing authentic learningbased process that builds knowledge of the world of work and one’s self (bridgstock, 2009). this process develops the learner’s ability to make sense of and synthesise this knowledge, and form the basis for effective decision-making relating to career choices, professional development and career building activity (including work acquisition). a key outcome of cdl is career identity development (holmes, 2013; tomlinson, 2017). identity provides both a frame through which students can interpret their capabilities and previous experiences, and a meaningful way to focus future activity. the student’s career identity acts as a ‘cognitive compass’ (fugate, kinicki, & ashforth, 2004), supporting their learning and career choices, and helping them to make sense of learning experiences. career development learning also strengthens learners’ capacity to navigate careers and the world of work, including how to obtain work and how to advance in careers. career development learning emphasises the development of meta-level capabilities, as the focus is on decision-making and planning. it is involved with the development of processual capabilities, in terms of implementing the decisions that shape one’s career (watts, 2006; patton & mcmahon, 2014). with the rise of the self-managed career (as opposed to the ‘traditional organisational career’ within one organisation) in the context of the global knowledge economy, cdl seems increasingly central to people’s capacity to engage in meaningful and productive careers. automation and machine learning, the gig economy, global competition, and structural changes to labour markets and labour policy have changed the way that careers unfold. it is now accepted that the majority of the working population will experience a multiplicity of employment experiences over their lives. the foundation for young australians predicts that young people of today will have 19 jobs across five industries in their lifetimes (foundation for young australians, 2016); it is also likely that they will experience times of unemployment and underemployment; that they may be self-employed at one or several points; that they will need to continually learn to update their capabilities to remain employable in jobs and industries that are changing rapidly. some of the job changes will be voluntary, but some will be brought about by organisational restructuring or obsolescence of job roles. there is evidence that cdl has a positive impact on graduate employability in both short-term employment and lifelong-lifewide senses (see hooley, marriott, & sampson, 2011). bridgstock (2011) demonstrated this link empirically in a longitudinal study of creative industries graduates, in terms of both subjective (career satisfaction, rated employability) and objective (income) measures of career outcome. silverberg, warner, fong and goodwin (2004) found that participation in cdl in vocational education impacted positively on young people’s short and mediumterm earnings. gore, kadish and aseltine (2003) studied the effects of cdl among high school students from low socioeconomic backgrounds and found a positive impact on the perceived quality of their job roles, the match between their interests and their roles, and the outlook of their careers two years later. a number of frameworks and theories for cdl have been developed that can be used educationally, commencing with watts’ (1977; 2006) seminal dots model (the components of which are self-awareness; opportunity awareness; decision-making; and transition learning). frameworks for cdl across the lifespan were developed in the united states, canada and australia in the 2000s (national occupational information coordinating committee, 1996; mceecdya, 2010; hache, redekopp, & jarvis, 2000). these frameworks are comprehensive expositions of the competencies required for career development in those countries. bridgstock (2009) developed a model for higher education proposing how, through metacognitive processes, self-management and career building capabilities are related to the development and use of disciplinary and transferable skills for employability. bridgstock, r., grant-imaru, m., & mcalpine, a. (2019). integrating career development learning into the curriculum: collaboration with the careers service for employability. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 10(1), 56–72. 58 how do universities address students’ career development learning? career development learning usually happens naturally (if haphazardly and tacitly) through exposure to the world of work and professional contexts. until as recently as a decade ago (bridgstock, 2009), students engaged in much of this learning after they graduated from higher education degree programs and embarked on their first career roles. in some instances, this approach can lead to ‘false starts’, significant career identity revision, and retraining as they belatedly reassess their initial career decisions. early access to cdl in degree programs builds student understanding of possible career trajectories and supports the development of realistic identities. as students start to understand where the degree might take them, the relevance of the learning becomes clearer, and engagement with the curriculum is strengthened. students who are less certain why they are in degree programs are more likely to adopt ‘just getting by’ approaches where the aim is to pass (nyström, dahlgren, & dahlgren, 2008). in the current context of a highly crowded and competitive graduate labour market (karmel & carroll, 2016), and where students are paying significant sums to complete university programs, the traditional approach can no longer stand. students need to have a reasonable sense of what their professional lives might entail, and the confidence that it has a reasonable fit with their initial interests and aspirations. they also need to know that they will have the foundational capabilities required to add value through their work, and to navigate their careers. recognising this, universities have started to engage in strategic approaches to foster cdl among their students. these approaches differ according to the type of university, its organisational structure, student needs and degree program profile, its conceptions of graduate employability, the degree of senior leadership support for cdl and employability, and the policy context in which the institution operates (farenga & quinlan, 2015; o’leary, 2017; boden & nedeva, 2010). farenga and quinlan (2015) summarise three dominant strategies used by uk universities as ‘hands off’, ‘portfolio’, and ‘award’ (see also bennett et. al., 2017). in the ‘hands off’ university with high institutional ranking and historical esteem, employability remains implicit in the learning experiences of students, which focus on the development of disciplinary and transferable skills, with little or no mention of career development. the authors point out that in such a university, students may be more likely to possess the cultural capital, and the institution enough reputational capital, that its graduates have privileged access to the most desirable graduate jobs. the ‘portfolio’ university offers a range of opportunities to students, such as leadership development, cdl, career mentoring, summer internships, job placements, and volunteering. while some of these could be credit-bearing and embedded in curriculum, most are direct-to-student co-curricular activities. the emphasis is on meeting the career development needs of learners through a ‘pick and choose’ menu of offerings. finally, the ‘award’ university offers a formal employability credential through student participation in a wide range of co-curricular (and in some cases curricular) activity, including cdl, entrepreneurship, internships and community engagement. none of these approaches is optimal in terms of student engagement. in farenga and quinlan’s (2015) study, their ‘portfolio’ university only had 3 percent of students in its leadership program, 7 percent were engaged in cdl, and 1 percent in industry mentoring or an internship. the ‘award’ case study university had only 9 percent of students enrolled in the employability award. co-curricular schemes raise questions about equity, as students who must do paid work or have caring responsibilities have less time to devote to learning beyond their degree commitments. co-curricular schemes are most likely to attract high achieving students with well-developed career capital and time above their core studies. more fundamentally, the implementation of these approaches leads to the question: if employability is now a central aim of university learning, why is cdl still addressed in a piecemeal ‘bolt on’ to the core curriculum? bridgstock, r., grant-imaru, m., & mcalpine, a. (2019). integrating career development learning into the curriculum: collaboration with the careers service for employability. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 10(1), 56–72. 59 curricular approaches to career development learning bridgstock and hearn (2012) propose a whole-of-program model for career development in curriculum. students commence an iterative process of career identity building from first year, reflecting on their core career interests, abilities and values and applying this emergent career identity in the context of industry knowledge and experience, ideally in authentic industry settings and facilitated by industry professionals. this iterative and reflective process develops the ‘self-management’ aspects of lifelong career management (bridgstock, 2009). students are supported to develop adaptive career identities that is, identities that are grounded in good information about the world of work along with self-knowledge, and identities that are at the same time flexible enough to adapt over time as needed. the learning includes exploring career opportunities they had not yet considered and refining their ideas about work and careers, they are also encouraged to learn the high-level skills associated with whole-of-career development and to continue the process for themselves in an ongoing way. during this career identity building phase, students consider questions such as: what drew me to this course? what are my core work values and how can the range of career options open to me fit with those values? what skills will i require in my intended career and how will i acquire those? how will i cope with setbacks? what will i do if my career needs or the labour market changes?’ once this process is underway, students are more likely to engage actively and meaningfully with learning opportunities offered during the remainder of the course, and to drive their own capability acquisition, in line with their personal career goals. once they have started to develop adaptive career identities, students will also be more likely to find worth in the outward career building and ‘employment-getting’ aspects of career management education, such as capstone programs (bridgstock, 2009). thus, the second half of undergraduate courses should develop industry-specific knowledge and know-how, including how to build industry networks, and how to find and obtain or create work. renovating content-and-skills based degree curricula to integrate cdl can be a challenging endeavour. these challenges relate variously to the beliefs and capabilities of teaching staff, student expectations, crowded disciplinary curricula, professional accreditation requirements, curriculum development and approval processes, resourcing, and leadership support. if whole-of-program approaches are not taken, the risk is that some subjects will contain cdl elements, and others will not. rather than a progression of learning through the program as described by bridgstock and hearn (2012), students may miss important learning experiences, or repeat them multiple times. whole of course redesign opportunities typically happen at times of official review and reaccreditation, every few years. even then, it can be difficult to develop curricula that build upon one another meaningfully, as academic staff often have segmented responsibilities for course subjects. university programs have a long history of emphasis on disciplinary knowledge and skills, along with critical capabilities and other transferable skills. integration of employability learning into curriculum has been met with resistance for as long as employability has been part of higher education discourse (yorke, 2010), and cdl curriculum integration is no exception to this. some academic staff, argue that it exemplifies vocationalisation and instrumentalisation of the curriculum. such arguments are also linked with concerns about ‘dumbing down’ of programs. further, students may come into programs expecting to learn disciplinary content only. we suggest that if done properly, cdl actually enhances the development of disciplinary and critical capabilities, as well as metacognitive and self-regulation skills. rather than ‘dumbing down’ the curriculum, cdl can turn the degree program into a transformative experience for learners, and can in fact enhance disciplinary learning (mcilveen, 2012). cdl as a foundation and integrator for disciplinary learning is an important threshold concept for students, academic staff, and university leadership alike (meyer & land, 2006). bridgstock, r., grant-imaru, m., & mcalpine, a. (2019). integrating career development learning into the curriculum: collaboration with the careers service for employability. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 10(1), 56–72. 60 once the value of cdl in curriculum is accepted by staff and leadership, there remains the question of how, practically, to integrate it into programs. academic staff are subject matter experts in their disciplinary areas, but most do not have specialist cdl expertise. one productive approach to the integration of cdl into curriculum could be to foster intentional collaboration between academics, careers practitioners, and curriculum / learning designers. collaboration with the careers service for career development learning historically the delivery of career services in universities has primarily been to assist students with occupational and degree program choices. dey and cruzvergara (2014) extend casella’s (1990) description of the evolution of the careers service from that of ‘advisor’ or ‘counsellor’ with a reactive positioning and impact on a minority of students (watts & fretwell, 2004), to a more proactive contemporary role in the university that also involves education and relationship brokerage (including with industry), and a far greater footprint. careers services have traditionally been thought of as stand-alone entities (mckenzie & howell, 2005), but could be more productively positioned if practitioners were distributed throughout the university in teaching units, providing career development expertise towards curriculum design and delivery. in exploring this possibility, a number of constraints should be acknowledged. careers services in universities tend to employ a very limited number of specialist staff, and those staff tend to be trained in advising or counselling. those who have experience in educational roles have tended to work with small numbers in workshops and one-on-one interactions. they might also be ‘parachuted in’ to cover specific career topics inside subjects (e.g., ‘how to develop an effective cv’ in a capstone course). shifting to a collaborative and comprehensive approach to cdl will involve professional learning on the part of careers staff as well as academics. research methods this article documents the findings of a study that explored cdl in universities, through interviews conducted in 2017-2018 with 37 staff across nine universities (seven universities in australia, one in canada and one in the united kingdom). for recruitment, initial contact was made with 10 careers services managers known to the research team through their professional networks, of whom nine responded that they were available and willing to participate. the final sample of seven australian universities included one group of eight university, three australian technology network universities, two regional universities, and one innovative research university. ethics approval for this research was obtained from the qut human research ethics committee. the interviewees included careers services managers and staff, academic leadership at faculty and university levels, academic staff, and curriculum development specialists. the interviewees were asked questions about approaches to employability and cdl adopted at that university, the position of the careers service and the extent and ways in which collaboration was occurring. from the interviews, we: (i) mapped the range of maturity of practice in cdl in the universities we studied; (ii) documented the specific approaches that universities are taking to foster cdl within and outside curriculum; and (iii) explored the collaborative work that some faculties, central units and careers services are undertaking to integrate cdl into the curriculum. in this article, we use three case studies to exemplify the wide range of policies and practices that exist. the number of interview participants across the case study universities and overall is shown in table 1. bridgstock, r., grant-imaru, m., & mcalpine, a. (2019). integrating career development learning into the curriculum: collaboration with the careers service for employability. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 10(1), 56–72. 61 table 1: participant types and numbers across the nine universities studied careers services managers and staff academic leadership – faculty and university academic staff curriculum development specialists all universities studied (n=37) 11 12 9 6 case university 1: azure (n=5) 1 1 2 1 case university 2: argent (n=4) 1 1 2 0 case university 3: reflex (n=5) 1 3 1 0 findings integration of career development learning: a range of maturity of practice the nine participant universities exhibited a wide range of policy and practice approaches to cdl. there was diversity across curriculum embedded cdl and co-curricular offerings, the positioning of the careers service organisationally and functionally, and the ways in which collaboration between careers services and academic units was happening. the research team synthesised the interview findings at a high level to map the field of maturity of practice among participant universities (figure 1). of the nine universities, three were broadly able to be characterised as taking a ‘curricular–whole of course’ approach, three were taking a mostly ‘curricular–subject level’ approach, and three were characterised predominantly as ‘extracurricular–co-curricular’. figure 1: integration of career development learning into curriculum: mapping maturity of practice bridgstock, r., grant-imaru, m., & mcalpine, a. (2019). integrating career development learning into the curriculum: collaboration with the careers service for employability. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 10(1), 56–72. 62 the extent of cdl curriculum integration among the participant universities ranged from an ‘extra-curricular’ pattern, typified by opt-in offerings with no connection to curriculum, through to ‘curricular-whole of course’ approaches, where cdl is a central underpinning of whole-ofdegree design and review, along with wider elements of the student experience. in between ‘extra-curricular’ and ‘curricular-whole of course’, there are universities that are adopting mostly ‘co-curricular’ approaches, with some links to degree programs. there are also ‘curricular-subject’ universities, where cdl can be found in some individual units or subjects but is not yet integrated throughout courses or programs. each stage of maturity is typified by certain cdl practices. at the extra-curricular stage, optin one-on-one counselling, online modules, industry mentoring, workshops and cv/ cover letter development support are offered to students. at the co-curricular level, this provision may be promoted through courses and programs, and may be recognised through an employability award. at the early ‘curricular-subject’ stage, modules and workshops from earlier stages may be incorporated into teaching and learning resources. careers staff may be asked to ‘spot teach’ directly into the curriculum. at later stages of maturity, cdl starts to become integrated into the fabric of the curriculum through intentional design processes, and we start to find career identity development constructs in learning outcomes and activities, often infused with disciplinary learning opportunities. interviewees spoke about the advantages of curriculum integration for students over co-curricular and stand-alone approaches: students live in faculties and courses live in faculties, so much of what we can do in terms of impacting students’ experiences is in faculties … it puts a value on it, both for students and for academics. it’s in a unit. it’s credit. there’s assessment connected to some of the learning that’s done (i15, curriculum designer). the advantages of whole-of course approaches over individual subject approaches were noted by several interviewees. they acknowledged that a whole-of-course approach is often significantly more challenging to design and deploy and involves considered co-ordination between the academics responsible for individual courses. however, they noted that a wholeof course approach means that cdl can provide links to disciplinary learning and a seamless progression to that learning rather than risking redundancy or gaps in provision: if i’m a first-year unit coordinator in science, what i might do can be relevant and not risk being the same thing that the person in the unit before just did because they didn’t know what i was going to do. and what a third-year unit coordinator might do is built intentionally as part of that framework and can be connected into what that unit is focused on rather than either being the one unit you do somewhere that’s all about career development (i27, learning and teaching leadership). a key challenge to the integration of cdl is the perception that it is ‘yet another thing’ to add to the curriculum, and that if it is prioritised, important disciplinary learning might be compromised or lost. interviewees discussed the need to address and allay these concerns openly, using examples of successful practice where necessary: not being afraid to challenge notions of the crowded curriculum, to say, the benefits of this work are not counterproductive with what you’re trying to do. they completely support it. they align with it. they will make it better. it’s not about taking something really important out to put this in. it’s about strengthening what you already have by bringing this into the equation as well (i16, employability manager). in all of the universities studied where cdl had shifted from extra-curricular to more mature, integrated provision, the careers service had played one or several important leadership roles. in the maturity map, the overall positioning and dominant role of the careers service moves from stand-alone and separate from academic units (often located in marketing or student administration organisational areas); to providing a service to academic units; to enabling and bridgstock, r., grant-imaru, m., & mcalpine, a. (2019). integrating career development learning into the curriculum: collaboration with the careers service for employability. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 10(1), 56–72. 63 collaborative roles in teaching, often co-located with academic units. some careers services managers commented about radical shifts in their roles and organisational positioning, to suddenly finding themselves at the table with university leaders of learning and teaching, developing institutional strategy and policy for graduate employability. a critical turning point: top-level strategic vision and enabling support while a wide range of maturity was found across the universities, they could be divided into two groups – one group where top-level leadership support for cdl integration was evident, through university employability strategies and strategic learning and teaching plans, and another group where this had not yet occurred. universities with top-level leadership support moved quickly into ‘curricular-course level’ and ‘curricular-whole of course’ stages: leadership engagement is essential because you have to convey it as part of the strategy or it’s not going to happen (i21, curriculum designer). universities without top-level support stayed at earlier stages, with careers teams promoting their services directly to students and relying on relationships with individual academics to include cdl in curriculum: so much happens here through relational work but if one of those people leaves then we have to start from scratch, whereas if you want to actually create structural change it sits at the level of course design (i1, careers consultant). top-level support seems to be pivotal to cdl integration for a number of reasons: it increases awareness and understanding of cdl and its benefits among staff and students; ties cdl to the strategic direction of the university; builds a sense of urgency around the agenda; and provides both space and resourcing for curriculum integration to occur: if you haven’t got the underpinning infrastructure driven by strategic leadership, you can’t even get through the door. it’s about how you introduce it and now that employability’s on everyone’s agenda, academics are seeing it and going, ‘what is that, what do we do and who do we talk to?’ (i20, curriculum designer). when the vice chancellor is talking about employability and is pushing down performance indicators through his senior leadership team, it builds awareness and makes program managers more open to the conversation (i18, learning and teaching leadership). advocacy for cdl at university-level learning and teaching committees, as well as facultylevel decision-making groups, was noted to be critical for the success of integration efforts: …having those people at the table to have the discussions, if we do embark on a new initiative or project, we will have that person at the table reminding us… it elevates the importance, it also reinforces and reminds us of that aspect of student learning (i14, academic leadership). bottom-up pioneers and collaborative efforts while top-level leadership can often provide a turning-point to enable cdl integration throughout the university, it needs to be met with bottom-up activity in order to create change. for universities that do not yet have top-level leadership enablement of cdl in curriculum, bottom-up, collaborative efforts can strengthen relationships between careers and academic staff, transferring skills and building confidence for curriculum embedded cdl teaching: i think we have to make the relationship between faculty and career services strong enough that academics see this as part of the core of what we’re doing, not something that’s someone else’s job or they don’t have time for or that they don’t have the skills (i27, learning and teaching leadership). bridgstock, r., grant-imaru, m., & mcalpine, a. (2019). integrating career development learning into the curriculum: collaboration with the careers service for employability. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 10(1), 56–72. 64 ‘relational’ approaches, where individual academics and careers services staff collaborate at a subject or even co-curricular level for cdl, were seen by interviewees as effective ways to innovate and try new things, and also to build up an evidence base to convince other academics of the benefits of cdl: having local pioneers on the ground, bringing that emphasis to bear in conversations is a very powerful influencer in terms of what gets included and what gets prioritised (i15, curriculum designer). …you get the evidence base that you can then present to people who initially wouldn’t have been so open to the conversation (i19, learning and teaching leadership). the timing of these collaborative efforts is important. course teams can be more open to examining curriculum during program accreditation and review periods, and may have access to resources to assist with collaborative cdl integration efforts: it wasn’t halfway through the review, ‘oh, now let’s bring them in’ it was: ‘can we meet with them initially?...’ by coming in right at the start of the year and having been involved through the whole process, everyone’s quite happy to have that conversation on how can embed them in (i24, faculty leadership). it can also be easier to capitalise upon other existing processes and supports in the university than invent new ones: the library had introduced a compulsory module several years before [our program] and we were able to piggyback on that process in terms of the design, build and rollout of the platform… there was a blueprint which made the process easier (i3, careers services manager). road blocks and making the collaboration work interviewees were conscious that challenges to collaboration for cdl stem from historical ways of working in both the careers service and academic units, as well as the different capability sets of the staff involved. many careers staff have a counselling or consultancy background and end up learning about pedagogy and teaching through the collaboration. academics, on the other hand, are used to being subject matter experts in their areas of teaching, and may come into the collaboration time-poor and not feeling at all confident teaching cdl. while academics have these very lean structures because they’re dealing with hundreds of students, the careers service staff weren’t used to that… we were learning how to engage career service knowledge for the course, and they were learning how to do batch processing, collective feedback and peer feedback (i21, university leadership). …(academic) staff are feeling like they need to build their capability in this area. they’re equally feeling lost and they also feel it’s not their job. so that’s the double whammy. they don’t feel confident. they don’t have the skills and they also don’t get any incentives, reward or workload for doing it. so, they’re your roadblocks (i18, learning and teaching leadership). in universities where cdl integration is well established, scalability can be a challenge, as there may not be enough careers staff to work directly inside programs. some careers services adopt a ‘train the trainer’ strategy, which involves careers staff facilitating professional learning of academic staff and being involved in the recruitment of suitable academics to support cdl in the curriculum: we work with them to say, ‘we can support you on this basis in the first year of doing this, but whilst we do, we need to put into place how you’re going to sustain this, and whether that’s through bringing in teaching fellows or recruiting for an academic lead for this module. this may be about putting together job descriptions, work allocation bridgstock, r., grant-imaru, m., & mcalpine, a. (2019). integrating career development learning into the curriculum: collaboration with the careers service for employability. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 10(1), 56–72. 65 models, to go and pitch at college board meetings to get the buy-in for that’ (i16, employability manager). interviewees from universities with mature collaborative cdl practice talked about making an effort to work in the same communities and spaces; making the work a shared enterprise and developing a shared language: language has been really important in trying to engage our academic community… when you talk about trying to work with them to produce creative thinkers that are action orientated, that are able to take their research to the next level, that are able to create a legacy in their local community, that expands our capacity for knowledge transfer and exchange (i16, employability manager). a closer examination of three university case studies varying degrees of cdl curriculum integration maturity, and diversity of policy and practices were evident in the universities studied in this project. the following three case studies provide examples of how different universities are engaging with cdl, and how they are navigating opportunities to collaborate for cdl curriculum integration. case 1: azure university azure university is a large australian metropolitan university, established in the 1980s. its overall approach to cdl could be described as the early stages of ‘whole of course’ based in university-wide strategy. the careers service and faculty staff collaborated on the development of cdl curriculum framework two years ago, at a time when the priorities of employability had a renewed strategic emphasis across the university. there was significant structural change to support the framework implementation that brought the careers service out of the student support services area and into the central learning and teaching area: as structural change occurred, we were able to connect and leverage that and move into a learning and teaching space where we could be more strategic in embedding cdl (i1, careers consultant). the new structure increased the visibility of careers consultants and shifted their physical location, with career teams now sharing office space with teaching and learning teams and spending more time working with them: we are changing those roles and taking them out to where we think students are at, and providing greater opportunities for them to connect into curriculum so that they’re informing the design of our courses (i27, learning and teaching leadership). while this approach is in its early stages, it is working to connect careers educators with the university’s curriculum designers, learning designers and course teams, as well as anchoring a framework of cdl in the requirements for redesigned and newly designed curricula. significant leadership support combined with an extensive consultation process was fundamental to the success of curriculum integration: getting traction with enough senior stakeholders at the university has been effective in getting the message across and we’re now able to effectively drive course change (i27, learning and teaching leadership). in addition to leveraging leadership support, engagement with the emergent curriculum framework was enhanced through a university-wide summit, which created a space where academics, professional staff and students could highlight what the university does well and start to identify the possibilities and potential elements of the framework’s design. the careers service continued to consult with stakeholders through an advisory group that provided ongoing feedback and tested design components. bridgstock, r., grant-imaru, m., & mcalpine, a. (2019). integrating career development learning into the curriculum: collaboration with the careers service for employability. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 10(1), 56–72. 66 people wanted flexibility, it needed to be able to be used in multiple ways and be contextualised… we’ve since struggled to keep up with demand because the process has created an appetite for the work by keeping people engaged (i1, careers consultant). the cdl framework at azure is supported by resources and modules that curriculum and learning designers can draw on when they are working with course teams and unit coordinators. while online cdl modules had been widely used previously at azure, people used them for the things that made sense to them around employability and didn’t engage with the self-awareness and broader employability concepts (i1, careers consultant). the new structure and approach has enabled curriciulum designers to act as conduits for collaboration: there is also an opportunity to bring career educators in to speak with course teams directly to develop and skill academics up to really bring alive in their classroom the importance of employability and careers skills (i15, curriculum designer). different levels of faculty readiness was acknowledged as a key consideration when rolling out the framework across the university: i don’t think i could say that there’s a common point at which everybody has arrived. everybody’s probably reached the threshold of acknowledging that those sorts of skills are critical. probably the divergence is where people see the responsibility for that (i15, curriculum designer). an awareness of faculty readiness has informed the roll out, with early work focussed on early adopters and champions of the framework. faculty teams that have been engaged in the process see their role as being flagship units that can convey the benefits of the process as well as highlighting emergent issues and processes for alleviating difficulties. resourcing remains a challenge for both faculty and the careers service, and highlights questions of sustainability for collaborative course development and delivery: we’re still working our way through what that will look like going forward. in terms of how it’s worked over the past six months, it’s been a bit of good will, to be honest (i17, academic staff). the next step involves incremental levels of evaluation: the first is actually tracking usage and understanding how people are using it and capturing additional specialised development. the second is user experience: do people like it? have they learned anything from it?... the next level is behaviour change: once this has been in place, do we see a change in the way people engage with this? (i1, careers consultant). case 2: argent university argent university is a reasonably large university originally established in the 1960s, with campuses in metropolitan, suburban and regional locations in australia. its overall approach to cdl for graduate employability is co-curricular, with some moves into curricular-subject level integration. the university has recently launched an enterprise-wide co-curricular employability program based on career and employability capabilities, the framework for which was co-developed with employers. strategies are also being developed and piloted to shift elements of the program into the curriculum. university leadership provided initial momentum in shifting perceptions around the role of the careers service, with acknowledgement that student outcomes are important for the university. as part of a recent university-wide restructure, the careers service was shifted out of the student services area and into the learning and teaching area. to some extent it was to give that impetus into the curriculum, to raise the importance of employability skills within the curriculum, which was harder to do as a stand-alone service (i 12, student services leadership). bridgstock, r., grant-imaru, m., & mcalpine, a. (2019). integrating career development learning into the curriculum: collaboration with the careers service for employability. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 10(1), 56–72. 67 since then, the careers service has been moved back out of the teaching and learning space into student services. i think we got a little lost there… [but]… it was at that point that we were able to engage others in what employability at our university looked like and what it meant (i12, student services leadership). the temporarily enhanced visibility of the careers service and the increased focus on employability coincided with a strategic funding initiative… (which brought cdl)… to the forefront. although the strategic funding aspect of it has gone, (cdl is) still there and it’s still developing in different ways (i 12, student services leadership). the careers service manager now sits on a working party with teaching and learning leadership, curriculum development staff, faculty teaching and learning representatives, and some industry partners. the terms of reference incorporate the development of a curricular employability framework: … hopefully we’ll be able to provide some recommendations to the university around an approach to embed employability into the curriculum (i4, careers service manager). gaining an understanding of ‘employability’ across the university was also viewed as part of this process. language is important. we all need to know that if we say ‘employability’, this is what we mean, and we need the students to understand that’s what we mean as well (i12, student services leadership). the careers service has already developed a co-curricular cdl program: …even though it’s been designed primarily as a co-curricular program, we’ve designed it so that it will integrate into the curriculum. we are now starting to get students engaged in that. we can expand that across all courses now (i4, careers service manager). another prong of the argent employability strategy is to work with academics to identify where cdl currently exists within courses, and where staff can be supported to integrate it: …it’s a gap analysis that we’re in the early stages of undertaking… if we can link [our core capabilities] to what already exists and just identify the gaps we need to fill, we’ll have it embedded within subjects and be able to extend that out (i12, student services leadership). the careers service includes a careers education team that collaborates with academics on a number of pilot projects aimed at integrating cdl into curriculum in customised ways using relational approaches. these pilot collaborations have grown out of the careers service’s own personal networks, academics that are very highly engaged with their students, have a high level of concern around employability and have seen the need to do something (i 4, careers service manager). one pilot involves a collaborative redesign of an undergraduate course curriculum, embedding cdl from the outset of the course, and then in core second and third year subjects: i’m very interested in using [the careers team’s] professional skills and shaping our curriculum in ways that are more relevant for employability (i22, academic staff). an identified challenge relates to the role of the careers team in course delivery: …there’s some debate in the senior academic leadership over where the lines are drawn between the careers staff being involved in face-to-face delivery. one line that we’ve never crossed is having them directly involved in assessment (i22, academic staff). it was also acknowledged that academic readiness varies, and this means that strategies for expanding faculty engagement also need to vary: it takes a lot of conversations and time to get to know each discipline to be able to see where those opportunities might be… it’s still an open question as to what that approach bridgstock, r., grant-imaru, m., & mcalpine, a. (2019). integrating career development learning into the curriculum: collaboration with the careers service for employability. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 10(1), 56–72. 68 will be, and these pilots will be able to inform some of that thinking (i4, careers service manager). a further challenge relates to the changing demands on careers staff and the new skill sets required for collaboration, curriculum influence and student engagement within academic spaces. trying to assist [careers staff] in appropriate professional development… if they’re not across your [disciplinary] subject area, academics are less likely to be wanting to engage and less likely to want to change what they’re already doing (i12, student services leadership). next steps for argent include the expansion of curriculum initiatives, and ongoing strategy development to influence cultural change. case 3: reflex university reflex university is a reasonably large australian metropolitan university established in the 1990s, with multiple campuses across metropolitan, suburban and regional locations, and an emphasis on online learning. one faculty of the university has adopted a whole-of course approach to cdl, and other faculties operate at different levels of maturity of integration. working from within the university’s student services area, the careers service has developed an employability model that includes incremental principles for scaffolding cdl across whole of course delivery. the model is operationalised into a series of online modules that are in development. the aim is that all of these modules will be developed and available online for all students to undertake (i5, careers service manager). the careers service has also been working to gain traction in the curriculum among faculty leadership and through early faculty adopters. ‘influencing up’ and engaging champions using a relational approach has been important to success at reflex. for example, supportive leadership in student services championed the model with leadership in a faculty area. the faculty dean then invited the careers service to present at a teaching and learning committee meeting. faculty leadership buy-in has underscored the progress of integrating the cdl model: …because in a university with strategic priorities, if your priority isn’t as important as other priorities they can say, ‘we need to spend more money on research, not cdl’ (i13, student services leadership). the combination of timing and increased visibility among faculty leadership led to the initiation of a faculty-based pilot collaboration with the careers service. the pilot informed and resourced the development of the first three online modules, and also helped to refine the model and identify connection points across their curriculum: we looked at their cdl map and help them simplify it… we started with career learning in first year as a conscious strategy to build students’ career differentiation before they move into internships and international experiences (i21 faculty leadership). a careers consultant was seconded as a course co-ordinator into faculty and worked to design and co-deliver the first three modules in curriculum. this not only progressed the actualisation of the careers service model, but also built expertise among collaborators. from a faculty leadership perspective, it was acknowledged that while leadership was important in initiating collaboration, it was equally important to create an environment where academics could take ownership of these ideas: bridgstock, r., grant-imaru, m., & mcalpine, a. (2019). integrating career development learning into the curriculum: collaboration with the careers service for employability. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 10(1), 56–72. 69 i took a back step, initiated the introductions and then stepped away and said, ‘i’m here if you need me but you run with it, you’re the experts within this program’ (i24, faculty leadership). while the piloting faculty emphasised that the modules were generic and could be embedded into any university course, they also suggested that tutorial staff have relevant expertise: it can’t be just a lump that sits there. you have to unpack it and have qualified staff to engage with it (i21, faculty leadership). engaging part-time career advisors as course tutors also assisted in linking what was being taught with the other services offered by the careers team: we made sure that as many as possible of our tutors were from that background because we wanted that to be a shop front to what the careers service does as part of the student experience in the first year (i21, faculty leadership). collaborating with early adopters has worked to build an evidence base and secured champions for the model: i think you have to be quite pragmatic and you work with those who are on the same page as you at that moment in time. you influence those that you can influence and then you get the evidence base so you can then present to people who initially wouldn’t have been so open to the conversation (i13, student services leadership). the pilot enabled leadership from the collaborating faculty to present evidence to the senior management committee and to facilitate conversations with other faculty leaders: i wanted to help show what the careers service could do … and i wanted my colleagues at senior management group to think differently about career and professional development (i21, faculty leadership). student services leadership in the university supports the careers team to identify potential partners and target their collaborative endeavours. the emergence of a new faculty-based collaboration highlights the value of increase awareness and leadership advocacy: we undergo a five-year review of our programs, and [one program] was up for review, which had some issues that we needed to address… so, i touched base with [the careers service] (i24, faculty leadership). one of the challenges of reflex’s model delivery is resourcing: the key role i have is to make sure it is resourced effectively so that we don’t have staff having to absorb additional work over and above the day job that they’re already currently doing (i19 student services leadership). the other key challenge is the claim that there’s no room in the curriculum: that’s a mindset challenge from a lot of academic staff, and we’ll just keep chipping away at it… where we’ll have leverage is we’ll have a suite of evidence that demonstrates the benefit of actually taking the approach (i19 student services leadership.. the next steps for reflex are to develop the modules for the second and third phases of the cdl model, and to continue leveraging the success of existing collaborations to broaden faculty engagement. conclusion: ways forward for curricular integration of career development learning the three case studies discussed in this article show the different approaches that universities are taking to cdl in curriculum. at azure, development of top-level enabling strategy, a bridgstock, r., grant-imaru, m., & mcalpine, a. (2019). integrating career development learning into the curriculum: collaboration with the careers service for employability. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 10(1), 56–72. 70 university-wide cdl framework and structural organisational changes have facilitated collaborative curriculum development. at argent, co-curricular approaches and bottom-up subject-level collaborations are supporting moves towards whole-of-course level integration. at reflex, a pilot collaboration between one faculty and the careers service is paving the way for wider systemic change. the university careers service can be an important source of collaborative expertise for integration of cdl into curriculum, but the process of integration remains a complex one, often involving organisational, policy and culture changes, and requiring identity shifts and capability development among the staff involved. this study has shown, in line with wider studies of transformative change in universities (e.g., kezar & eckel, 2002) that both top-down and bottom-up processes need to happen concurrently for a truly institution-wide, integrated approach. bottom-up collaborative work between academic staff, careers staff, and curriculum / learning designers to design and deliver cdl-infused curriculum can be enormously fruitful, but requires the right kinds of relational and engagement processes, and often entails significant professional learning for all involved. top-down strategic enabling approaches are crucial to enacting institutional change, through policy, organisational structure, and resourcing pathways. for senior leadership to champion cdl, they require evidence of its efficacy and a clear understanding of what it entails. evidence of efficacy can be drawn from the academic literature, and from rigorous evaluative studies of career development learning practice that demonstrates changes in student capability and behaviour. career development learning is about much more than cvs and cover letters. it is about the progressive formation and refinement of identity through learning, along with the development of a set of meta-level capabilities to do with sense-making of learning experiences, informed decision-making and planning of life and career (watts, 2006; bridgstock, 2009). it therefore makes sense for cdl to be integrated with higher education curricula. in so doing, all students can receive the benefits to learning and employability that cdl confers. bridgstock, r., grant-imaru, m., & mcalpine, a. 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(2019). beyond employability skills: developing professional purpose. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 10(1), 7-26. 7 beyond employability skills: developing professional purpose glen w. bates1, andrew rixon1, angela carbone1 and christopher pilgrim1 gbates@swin.edu.au; arixon@swin.edu.au; acarbone@swin.edu.au; cpilgrim@swin.edu.au corresponding author: angela carbone 1swinburne university of technology abstract rapid transformation of the workplace and a highly competitive labour market has changed the nature of graduate employability. in addition to discipline related knowledge, students now need to be proactive and adaptable in identifying career opportunities. this paper presents a conceptual model that views employability as determined by an overarching professional purpose mindset. this mindset reflects a person’s commitment to developing a professional future aligned to personal values, professional aspirations and societal outlook. four specific mindsets are encapsulated within professional purpose (curiosity, collaboration, action and growth) and relate to three domains of development (self and social awareness; navigating the world of work and networks). two studies were conducted to explore the professional purpose model. study one was a qualitative study in which 33 undergraduate students (19 female; 14 male) explored their career decision making. focus group and interview data showed that each of the four positive mindsets operated in many students’ proactive career related behaviours. however, for other students, alternative mindsets negatively influenced their career related behaviour. in the second study, 42 academics (28 male; 14 female) identified unit learning outcomes in existing curricula related to the three domains of development. all domains were evident but outcomes for navigating the world of work received most emphasis. implications of the findings for further development of the professional purpose model are discussed. keywords: professional purpose, human and social capital, employability skills, domains of development, mindsets introduction: changing ideas about employability the contemporary labour market has become intensely competitive making it extremely difficult for people to find and maintain employment, especially in the period immediately after completing university studies (tomlinson, 2012; helyer & lee, 2014; clarke, 2018). the current labour market is also highly turbulent and made unpredictable by corporate restructuring, the gig economy, the creation and removal of specific types of jobs, and outsourcing, to name a few (smith, 2010). these changing patterns of working life increase career uncertainty and place responsibility on the individual to manage their own career (clements & kamau, 2017; smith, 2010). people need to be able to adapt to changing job requirements and negotiate a range of role transitions throughout their careers and within the organisations in which they work (fugate, kinicki, & ashforth, 2004). the prevailing economic climate has had a profound impact on educational practices within higher education institutions. changes in government policy, the requirements of employers and of potential students place the onus on universities to develop graduates who have the mailto:gbates@swin.edu.au mailto:arixon@swin.edu.au mailto:acarbone@swin.edu.au mailto:cpilgrim@swin.edu.au bates, g.w., rixon, a., carbone, a., & pilgrim, c. (2019). beyond employability skills: developing professional purpose. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 10(1), 7-26. 8 flexibility, resilience, skills and capabilities to succeed in the market and to meet the needs of employers (hinchcliffe & jolly, 2011; tomlinson, 2012). in responding to this concern, universities face the problem that current curricula focus on disciplinary knowledge at the expense of the multidisciplinary and transferrable skills which help students adapt to the requirements of their working life (kinash, crane, judd, & knight, 2016). universities have adopted two main strategies to address this problem (clarke, 2018). these include: embedding transferrable skills within curricula linked to graduate attributes (e.g., communication skills, teamwork, complex problem solving) and incorporating opportunities for work experience within courses (e.g., internships, placements, international study tours or exchanges). however, the emphasis on skills development to enhance graduate employability has been criticised as too narrow and insufficient to capture the full complexity of the task of preparing students for their working life (clark, zucas, & lent, 2011; jackson, 2016). a largely separate body of literature has emerged in parallel to the more skills based literature. this approach emphasises the importance of developing the individual’s capacity to manage their own career and stresses the role of graduates’ levels of self-awareness, confidence and adaptability in determining their employability (clarke, 2018; holmes, 2013; jackson, 2016). there is evidence that graduates’ career-related behaviours and attitudes influence their career outcomes. as clements and kamau (2017) found, university students who commit to clear career-related life goals during their studies are best able to adopt and maintain proactive career behaviours that enhance their employability after graduation. such proactive career management includes exploring relevant job options, setting career related goals, developing career relevant skills and abilities, accumulating experiences that ensure future employability and network building (briscoe, hall, & de muth, 2006; strauss, griffen, & parker, 2012). yet, surprisingly, many students do not engage in proactive career behaviours until late in their courses (tymon, 2013). the challenge for higher education providers, therefore, is how to intervene to assist students to identify personally meaningful career opportunities and to practice proactive career behaviours while at university which complement their skill development. theorists who conceptualise the construct of employability as person-centred (e.g., fugate, et al., 2004; donald, baruch, & ashleigh, 2017) identify the individual as an active agent in the workplace and in the job search process. according to fugate et al. (2004), employability is a form of work specific active adaptability that enables workers to identify and realise career opportunities (p.16). they identify three characteristics of employability: career identity, personal adaptability and social and human capital. within this triad, career identity provides the direction and energy for adaptability and the use of accumulated social and human capital. although the term career identity is difficult to define, trede, macklin and bridges (2012) identified three distinctive aspects of professional identity as the process of identifying with a specific professional group (e.g., lawyers, accountants, nurses); developing knowledge, skills and values identical to members of that profession and seeing oneself as different to people outside that profession. once established, a career identity provides a distinct source of motivation for career choices based on the person’s desired future and enhances the person’s capacity to be proactive in setting life goals to create desired career outcomes. the problem with this model of specific career identities, however, is that in the modern work force many graduates do not work in their chosen professions and need to form an identity that is more generalised (trede et al., 2012). hall introduced the construct of the ‘protean career’ as an important aspect of career identity (hall, 1976; 1996; 2002) that reflects how graduates can adapt to the need for flexibility in career identity. the protean careerist is one who can revise and adapt his or her abilities to fit the requirements of the work environment and thereby maintain employability during periods of change. career moves then become based on the person’s own values and life goals. this bates, g.w., rixon, a., carbone, a., & pilgrim, c. (2019). beyond employability skills: developing professional purpose. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 10(1), 7-26. 9 identity is often accessible as a personal narrative or story that captures past, present and future career experiences shaped by underlying motives (fugate et al., 2004) and less defined by a single professional outcome. in this paper we suggest that the formation of a broader based career identity and the development of personal adaptability and the human and social capital needed for career success depends upon the higher level, overarching construct of purpose in life. mcknight and kashdan (2009) defined purpose in life as a central, self-organising life aim that organises and stimulates goals, manages behaviours and provides a sense of meaning (p.242). purpose thus operates as a superordinate goal manager. the sense of purpose is not linked to the achievement of a designated goal but operates as a mindset motivating the person to be oriented toward goals (elliott, 2006). having a purpose in life allows the person to pursue multiple goals and to generate new goals once a goal is attained and thereby to promote personal growth. in contrast, having a specific goal that is not based on a sense of purpose makes new goals hard to identify after the goal is reached and this makes it difficult to sustain the energy needed to pursue a goal (mcknight & kashdan, 2009). the concept of a professional purpose mindset building on the model provided by mcknight and kashdan (2009), in this study we introduce the term ‘professional purpose’ to represent a career specific form of purpose in life. professional purpose is the driver of the development and pursuit of career related goals related to a general career identity. professional purpose reflects a person’s level of commitment to developing a professional future aligned to their personal values, professional aspirations and societal outlook. interacting with learning experiences, those people who have cultivated this mindset have a strong commitment to goals related to becoming more self and socially aware, more informed about the changing nature of work, more networked, and more focused on career paths meaningful to them. a distinctive element of our definition of professional purpose is that it operates as a flexible and changeable ‘mindset’ rather than a fixed disposition. this mindset guides the person’s approach to managing the complexity of the work environment. a ‘mindset’ definition of professional purpose represents the understanding that the future work environment and career options cannot be known in advance. in considering models of organisational leadership development, kennedy, carroll and francoeur (2013) argued that the new economy brings into question the fundamental assumption of early models of organisational behaviour that the world is essentially stable and the future knowable. when that assumption is met, a fixed set of skills and competencies can be obtained for employability, or to demonstrate organisational behaviours such as leadership. relevant skills can be learned and utilised as problems arise. however, because of the uncertainty of career outcomes in contemporary society, the future is not knowable. thus, skill learning is not sufficient for raising employability in the new economy. what is required is the development of a mindset that can assist the individual to take responsibility for their employability. in this complex environment, kennedy et al. (2017) argue that change is continuous, self-generating and emergent rather than confined to particular events and extraordinary circumstances. this means life decision-making needs to be based on the person’s own worldview, beliefs and values, which generate a search for alternative information to inform the individual’s own interpretation of the meaning of events. the concept of a professional purpose mindset overcomes the limitations of a purely skills based approach to employability. rhinesmith (1992) identified a mindset as a predisposition to perceive and reason in certain ways (p. 63). under this definition, a mindset fulfils two purposes. the first purpose represented by ‘a predisposition to perceive’ captures the influence of the person’s values and beliefs in giving direction to their life and is linked to their bates, g.w., rixon, a., carbone, a., & pilgrim, c. (2019). beyond employability skills: developing professional purpose. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 10(1), 7-26. 10 motivation to pursue personal goals. the second aspect of ‘reasoning’ represents the approach the person takes to using this mindset to solve life problems. taken together, these two aspects of a mindset form the commitment element of professional purpose. a professional purpose mindset commits the person to developing a professional future aligned to his or her own values and future life aspirations. for a student in higher education, this provides an internalised rationale for their studies to be drawn on to provide motivation and perseverance. a sense of professional purpose will thus assist the student to engage with areas of study essential to their studies and their current career direction but not necessarily of immediate interest. the second aspect of the professional purpose mindset concentrates on problem solving and captures the approach the person takes to exploring their options in the workplace. a person with a well-developed professional purpose mindset will also be committed to exploring employability opportunities based on an awareness of what they want to achieve in life. this mindset fosters a sense of personal autonomy in career choice rather than a perceived need to conform to a career direction determined by others or the employer. the professional purpose mindset also motivates the person to adopt a proactive approach to career management. we argue that such proactive career management is linked to four specific mindsets that are interrelated and encapsulated within a professional purpose mindset. these include: curiosity, collaboration, action and growth, as depicted in figure 1. professional purpose – four mindsets the ‘curiosity’ mindset is fundamental to professional purpose. a recent review of definitions of curiosity in education by grossnickle (2016) identified four features of what she termed ‘epistemic curiosity’. the general term ‘epistemic curiosity’ was used to cover a range of terms related to intellectual, information seeking and cognitive curiosity that are relevant to educational pursuits and independent of physical and perceptual curiosity. according to grossnickle, epistemic curiosity constitutes a need to obtain knowledge or information in response to experiencing or seeking out unexpected or puzzling phenomena. the experience of curiosity leads to exploratory behaviour and is usually accompanied by positive emotions. this definition of curiosity is clearly relevant to the proactive career management emanating from the problem solving aspect of the professional purpose mindset. a state of curiosity generates exploratory behaviours to gain necessary information, help identify career options and to motivate the person to take action to reduce a sense of uncertainty and fill gaps in knowledge. the ‘action’ mindset within professional purpose reflects activities sparked by curiosity and which drive employability confidence. authors who apply design thinking to career development use the metaphor of ‘prototyping’ to describe key proactive behaviours people engage in to explore their areas of career interest. burnett and evans (2016) identify two important types of prototyping behaviour: life design interviewing and prototype experiences. life design interviewing is used to gather information and ask questions of individuals familiar with the person’s areas of career interest or currently working in the field. the interviewee acts as a mentor who shares relevant insights and experiences. that information then informs the person’s choice of activities or ‘prototype experiences’ such as volunteering, shadowing or part-time work and this provides first-hand experience of a job area to inform career direction. the ‘collaboration’ mindset captures the use of social networks that drive employability and who can assist the individual in the co-creation of their career (fugate et al., 2004; burnett & evans, 2016). using mentors and professional networks is a major source of job opportunities. however, the collaboration mindset is also based on the principle of using feedback and ideas from others that can lead to better decision making and validate personal values and beliefs. burnett and evans (2016) argued that discussion with others generates a broader range of ideas and perspectives from which to draw on in seeking out career opportunities and offers bates, g.w., rixon, a., carbone, a., & pilgrim, c. (2019). beyond employability skills: developing professional purpose. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 10(1), 7-26. 11 a useful source of feedback on the individual’s own ideas. liang et al. (2017) identified important others as significant factors in cultivating general life purpose in young university students. family members, teachers and mentors as well as peers were important sources of affirmation of life purpose and sources of guidance, empowerment and encouragement to take on challenges and act on new opportunities. the ‘growth’ mindset complements the other three elements of professional purpose by allowing the person to reflect on their purpose and to integrate experiences gained in pursuing their purpose. the growth mindset construct is closely associated with the work of dweck (2006) who differentiated a ‘growth’ mindset from a ‘fixed’ mindset. based on work in education and self-regulation, the growth mindset is associated with a belief that personality characteristics are changeable and that people are not defined by their past behaviour (yaeger & dweck, 2012). thus, when adopting a growth mindset, challenging situations, experiences of failure or setback are reframed as opportunities for growth and development. people who believe they can change themselves by their own efforts are more highly motivated to raise their performance and reduce negative traits. studies on secondary and tertiary students show a growth mindset is associated with better academic performance and can assist students during their transition to university (yaeger et al., 2016). a growth mindset is also associated with greater personal resilience, higher work engagement and higher job and life satisfaction (burnette, o’boyle, van epps, & pollack, 2013; caniels, semeijn, & renders, 2018). the opposite of growth is the ‘fixed’ mindset. individuals with a fixed mindset believe that personal traits and behaviour patterns are unchangeable and outside their control. people with a fixed mindset perform less well academically, are less resilient, less able to tolerate errors and more prone to giving up after setbacks (yaeger & dweck, 2012). as a component of professional purpose, a growth mindset encourages the individual to explore career options, reflect on their actions and to persevere and make changes after making choices unaligned with their values and interests. professional purpose – domains of development a professional purpose mindset determines the person’s overarching personal goals and motivation for career development and drives the need to develop personal resources that enable the person to pursue their professional goals. in existent models of employability these resources are referred to as human and social capital (fugate et al., 2004; peeters, nelissen, de cuyper, forrier, verbruggen, & de witte, 2017). based on a review of the literature on sources of human capital relevant to higher education, donald et al. (2017) identified six forms of human and social capital that can be developed within higher education. these forms of capital include: psychological, scholastic, cultural, market value, skills and social capital. in professional purpose, these resources map to three broad ‘domains of development’ reflected in graduate characteristics. these are ‘self and social awareness’, the capacity to ‘navigate the world of work’ and the capacity to ‘develop professional networks’. within professional purpose, the development of ‘self and social awareness’ and the capacity to ‘navigate the world of work’ domains appear most influenced by the human capital gained in psychological, scholastic, market value and skills as defined by donald et al. (2017). psychological capital overlaps with inner value capital (baruch & peiperi, 2000) and encompasses resources such as confidence, self-awareness, self-efficacy, self-esteem, achievement motivation, optimism and resilience. these resources can be drawn on in making career decisions, setting personal objectives and matching one’s abilities and personal qualities to a career. they are also a source of motivation to persevere when challenged. scholastic, market value and skills capital relate more directly to navigating the world of work. scholastic capital utilizes the perceived value of one’s degree derived from academic experiences and grades whereas market value and skills draw on experiences gained in the labour market through part time work or work integrated learning. both forms of capital bates, g.w., rixon, a., carbone, a., & pilgrim, c. (2019). beyond employability skills: developing professional purpose. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 10(1), 7-26. 12 navigating the world of work professional purpose curiosity action collaboration growth self and social awareness networks figure 1: conceptual model of professional purpose mindsets and domains of development contribute to job relevant skills such as communication, leadership and problem solving. they also relate to the development of a professional identity that incorporates the self-awareness present in psychological capital. the ‘broadening professional networks’ domain reflects social and cultural capital. donald et al. (2017) define social capital broadly covering a social network compromised of contacts parents, family, peers, memberships and online communities such as linkedin. cultural capital adds accumulated experiences from activities such as travel, extracurricular involvement, leisure activities, volunteering and social media involvement. both forms of capital provide sources of people who can help identify career opportunities, advise on different careers, assist with career decision making and generate knowledge and experience to be drawn on in the work place. a conceptual model of professional purpose figure 1 depicts a conceptual model of how professional purpose drives the process of career exploration and the development of career relevant human and social capital. as a general mindset, professional purpose includes the person’s values and beliefs that sustain their commitment to a professional future and which inform the approach taken toward preparing for the professional future. the specific mindsets of curiosity, action, collaboration and growth then direct exploratory behaviours. as shown in figure 1, theoretically, the three areas of bates, g.w., rixon, a., carbone, a., & pilgrim, c. (2019). beyond employability skills: developing professional purpose. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 10(1), 7-26. 13 human and social capital development emanate from professional purpose and are interrelated. thus, development in one area can influence development in the other areas. the research project the present study was an exploratory investigation of the professional purpose model and had two aims related to establishing the existence of the key components of the conceptual model. the first aim was to determine the extent to which the professional purpose mindset (curious, collaborative, action, growth) is evident in students’ reflections on their career decision making. aim two was to gauge the presence of the three domains of development in existing curricula. specifically, the research was guided by two research questions:  how do students approach career decision-making and is there evidence of the use of a professional purpose mindset?  what evidence is available in our current curricula that supports the presence of the professional purpose domains of development? consequently, the study involved two concurrent studies: study 1 and study 2. in study 1 undergraduate students were invited to participate in focus groups followed by in-depth interviews to explore evidence of the professional purpose mindset. in study 2 workshops were conducted inviting academics to examine how the professional purpose domains of development were represented in curricula. the research was approved by the swinburne university human ethics committee (suherc) shr project 2018/301. study 1: exploring student mindsets in approaching career decision making participants and procedure to explore whether professional purpose mindsets are evident in the students’ career decision-making, undergraduate students were invited to participate in workshop sessions and some were later followed up with in-depth interviews. in total, four workshops and five in-depth interviews were held. a total of 33 students (19 female, 14 male) participated in the workshops. of these 33 students, 22 were domestic and 11 were international. there were more domestic than international students as many international students had returned home over the holidays. the students were roughly equally spread across the university’s three faculties. from this pool of students, a random sample of five students (four female and one male) participated in the in-depth interviews. all interviews were conducted on campus and lasted for 45 minutes to an hour. students were recruited using campus advertising. flyers were posted around the campus and electronic versions were uploaded onto blackboard. other students were informed about the study by academic development advisors. students expressed their interest in participating via email/ phone or signed up electronically. as an incentive, they received a $50 coles myer voucher for their participation time, and were provided with refreshments during the session. data collection and thematic analysis the student workshops were facilitated by two non-teaching staff who worked in the central university teaching and learning area. students were asked to complete three activities. the first activity explored students’ current study, and whether there was alignment between their career plans as a 12 year old and their future career aspirations. the second activity required students to reflect on factors that influenced their study and career choices and then discuss these influencing factors in small groups. in the final activity students wrote down their bates, g.w., rixon, a., carbone, a., & pilgrim, c. (2019). beyond employability skills: developing professional purpose. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 10(1), 7-26. 14 personal goals and professional goals on post-it notes, and then discussed with their group whether they saw any overlap between the two. across each activity students were asked to explore ways in which a tertiary institution could influence, guide and support their decision making process. responses to these activities were recorded and transcribed. the five students who participated in the follow-up interviews explored their decision-making processes in more depth. the semi-structured interviews focused on three areas: the student’s study selection; how the student had explored and refined their career purpose; and what support the student needed to achieve their career purpose. (see appendix a for the interview guide). an inductive and deductive approach was taken with the data analysis. a thematic analysis was performed following braun and clarke’s (2006) step-by-step framework, which comprises of three phases. phase 1: familiarising with the data; phase 2: generating initial codes (e.g., ‘we’re here for a job’, ‘personal sacrifices to do the course’); phase 3: creating themes from the codes; phase 4: reviewing themes; and phase 5: defining the key themes. a deductive approach was then applied to map the emerging themes and associated codes to the four associated professional purpose mindsets. results analysis of the data from the workshops and interviews provided evidence of the presence of all the four elements of the professional purpose mindset of curiosity, collaboration, action and reflection in the students’ career decision making processes. however, students differed in how their mindset influenced their approach and alternative mindsets were apparent for each. whereas some students used mindsets that were constructive and proactive, others operated according to alternate mindsets that restricted their capacity to be proactive. data for each mindset is considered in turn and a full list of themes identified for each mindset is presented in appendix b) curiosity mindset the student data identified key elements that are evident in the construct of ‘curiosity’ for each of the three domains of development. these are highlighted in table 2 as: exploring one’s goals and values; exploring career alternatives and industries of interest; and seeking out a range of people in a range of professions to get their perspectives. comparison of the responses of those using the curiosity mindset with themes emerging from those who did not revealed an alternative mindset to curiosity. students operating according to the alternative mindset were characterised by an approach to career exploration that was anxious and closed to exploration. this anxiety related to employment outcomes and there was no evidence of any self-reflection or interest in the meaning of work. the example quotes below illustrate the alternative mindsets. the curiosity mindset identified an approach characterised as open to new experiences, interested and process focussed as evidenced in the following comments: in relation to our career goals we think about: what do i like, what am i good at; what impact do i want to have, what is a fulfilling career? i’m working out what a fulfilling job means for me. the alternative closed mindset included behaviours that could be described as disinterested in new experiences, uncertain, anxious, and narrowly employment outcome focussed: a major preoccupation for me and many of my friends is whether we will get a job out of our university experience. bates, g.w., rixon, a., carbone, a., & pilgrim, c. (2019). beyond employability skills: developing professional purpose. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 10(1), 7-26. 15 we’re not here for the fun of it at $1300 a unit. we’re here for a job. table 1: professional purpose: domains of development and mindsets professional purpose mindsets curiosity collaboration action growth d o m a in s o f d e v e lo p m e n t self and social awareness explore one’s goals and values. effectively communicate, use feedback from others to enhance self and social awareness engage in a wide range of activities using your knowledge and skills reflect on actions & development for oneself. understanding and clarify goals. navigating the world of work explore career alternatives. working with alumni, mentors, industry partners to improve understanding, try options through internships, placements, casual work focussing on the process of reaching goals over time and specific jobs, and reflecting on the work broadening networks seek out a range of people in a range of professions to get their perspective. building and growing sustainable relationships through common shared goals act to increase the number of people in the network, contribute to or join organizations, memberships, community groups reflect on, build and grow utilise networks, and potential access to opportunities. collaboration mindset the key elements of the ‘collaboration’ mindset were operationalised from the student data in each of the three domains of development as: effectively communicate, use feedback from others to enhance self and social awareness; working with alumni, mentors, industry partners to improve understanding; and building and growing sustainable relationships through common shared goals (see table 2). as with curiosity, some students exhibited a collaboration mindset whereas others adopted an alternative mindset. behaviours were described that could be classified as collaborative and networked: i want to talk to people in industry about their experiences in getting jobs and what happens in their job and the industry. industry connections, networking events help shape my understanding of the world of work. on the other hand, behaviours were identified that reflected feelings of isolation and of being alone and dependent on others to form the networks needed to develop a career: if you help me connect, i feel more engaged, purposeful and confident. bates, g.w., rixon, a., carbone, a., & pilgrim, c. (2019). beyond employability skills: developing professional purpose. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 10(1), 7-26. 16 action mindset for the ‘action’ mindset the student data yielded important elements of action for each of the three domains of development. these are highlighted in table 2 as: engaging in a wide range of activities using your knowledge and skills; trying options through internships, placements, casual work; and acting to increase the number of people in the network, contribute to or join organizations, memberships, community groups. once more there was evidence in the data that some students exhibited an action mindset and others did not. for the action mindset we found examples of career related behaviours that were proactive and autonomous: i was googling, trying to figure out what i was going to do with my degree. i seek out information and experiences that help me verify that i am on the right path. the alternative mindset included behaviours that were reactive, dependant and apprehensive: at the end of the day, we’re all here to get a job. industry experience can be seen as scary. i know that some of my friends are ready from day one. others need a gentle push while others need a lot more support. i need to feel like what i am studying will lead to a fulfilling job. growth mindset consistent with dweck’s definition of ‘growth’ mindset discussed in the introduction (dweck, 2006), the student data operationalised the key elements of action for each of the three domains of development as: reflecting on actions and development for oneself to understand and clarify goals; focussing on the process of reaching goals over time and specific jobs, and reflecting on the work, organisation, knowledge, skills and personal attributes needed to succeed; and reflecting on utilising networks, and potential access to opportunities (see table 2). the participants’ responses reflected the ‘growth’ and alternative ‘fixed’ perspectives referred to in the literature (yeager & dweck, 2012). for the growth mindset, we found examples of behaviours that could be described as reflective and progress oriented: there are many times throughout my course when i will reflect whether my current study area will lead to a fulfilling career. i had to design a brand and logo for a real client in a unit i just finished. i really enjoyed the process. the experience made me start thinking more long-term and really plan my future. for the alternative fixed mindset we found examples of attitudes that were set but uncertain about the future: lecturers have a role in helping students understand the relevance of industry exposure. sometimes as a student, you get so caught up in the units in a semester, you start to lose sight of what you’re doing it all for. bates, g.w., rixon, a., carbone, a., & pilgrim, c. (2019). beyond employability skills: developing professional purpose. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 10(1), 7-26. 17 study 2: evidence of domains of development in curricula participants and procedure to determine whether there was evidence of professional purpose domains of development in curricula, course directors and general academic staff were invited to map their course learning outcomes (clos) and their unit learning outcomes (ulos) to the three domains of development (dods). the academics were sourced from lists of course directors for both undergraduate and post-graduate degrees across three faculties of swinburne university: faculty of science, engineering and technology (fset); faculty of health, arts and design (fhad); and faculty of business and law (fbl). in total, 42 academics (28 male and 14 female) attended a series of five 1.5 hour workshops (see table 2). the workshops provided an opportunity to socialise the notion of professional purpose, discuss principles for embedding professional purpose into the curricula and provide examples of course learning outcomes (clos) and unit learning outcomes (ulos) that were congruent to the domains of development. following the workshop these were compiled into a spreadsheet of ulo’s to enable both qualitative review and descriptive statistical analysis. table 2: number of participants in the professional purpose workshops date fset fbl fhad 24 july (u/g) 5 3 1 10 august (u/g) 2 5 4 16 august (p/g) 2 1 1 20 august (p/g) 1 2 6 21 august (p/g) 2 4 3 total participants 12 15 15 results the academics provided 235 examples (113 undergraduate & 122 postgraduate) of unit learning outcomes that aligned with the three domains of development: ‘self and social awareness’, ‘navigating the world of work’, and ‘building networks’. table 3 contains representative examples of ulos across the three domains. bates, g.w., rixon, a., carbone, a., & pilgrim, c. (2019). beyond employability skills: developing professional purpose. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 10(1), 7-26. 18 table 3: professional purpose: domains of development and mindsets professional purpose domains example undergraduate ulo’s example postgraduate ulo’s 1. self and social awareness demonstrate the application of knowledge and skills to demonstrate autonomy, welldeveloped judgment, adaptability and responsibility. demonstrate professionalism, integrity, ethical conduct, professional accountability and awareness of professional practices in a global and sustainable context. 2. navigating the world of work (wow) discuss and critique contemporary trends, policies and movements in the profession within australia and internationally. demonstrate advanced knowledge of the different settings forensic mental health nurses work in and evaluate how these setting may impact on practice. 3. building networks demonstrate professional relationships with education professionals, students and families. demonstrate clear and coherent communication skills to articulate complex knowledge and justify propositions and professional decisions to specialist and nonspecialist audiences; including clients, customers, multidisciplinary/ multi-cultural project teams and stakeholders of these 235 ulo examples, figure 2 illustrates that across undergraduate and postgraduate almost half were related to the developmental domain: ‘navigating the world of work’. one third related to ‘self and social awareness’ and the least represented domain was ‘building networks’ representing only 17 percent (undergraduate) and 26 percent (postgraduate) ulos. figure 2: mapping of unit learning outcomes to domains of development 45 17 38 42 26 32 0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50 navigating the world of work building networks self and social awareness p e rc e n ta g e o f u lo 's domains of development percentage of undergraduate ulos percentage of post-graduate ulos bates, g.w., rixon, a., carbone, a., & pilgrim, c. (2019). beyond employability skills: developing professional purpose. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 10(1), 7-26. 19 discussion in this paper, we have developed a conceptual model for exploring the utility of professional purpose that relates to the development of graduate employability. the empirical work in the two studies provides initial support for the relevance of the professional purpose mindsets to the ways in which students approach their career thinking (study 1). the data also show that many existing ulos are consistent with the domains of development in human and social capital linked to improved employability (study 2). the data obtained relating to the students’ use of the mindsets encapsulated within professional purpose provide some insight into the reasons not all students can effectively engage in proactive career related behaviours. our data revealed that for each of the proactive and constructive mindsets that foster the development of professional purpose there is an alternate mindset that restricts such development. the differentiation of a growth from a fixed mindset is well documented in relation to student learning and resilience (e.g., dweck, 2006, yeager & dweck, 2012; yeager et al., 2016) and this study shows a similar relationship may exist within career self-management and employability. however, the alternate mindsets identified in the student data provide new insights into the processes involved in effectively enacting a professional purpose. along with growth, the curious, collaborative and proactive mindsets contrast markedly with mindsets that are fixed, disinterested in change, isolated dependent and reactive. understanding these different mindsets raises a number of possibilities for future research and has implications for programs seeking to raise employability. to build on this study a broader investigation is needed to confirm the relevance of the professional purpose model to employability related behaviours of students across the full range of the student community and at different stages of experience in the workplace. moreover, the interactive nature of the mindsets needs to be explored. for example, the growth and curiosity mindsets may underpin the commitment to action and to collaboration. a student may need to first develop an interest in the world of work and develop a perception that employability is something that can be enhanced before taking action and looking to form networks. the relationship between professional purpose mindsets and the alternate restricting mindsets also warrants attention to establish whether combinations of mindsets exist which contain negative and positive features. these enquiries could inform interventions to promote professional purpose mindsets. a feature of mindsets is that they are malleable (dweck, 2006) and thus people who are restricted by alternate mindsets can be assisted to alter their thinking and thereby to enhance their employability. a priority for future work is therefore to use the professional purpose model to generate strategies for developing professional purpose mindsets and for overcoming the self-limiting alterative mindsets. the data collected from academics in study 2 provide evidence that the three professional purpose domains of development are represented in existing curricula across undergraduate and postgraduate courses. however, the highest percentage of ulo’s was associated with navigating the world of work. this suggests that academics appreciate the importance of this domain in preparing students for the future of work and may reflect the focus in universities on developing transferrable skills within courses (clarke, 2018). interestingly, the other domains which capture more general aspects of personal development were less represented in the ulos. self and social awareness was present in approximately a third of the ulo’s analysed. it was articulated almost independently of the discipline and described as students showing autonomy, adaptability, responsibility, professionalism, integrity and ethics. ulos related to building networks were the least prominent of the domains at 26 percent. these ulos focused on helping students to build networks that include relationships and connections with professionals and specialists within the discipline. assisting students to know how to communicate to different audiences was also highlighted. each of these areas bates, g.w., rixon, a., carbone, a., & pilgrim, c. (2019). beyond employability skills: developing professional purpose. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 10(1), 7-26. 20 are consistent with effective career self-management and the development of career relevant social capital (donald et al., 2017). nevertheless, the preponderance of ulos relevant to navigating the world of work relative to the over self-awareness and building network domains suggests that changes in curriculum design may be needed to build all three types of resources. it also remains to be established how the ulos linked to the domains of development relate and influence each other. methodological considerations as an exploratory investigation this study has unearthed data that show the promise of the professional purpose model. however, the research has some limitations. in study 1, while our sample was appropriate for qualitative analysis, we were unable to examine the operation of the mindsets in different cohorts of students such as part-time or mature age students. nor could we look at differences in the professional purpose of commencing students as compared to students in later years of their courses. as levels of maturity and work experience are likely to impact on perceived employability, further research is needed to establish how the mindsets operate in different student cohorts. longitudinal work is also needed to establish how the professional purpose mindset may develop over the student lifecycle. in study 2, the mapping of ulo’s to the domains of development by academics is open to individual interpretation, and we did not check for inter-rater reliability as the ulos considered were identified by the academics. in addition, we were not able to examine all ulos in the various courses of the university. a full coverage of all ulos would have allowed us to establish the proportion of the total number of ulos that related to the dods and this the degree of coverage of the three dods. each of these issues will need to be addressed in future research. acknowledgements the authors wish to acknowledge the contribution by the members of the professional purpose working group, in particular deb mcdonald and janice jackson from student engagement – careers and employability, the leadership provided by arthur mellors from the nous group and fiona fowler for co-ordinating the student workshops and interviews. bates, g.w., rixon, a., carbone, a., & pilgrim, c. 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(2019). beyond employability skills: developing professional purpose. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 10(1), 7-26. 23 appendix a: student workshops interview guide section 1 – students student selection  i’m interested to learn how you chose to study your course at xyz and the process you took to make that decision. include the thoughts and feelings you had at secondary school  what were the most challenging aspects about selecting your course?  when you reflect, what drove your decision making? what and who influenced you?  can you talk about the key moments or interactions that helped you make that choice? section 2 how students explore and refine their career purpose  how confident are you in your choice? are you currently considering a change in course? why or why not? if you are exploring options, what are you exploring and how are you doing so?  what technology did you use to help you make a decision on your study course?  which mobile apps or websites do you use to assist you for your career?  who did you, and who do you turn to for advice on study and/or career options? why?  what have been your greatest frustrations in seeking help? section 3 support needed to help students achieve their career purpose.  what resources (information, would help you to accelerate your career?  what questions or concerns do you have regarding your career and finding your career purpose?  what skills do you think are missing from your current toolset for you to be work ready?  how will you demonstrate your skillset to employers?  what do you see as the greatest barriers to gaining your ideal career, post study? what are you currently doing to bridge those gaps?  how do you know if you are on-track or not? bates, g.w., rixon, a., carbone, a., & pilgrim, c. (2019). beyond employability skills: developing professional purpose. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 10(1), 7-26. 24 appendix b: thematic analysis of data collected in study b use of mindsets across: 1. develop self & social awareness, 2. navigate the world of work 3. broaden networks mindset continuum solution / outcome focussed vs process focussed curiosity 1. explore one’s goals and values. 2. explore career alternatives and the industries of interest. 3. seek out a range of people in a range of professions to get their perspective. closed – uncertain anxious open interested “we’re not here for the fun of it at $1300 a unit. we’re here for a job” “in some lectures, the guest speaker come in for the last 10 minutes and half the class walked out – the content wasn’t seen as relevant” “needing reassurance – knowing that this is what i want to do and what my career will entail” “a major preoccupation for my and many of my friends is whether we will get a job out of our university experience”. “we want to get a job, but not all of my friends or myself may be clear on our career goals”. “i need to feel like what i am studying will lead to a fulfilling job” “in relation to our career goals we think about: what do i like, what am i good at; what impact do i want to have what is a fulfilling career” “i’m working out what a fulfilling job means for me” “the way the lecturer talked about his experience and engaged us in the course. this made me look forward to working in the field” “i am designing for a better society. this is the main focus in everything i did” collaboration 1. effectively communicate, use feedback from others to enhance self and social awareness 2. work with alumni, mentors, industry partners to improve understanding isolated (alone) networked (collaborative) “if you help me connect, i feel more engaged, purposeful and confident” “i want to talk to people in industry about their experiences in getting jobs and what happens in their job and the industry” “i need people in my life who help me make decisions on my future” “industry connections, networking events help shape my understanding of the world of work” “a range of people help shape my career aspirations and study choices” bates, g.w., rixon, a., carbone, a., & pilgrim, c. (2019). beyond employability skills: developing professional purpose. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 10(1), 7-26. 25 3. build & grow sustainable relationships through common shared goals. “my peer networks shape my understanding of the world of work” “my family, friends, teachers and career advisor all helped me in deciding which university course to do.” action 1. engage in a wide range of activities using your knowledge and skills 2. try options through internships, placements, casual work 3. act to increase the number of people in the network, contribute to or join organizations, memberships, community groups. reactive – dependent apprehensive proactive autonomous “we’re not here for the fun of it at $1300 a unit. we’re here for a job” “industry experience can be seen as scary. i know that some of my friends are ready from day one. others need a gentle push while others need a lot more support” “i need to feel ready and supported in any industry experience” “at the end of the day, we’re all here to get a job” “some of us have a clear career goal. others know what they like and are good at but haven’t yet decided on their career goals. others are much less clear.” “i need to feel like what i am studying will lead to a fulfilling job” “needing reassurance – knowing that this is what i want to do and what my career will entail”. “i was googling, trying to figure out what i was going to do with my degree” “i understand that meaningful exposure to industry can help me make more informed study and career choices” “i want to make sure that i can change my course and don’t my waste time” “i want flexibility in my course that allows me to discover what i like, what i’m are good at and hone in on career options that feel right” “i want to learn practical real world skills and know the relevance of everything i learn” “relevant industry exposure helps me to make more confident decisions about my future study and career choices”. “i think that practical learning experiences will contribute more to my career prospects”. “i seek out information and experiences that help me verify that i am on the right path”. “i want to talk to people in industry about their experiences in getting jobs and what happens in their job and the industry” growth 1. reflect on actions & development for oneself to understand and clarify goals. 2. focus on the process of reaching goals over time and specific jobs. reflect on the work, organisation, uncertain reflective “industry experience can be seen as scary. i know that some of my friends are ready from day one. others need a gentle push while others need a lot more support” “sometimes as a student, you get so caught up in the units in a semester, you start to lose sight of what you’re doing it all for” “lecturers have a role in helping students understand the relevance of industry exposure” “there are many times throughout my course when i will reflect whether my current study area will lead to a fulfilling career” “i had to design a brand and logo for a real client in a unit i just finished. i really enjoyed the process. the experience made me start thinking more long-term and really plan my future” “the experience made me start thinking more long-term and really plan my future” “i am designing for a better society. this is the main focus in everything i did” bates, g.w., rixon, a., carbone, a., & pilgrim, c. (2019). beyond employability skills: developing professional purpose. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 10(1), 7-26. 26 knowledge, skills and personal attributes needed to succeed 3. reflect on utilise networks, and potential access to opportunities “i want to understand how what i learn is applied in the world of work” “we’re not here for the fun of it at $1300 a unit. we’re here for a job” “i want to make sure that i can change my course and don’t waste my time”. “what i learned about myself is that i don’t want to work in a small business long term. i don’t like no structure. i want to work in big business”. hart, j. (2019). interdisciplinary project-based learning as a means of developing employability skills in undergraduate science degree programs. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 10(2), 50–66. 50 the journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability issn: 1838-3815 (online) journal homepage: https://ojs.deakin.edu.au/index.php/jtlge/ interdisciplinary project-based learning as a means of developing employability skills in undergraduate science degree programs joanne hart1 corresponding author: joanne hart (joanne.hart@sydney.edu.au) 1school of medicine, university of sydney abstract project-based learning units are often used for large scale work integrated learning (wil) experiences in liberal studies degrees as they offer scalability and sustainability of delivery to large cohorts. this systematic search and review evaluates the effectiveness of interdisciplinary project-based learning in science degree programs for developing discipline knowledge and employability skills. education literature databases were searched for peerreviewed journal articles that discussed undergraduate science-based degree programs with project-based learning units involving students from multiple disciplines. data were analysed for evidence of a skill gain in 6 areas (discipline knowledge, communication, teamwork, interdisciplinary effectiveness, critical thinking and problem solving, and self-management). projects were assigned to categories based on interdisciplinary breadth and depth. data was analysed by cross-tabulations, fisher’s exact test and by calculating odds ratios (or), which indicate the effect size. perception of a skill gain was significantly more likely to be reported than an objectively measured skill gain (p<0.001). real discipline skill gains were 6.6 times more likely in projects narrow in discipline mix (or 6.6), however perceived discipline skill gains were high irrespective of project type. projects with wide interdisciplinarity were significantly associated with perceived gains in interdisciplinary effectiveness (or 32, p<0.05) and more likely to have perceived gains in communication (or 2.5) and teamwork (or 3.4) skills. when projects have greater interdisciplinary breadth or depth, perceived student employability skill gains increase, perceived discipline skill gains are unaffected, however actual discipline skill gains are less reported. further research and evidence that project-based learning is meeting the desired wil learning objectives of the curriculum is needed keywords project-based learning, capstone project, interdisciplinary learning, undergraduate science, employability skills, curriculum design: introduction graduate employability is an important topic of interest to a range of stakeholders; employers, the government, universities and students, and increasing employability by upscaling work integrated learning in science is a national priority (australian council of deans in science, 2016). employers seek employees with a range of transferable skills and strong disciplinary knowledge alone, does not guarantee a new graduate a job (crebert, bates, bell, patrick, & cragnolini, 2004). traditional undergraduate curricula promote a focus on discipline-specific knowledge, however employers value and seek transferable skills (foundation for young australians, 2016; lin-stephens et al., 2017), https://ojs.deakin.edu.au/index.php/jtlge/ mailto:joanne.hart@sydney.edu.au hart, j. (2019). interdisciplinary project-based learning as a means of developing employability skills in undergraduate science degree programs. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 10(2), 50–66. 51 including capabilities in active learning, teamwork, critical thinking and creative problem-solving (deloitte access economics, 2014; sarkar, overton, thompson, & rayner, 2016). further, employers prefer teamwork, communication and self-management skills (bee & hie, 2015; foundation for young australians, 2016; sarkar et al., 2016), above degree classification, intelligence and even the reputation of the institution the graduate attended (leckey & mcguigan, 1997). science students in particular do not appreciate the importance of employability skills in professional science-based occupations (harris, 2012), or that these skills are useful in academic and research careers as well as in employment in other sectors. in australia, science degree graduates struggle to get their first job, this includes both the physical and life sciences. a recent study showed that only 51% of the science graduates looking for full-time work had found it four months after completing their degree (norton, 2016) and science graduates have poorer full-time employment outcomes immediately upon graduation compared with vocationally trained disciplines (qualities indicators for learning and teaching (qilt), 2018). in addition, science graduates are destined to work in a wide range of occupations; only 20% of bsc graduates in australia will be working in traditional science jobs (palmer, campbell, johnson, & west, 2017). furthermore, the future of all types of work is uncertain. big changes are expected in employment in the medium term; occupations are changing, some are disappearing, others not yet conceived (innovation and science australia, 2017; world economic forum, 2018). thus, we need to prepare our students for the contemporary workforce. it is therefore necessary to ensure balance between discipline knowledge and addressing the broader knowledge and skills our students will need for their future work (palmer et al., 2017). the popular concept of the ‘t shaped’ person (johnston, 1978) is now outdated and having one in-depth disciplinary skill is no longer sufficient. instead the ‘key’ shaped individual that has cross disciplinary experience of varying depths that supports and complements their breadth and ability to integrate knowledge and collaborate (bridgestock, 2015; diodati, 2017) is the model for the future, and big data can be employed to analyse the job skills employers need most. traditional work integrated learning (wil) placements, practicums or internships where students work in a professional environment are not practical for large student cohorts and traditionally not used in science degrees. thus, many science degree programs adopt ‘non-placement wil’ where students may participate in work-based, capstone projects, or simulations, with or without external partners. the ‘capstone project’ model provides opportunities to develop employability skills and offers scalability and sustainability of offering. project-based learning is known to be effective for facilitating knowledge acquisition and retention, supporting the development of important real-world skills such as solving complex problems, thinking critically, analysing and evaluating information, working cooperatively, and communicating effectively and for developing flexible knowledge (see (english & kitsantas, 2013)). in addition, there are reported benefits of working in integrated and interdisciplinary teams. modern, complex problems cut across discipline boundaries, thus to reach a more comprehensive explanation of complex, real-life problems, insights from several disciplines need to be reconciled and integrated (de greef, post, vink, & wenting, 2017). in addition, there is extensive evidence of better learning outcomes with ‘active learning’ teaching methods (freeman et al., 2014). inquiry based learning with problem finding and solving in a collaborative project is motivational and fosters cognitive engagement (blumenfeld et al., 1991). overall, the inclusion of project-based learning in the curriculum is designed to foster the attainment of the graduate qualities, improve employability and increase engagement and application of discipline knowledge. while there is a widespread use of capstone project-based learning units in various delivery modes in science degree programs there has been little study of the effectiveness of these study units in driving attainments in discipline skills or knowledge or in the development of employability skills. the aim of this study is to investigate any association between the interdisciplinary nature of capstone-type projects offered and learning outcomes for both discipline-based skills and hart, j. (2019). interdisciplinary project-based learning as a means of developing employability skills in undergraduate science degree programs. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 10(2), 50–66. 52 employability skills including communication, teamwork, interdisciplinary effectiveness, critical thinking and problem solving and self-management skills. the research questions were: 1. do interdisciplinary project units deliver on learning outcomes of discipline-based skill development and employability skill development? 2. is the breadth and/or depth of the interdisciplinary experience in project units associated with better learning outcomes? the overall objective of the study is to provide data to drive evidence-based curriculum developments that will result in more skilled and employable science graduates. methods this study is a systematic search and review (grant & smith, 2018) of the literature on interdisciplinary project units of study offered in science and science-based degrees. literature search strategy for this review a+ education, ebsco education, eric and proquestc databases were searched using the terms: science (or math*, chemistry, physics, psychology, geology) and project-based learning (or student projects, capstone projects, projects) and interdisciplinary (or multidisciplinary, cross disciplinary, trans-disciplinary) and undergraduate (or higher education, post-secondary, college). a diagram showing the record identification, screening eligibility and inclusion process is shown in figure 1. hart, j. (2019). interdisciplinary project-based learning as a means of developing employability skills in undergraduate science degree programs. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 10(2), 50–66. 53 figure 1: flow diagram showing the record identification, screening, eligibility and inclusion of studies for the analysis. the search was restricted to peer reviewed journal articles published in english from 2008 -2018. included articles described an undergraduate project-based learning task that involved students from various disciplines, who were enrolled in a science-based degree program (engineering, biomedical science and computer science were included). included articles reported on outcomes of discipline-based skill development, or ‘employability’ skill development. following exclusion of duplicates, many of the records were excluded as they did not provide enough detail of the outcomes sought in this review. there were many descriptive case studies that explained a novel, interesting course well, but did not evaluate the outcomes. some records were excluded as their student projects were not ‘interdisciplinary’ according to our definitions, usually because they did not enrol students from multiple disciplines into the project. background data collected from the records included country of study, study methodology, degree program and year level, the disciplines involved in the project, cross faculty partners, the length of project and student group sizes. definitions of the project categories used in the analysis information on the type of interdisciplinary project work was also collected by categorising each project described by interdisciplinary breadth and depth (jantsch, 1970). interdisciplinary breadth is determined by the mix of student disciplines involved in the project. it was considered in 3 categories: 1. narrow; within discipline or combining closely related disciplines (e.g. biochemistry and molecular biology) 2. medium; within faculty (e.g. biology and mathematics) 3. wide; cross faculty (e.g. chemistry and law) interdisciplinary depth was determined by the project task, not by student discipline background. projects were assigned to either: 1. sequential tasks were where one discipline group hands over project tasks to another sequentially, essentially doing their own discipline work, with little integration of discipline skills. 2. integrated tasks where the student teams had to work together and integrate their disciplinary skills and knowledge to undertake the project. definitions of the skills assessed skill development was divided into ‘actual’ and ‘perceived’ where actual skill development was measured objectively, usually by preand post-project test methods. perceived skill development was reported by the opinion of the student or academic staff that there was an improvement in the skill and was usually assessed in a post course survey with a likert scale (quantitative), but in some cases assessed with qualitative data coming from focus groups, open-ended survey questions, or by assessing student learning products, assignments or reflective blog posts. the list of skills developed assessed by this study were: discipline knowledge, communication, teamwork, interdisciplinary effectiveness, critical thinking and problem solving and self-management skills. these are based on skills that appear in online ‘top 10 employability skills’ lists and university ‘graduate attribute’ lists (oliver & jorre de st jorre, 2018; university of sydney, 2016). hart, j. (2019). interdisciplinary project-based learning as a means of developing employability skills in undergraduate science degree programs. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 10(2), 50–66. 54 statistical analysis data were analysed by cross-tabulation and using fisher’s (2-sided) exact test comparing the project categories with each skill development item. odds ratios were calculated by: or = where n is a project with narrow interdisciplinarity and w is a project with wide interdisciplinarity, 0=no skill gain, 1=skill gained. thus, the odds ratio is a relative measure of effect allowing a comparison of groups; an odds ratio of 1 is no difference and an odds ratio of 10 is means there is 10 times the effect for one group over the other. separate analyses were made for actual skill development and perceived skill development. p<0.05 was accepted as statistically significant. background information on the included studies studies included in this analysis were from a range of countries and continents, the majority from the usa (see supplementary data 1). as in the inclusion criteria, all studies included centred on undergraduate bachelor of science and bachelor of engineering degrees, or variations (eg bachelor of computer science or biomedical science). many studies did not state the student year level involved in the projects, (36%), although there are studies from each of the 4 undergraduate years included. some studies have mixed year levels (26%). most projects ran for a ~12 week semester (79%), some as an intensive units between semesters (9%), some ran over multiple years (4%), some did not state the project length (8%). student project group sizes varied and were not always reported (47%), though 3-5 students (40%) was the most common group size. the science disciplines involved in project units were broad (see supplementary data 2). projects running across faculties involved a range of faculty partners, with humanities faculties the most common collaborator (see supplementary data 3). study types included the data included was heterogenous regarding the study type and the mode of project unit offering. most of the reports were descriptive case studies (98%), with some intentional evaluation studies (57%). a small proportion were specifically designed educational research studies (9%). results actual vs perceived skill gains most studies reported ‘perceived’ skill gains rather than ‘actual’ skill gains. this was most apparent for the employability skill items, but also quite common for discipline knowledge gains. table 1: reports of actual vs perceived skill gains for the skill areas assessed in this study skill reports of skill gain (% of included studies) actual perceived discipline knowledge 28 68 communication skills 6 51 hart, j. (2019). interdisciplinary project-based learning as a means of developing employability skills in undergraduate science degree programs. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 10(2), 50–66. 55 teamwork 9 68 interdisciplinary effectiveness 6 60 critical thinking and problem solving 9 62 self-management skills 2 32 discipline skill development actual discipline skill gains were reported less often as the interdisciplinarity breadth of the project increased from narrow to medium (or 2.8) and narrow to wide (or 6.6, fig 2a), meaning that it is 2.8 times more likely to achieve a discipline skill gain in a project with narrow compared to medium level interdisciplinarity and this extends to 6.6 times when compared to a project with wide interdisciplinarity. however, there was no difference in actual skills developed as interdisciplinary depth increased (fig 2b). perceived discipline skill gains were well reported and not different regardless of project interdisciplinarity breadth or depth (fig 2c & d). n a r r o w m e d i u m w i d e 0 2 0 4 0 6 0 r e p o r t s o f a c t u a l s k il l g a in ( % ) 6 .62 .8 s e q u e n t i a l i n t e g r a t e d 0 2 0 4 0 6 0 r e p o r t s o f a c t u a l s k il l g a in ( % ) n a r r o w m e d i u m w i d e 0 2 0 4 0 6 0 8 0 1 0 0 p r o j e c t in t e r d i s c ip l i n a r y w i d t h r e p o r t s o f p e r c e iv e d s k il l g a in ( % ) s e q u e n t i a l i n t e g r a t e d 0 2 0 4 0 6 0 8 0 1 0 0 p r o j e c t in t e r d i s c ip l in a r y d e p t h r e p o r t s o f p e r c e iv e d s k il l g a in ( % ) a d b c figure 2: positive reports of an actual discipline skill gain by a interdisciplinary breadth and b interdisciplinary depth. positive reports of a perceived discipline skill gain by c interdisciplinary breadth and d interdisciplinary depth. odds ratios shown by the horizontal brackets. hart, j. (2019). interdisciplinary project-based learning as a means of developing employability skills in undergraduate science degree programs. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 10(2), 50–66. 56 employability skill development communication skills actual communication skill gains were reported less often as the interdisciplinarity breadth of the project increased from narrow to medium (or 3.4, fig 3a). there were too few reports of communication skill gains in projects with wide interdisciplinarity breadth or regarding interdisciplinary depth to be analysed (fig 3b). perceived communication skill gains were reported more often as interdisciplinary breadth increased (or 2.3-2.5, fig 3c), but otherwise not different regardless of project interdisciplinarity depth (fig 3d). s e q u e n t i a l i n t e g r a t e d 0 2 0 4 0 6 0 8 0 1 0 0 p r o j e c t in t e r d is c ip l in a r i t y d e p t h r e p o r t s o f p e r c e iv e d s k il l g a in ( % ) n a r r o w m e d i u m w i d e 0 2 0 4 0 6 0 8 0 1 0 0 p r o j e c t in t e r d i s c ip l i n a r y w i d t h r e p o r t s o f p e r c e iv e d s k il l g a in ( % ) 2 .5 2 .3 n a r r o w m e d i u m w i d e 0 2 0 4 0 6 0 r e p o r t s o f a c t u a l s k il l g a in ( % ) 3 .4 s e q u e n t i a l i n t e g r a t e d 0 2 0 4 0 6 0 r e p o r t s o f a c t u a l s k il l g a in ( % )a d b c hart, j. (2019). interdisciplinary project-based learning as a means of developing employability skills in undergraduate science degree programs. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 10(2), 50–66. 57 figure 3: positive reports of an actual communication skill gain by a interdisciplinary breadth and b interdisciplinary depth. positive reports of a perceived communication skill gain by c interdisciplinary breadth and d interdisciplinary depth. odds ratios shown by the horizontal brackets. teamwork skills actual teamwork skill gains were reported less often as the interdisciplinarity breadth of the project increased from narrow to medium (or 3.4) or narrow to wide (or 6.9, fig 4a). there was no association between actual teamwork skill gains and interdisciplinary depth (fig 4b). perceived teamwork skill gains were reported more often in projects with wide interdisciplinarity (or 3.2-3.4, fig 4c) perceived teamwork skill gains were not different regardless of project interdisciplinarity depth (fig 4d). s e q u e n t i a l i n t e g r a t e d 0 2 0 4 0 6 0 8 0 1 0 0 p r o j e c t in t e r d i s c ip l in a r y d e p t h r e p o r t s o f p e r c e iv e d s k il l g a in ( % ) 2 .0 n a r r o w m e d i u m w i d e 0 2 0 4 0 6 0 r e p o r t s o f a c t u a l s k il l g a in ( % ) 6 .9 3 .4 s e q u e n t i a l i n t e g r a t e d 0 2 0 4 0 6 0 r e p o r t s o f p e r c e iv e d s k il l g a in ( % ) n a r r o w m e d i u m w i d e 0 2 0 4 0 6 0 8 0 1 0 0 p r o j e c t in t e r d is c i p li n a r it y r e p o r t s o f p e r c e iv e d s k il l g a in ( % ) 3 .4 3 .2 a d b c figure 4: positive reports of an actual teamwork skill gain by a interdisciplinary breadth and b interdisciplinary depth. positive reports of a perceived teamwork skill gain by c interdisciplinary breadth and d interdisciplinary depth. odds ratios shown by the horizontal brackets. hart, j. (2019). interdisciplinary project-based learning as a means of developing employability skills in undergraduate science degree programs. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 10(2), 50–66. 58 interdisciplinary effectiveness actual interdisciplinary effectiveness skill gains were poorly reported and could not be analysed (fig 5a & b). there was a significant association of a perceived gain in interdisciplinary effectiveness in projects with wide interdisciplinarity (or 32.0, p<0.001, fisher’s exact test, fig 5c) and in projects with interdisciplinarity which required integration of discipline skills, rather than multi-disciplinary sequential tasks (or 7.6, p<0.05, fisher’s exact test, fig 5d). s e q u e n t i a l i n t e g r a t e d 0 2 0 4 0 6 0 8 0 1 0 0 p r o j e c t in t e r d i s c ip l in a r y d e p t h r e p o r t s o f p e r c e iv e d s k il l g a in ( % ) 7 .6 * s e q u e n t i a l i n t e g r a t e d 0 2 0 4 0 6 0 r e p o r t s o f a c t u a l s k il l g a in ( % ) d b n a r r o w m e d i u m w i d e 0 2 0 4 0 6 0 r e p o r t s o f a c t u a l s k il l g a in ( % ) n a r r o w m e d i u m w i d e 0 2 0 4 0 6 0 8 0 1 0 0 p r o j e c t in t e r d is c i p li n a r it y r e p o r t s o f p e r c e iv e d s k il l g a in ( % ) 3 2 .0 9 .3 * * * a c figure 5: positive reports of an actual interdisciplinary effectiveness skill gain by a interdisciplinary breadth and b interdisciplinary depth. positive reports of a perceived interdisciplinary effectiveness skill gain by c interdisciplinary breadth and d interdisciplinary depth. odds ratios shown by the horizontal brackets. hart, j. (2019). interdisciplinary project-based learning as a means of developing employability skills in undergraduate science degree programs. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 10(2), 50–66. 59 critical thinking and problem solving actual critical thinking and problem-solving skill gains were poorly reported and could not be analysed (fig 6a & b). perceived critical thinking and problem-solving skill gains were reported more often in projects with wide interdisciplinarity (or 2.7, fig 6c), or greater interdisciplinary depth (or 4.3, fig 6d). s e q u e n t i a l i n t e g r a t e d 0 2 0 4 0 6 0 8 0 1 0 0 p r o j e c t in t e r d i s c ip l in a r y d e p t h r e p o r t s o f p e r c e iv e d s k il l g a in ( % ) 4 .3 n a r r o w m e d i u m w i d e 0 2 0 4 0 6 0 r e p o r t s o f a c t u a l s k il l g a in ( % ) s e q u e n t i a l i n t e g r a t e d 0 2 0 4 0 6 0 r e p o r t s o f a c t u a l s k il l g a in ( % ) n a r r o w m e d i u m w i d e 0 2 0 4 0 6 0 8 0 1 0 0 p r o j e c t i n t e r d i s c i p li n a r y w i d t h r e p o r t s o f p e r c e iv e d s k il l g a in ( % ) 2 .7 2 .0 a d b c figure 6: positive reports of an actual problem-solving and critical thinking skill gain by a interdisciplinary breadth and b interdisciplinary depth. positive reports of a perceived problemsolving and critical thinking skill gain by c interdisciplinary breadth and d interdisciplinary depth. odds ratios shown by the horizontal brackets. hart, j. (2019). interdisciplinary project-based learning as a means of developing employability skills in undergraduate science degree programs. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 10(2), 50–66. 60 self-management skills actual self-management skill gains were poorly reported and could not be analysed (fig 7a & b). perceived self-management skill gains were reported in about a third of the projects. perceived selfmanagement skill gains were not different regardless of project interdisciplinarity breadth or depth (fig 7c & d). s e q u e n t i a l i n t e g r a t e d 0 2 0 4 0 6 0 8 0 1 0 0 p r o j e c t in t e r d is c ip l in a r i t y d e p t h r e p o r t s o f p e r c e iv e d s k il l g a in ( % ) n a r r o w m e d i u m w i d e 0 2 0 4 0 6 0 r e p o r t s o f a c t u a l s k il l g a in ( % ) s e q u e n t i a l i n t e g r a t e d 0 2 0 4 0 6 0 r e p o r t s o f a c t u a l s k il l g a in ( % ) n a r r o w m e d i u m w i d e 0 2 0 4 0 6 0 8 0 1 0 0 p r o j e c t i n t e r d i s c i p li n a r y w i d t h r e p o r t s o f p e r c e iv e d s k il l g a in ( % ) a d b c figure 7: positive reports of an actual self-management skill gain by a interdisciplinary breadth and b interdisciplinary depth. positive reports of a perceived self-management skill gain by c interdisciplinary breadth and d interdisciplinary depth. odds ratios shown by the horizontal brackets. discussion this study is the first to apply a systematic search and review of the reporting of student skill gains attained in interdisciplinary project-based learning units that are offered in science degree hart, j. (2019). interdisciplinary project-based learning as a means of developing employability skills in undergraduate science degree programs. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 10(2), 50–66. 61 programs. the aim was to investigate an association between the interdisciplinary nature of capstone-style project units offered and learning outcomes for both discipline-based skills and employability skills. the findings of the study can be summarised into 3 main themes: 1. the assessment of actual vs perceived skill gains, 2. discipline-based skill gains; and 3. overall employability skill development in interdisciplinary project-based learning units. the first and very clear finding of this study is that there is a large gap between reporting of actual skill gains and self-reported, perceived skill gains. skill gains reported in the literature were not often objectively measured, however student perceptions of their learning were frequently described, mostly by self-reports of skills gains using likert scale surveys. this problem of actual vs perceived skill gains is a methodological limitation of much of the published literature in this area. objective assessments for employability skills do exist but were not widely adopted in the studies assessed here. there are published strategies for assessing attainment of skills such as communication (moni, hryciw, poronnik, & moni, 2007), teamwork (riebe, roepen, santarelli, & marchioro, 2010) and critical thinking (abrami et al., 2015), however skills such as interdisciplinary effectiveness, creativity, self-management and motivation are more difficult to objectively assess. the obvious problem with measuring perceived competence is that it may or may not equate with actual competence. there are studies that show positive alignment between perceived and actual competence (kuhn & rundle-thiele, 2009) but also studies that maintain the opposite (dipiro, 2010). the results from this study show that reports of actual discipline-skill gains decrease whilst reports of perceived disciplineskills increase, very few studies reported both. without a study design that deliberately measures both for a comparison, we cannot know if perceived competence equates with true competence in a skill. an intriguing, but perhaps unsurprising finding from this study is a reduction in the reporting of actual discipline skill development as the interdisciplinarity of the project offered increases. unsurprising as the interdisciplinary project offering is likely to focus less on discipline skills and more on employability skills by its very nature. intriguing as a loss of discipline content is the primary fear of academic staff as more project-based learning is introduced into curricula, taking up credit points previously owned by the discipline, and teaching staff are also required to deliver on employability learning outcomes that they may feel ill prepared to deliver (chadha, 2006). thus, the present study confirms those concerns of academic staff. another important finding is that perceived discipline gains were not different regardless of project interdisciplinary breadth or depth. the students think they are achieving discipline skill gains in interdisciplinary project units that are not matched by the actual skill development data. the positive aspect of this finding is that a broad range of project offerings will be capable of supporting discipline skill development. however, future interdisciplinary project units will need careful assessment plans to ensure that discipline skills gains are real. the timing of the capstone project experience is also important for development of the disciplinebased skills. if the project unit is delivered prior to or early in the final year of study then students may not have completed all discipline content units that contribute to their major, thus are not truly discipline experts at the time they undertake the project unit. on the other hand, identifying what they don’t know, and need to know about their discipline to contribute to a project is an effective way to encourage self-directed learning. self-management skills and ability and willingness to learn has been shown to be highly desired by employers and by new graduates who see the importance of being adaptable (coll & zegwaard, 2006), however these skills were poorly assessed in interdisciplinary projects, including perceived gains in this skill. communication, teamwork and critical thinking and problem solving were the most reported employability skills with actual assessments. remarkably, the reports of actual skill hart, j. (2019). interdisciplinary project-based learning as a means of developing employability skills in undergraduate science degree programs. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 10(2), 50–66. 62 development for each of these drops as interdisciplinary breadth increases, however the perceived skill gains increase as interdisciplinary breadth and depth increases. interestingly, where a skill was highlighted for development; the best example in this study is interdisciplinary effectiveness which is assumed to be developed by participating in an ‘interdisciplinary project’, the perceived gains in that skill were significantly greater. the students expect that they will have to interact with others from different disciplines and expect to have to think differently about the project problem. this is in line with evidence that communicating to students what they should be learning enables greater gains in that skill (hill, overton, thompson, kitson, & coppo, 2019; jorre de st jorre & oliver, 2018) and it is the first step in scaffolding the development of a skill. on the other hand, objectively assessing a gain in interdisciplinary effectiveness is difficult and effective assessments of this need to be developed to validate the perceived gains. this skill also needs scaffolding; it will not be enough to mix up groups of students from different backgrounds and expect them to effectively integrate their discipline skills in a meaningful way as they work on a project. employability skills are not taught by traditional or didactic means, they must be gained experientially, and they develop over time. the active learning approaches taken in the projectbased learning units are a positive step and provide a place to learn these skills where work placements are not feasible. however, it is not reasonable to expect that students will learn these skills simply by immersion in a project. there is good evidence that explicit instruction is required to scaffold the learning of these skills (grant & smith, 2018; moni et al., 2007). it follows that a problem with relying on a capstone unit of study to deliver the opportunity to learn these skills is the timeframe. there is evidence that positive gains can be made for critical thinking skills in science classes in one semester (gasper & gardner, 2013; gottesman & hoskins, 2013) however the single semester time-frame may not be optimal or realistic for the development of critical thinking skills (grant & smith, 2018), or indeed other employability skills. ideally, employability skills will be embedded throughout the curriculum. the recent adoption of curriculum mapping, from unit of study through to the degree program level in tertiary education institutions, is a means by which employability skill development can be delivered and become part of the overall picture of the program of study (atif, richards, busch, & bilgin, 2015). the list of skills assessed in this study is not exhaustive, indeed skills such as cultural competence, or digital literacy, were rarely mentioned in interdisciplinary project-based learning units, so there is scope for further assessment of a broader range of employability skill gains. in practice, many of the employability skills listed are not used independently. often in the workplace they will cross over; for example teamwork and presentation skills are often required together, so assessing them individually may not reflect how the skills will be used. the development of employability skills is generally seen as a development of transferrable skills and indeed they are often referred to as such. however, are these skills general and applicable across disciplines, and it this true of all the skills we include in employability skills lists? it is often thought that critical thinking proficiency is general, applicable across disciplines and can be tested in this general context (ennis, 1989), however others say critical thinking mastery improves if developed and assessed within the context of the discipline (mcpeck, 1990). this suggests that interdisciplinary projects would be less useful in developing discipline-related critical thinking skills than projects that have a specific discipline context. perhaps there is a place for discipline-focussed projects that may provide an opportunity to develop employability skills in context. further research needs to be undertaken to assess this. limitations there are several limitations to this study that must be duly acknowledged. the methods used to identify appropriate literature and extract data from the studies is as rigorous as possible, described in detail and includes an assessment of publication quality, however it does fall short of a full systematic review of the area. a primary limitation of this study is the quality of the published hart, j. (2019). interdisciplinary project-based learning as a means of developing employability skills in undergraduate science degree programs. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 10(2), 50–66. 63 studies in which it is based. of concern is the lack of reporting of objective assessment of all skills in project-based units of study. there is clear room for improvement in the alignment of learning objectives and assessment of project-based learning units. bias in publication is another issue with this work, as negative studies are unlikely to be published and not all academic staff are motivated enough to publish positive findings from their work. the studies included here are published by a dedicated sub-set of academic staff. conclusion the findings from this study have important implications for design and delivery of interdisciplinary project units as a scalable and sustainable method of wil delivery:  liaising and collaboration with employer groups is essential to ensure graduates have skills needed for employment.  course directors should embrace curriculum mapping and the embedding of employability skills throughout the degree program.  project-based units of study have the potential to deliver on the development of multiple employability skills. constructive alignment is paramount here, clear learning objectives and explicit teaching and assessment of employability skills are required in units that are to deliver employability skill outcomes.  developing practical and effective methods of assessing employability skills, thus reinforcing to students the importance of developing these skills.  encouraging academic staff to embed and teach employability skills into the curriculum, and supporting them to make the necessary curriculum changes is critical.  this study shows that the mode of project delivery is not important, however adding an interdisciplinary element to project work improves the perceived gains in employability skills. improvements in assessment practices will build on this gain.  longitudinal studies that address the employability outcomes associated with undergraduate teaching methods and employability curricula are required to evaluate the overall effectiveness. in conclusion, interdisciplinary project-based learning in capstone units is used to develop employability skills. increased interdisciplinarity of these project offerings results in decreased discipline knowledge gains but increased perceived employability skill gains. these results confirm the concerns of many academics that discipline content is sacrificed for the development of employability skills, however this need not be the case if the curriculum design follows constructive alignment (biggs & tang, 2007) and the assessment plan is well devised. skill gains can be best supported by clearly defining the employability outcomes desired and aligning these with explicit instruction and robust assessment tasks. further research in this area is warranted to ensure there is evidence that interdisciplinary project-based learning is meeting the desired graduate employability outcomes of the curriculum acknowledgements i wish to acknowledge the assistance of the academic liaison librarian for the sydney school of education and social work, ms christine tennant for her expert guidance with the search strategy for this study. i am very grateful for the inspiration, advice and support given by assoc prof racheal hains-wesson (university of sydney business school) and dr elisa bone (faculty of science) as the project developed. hart, j. 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(2019). interdisciplinary project-based learning as a means of developing employability skills in undergraduate science degree programs. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 10(2), 50–66. 66 asia australia-pacific europe middle east nth america s1. region of origin of the reports included in this study. chemistry physics biology mathematics and statistics engineering computer sciences earth sciences environmental science medical sciences health sciences psychology other s2. science disciplines involved in the interdisciplinary projects included in this study. architecture and design arts (visuals/performing) business and marketing education humanities law hart, j. (2019). interdisciplinary project-based learning as a means of developing employability skills in undergraduate science degree programs. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 10(2), 50–66. 67 s3. non-science faculties involved in the interdisciplinary projects included in this study. walker, r., morrison, c., & hay, i. (2019). evaluating quality in professional experience partnerships for graduate teacher employability. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 10(1), 118–137. 118 evaluating quality in professional experience partnerships for graduate teacher employability rebecca walker1, chad morrison1 and iain hay2 rebecca.m.walker@curtin.edu.au; chad.morrison@curtin.edu.au; iain.hay@mq.edu.au corresponding author: chad morrison 1curtin university 2macquarie university abstract over recent years, much has been said about the quality of australian initial teacher education. concerns about the preparation of pre-service teachers and the capacity of graduates to meet the demands of the classroom have re-emphasised professional experience as a fundamental component of high-quality teacher preparation. simultaneously, this focus on professional experience has emphasised the importance of partnerships. through policy, the formalisation of partnerships between initial teacher education providers and early learning centres and schools has been linked to quality assurance and auditing cycles which report on the ways that providers prepare graduates for teaching. the employability of suitably-prepared graduates and their early career traction are of particular interest to policy makers, regulators and teacher educators alike. as a result, establishing an evidence base for quality in professional experience partnerships is paramount. this paper reports on the evolution of a strategic partnerships model between one provider and its growing network of partner schools. this model has been developed through a comprehensive evaluation process, examining the nature of formal partnerships and the outcomes associated with them. data presented here highlights outcomes identified by stakeholders as influential and enacted through formal partnerships. analysis of data also emphasises ongoing priorities for partnership development, implementation and evaluation, collectively understood to be closely connected to graduate employability. keywords: initial teacher education, professional experience partnerships, graduate employability; introduction there is a clear relationship between graduate employability and authentic work experiences during higher education programs (mason, williams, & cranmer, 2009). within high-quality initial teacher education (ite), professional experience programs provide work integrated learning opportunities that are critical for pre-service teacher development (flores, 2018; le cornu, 2015; 2016). these understandings underpin and reflect the approach taken by one of australia’s largest schools of education to deliver ite programs that adequately serve the needs of its teaching graduates and their school communities. the school offers ite to preservice teachers across all australian states and territories and a very high proportion of those graduates gain employment within their local communities. in order to understand the needs of its diverse pre-service teacher cohorts and their local school communities, and to incorporate these understandings into course design, partnership activity, course delivery and evaluation, the school of education has embarked on a continuous cycle of data-driven review. of specific focus within this ongoing cycle of review is the impact of its strategic mailto:rebecca.m.walker@curtin.edu.au mailto:chad.morrison@curtin.edu.au mailto:iain.hay@mq.edu.au walker, r., morrison, c., & hay, i. (2019). evaluating quality in professional experience partnerships for graduate teacher employability. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 10(1), 118–137. 119 approach to partnerships with schools and learning settings in order to deliver professional experience. this paper reports on evaluating quality of these partnerships and its relationship to graduate teacher employability. context policy reform within australian initial teacher education australian ite has experienced significant pressure to reform over recent years, with policy development heavily focused on graduate outcomes. this has seen considerable attention paid to the quality of graduating pre-service teachers and the associated performance of ite providers preparing them (australian institute for teaching and school leadership (aitsl), 2015; department of education and training (det), 2014; teacher education ministerial advisory group (temag), 2014). the sustained discourse about ite and the classroom readiness of graduates, captured in the media and reflected in the views of politicians and the broader public (stokes, 2018), has often concentrated on a perceived deficit in the skills, knowledge and capacity of graduate teachers and has fuelled much debate (ingvarson, 2016; morgan & aspland, 2018). classroom readiness was a significant theme within the temag (2014) review of australian ite with many of its recommendations related specifically to professional experience within ite. the australian government response (det, 2015) to temag also emphasised a practice-focused approach to ite underpinned by closer ties between ite providers and schools. a pervasive theme within this response was a disconnection between ite providers and the early learning centres, schools and colleges that partnered with them, contributing to a variability of experiences of pre-service teachers. this, in turn, was associated with graduate teachers’ employability (2015). the justification for much of this critique was that increasing numbers of graduate teachers were unprepared for the realities of the classroom and that university-based teacher preparation programs operated in relative isolation from the profession, adopting an overly theorised approach. subsequently, mechanisms for promoting partnerships between ite providers and their colleagues in the profession were codified into accreditation of ite programs (aitsl, 2015; 2016). professional experience partnerships in initial teacher education the abovementioned policy environment influencing australian ite has generated a range of responses from ite providers (ledger & vidovich, 2018), just as it has occurred in other parts of the world (yeigh & lynch, 2017). a policy push to relocate more teacher preparation in schools has contributed to a range of innovative responses to professional experience and ite (ledger & vidovich, 2018), however innovative practice in this arena is not confined to post-temag (for example, see lang, neal, karvouni, & chandler, 2015; ure, 2010). nevertheless, the push for greater collaboration between ite providers and schools and the new accreditation requirements to formalise these partnerships (aitsl, 2015) has thrust professional experience partnerships back into the spotlight. the importance of relationships between ite providers and their networks of professional partners within early learning centres, schools and colleges is well understood within ite (le cornu, 2016). under productive conditions, these relationships underpin the productive preparation of pre-service teachers by linking their theoretical and practical components (ingvarson et al., 2014) within professional learning communities capable of providing critical socialisation (sutherland, scanlon, & sperring, 2005). within rigorous and effective ite programs, these components also support the development of critical inquiry and reflective practice about the authentic experiences and roles of teachers (le cornu & ewing, 2008). importantly, this locates pre-service teacher development within communities of teachers engaged in the discursive process of understanding themselves and their teaching lives through classroom engagement and participation (cohen, 2010). walker, r., morrison, c., & hay, i. (2019). evaluating quality in professional experience partnerships for graduate teacher employability. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 10(1), 118–137. 120 university-based teacher educators involved in professional experience have long understood the value of the relational aspects of professional experience partnerships (morrison & le cornu, 2014), despite these relational matters remaining relatively unacknowledged in broader settings (carter, 2014). the high cost of delivering professional experience through relationship maintenance, amongst other high-cost aspects, has served as a significant barrier (ure et al., 2017). this includes the challenges associated with traditional approaches to supervising pre-service teachers and supporting their development (yeigh & lynch, 2017). furthermore, developing, implementing and maintaining partnerships is a complex task as partnerships are ever-changing (darling-hammond, 2010). despite these challenges, partnerships present opportunities for early childhood centres, schools, colleges and ite providers to work in beneficial, reciprocal ways (cornelissen, mclellan, & schofield, 2017; nielsen et al., 2017). quality partnerships and graduate employability the importance of quality partnerships between ite providers and their partner schools is understood to be imperative to quality preparation of pre-service teachers (lynch & smith, 2012; uusimaki, 2013) and how they navigate their early career phase. the challenge of disparate perspectives on preparing teachers, held by university-based teacher educators (teacher educators) and school-based teacher educators (supervising mentor teachers) (bullough, 2005), is often acutely apparent within placement settings. this can then impact negatively on outcomes for pre-service teachers and continue to impact on them as graduate teachers in the early career phase (cochran-smith et al., 2015; lynch & smith, 2012). while the contemporary call within policy and discourse is to locate more of this preparation in schools, strengthening ite and supporting graduate employability comes from making explicit the links between ite providers and their school-based colleagues (ambrosetti, 2014; rajuan, beijaard, & verloop, 2008). reliance upon traditionally-oriented models for interaction between teacher educators, supervising mentor teachers and pre-service teachers often exacerbates the challenges for pre-service teachers. such an approach can markedly increase complexity and stifle pre-service teachers’ agency and capacity (o'grady, guilfoyle, & mcgarr, 2018). these approaches also ignore the challenge and complexity that supervising mentor teachers encounter (nielsen et al., 2017). equally, maintaining differing philosophical approaches to teaching and learning and incompatible practices between ite providers and their partner schools impacts negatively on graduate teachers’ perceptions of their teaching roles and responsibilities (cochran-smith et al., 2015). consequently, creating alignment of perspectives between stakeholders involved in preparing teachers for the profession, through strategic partnerships, is of immense benefit to all (carter, 2014; mason, 2013). the intention to create more coherent and relevant ite courses for pre-service teachers through strategic partnerships is supported and enacted by the boundary crossings that occur through explicit partnership arrangements (sewell, cody, weir, & hansen, 2018). strategic collaborations that elicit shared perspectives and priorities during teacher preparation have been shown to extend into the early career phase in ways that allow graduate teachers to also boundary cross into new professional spaces with sustainable professional capacities (hammond & mccallum, 2009; ronfeldt, 2012). these partnerships between ite providers and schools generate and advance their shared perspectives and priorities for teaching and learning that contribute to knowledgeable teaching graduates (darling-hammond, 2010). moreover, emerging evidence is indicating that pre-service teachers who are supervised by instructionally effective supervising mentor teachers show enhanced capacity (ronfeldt, brockman, & campbell, 2018). engagement between university-based teacher educators and supervising mentor teachers is providing evidence that this interaction makes the developmental needs of pre-service teachers more overt and more connected to the interactions that characterise partnership activities, as well as shifting the discourse about preparing teachers from a deficit view to one of shared concern and care (grimmett, forgasz, williams, & white, 2018). importantly, this raising of perspectives, priorities and shared walker, r., morrison, c., & hay, i. (2019). evaluating quality in professional experience partnerships for graduate teacher employability. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 10(1), 118–137. 121 practice is not confined to formal relationships but is acknowledged as highly influential, permeating all aspects of how school communities engage outwardly with their communities (cornelissen et al., 2017) data-driven responses to ite reform with the introduction of the accreditation of initial teacher education programs in australia: standards and procedures (aitsl, 2015), aitsl sought to create national consistency within australian ite. specifically, the introduction of these program standards developed around standard 1 and the ways that ite providers demonstrated program impact. this emphasis included the ways that pre-service teachers were prepared throughout their ite programs for graduate teaching and robust data reporting mechanisms that made this externally assessable. this external accountability represented a shift in emphasis within accreditation, from a focus on content to a focus on measurable, reliable performance outcomes. an area of shared concern within the temag review (temag, 2014) the australian government (det, 2015) and the new accreditation requirements (aitsl, 2015) was the outcomes associated with professional experience. standard 5 of the new requirements is devoted exclusively to this component of ite. this standard focuses entirely on the conditions surrounding productive professional experience placements. in particular, this standard established the requirement for documentation of formal relationships and interactions between ite providers and their partner schools, the roles of all those involved in delivering professional experience and processes for collecting data about this activity. the school of education reported on in this paper has been delivering ite since 1975. for more than 40 years its ite programs have undergone continual change as the evidence base relating to quality ite has grown and evolved. throughout this time, the school has continued to focus on evaluating its impact through formal reviews of its programs, including in the area of professional experience, to ensure employability of its graduate teachers. during this contemporary period of rapid and considerable reform, underpinned by the need to generate and report on programmatic data, the school of education was already active in generating data relating to its programs to inform future priorities, practice and challenges. of particular interest to the school was the impact of a strategic partnerships program to strengthen practice in relation to professional experience. the priorities for ongoing data collection and analysis included the ways that the program was aligning the practice of all educators participating in professional experience activities; how the various roles of staff were understood, developed and strengthened to support the program’s objectives and how this could be measured and assessed through valid and reliable data. this paper presents recently analysed data relating to its school partnerships program. this program and the data produced by ongoing monitoring and evaluation have been the catalyst for reform within professional experience within the school of education. this evidence-based approach to partnership design and evaluation highlights some critical areas of discussion while also providing the impetus for later discussion of future data collection procedures. project methodology background in 2011, sometime prior to the temag review and changing accreditation requirements, the school of education embarked on a partnerships program to strengthen its professional experience program. the central pillars of partnerships development included enhanced, reciprocal relationships between teacher educators and supervising mentor teachers that would support consistent and high-quality professional experience placements for pre-service teachers. this agenda was underpinned by intensive professional learning components delivered by designated partnership coordinators to develop school-based coaches to lead development within partner schools. at the end of 2013, a comprehensive first review into the walker, r., morrison, c., & hay, i. (2019). evaluating quality in professional experience partnerships for graduate teacher employability. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 10(1), 118–137. 122 impact and outcomes associated with this partnerships program was undertaken by the school of education. the review analysed aggregated performance data from graduating cohorts of early childhood education and primary level pre-service teachers associated with the partnerships program schools and non-partnership schools. survey data was also generated from these cohorts of pre-service teachers, alongside survey data from school principals and key staff, including school-based coaches. this data was generated to provide insights into:  the extent to which the partnerships program contributed to the development of workplace-ready graduate teachers;  the extent to which the partnerships program contributed to the development of schoolbased personnel working to prepare pre-service teachers through professional experience. on the basis of this review, work was undertaken in 2016 by the school of education to further enhance its formal partnership program with schools to strengthen professional experience. aims this project sought to evaluate the range of outcomes stemming from the development and initial implementation outcomes of a strategic partnerships model developed by an australian ite provider to engage its partners in high-quality initial teacher education. specifically, it examined:  how the partnership model influenced the nature and extent of formal and informal interactions between the school of education and its partnerships schools;  how various stakeholders associated with the school of education and partnerships schools evaluate the importance and impact of the strategic partnerships model;  the opportunities and challenges to sustaining the partnerships model;  the impact of the partnerships model on interactions and outcomes for stakeholders across key partnerships. the themes were pursued under the central research question: how and to what extent is the development and implementation of a strategic partnerships model enhancing the quality of initial teacher education programs within the school of education and its partners? under this theme, a key indicator of quality ite is graduate teachers’ employability and employment outcomes. data collection data presented here was collected as part of an ongoing strategic formal review of professional experience within one school of education and across cohorts of pre-service teachers within two ite undergraduate programs (early childhood education; primary). this data collection involved pre-service teachers, teacher educators and supervising mentor teachers associated with both non-partnerships (np) and partnerships (p) school settings. human research ethics approval was sought and gained through the deputy vice chancellor and the ethics committee of the institution of the ite provider and from site principals from all participating p schools. participation in the project was entirely voluntary and pre-service teachers and staff were not obliged to participate. surveys for this project were developed using the australian professional standards for teachers (aitsl, 2011). a total of five surveys were developed to cater for the cohorts of preservice teachers and staff targeted. questions were designed to elicit the opinions and perspectives of participants using likert scales with some brief text-based qualitative responses. the themes within all five surveys included: relevance of the practicum experience; perceptions of preparedness for the workforce; and, support for professional walker, r., morrison, c., & hay, i. (2019). evaluating quality in professional experience partnerships for graduate teacher employability. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 10(1), 118–137. 123 practice. while the spine of each survey was common, each of the five instruments were tailored to the specific roles of each group of participants. survey instruments were delivered via email accounts of identified cohorts. the survey platform utilised a commercial survey application. data collection followed the completion of professional experience placement rounds and all survey instruments asked participants to report on their personal perspectives and experiences. the focus of this data collection activity was specifically on pre-service teachers’ perceptions of the alignment and coherence of their coursework and professional experience and how these enabled them to progress towards the graduate teacher standards, both in p and np settings. additionally, the project sought to investigate whether graduate teachers who completed their final-year internship in a p school were considered to be well-prepared for teaching. finally, the impact of partnerships and the associated professional learning offered to school-based staff was examined. the project therefore consisted of three phases: 1. a survey study of graduating primary and early childhood teachers; 2. a survey study of school personnel who took part in delivering the partnerships program in p schools; 3. a comparison of aggregated teaching grades awarded to pre-service teachers in p and np schools. data presented here relates to the phase 1 survey of a graduating cohort of pre-service teachers within the primary and early childhood undergraduate programs. all data was deidentified during initial analysis and aggregated at the level of np and p schools. a cohort size of 117 graduating pre-service teachers was identified for participation following completion of their final professional experience placement in either a p school (56 pre-service teachers) or a np school (61 pre-service teachers). hyperlinks to survey instruments were distributed and with multiple reminders sent to the cohort throughout the following month. a total of 51 pre-service teachers submitted responses to the survey (26 from np schools, 25 from p schools), giving a response rate of about 44% (45% for p and 43% np pre-service teachers). this response rate compares favourably with the estimated response rate of 26% to a similar queensland survey (ingvarson, beavis, danielson, ellis, & elliott, 2005). despite this favourable comparison, it must be acknowledged that these response rates must be considered inadequate. generalisations about these findings cannot be made due to the small participant cohort (and descriptive quantitative analysis is only possible). additionally, graduate teachers who voluntarily responded to this survey are likely to differ from the nonresponders in important ways (johnson & owens, 2003). findings data presented here provides pre-service teachers’ responses and perspectives about their experiences during their final professional experience placement (internship), immediately prior to graduating from their ite program. data from pre-service teachers who undertook professional experience placements in both p and np schools are presented concurrently. the following survey items sought to elicit pre-service teachers’ perspectives about their inschool placement experiences, focussing on interactions that supported them to feel connected to their supervising mentor teachers and also to the collaborative culture of their school communities. walker, r., morrison, c., & hay, i. (2019). evaluating quality in professional experience partnerships for graduate teacher employability. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 10(1), 118–137. 124 pre-service teachers across both np and p cohorts reported consistently in relation to their supervising mentor teachers teaching them how to probe students’ prior knowledge and to align their future teaching to it (fig. 1). over three-quarters of both cohorts (np: 76.9%; p: 82.6%) reported strongly agreeing (np: 26.9%; p: 30.4) or agreeing (np: 50%; p: 52.2%) with this item. figure 1: my mentor taught me how to probe students’ prior understandings and present content in a way that built on that understanding more than eight out of every ten respondents across both np and p cohorts (np: 84.6%, p: 86.9%) reported that their mentor teacher helped them to develop content knowledge throughout their placement (fig. 2). figure 2: my mentor helped me to develop content knowledge of what i had to teach 0.0% 10.0% 20.0% 30.0% 40.0% 50.0% 60.0% strongly agree agree disagree strongly disagree non-partnerships partnerships 0.0% 10.0% 20.0% 30.0% 40.0% 50.0% 60.0% strongly agree agree disagree strongly disagree non-partnerships partnerships walker, r., morrison, c., & hay, i. (2019). evaluating quality in professional experience partnerships for graduate teacher employability. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 10(1), 118–137. 125 pre-service teachers undertaking placements in both np and p schools responded comparably when reporting on opportunities to observe other teachers in their classrooms during their placements, other than their supervising mentor teachers (fig. 3). one-third of both cohorts reported only occasionally having opportunities to observe other teachers (np: 34.6%; p: 33.3%) and just under one-third reported rarely having these opportunities (np: 30.8%; 29.2%). more than one-tenth of both cohorts reported never having these opportunities (np: 11.5%; p: 16.7%). figure 3: i had the opportunity to observe other teachers (other than my mentor) pre-service teachers placed at np schools reported frequently joining meetings with other teachers for a range of purposes (np: 84.6%) more consistently than pre-service teachers placed within p schools (p: 66.7%) (fig. 4). conversely, pre-service teachers at p schools reported higher response rates to occasionally (np: 11.5%; p: 20.8%) and rarely (np: 3.8%; p: 12.5%) joining meetings with other teachers. figure 4: i joined in regular meetings of teachers. (e.g. planning, staff meetings) 0.0% 5.0% 10.0% 15.0% 20.0% 25.0% 30.0% 35.0% 40.0% frequently occasionally rarely never non partnerships partnerships 0.0% 10.0% 20.0% 30.0% 40.0% 50.0% 60.0% 70.0% 80.0% 90.0% frequently occasionally rarely never non partnerships partnerships walker, r., morrison, c., & hay, i. (2019). evaluating quality in professional experience partnerships for graduate teacher employability. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 10(1), 118–137. 126 pre-service teachers working in np schools more regularly reported frequently participating in tasks beyond their designated teaching roles (np: 61.5% than those working in p settings (p: 41.7%) (fig. 5). just under 30% of pre-service teachers placed in p schools reported rarely assisting in wider school activities (p: 29.2%), in contrast to 7.7% in np schools. figure 5: i assisted with wider school activities. (e.g. excursions, camps, sport, etc) patterns of interaction between pre-service teachers (fig. 6) differed between np and p schools, with pre-service teachers within np settings reporting more frequent joint planning opportunities with their peers than those in p settings (np: 11.5%; p: 4.2%). opportunities for pre-service teachers to collaboratively plan with other preserve teachers were rare (np: 26.9%; p: 29.2%) or never happened at all for over half of the np cohort (np: 53.8%) and over one-third of the p cohort (p: 37.5%). figure 6: i planned lessons jointly with other pre-service teachers the following data was drawn from survey items that explored pre-service teachers’ perspectives about the expectations held of them during the placement. these items also explore how expectations held by supervising mentor teachers and university staff aligned or differed and how these expectations were made clear to the pre-service teachers. 0.0% 10.0% 20.0% 30.0% 40.0% 50.0% 60.0% 70.0% frequently occasionally rarely never non-partnerships partnerships 0.0% 10.0% 20.0% 30.0% 40.0% 50.0% 60.0% frequently occasionally rarely never non-partnerships partnerships walker, r., morrison, c., & hay, i. (2019). evaluating quality in professional experience partnerships for graduate teacher employability. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 10(1), 118–137. 127 approximately 9 out of every 10 pre-service teachers in both np and p schools (np: 89%; p: 87.5%) agreed they had a clear understanding of what was expected of them within their placement setting (fig. 7). figure 7: i had a clear understanding of what was expected of me at the school both cohorts of pre-service teachers reported high overall agreement (np: 89%; p: 82.6%) that supervising mentor teachers were clear and explicit when reviewing their planning and teaching (fig. 8). over half of those placed in p schools strongly agreed (p: 56.5%) while a further 26.1% agreed. thirty-nine per cent of np pre-service teachers strongly agreed while 50% agreed. figure 8: my mentor was clear and explicit when reviewing my planning and lessons with me 0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% strongly agree agree disagree strongly disagree non-partnerships partnerships 0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% strongly agree agree disagree strongly disagree non-partnerships partnerships walker, r., morrison, c., & hay, i. (2019). evaluating quality in professional experience partnerships for graduate teacher employability. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 10(1), 118–137. 128 equal rates of np and p pre-service teachers (np: 89%; p: 88.9%) agreed that their supervisor referred to clear and explicit standards when reviewing their work (fig. 9). figure 9: my supervisor referred to explicit standards when reviewing my lessons pre-service teachers located in p schools more frequently reported strong agreement (np: 31%; p: 39.1%) that their supervising mentor teacher had a clear idea about the ite provider’s expectations (fig. 10). equally, p pre-service teachers reported higher overall agreement that their mentor understood the placement requirements (np: 77%; p: 86.9%). figure 10: my mentor had a clear idea of [ite provider’s] practicum requirements 0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% strongly agree agree disagree strongly disagree non-partnerships partnerships 0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% strongly agree agree disagree strongly disagree unable to judge non-partnerships partnerships walker, r., morrison, c., & hay, i. (2019). evaluating quality in professional experience partnerships for graduate teacher employability. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 10(1), 118–137. 129 pre-service teachers at np schools overwhelmingly agreed that their supervising mentor teacher and university lecturer(s) had similar views about good teaching (fig. 11). in total, 96% of np respondents agreed (np: 73%) or strongly agreed (p: 23%) that there was alignment in beliefs within the team supporting them. in p schools, 86.9% of pre-service teachers also agreed (p: 56.5%) or strongly agreed (p: 30.4%). thirteen per cent of preservice teachers placed at p schools disagreed and a further 8.7% reported that they were unable to judge alignment of views between their supervising mentor teacher and university lecturers. figure 11: my mentor and my university lecturer(s) had similar views on good teaching methods data presented here were drawn from survey items that sought to explore the value that preservice teachers attributed to the placement and the learning outcomes that were associated with it within the professional domains of teaching. while slightly more pre-service teachers from np than p schools (np: 73.1%; p 62.5%) reported that they strongly agreed that their placement was a valuable part of their preparation (fig. 12), pre-service teachers from both cohorts reported overall positive agreement to their final placement being of value (np: 92.3%; p: 95.8%). figure 12: overall my final practicum experience was a valuable part of my preparation in becoming a teacher 0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% strongly agree agree disagree strongly disagree unable to judge non-partnerships partnerships 0.0% 10.0% 20.0% 30.0% 40.0% 50.0% 60.0% 70.0% 80.0% strongly agree agree disagree strongly disagree non-partnerships partnerships walker, r., morrison, c., & hay, i. (2019). evaluating quality in professional experience partnerships for graduate teacher employability. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 10(1), 118–137. 130 although responses to this item were overwhelmingly positive with over 90% agreement from both cohorts, pre-service teachers placed at np schools reported that they strongly agreed that their placement was a valuable component of their preparation for teaching more frequently than those placed at p schools. despite this, the follow-up qualitative responses from np pre-service teachers that indicated a high level of variability in experience. this included statements like ‘i had very little coaching from outside of my mentor teacher and only two supervised lessons’ (np respondent 1, line 1) and ‘i had an awful experience…if i was asked to do so again i would change degrees’ (np respondent 7, line 25). these responses were emotive and indicated the complexity experienced, as the following participant highlighted: i felt as though it was an unfair assessment of my ability and did not reflect my journey… one bit…i did not have an opportunity to practice integrated programming, inquiry or any other alternatives of ‘best practice’. i was judged on my ability to be a work sheet teacher…i was not invited to a single staff meeting – even when they were held in our classroom and i was there preparing and reflecting…it was the worst experience of my life (np respondent 6, line 15). approximately 90% of respondents (np: 88%; p: 91.3%) reported receiving feedback from their supervising mentor teacher which helped to improve their teaching (fig. 13). figure 13: feedback i received from my mentor helped me to improve my teaching pre-service teachers from np reported slightly higher agreement responses than their p peers (np: 88.4%; p: 82.6%) in relation to their supervising mentor teacher helping them to develop a repertoire of effective teaching methods (fig. 14). figure 14: my mentor helped me to develop my repertoire of effective teaching methods specific to content 0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% strongly agree agree disagree strongly disagree non-partnerships partnerships 0.0% 10.0% 20.0% 30.0% 40.0% 50.0% 60.0% strongly agree agree disagree strongly disagree non-partnerships partnerships walker, r., morrison, c., & hay, i. (2019). evaluating quality in professional experience partnerships for graduate teacher employability. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 10(1), 118–137. 131 over 90% of respondents from both cohorts (np: 92.3%; p: 91.3%) reported their mentor teachers had taught them effective methods for managing student behaviour (fig. 15). figure 15: my mentor taught me effective methods of managing behaviour more than three-quarters of all respondents (np: 77%; p: 86.9%) reported that their supervising mentor teacher had made clear links for them between theoretical components of their course and practical aspects of teaching during the placement (fig. 16). figure 16: my mentor made clear links between theoretical and practical aspects of teaching initial teacher education courses and professional experience components within those courses have received considerable resourcing and attention within the school of education being reported on here. in particular, over the past five years the school has committed to a sustained focus of quality assurance through internal and external review cycles (curtin university, 2014). this commitment to quality assurance and improvement within professional experience reflects the school of education’s awareness of the significant contributions that professional experience components make to graduate teachers’ capacity and preparedness for the profession (det, 2015). over recent years, the school of education has invested heavily to focus its professional experience program around strategic partnerships with the profession, in recognition of the critical alignment between the two (lynch & smith, 2012). given the considerable resources directed towards strategic partnerships arrangements, and the basis on which this investment 0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% strongly agree agree disagree strongly disagree non-partnerships partnerships 0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% strongly agree agree disagree strongly disagree non-partnerships partnerships walker, r., morrison, c., & hay, i. (2019). evaluating quality in professional experience partnerships for graduate teacher employability. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 10(1), 118–137. 132 was made, pre-service teachers’ responses within this study highlighted further work to be done. data reported here indicates that pre-service teachers’ perspectives and responses to placements, in general, varied little between p and np placement schools. this could be interpreted positively, as an indicator of consistency within supervising mentor teachers associated with the school. given the great diversity of teaching contexts with which the school of education works, this data does provide reasons to celebrate current interactions. however, the data also provides impetus for further analysis and future data collection. data collected from these two graduating cohorts of pre-service teachers emphasised that their perspectives differed only slightly across many measures of experience. pre-service within np and p schools consistently reported positively on most measures relating to overall value, contributions and outcomes associated with placement activities. overall agreement within survey items were similar across np and p and in many instances pre-service teachers placed in np schools reported more favourably about their experiences, albeit slightly. the data also indicates potentially unintended consequences as a result of partnership arrangements, which require further consideration (halliday, asthana, & richardson, 2004). pre-service teachers’ perspectives about interaction during placement activities figures 1-6 presented data relating to the shared responsibilities and complex undertakings of preparing graduate teachers for contemporary classrooms. the intersections between ite providers and schools and the outcomes associated with these interactions are critical to graduate outcomes (korthagen, 2001; korthagen & kessels, 1999). le cornu (2015) argues that it is a critical time for australian ite to respond to the challenges that it is facing and emphasises the importance of collaboration between ite providers and their partners to strengthen the ways that pre-service teachers meaningfully engage in teachers’ work (le cornu, 2016). significantly, pre-service teachers within both cohorts consistently reported positive interactions within the placement settings. more than eight out of every ten respondents across both np and p cohorts reported that their mentor teacher actively worked with them to develop content knowledge. they also consistently reported that their supervising mentor teachers worked with them to develop understandings about students (np: 76.9%; p: 82.6%) and to manage student behaviour (np: 92.3%; p: 91.3%). equally, approximately 90% of all responding pre-service teachers reported receiving feedback from their supervising mentor teacher which helped to improve their teaching (np: 88%; p: 91.3%) and that their mentors were instrumental in them developing effective teaching strategies (np: 88.4%; p: 82.6%). an unanticipated finding from the data was that pre-service teachers placed in p settings appeared to be more confined to interactions with their supervising mentor teachers and to their specific teaching roles than those placed at np settings. pre-service teachers in p settings reported slightly fewer opportunities to regularly observe other teachers. one-third of both cohorts reported only occasionally having opportunities to observe other teachers (np: 34.6%; p: 33.3%) while nearly another third reported rarely having these opportunities (np: 30.8%; 29.2%). over 16% of the p cohort reported never having these opportunities. in addition, pre-service teachers placed at p schools reported fewer opportunities than their np peers to participate in meetings with other teachers (np: 84.6%; p: 66.7%). they also reported fewer opportunities for involvement in broader school activities than those placed in np settings (np: 61.5%; p: 41.7%) (fig. 5). approximately 30% of pre-service teachers placed in p schools reported rarely assisting in wider school activities (p: 29.2%), compared to just 7.7% in np schools. this data indicates that pre-service teachers placed in p settings appeared to be more anchored to their primary teaching role and their interactions within the learning community were more limited than what was occurring in other settings. this pattern of interaction was also evident in the limited opportunities that pre-service teachers had to collaborate with other walker, r., morrison, c., & hay, i. (2019). evaluating quality in professional experience partnerships for graduate teacher employability. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 10(1), 118–137. 133 pre-service teachers during placement, however this was limited within both np and p schools. pre-service teachers’ perspectives about expectations during placement activities approximately nine out of 10 respondents in both np and p schools (np: 89%; p: 87.5%) agreed they had a clear understanding of the expectations held of them within their placement setting. they also responded that their mentor teachers were clear and explicit when working with them (np: 89%; p: 82.6%) and applied explicit standards when reviewing their work (np: 89%; p: 88.9%). significantly, pre-service teachers placed in np schools reported slightly higher agreement across these measures to pre-service teachers located in p schools. while these responses rates are positive and indicate clear communication of expectations to preservice teachers about how to navigate their school-based learning, the similarity of responses across cohorts seems to indicate that strategic investment in partnerships activities failed to translate into discernible outcomes for pre-service teachers. pre-service teachers consistently reported that their supervising teachers understood the requirements for the placement (np: 77%; p: 86.9%). pre-service teachers across both np and p settings also reported alignment between the views of mentor teachers and teacher educators about quality teaching (np: 96%; p: 86.9%). again, while these data highlight positive experiences for pre-service teachers and alignment between teacher educators and their school-based supervising mentor teachers, it indicates that more needs to be known about the quality and impact of partnership engagement. pre-service teachers’ perspectives about the value and outcomes of placement activities participating pre-service teachers were at the point of graduation from their ite courses when participating in this project. as discussed earlier, the low response rate from the graduating cohort limits what generalisations can be made of the data and analysis. despite this, the perspectives shared highlight the overwhelmingly positive perspectives that these graduating teachers held about their placement settings and the outcomes associated with their final professional experience round. respondents emphasised that they were supported to develop knowledge about their students’ needs in relation to their learning and also about managing students’ behaviours. pre-service teachers reported being supported to develop curriculum knowledge and pedagogical skills. these indicators were provided by graduates just as they were making their transitions into the profession and so this data provides powerful perspectives on what they saw as productive. it is within these areas of perceived value and outcomes associated with the final professional experience placement that the respondents who were placed in p schools started to illustrate the potential impact of strategic partnerships. within the areas of increased knowledge of students, curriculum, pedagogy and practice, responses from pre-service teachers undertaking professional experience in p schools started to differ from their peers in np schools. the partnership program presented areas of positive impact on pre-service teachers’ preparation and in these domains p pre-service teachers’ responses rated higher in several measures over np pre-service teachers. despite this, the limitations of the cohort size meant that areas of further investigation and evaluation were identified for improvement and innovation within a context of a continual cycle of review. conclusion the broad acknowledgement, at all levels of education (from school practitioners through to policy makers), of the crucial importance of professional experience has been the catalyst for a considerable reform agenda within australian ite. as a result, professional experience has been reinvigorated within accreditation processes and appears prominently in the ways that ite providers document their engagement with the profession. this has included the walker, r., morrison, c., & hay, i. (2019). evaluating quality in professional experience partnerships for graduate teacher employability. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 10(1), 118–137. 134 formalisation of partnership arrangements between ite providers and those centres and schools that host pre-service teacher placements and the agreements that structure, support and report on those interactions. this project sought to evaluate the investment of one school of education in its broader partnerships community and its commitment to education. the intention to strengthen professional experience to support the transition of graduate teachers into the profession is a central driver within this project. collectively, a focus was to ensure that pre-service teachers effectively and productively navigate their professional experience placements. while it is acknowledged that this is important, these opportunities can also be critical to their capacity to negotiate the transition into the profession. by remaining focused on the quality of interactions and professional practice generated through strategic partnerships, it emphasised the need to further develop shared responsibilities and perspectives on preparing pre-service teachers who are able to survive, thrive and prosper throughout the early career phase. these important outcomes, realised through influential relationships between ite providers and their professional partners, are well understood and have been influential in shaping the development of strategic partnerships to this point (curtin university, 2014). these understandings are also influential in continuing to strengthen partnerships arrangements into the future. walker, r., morrison, c., & hay, i. 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(2019). a professional development program with an assessed eportfolio: a practical solution for engaging undergraduates with their career development in large student cohorts. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 10(2), 86–103. 86 the journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability issn: 1838-3815 (online) journal homepage: https://ojs.deakin.edu.au/index.php/jtlge/ a professional development program with an assessed eportfolio: a practical solution for engaging undergraduates with their career development in large student cohorts julia k. choate1, maria demaria2, michelle etheve3, sandy cran4 and david carroll5 corresponding author: julia choate (julia.choate@monash.edu) 1school of biomedical sciences, faculty of medicine, nursing and health science, monash university, vic., australia 2department of immunology and pathology, central clinical school, faculty of medicine, nursing and health science, monash university, vic., australia 3 research student, the university of melbourne 4careers advisor, ormond college, parkville, vic. 5portfolio of the deputy vice-chancellor (education), monash university, vic., australia abstract undergraduate biomedical science degree-programs are considered to be non-vocational, with a diverse range of career outcomes. at our university, student and academic feedback indicated that biomedical science students were anxious and uncertain about their career options. in response to this careers anxiety, an in-curriculum, course-wide and assessed professional development program (pdp) was developed and delivered into the biomedical science degree-program by an integrated team of careers educators and biomedical academics. this program aimed to engage a large cohort of biomedical students (>1000) with their career development, improving their careers awareness and reducing their anxiety about careers options. the impacts of the program on students’ career and employability skills development, as well as their self-reported levels of psychological distress, were evaluated with on-line anonymous student surveys. student engagement with the program was linked with program assessment submission rates and student interactions with the university careers service. completion of the program increased students’ careers knowledge and confidence, enhanced their awareness of career options and employability skills and increased their engagement with the university careers service. it did not alter students’ self-reported levels of depression, anxiety and stress, but students who rated themselves poorly on careers awareness and confidence statements were more likely to have severe depression, anxiety and stress. this program provides a practical approach for students’ career and employability skills development in large cohorts, but could be expanded to include an intervention to reduce student anxiety. keywords: anxiety, biomedical science, career development, eportfolio, graduate employability, undergraduate https://ojs.deakin.edu.au/index.php/jtlge/ mailto:julia.choate@monash.edu choate, j., demaria, m., etheve, m., cran, s., & carroll, d. (2019). a professional development program with an assessed eportfolio: a practical solution for engaging undergraduates with their career development in large student cohorts. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 10(2), 86–103. 87 introduction shifting career aspirations of biomedical science graduates biomedical science degrees were established at australian universities in the last 20 years to educate and train students to be biomedical researchers. similar to the long-standing bachelor of science degrees, they were considered to be non-vocational with a diverse range of career outcomes. initially, most students attracted to biomedical degree programs were interested in biomedical research (harris, 2007; skatova & ferguson, 2014). however, the last 10 years have seen a shift in the career aspirations of students enrolling in biomedical science degrees at monash university, with up to 70% of students aiming for graduate medicine (hodgson, waring, flecknoe, & choate, 2015). this shift in the career intentions of biomedical students is also evident in recent data from the quality indicators of learning and teaching (qilt) graduate outcomes survey (2016-2017), which shows that most biomedical science graduates at monash enrol in further full-time study, 53% higher than for other graduates in 2017 (qilt, 2018). in 2016, 67% of monash biomedical science graduates pursued further studies in health (including graduate medicine) and 29% in natural and physical sciences (including research honours in biomedical science) (qilt, 2017). alongside these changes in career intentions, monash has experienced increased biomedical student enrolments (from ~200 in 2013 to ~700 in 2019) and elevated biomedical science student anxiety and uncertainty about their future career pathways following completion of this non-vocational degree (see choate, green, cran, macaulay, & etheve, 2016). career aspirations, graduate employability and student wellbeing improving job prospects and enhancing career development is a key focus for students entering higher education, particularly for students undertaking non-vocational degree programs like biomedical science (gillie & gillie, 2003; kandiko & mawer, 2013). this is not surprising, as australian graduates have higher employment rates (84% aged 25-64; 2016 data) than high school leavers (78%; oecd, 2018). this student focus on careers and employability, particularly in non-vocational degrees, is associated with elevated undergraduate stress and anxiety about careers. for example, post-graduation career plans were a key reason for psychological distress for undergraduates attending campus mental health services at a us college (beiter et al., 2015). student anxiety and stress about their careers supports the need for careers education in undergraduate non-vocational degree programs. metaanalyses of the careers outcome literature indicates that engaging students with their career development promotes careers awareness, employability and wellbeing (brown & roche, 2016; gedye, fender, & chalkley, 2004; mayston, 2002; watts & hawthorn, 1992; whiston, sexton, & lasoff, 1998). indeed, students’ career development and mental health are considered interconnected, with career indecision related to depression (walker & peterson, 2012; zunker, 2008) and lower anxiety levels leading to increased engagement in career preparation processes (i.e. self-efficacy and job search intentions; see deer, gohn, & kanaya, 2018). zunker (2008) suggested that as career and mental health concerns are interconnected, they should be treated holistically and not as separate entities. how to effectively engage undergraduates with their career development undergraduate career development is more likely to be successful if it is in-curriculum, assessed and course-wide (bridgstock, 2009; bridgstock, grant-imaru, & mcalpine, 2019). indeed, in-curriculum undergraduate career development programs have been associated with reductions in unemployment, job-search times and with improved engagement with career development (ciarocco, 2018; hughes, bosley, bowes, & bysshe, 2002; thomas & mcdaniel, 2004). it is also important to start undergraduate career development early in their degree program, as this will enable students to engage with the development of their career options and employability early, while building skills to manage this. many choate, j., demaria, m., etheve, m., cran, s., & carroll, d. (2019). a professional development program with an assessed eportfolio: a practical solution for engaging undergraduates with their career development in large student cohorts. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 10(2), 86–103. 88 undergraduate students do not engage with their career planning until they graduate, at which point it can be too late (perrone & vickers, 2003). programs to engage students with their career development learning should involve an integrated careers educator and academic model (bridgstock, 2009; jackson & wilton, 2016). this career development model aligns the interests of the university and their students (the ‘educational interface’), facilitating individual student engagement (kahu, 2013; kahu & nelson, 2018) and enabling academics to demonstrate the relevance of their subjects to students (tinto, 2017). this integrated team is essential, as university careers staff are often isolated from academics and the curriculum. even where universities provide efficient careers services staffed with expert careers educators, students often fail to engage with the services offered (e.g. workshops, seminars and individual careers advisory sessions) because they are not aware of them, do not have time to engage with them, or do not see their relevance (bridgstock, 2009). an in-curriculum, course-wide biomedical science professional development program in response to the shift in biomedical student career aspirations at monash university, together with academic, careers educator and student feedback regarding elevated careers anxiety and uncertainty in the cohort, an in-curriculum professional development program (pdp) was introduced into the biomedical science degree program in 2015 (see choate et al., 2016) and still continues. the program commences in the first semester of the degree program with five modules scaffolded across core biomedical science subjects over three years (figure 1). students are assessed, and receive feedback, on their contributions to an electronic portfolio (eportfolio), a process that enables them to curate, and reflect on, evidence of their achievements. the program aims to raise students’ skills in navigating their own careers, raising their career confidence and giving them a greater sense of control in the face of uncertainty. it relies on biomedical academics and careers staff working together to develop, embed and evaluate an in-curriculum program specifically tailored for the bachelor of biomedical science (bbiomedsc) cohort. figure 1: a summary of the five modules of the professional development program, with the topic of the module and the assessment task (in the table). choate, j., demaria, m., etheve, m., cran, s., & carroll, d. (2019). a professional development program with an assessed eportfolio: a practical solution for engaging undergraduates with their career development in large student cohorts. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 10(2), 86–103. 89 given the large student cohort in the monash university biomedical science degree-program it was essential that the program could be easily taught and administered at scale. the development team considered offering the modules as self-directed on-line modules, but this approach is not as effective as face-to-face delivery from a career development expert (see whiston, brecheisen, & stephens, 2003). brown and ryan krane (2000) identified five critical ingredients influencing the effectiveness of career interventions: written exercises, individualised interpretations and feedback, information on the world of work, modelling by more competent others and support from social networks. they found interventions that included three or more ingredients were more effective than those that included only one or two. the monash pdp includes at least three of these ingredients; assessments are written, students get individualised feedback, they gain information about the world of work through guest speakers at the pdp lectures and often these guest speakers become part of the students’ networks. this paper reports on an investigation of the impact of a professional development program on biomedical science students’ careers awareness and confidence. we hypothesised that the pdp would enhance students’ careers confidence, their engagement with their career development and improve their awareness of potential careers. since our students were stressed and anxious about their future careers, we also examined the impact of completing the pdp on students’ self-reported psychological distress using the depression, anxiety, stress scales (dass) (see lovibond & lovibond, 1995). we hypothesised that engaging students with their career development (via the pdp) would reduce their career uncertainty and therefore their anxiety. methods research design the professional development program was introduced into the first year of a three-year bachelor of biomedical science degree program (bbiomedsci) in 2015, at monash university, an australian research-intensive university, and has been running since this time. the aims of this research were to determine if the professional development program: (1) enhanced students’ careers awareness and confidence, (2) engaged students with their career development and, (3) reduced their career uncertainty and therefore their anxiety. a mixed methods research approach was used, with quantitative (student careers and wellbeing surveys) and qualitative (open-ended questions on student surveys, focus group discussions) data. the surveys were anonymous and on-line and were used to evaluate the impact of the pdp on students’ careers and employability skills awareness (careers survey) and wellbeing (wellbeing survey). surveys were administered electronically via the online learning system. students were invited to take the surveys when they submitted their eportfolio assessment (2015-16) or during weeks 2-4 of the academic year (2017-18). careers survey the careers survey contained eight career development statements, answered with a five-point likert scale from strongly disagree to strongly agree. for analysis of this likert scale data, the responses were allocated values from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree), then a non-parametric kruskal-wallis h test (i.e. one-way anova on ranks) was used to determine if there were statistically significant differences between the modules for each of the careers statements. the careers survey was also administered across two other victorian university biomedical science degree-programs. these two other courses had differing degrees of embedded career development (none and a final year industry placement) so this data helped to determine the effectiveness of the monash university biomedical science professional development program. choate, j., demaria, m., etheve, m., cran, s., & carroll, d. (2019). a professional development program with an assessed eportfolio: a practical solution for engaging undergraduates with their career development in large student cohorts. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 10(2), 86–103. 90 wellbeing survey the wellbeing survey used the 21-item depression, anxiety and stress scale (dass) to estimate levels and forms of psychological distress associated with poor mental health. the dass assesses the severity of symptoms associated with depression, anxiety and stress (see lovibond & lovibond, 1995). scores on the das scales are categorised into five categories (normal, mild, moderate, severe and extremely severe) and indicate the level of severity of relevant symptoms for the week before the students complete the survey. dass scores for each category were calculated according to the protocols in the dass manual (lovibond & lovibond, 1995). survey respondents were excluded from a das scale if they had not completed all of the statements for a scaling (as all statements are required for the calculations). information about counselling and support services available to students experiencing mental health difficulties was included in the explanatory statement provided to students and in the survey. to test the relationship between students’ responses to the eight careers statements (in the careers survey) and their levels of psychological distress (as assessed with the wellbeing survey), a series of pairwise two-proportion z-tests were conducted to compare the proportions of students indicating agreement with a particular career statement (strongly agree and agree), across three levels of each dass domain. for example, the proportions indicating agreement and moderate/severe or extremely severe stress were separately compared with the proportion indicating agreement and normal or mild stress. qualitative written comments and focus groups open-ended questions were also used to investigate ‘what aspects of the program could be improved?’ and ‘what were the best aspects of this program?’ qualitative written comments were collated and grouped into major themes by an independent administrator. a person independent of the degreeprogram facilitated student focus group discussions. these focus groups were designed to provide more detailed feedback about the pdp. assessment submission rates and student attendance at the university careers service the average module assessment submission rates were collated (as an indicator of student engagement with the program and their career development) and after module 1 in 2017 students who did not submit their assessment were invited to complete a voluntary and anonymous survey about why they did not submit their assessment. biomedical science student engagement with the university careers service was tracked, by the careers service, using career hub software. analysis software and ethics graphpad prism 7 was used for statistical analysis (careers statements) and graphing, with spss 25 used for data and statistical analysis of the dass data and for testing the correlation between the careers statements and the dass results. this research was approved by the monash university human research ethics committee (#2015-6135-5964; impact of a professional development program on monash university biomedical student careers awareness and wellbeing #2018-7753-16790; an evaluation of students career intentions, careers confidence and careers awareness across victorian university biomedical degree-programs). results completion of the program modules was associated with enhanced students’ self-rating of their careers awareness and knowledge, with large increases in biomedical student engagement with the offerings of the university careers service and with students sourcing current advertised jobs that did not align with choate, j., demaria, m., etheve, m., cran, s., & carroll, d. (2019). a professional development program with an assessed eportfolio: a practical solution for engaging undergraduates with their career development in large student cohorts. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 10(2), 86–103. 91 their immediate career intentions. anonymous student feedback indicated that they understood the intentions and aims of the program; they felt that the program engaged them with their career development and made them aware of diverse career options. despite engaging with their career development, students self-reported psychological distress levels did not change as they completed the pdp modules. however, a significant correlation was found between students with high levels of selfreported psychological distress (i.e. severe and extremely severe depression and anxiety) and low levels of agreement with the career development statements. student engagement with the program as related to high completion and assessment submission rates making the pdp in-curriculum and assessed should increase student engagement, compared to extracurricular programs. in total, 3,054 students have commenced the program, with 824 having completed all five modules, and the remainder having completed between two and four of the five pdp modules. the students submitted the pdp assessments at high rates (89.4 ± 1.2% across 14 modules from 2015-2018; mean ± sem). they appreciated that the pdp modules were assessed. written student comments from the anonymous survey included: the assessment made me sit down and actually think about it [i.e. my career development]. i actually did a lot of work. assessments gave me the motivation to do it – more [assessments] throughout might be more helpful (e.g. two per semester). after module 1 in 2017, the students (n=46) who did not submit the pdp assessment were emailed an anonymous survey in order to ascertain their reasons for non-submission. of concern, 67% selected ‘i didn't know i had to complete an assessment task for this module’, as this suggests that they had not engaged with the program, either via their on-line subject management system or via attending the pdp lecture. another 24% of non-submitting students selected ‘i didn't have time i had other assessments which were a priority’. a job searching assessment exercise and guest speakers enhanced students’ careers awareness and confidence to encourage students to expand their career awareness, the module 3 assessment required them to source currently advertised jobs. figure 2 compares the advertised jobs the students selected for module 3 in 2016-18 with the career intentions of these students. in 2018, students were asked to rate their confidence in their career intentions (from 1= extremely unconfident; 2 = unconfident; 3 = neutral; 4 = confident and 5 = extremely confident), rather than ranking their top career intentions from 1-5 as was done in 2016-17. when the year 2 students rated their confidence in pursuing selected careers, 32% were confident or extremely confident that they would pursue a career in medicine, with 9% for research and 19% for further graduate studies in allied health (n=114; 24% response rate). taken together, these data demonstrate that by engaging in this pdp module students are looking at jobs other than those that align with their immediate career intentions and hence the pdp is broadening their career awareness. choate, j., demaria, m., etheve, m., cran, s., & carroll, d. (2019). a professional development program with an assessed eportfolio: a practical solution for engaging undergraduates with their career development in large student cohorts. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 10(2), 86–103. 92 figure 2: top-rated career intentions of students (determined from the careers survey; darker colours) and the jobs they selected for module 3 of the professional development program (lighter colours), sorted into the major types of careers/jobs in order to expand students’ awareness of their post-biomedical science career options, the program modules include guest speakers, including monash university biomedical science alumni, monash university graduate course coordinators and external guests (see table 1). student feedback suggests that these speakers lead to improved careers awareness and confidence. this is evident from the students’ written comments on the careers survey, including: hearing the stories of previous students and being able to relate to them. it gives us an idea of some of the things we ourselves can do. knowing what employers want is also another aspect that was very useful. i really like hearing about other people's’ experiences and how they thought when they were in our position. table 1: a summary of guest speakers from the biomedical science (bms) professional development program lectures (2015-18) type of speaker career focus or pathway bms alumni graduate medicine, masters in nursing, phd student, masters in secondary teaching, monash entrepreneurship program (the generator), consultant at deloitte, associate at pwc monash course convenors and advisors pharmacy/pharmaceutical sciences, nursing, reproductive health, graduate medicine external speakers secondary teaching, cardiac technology, respiratory physiology, pharmaceutical industry (director at csl), intensive care specialist additional benefits from students meeting these speakers, especially those from non-medical careers, include being provided with work experience opportunities and more defined career goals. examples include two students completing work experience in cardiac technology and students enrolling in the choate, j., demaria, m., etheve, m., cran, s., & carroll, d. (2019). a professional development program with an assessed eportfolio: a practical solution for engaging undergraduates with their career development in large student cohorts. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 10(2), 86–103. 93 monash university masters courses in clinical embryology and pharmacy. student comments from focus group discussions: one of my friends, when she learnt about the monash ivf program [from the invited speaker], she fell in love with it and now that’s what she is keen on. similarly, the pharmacy course advisor prompted a student to follow this career path: i will definitely pursue a career in pharmacy after hearing [invited speaker] talk. completion of the program enhanced students’ responses to career development statements figure 3 shows that there were significant increases in the students self-ratings for 7 of the 8 career development statements between years 1, 2 and year 3, supporting the idea that completion of the program modules engages students with their career development. this careers survey was administered across two other victorian undergraduate biomedical degree-programs (university 2 has no careers program; university 3 has industry placements in year 3). results showed that only monash university students enhanced their career development from year 1 to year 3 of the degree program, suggesting that engagement with the pdp is a contributing factor (figure 4). figure 3: the % of students in years 1, 2 and 3 who agreed and strongly agreed with eight career development statements (2017 data). (year 1 students had not completed any of the professional development program modules, year 2 students had completed modules 1 and 2 and year 3 students had completed modules 1 to 4) choate, j., demaria, m., etheve, m., cran, s., & carroll, d. (2019). a professional development program with an assessed eportfolio: a practical solution for engaging undergraduates with their career development in large student cohorts. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 10(2), 86–103. 94 figure 4: responses to eight careers statements from students enrolled in undergraduate biomedical science degree-programs at three victorian universities (expressed as a % change from year 1 to year 3) (2017 data). (monash: n = 596, 43% response across years 1 and 3; university 2: n = 159, 24% response; university 3: n = 268, 18% response). (*p<0.05). enhanced student engagement with the university careers service since the introduction of the professional development program the university has a centralised careers service, although this model changed at the end of 2017. students can book 30-minute one-on-one sessions with a careers education consultant, drop-in for a 10-minute career chat or they can attend and participate in careers workshops or industry networking events. the careers service keeps records of the students who participate in these sessions. since the introduction of the program in 2015, there has been a significant increase in biomedical student interactions with monash careers, leadership and volunteering (figure 5). these data, together with qualitative student feedback (comments below), supports the value of the pdp in enabling students to be proactive in their own career development. students in the focus groups commented that they appreciated the careers service: i now know what services are available to support me in pursuing a career after completing my degree and finding a job while studying. it was good to know that there is a team that i can talk to and discuss career related issues/problems that may arise during my studies. at the end of 2017, the university careers service changed its delivery model and restructured, such that there are no longer individual one-on-one appointments, but rather online review services, drop-in question sessions and group workshops. there was also no longer a careers advisor responsible for the in-curriculum support and delivery of biomedical careers development. figure 6 shows undergraduate biomedical student engagement with the university careers service in the first quarter of 2018. the group interactions/workshops are not unique student numbers, and many students attended multiple workshops. despite the modified offerings, it is clear that the numbers of biomedical students engaged with the careers service has decreased. choate, j., demaria, m., etheve, m., cran, s., & carroll, d. (2019). a professional development program with an assessed eportfolio: a practical solution for engaging undergraduates with their career development in large student cohorts. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 10(2), 86–103. 95 figure 5: the number of biomedical science students attending appointments with a careers consultant (left hand side) or group events organised by careers leadership and volunteering (right hand side) between the start of 2014 and the end of 2017. (the professional development program was introduced into the biomedical curriculum at the start of 2015.) figure 6: the number of biomedical science students interacting with the new offerings of the university careers service in the first quarter of 2018. (individual services are shown on the left and group services on the right.) students written comments suggested that the professional development program engaged them with their career development students who completed program modules 1 to 4 in 2016 provided anonymous written feedback about the best aspects of the program and improvements they felt could enhance the program (tables 2 and 3). about a third of the students who provided feedback felt that the program encouraged them to think about career planning, with about 10% of first year students (i.e. modules 1 and 2) indicating they felt that it made them think about careers early in their degree (table 2, column 4). between 5-12% mentioned that the program made them think about non-medical careers. student written comments in response to ‘what were the best aspects of this program?’ included: choate, j., demaria, m., etheve, m., cran, s., & carroll, d. (2019). a professional development program with an assessed eportfolio: a practical solution for engaging undergraduates with their career development in large student cohorts. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 10(2), 86–103. 96 i believe that the introduction of a program like this was sorely needed by students today, as navigating the job market, and more importantly, gaining skills before you enter it is a daunting and often confusing task. forced me to independently take responsibility in thinking about my future career, and what actions to take to improve myself. this program pushed me to actually think about a career path outside of medicine. it allowed for me to explore and plan for life after graduation. hearing from people that had completed biomed degrees and are in a range of different professions now. having people come in from industry and speak about their work is a good way of getting multiple perspectives. table 2: main themes of students’ written responses to the question: ‘what were the best aspects of this program?’ (2016; expressed as a % of total student comments) career planning providing nonmedicine careers options thinking about careers early professional skill development examples of different speakers useful information module 1 (n=331; 60% response) 27% 5% 8% 13% 5% 28% module 2 (n=216; 42% response) 32% 12% 10% 5% 3% 16% module 3 (n=204; 48% response) 40% 10% 2% 5% 6% 24% module 4 (n=148; 36% response) 30% 8% 2% 11% 9% 22% when asked how the program could be improved, between 9-29% of the students responses were about the provision of more specific career options specifically related to biomedical science. the other common themes for these comments included ensuring that the module assessment did not clash with other assessments in their core subjects, modifying the assessment activities so they were more realistic (e.g. writing a cover letter), providing workplace or volunteer opportunities, more lecture time or one-on-one sessions for the program and making these sessions more hands-on and interactive (table 3). student written comments in response to ‘what aspects of the program could be improved?’ included: a mentor provided to groups of people who could help to develop and explore ideas for students in their group, providing a more guided and individual experience for this task. maybe a face to face support will be better. the students discussing their careers with professionals is a great idea. i think the cohort would benefit from a wellbeing program alongside the professional development program. choate, j., demaria, m., etheve, m., cran, s., & carroll, d. (2019). a professional development program with an assessed eportfolio: a practical solution for engaging undergraduates with their career development in large student cohorts. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 10(2), 86–103. 97 table 3: main themes of students’ written responses to the question: ‘what aspects of the program could be improved?’ (2016; % of total student comments) the timing and relevance of the assessment provide more specific career options related to biomedical science make the module more interactive provide more specific real life opportunities module 1 (n=270; 49% response) 10% 29% 17% 5% module 2 (n=205; 39% response) 10% 16% 11% 5% module 3 (n=190; 45% response) 14% 11% 13% 5% module 4 (n=137; 33% response) 8% 9% 15% 8% the professional development program did not impact on students’ self-reported levels of psychological distress the percentage of students self-reporting severe or extremely severe depression, anxiety or stress, according to the das scale analysis is shown in table 4. despite the pdp engaging students with their career development, there were no significant changes in these levels as students completed more of the pdp modules, nor as they progressed from year 1 to year 3 of the degree-program. there was, however, a relationship between students’ responses to the eight careers statements and their levels of psychological distress, with students’ who self-reported severe depression, anxiety and stress significantly less likely to agree with the careers statements than students who self-reported normal or moderate depression, anxiety and stress (table 5). table 4: students with self-rated severe and extremely severe depression, anxiety or stress in year 1 (modules 1 and 2), year 2 (modules 3 and 4) and year 3 (module 5), (expressed as the mean ± standard error of the mean). depression (% severe & extremely severe) anxiety (% severe & extremely severe) stress (% severe & extremely severe) year 1 (2015-18) 13.5±0.4 18.3±2.7 10.5±0.8 year 2 (2016-18) 14.8±2.0 18.8±2.2 12.8±1.8 year 3 (2017-18) 15.0±1.0 22.0±2.0 16.0±2.0 choate, j., demaria, m., etheve, m., cran, s., & carroll, d. (2019). a professional development program with an assessed eportfolio: a practical solution for engaging undergraduates with their career development in large student cohorts. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 10(2), 86–103. 98 table 5: the % of students who responded to the career development statements with ‘agree’ or ‘strongly agree’ and their self-rated depression, anxiety and stress levels. (all shaded values are significantly different (p<0.05) relative to ‘normal’ levels of psychological distress, according to a z score analysis.) (n=573; 40% response rate). depression anxiety stress normal or mild moderate severe or extremely severe normal or mild moderate severe or extremely severe normal or mild moderate severe or extremely severe i know what is required of me to pursue a career of my choosing after graduation 70.5 70.9 50.0 67.8 76.1 60.2 68.1 65.6 67.2 i believe that my degree will provide me with all the skills and knowledge i require to gain employment in my chosen field at the end of my degree 56.6 37.2 29.4 55.5 40.9 37.6 52.8 45.3 35.9 i am aware of the career options available to me after i complete my degree 52.1 39.5 36.8 49.7 46.6 43.0 49.9 45.3 39.1 i am certain of what career path i want to pursue when i graduate from biomedical science 57.1 54.7 42.6 53.1 65.9 50.5 53.8 57.8 59.4 i know how to develop experience and skills in preparation for my career 53.3 37.2 27.9 49.7 47.1 38.7 47.7 46.9 46.9 i am confident of my ability to communicate my current skills, knowledge and abilities to potential employers 60.7 40.0 39.7 57.5 52.9 45.2 56.1 49.2 51.6 i am confident of my ability to independently manage my career development 53.6 37.2 26.5 49.6 51.1 35.5 49.7 43.8 37.5 i am confident about my future employment and job prospects (after graduation) 39.6 29.1 19.1 36.6 33.0 32.3 35.5 39.1 31.3 discussion this research found that completion of the biomedical professional development program modules was associated with enhanced students’ careers awareness and engagement with their career development. whilst students self-reported psychological distress levels did not change as they engaged with their career development by completing the pdp modules, a significant correlation was found between students with self-reported psychological distress and poor responses to the career development statements. this supports the idea that students’ career development and mental health concerns are interconnected. do other undergraduate in-curriculum career development programs enhance students’ career awareness and engagement with their career development? there are limited published studies of undergraduate in-curriculum career development programs and their impacts on students’ career awareness or employability, and even less that focus on nonvocational degrees (bridgstock et al., 2019). in a 2018 review of published in-curriculum approaches to career preparation and professional development for us undergraduate psychology majors, it was reported that they lead to students having a better understanding of psychology-related careers, are more knowledgeable about how to access career information and are more likely to exhibit career information seeking behaviour (ciarocco, 2018). however, unlike the monash course-wide program, many of these psychology in-curriculum career preparation approaches were limited to single subjects, choate, j., demaria, m., etheve, m., cran, s., & carroll, d. (2019). a professional development program with an assessed eportfolio: a practical solution for engaging undergraduates with their career development in large student cohorts. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 10(2), 86–103. 99 and/or were only embedded into the final year of the degree-program. our in-curriculum program also improved students’ careers awareness through the guest speakers and the job searching assessment and increased student engagement with the university careers service. at east tennessee state university, they embedded a compulsory career exploration course into the first three years of their graduate medical degree-program, in order to enhance the career preparedness of their medical students. they reported that the program was successful in helping students with their career decisions based on high student attendance/participation and students self-rated satisfaction with the career planning activities (olive, kwasigroch, wooten, lybrand, & peeples, 2016). however, these factors are not necessarily indicative of students engaging with their career development (see ciarocco, 2018). students’ perceptions of their skills and knowledge development during their degreeprogram there was no improvement in the students’ self-ratings from year one to year three for the careers statement ‘i am confident that my degree will provide me with all the skills and knowledge i require to gain employment in my chosen field at the end of my degree’ (see figures 3 and 4). it may be that students realise by third year that there are skills required for employment beyond those they develop in their biomedical science degree-program, which is an attitude we hoped to develop during the pdp (i.e. that they would take ownership of their career development). to rate this very highly would have been an unrealistic expectation, as job selection criteria ask for skills that could only have been developed with a broad range of experiences, such as extracurricular activities. the students’ responses to this statement highlights the deficit in some employability skills within undergraduate degreeprograms and the need for students to develop these skills in work-related experiences during their course, such as work integrated learning (see bennett, richardson, & mackinnon, 2016; ferns, smith, & russell, 2014). most final year students indicated that they ‘know how to develop experience and skills in preparation for my career’ and they were ‘confident about my future employment and job prospects (after graduation)’ at significantly higher rates than students in years one and two (see figure 3). as this effect was not seen for the final year students at the two other victorian universities (with no incurriculum professional development program; see figure 4), this suggests that our program enhances our students engagement with their career development. the program is a practical approach for engaging large cohorts of students’ with their career development in a non-accredited undergraduate degree-program this program has been associated with large numbers of students (2,334) completing at least two modules of the program, with an 89.4% average assessment submission rate and increased student interactions with the university careers service, highlighting that it successfully engages students in large cohorts with their career development. it could be easily adapted for use in other undergraduate degree-programs. however, potential adopters of this program need to consider the minimum staffing requirements, including a qualified careers educator and sufficient teaching associates for marking the assessments. student engagement with the university careers service; the need for a dedicated biomedical careers person and for structured interactions between the careers service and the curriculum it is likely that the 2018 decrease in student numbers engaging with the careers service is a result of careers staff no longer dedicated to the biomedical science degree-program, and the ceasing of one-onone career consultations, as had occurred in previous years. it is also worth considering the need for a dedicated careers advisor employed by the faculty to provide a career development role for biomedical science students (see student comments referring to the need for one-on-one career advice). this suggestion also aligns with research which asserts that interventions facilitated by a career choate, j., demaria, m., etheve, m., cran, s., & carroll, d. (2019). a professional development program with an assessed eportfolio: a practical solution for engaging undergraduates with their career development in large student cohorts. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 10(2), 86–103. 100 development expert are more effective than self-directed or computer-mediated interventions (see brown & ryan krane, 2000; whiston et al., 2003; whiston & james, 2013; whiston, li, goodrich, mitts, & wright, 2017). in order to increase student engagement with the careers service, workshops from the new modified offerings are being incorporated into the pdp to highlight the value of participating in such offerings to students. biomedical science students showed high self-reported levels of psychological distress, but this was not altered by engagement with the pdp the average students’ self-rated scores for depression (14% with severe or extremely severe depression), anxiety (19%) and stress (12%) on the dass-21 scales (see table 4) were similar to those reported for a 2014 study of 4,258 australian university students across six undergraduate and graduate degree-programs (including biomedical science) at the university of melbourne; 13% for depression, 18% for anxiety and 13% for stress (see larcombe et al., 2016). larcombe et al. (2016) compared their dass-21 results with previous studies and found that their university students had higher levels of depression, anxiety and stress than age-matched samples from the general population (see crawford, cayley, lovibond, wilson, & hartley, 2011) and similar levels of self-rated psychological distress as australian students at other universities (see rosenthal, russell, &thomson, 2008; townes, tang, & hall, 2011). despite the enhanced awareness of career options, engagement with career development and increased levels of agreement with the careers statements in the survey, there was no reduction in student anxiety levels (as reported in the dass) as hypothesised. rather, there was a tendency for the levels of anxiety and stress of students to increase from their first to their third year of study. this effect was also observed (and was significant) for larcombe et al. (2016). you would expect anxiety and stress levels to increase as students near completion of their degree-program need to clarify the next step in their career pathway. as higher anxiety levels are associated with lower student engagement with their career development, it is surprising to see that despite students’ rising anxiety levels, the pdp has aided in the increase of career awareness and career development. this further highlights the benefits of an in-curriculum program to encourage and support career development over the duration of the students’ degreeprogram. additionally, a direct intervention to reduce student anxiety levels may further improve student engagement with their career development. there are plans to incorporate wellbeing development into the existing professional development program, which may facilitate reductions in anxiety levels and in turn further increase career development engagement. acknowledging and addressing the uncertainty and challenges of students career development during the biomedical science degree-program, and having students engage in activities such as job searching that can highlight job scarcity or the demanding criteria of desired jobs, may play a role in the increased levels of anxiety in those students who are less aware of career-related challenges and do not engage in career development or seek to learn the criteria for desired job opportunities until after graduation. limitations and future directions in order to ascertain the impact of the pdp on students’ employability, we would need to track the employment outcomes of our biomedical science graduates. as indicated by bridgstock (2009) the literature to date lacks systematic investigations into the links between career management competence and long-term graduate employability (p. 40). we have tracked monash graduate employability via the government outcomes surveys (gos) that commenced in 2015 (we have the 2016 and 2017 gos survey data). however, in 2016 the monash biomedical science response rate was poor. choate, j., demaria, m., etheve, m., cran, s., & carroll, d. (2019). a professional development program with an assessed eportfolio: a practical solution for engaging undergraduates with their career development in large student cohorts. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 10(2), 86–103. 101 in response to biomedical science student feedback on the pdp, requesting work experience and industry engagement, a new work integrated learning (wil) elective subject was developed and commenced in semester 2, 2018, with industry placements for up to 50 biomedical science students. it is hoped that this subject will be expanded so that 100 single degree biomedical science students can take placements (about one third of this cohort; double degree students have industry placement experiences in their non-biomedical science degree-program). acknowledgements this project was supported by a monash university better teaching, better learning grant and julia choate is supported by a monash education academy fellowship. we would like to thank brooke huuskes and kim catania for their administrative assistance with the program and the biomedical science course convenor, course management committee and course advisory board for their ongoing support, including payment of markers, for the program. we would also like to thank all of the students who have completed the professional development program modules and participated in this research project. references beiter, r., nash, r., mccrady, m., rhoades, d., linscomb, m., clarahan, m., & sammut, s. 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(2020). employability initiatives in undergraduate education and application to human nutrition: a scoping review. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 11(1), 63–80. 63 the journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability issn: 1838-3815 (online) journal homepage: https://ojs.deakin.edu.au/index.php/jtlge/ employability initiatives in undergraduate education and application to human nutrition: a scoping review emily murray1, susan mcleod1, jessica biesiekierski1, ashley ng1, sharon croxford1,2, emma stirling1, andrea bramley1,3, adrienne forsyth1 corresponding author: adrienne forsyth (a.forsyth@latrobe.edu.au) 1department of dietetics, human nutrition and sport, la trobe university, melbourne, australia 2school of behavioural and health sciences, australian catholic university, melbourne, australia 3royal melbourne hospital, melbourne, australia abstract human nutrition is a growing field with an increasing job market and high demand for university study, yet graduates report feeling underprepared for and unaware of potential job opportunities. this scoping review aimed to identify employment initiatives used in undergraduate programs to support an evidence-based approach to the development of future initiatives for human nutrition courses. the scoping review following prisma-scr criteria was initially conducted in october 2018 and updated in april 2020. search terms were selected to identify studies that reported on employability or work-readiness embedded within the course curriculum for undergraduate students. fourteen papers met the eligibility criteria. papers included were from australia (9), united kingdom (2), united states (1), new zealand (1) and germany (1). papers described initiatives fitting broad categories of placements, project-based industry collaboration, practice-based elearning, mentoring and building graduate attributes. placements were the most common type of initiative and projectbased industry collaboration demonstrated the highest levels of student and employer satisfaction. the success of initiatives was often attributed to incorporating diverse approaches to real-world, problem-solving skills. mentoring and elearning were used to promote employability soft skills, while industry-based placements provided students with practical experience. placement in specific workplace settings should be representative of the diverse job options for nutrition graduates. human nutrition degrees should consider incorporating strategies that develop soft skills and project-based skills while exposing students to diverse workplace settings within industry. keywords: employability, work readiness, undergraduate, nutrition introduction in recent years there has been an increased interest and enrolment in human nutrition courses offered in higher education. for example, a new online human nutrition degree program was offered beginning in 2016 at our institution and saw overall degree enrolments in human nutrition jump from 157 to more than 10,000 in 2020 (l. ayers, personal communication, may 27, 2020). in https://ojs.deakin.edu.au/index.php/jtlge/ murray, e., mcleod, s., biesiekierski, j., ng, a., croxford, s., stirling, e., bramley, a., & forsyth, a. (2020). employability initiatives in undergraduate education and application to human nutrition: a scoping review. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 11(1), 63–80. 64 addition, there are more opportunities to work in nutrition-related roles than ever before (australian government, 2019). however, graduates without paid or volunteer work experience may have a poor understanding of the type of work available including non-traditional roles that utilise skills and knowledge developed through their studies (hughes & desbrow, 2005). students may be unaware of their scope of practice and expectations of these roles and may lack skillsets desired by employers. faced with uncertainty about their career prospects, we have observed students reporting high levels of anxiety and frequently requesting work experience as part of their degree. as lecturers in a human nutrition program, seven of the authors have observed the impact this anxiety has on students’ perceived self-employability. there are different models for work experience; embedded into the curriculum of an undergraduate degree program, optional or competitive extracurricular programs, and private arrangements between students and industry. work-integrated learning (wil) is an increasingly common component of undergraduate health programs (abery, drummond, & bevan, 2015). work-integrated learning integrates theory and practice knowledge through a practice-based approach such as placements in the industry (orrell, 2011). often, wil entails a single subject or a semester of work placement where students participate in work-related activities in an industry setting while completing tasks and assessments required for credit within their undergraduate program. these arrangements enable universities to provide a consistent approach to developing intended learning outcomes and diverse real-world experiences with participating industry partners. in many health programs, placements are undertaken where students engage in professional activities in relevant settings, are supervised by senior practitioners, and are required to demonstrate competency against entry-level professional standards. with no practice-based competency standards for human nutrition graduates, professional placements are unsuitable for generalist nutrition programs in australia. instead, private arrangements between students and industry are common for short-term work experience. however, without consistent structure or guidance, variability in the outcomes of these arrangements can occur. initiatives to foster student employability embedded into undergraduate programs are attractive to students (tymon, 2013) and are likely to support student satisfaction and retention. while there is no consensus on the definition of employability, there are recognised common factors in the form of skills and/or practices. these include lifelong learning, professional practices and standards, informed decision making, commencement readiness, collaboration, and integration of theory and practice (sumanasiri, yajid, & khatibi, 2015; smith, ferns, & russell, 2014). these factors may be developed through gaining knowledge, skills and experiences in a range of settings and programs. many universities now embed employability skills development into curriculum for all programs. there is a dearth of literature on employability initiatives specifically for undergraduate programs in nutrition. this scoping review aims to identify what employability initiatives have been adopted in undergraduate degree programs, and to ascertain the feasibility and effectiveness of these initiatives in the nutrition discipline. results from this review will inform the development of future employability initiatives for undergraduate nutrition programs. methods protocol the protocol for this scoping review follows the preferred reporting items for systematic reviews and meta-analyses extension for scoping reviews (prisma-scr) (tricco, 2018). the scoping review methodology followed the validated joanna briggs institute (jbi) screening tool (jbi, 2015) and synthesis of seminal frameworks (arksey & o’malley, 2005; levac, colquhoun, & o’brien, 2010). the murray, e., mcleod, s., biesiekierski, j., ng, a., croxford, s., stirling, e., bramley, a., & forsyth, a. (2020). employability initiatives in undergraduate education and application to human nutrition: a scoping review. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 11(1), 63–80. 65 definition and method for conducting scoping reviews were standardised through the development of the prisma-scr guidelines (tricco, 2018). although optional in the prisma-scr guidelines, a quality assessment was included in this review. eligibility criteria due to the broad nature of scoping reviews, all study designs were included. eligibility criteria were developed using the jbi (jbi, 2015) guidelines using the participants, concept and context acronym by three team members (em, af and ab).  participants: undergraduate university students studying in any discipline. this target population was widened after prospective searching for university students studying nutrition did not yield sufficient citations.  concept: how universities promote the employability or work-readiness of their students. the terms employability and work-readiness were used interchangeably.  context: employability or work-readiness initiatives needed to be described and embedded within the university course curriculum. extracurricular initiatives were not included in this review. information sources and search strategy a comprehensive literature search was conducted in october 2018 and updated in april 2020 with assistance from a university librarian. five electronic databases were searched (proquest central, web of science, eric, cinahl, scopus). the search strategy combined the keywords ‘curricul*’ and ‘work-ready’ and ‘higher education’ and ‘design*’. all study designs were included; no date filter was applied; only english language papers were included. informit and trip databases were searched for grey literature. study selection process initial screening of titles and abstracts was conducted by one researcher (em) to maintain consistency. each full-text article was independently reviewed by two researchers (a combination of em, af, an and jb), discrepancies were sent to a third researcher (ab) for resolution. excluded articles were either irrelevant or did not meet the eligibility criteria (figure 1, below). data extraction and charting data extraction focused on study characteristics, research objectives and outcomes related to graduate employability initiatives (table 1, p. 75). two researchers (em and sm) independently extracted data addressing criteria of; location, target population, sample size, duration, design type, curriculum initiative description, research objectives, main outcome measures and results. both researchers added their comments to the table, any discrepancies were resolved via email. assessment of quality study quality was assessed independently by two researchers (em and sm) using the critical appraisal skills programme (casp) qualitative checklist (casp, 2009). three overarching sections considered the validity of results, what the results were and whether the results would help locally. results were collated (table 2, p. 78), discrepancies discussed and resolved. murray, e., mcleod, s., biesiekierski, j., ng, a., croxford, s., stirling, e., bramley, a., & forsyth, a. (2020). employability initiatives in undergraduate education and application to human nutrition: a scoping review. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 11(1), 63–80. 66 figure 1: flow chart of the article search and selection stages synthesis reviewers completed data extraction from the selected articles and data was transferred to a table (table 1, p. 75). as the primary goal was to identify the type, feasibility and applicability of initiatives, studies were described and analysed by the initiative type, objective of the initiative or research objective and outcomes measured. results the search yielded 1,377 results. of these, 64 citations met the eligibility criteria based on title and abstract. conference proceedings, post-graduate dissertations and newspaper articles were excluded. from the 64 full-text articles reviewed, 16 articles met the eligibility criteria and subsequently underwent quality assessment. after quality assessment was completed, two articles were excluded from the final review: one (collis, foth, & schroeter, 2009) did not evaluate views of stakeholders or report results from the initiative; and the other (richards & marshall, 2019) did not have a clear objective for their research and the reported results lacked relevance to employability. records identified through database searching (n=1,377) records without full-text and duplicates excluded (n=122) duplicates removed (n=12) full-text articles selected for data extraction (n=14) title and abstracts screened (n=1,255) full-text articles assessed for eligibility (n=47) irrelevant records excluded (n=1,208) full-text articles excluded: lack of initiative (n=23) not targeted at university students (n=4) not employability related (n=2) not embedded in curriculum (n=2) post-graduate dissertation (n=12) conference proceedings only (n = 2) newspaper article (n=3) full-text articles selected for quality analysis (n=16) low quality articles excluded (n=2) murray, e., mcleod, s., biesiekierski, j., ng, a., croxford, s., stirling, e., bramley, a., & forsyth, a. (2020). employability initiatives in undergraduate education and application to human nutrition: a scoping review. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 11(1), 63–80. 67 the remaining 14 studies included in the final analysis scored highly on the casp qualitative checklist (table 2, p. 78). two of the 10 questions included in the checklist showed ambiguity. the questions, ‘has the relationship between researcher and participants been adequately considered?’ and ‘have ethical issues been taken into consideration?’ were difficult to ascertain as the possibility of coercion was not directly addressed in many articles where teaching staff investigated student outcomes. not all studies included ethics approval information. however, given the journals they were published in required ethics approval for submission, it was assumed that ethics had been adequately considered. general characteristics of included initiatives general employability initiative characteristics adopted in undergraduate programs are detailed in table 1 (see p.75). studies included in this review were conducted in australia (n=9), united kingdom (n=2), united states (n=1), new zealand (n=1) and germany (n=1). employability initiatives included a range of approaches of institutional-arranged and self-sourced placements (aprile & knight, 2019; cord & clements, 2010; elijido-ten & kloot, 2015; fleming & haigh, 2017; fletcher-brown, knibbs & middleton, 2015; jackson & collings, 2018; rawlinson & dewhurst, 2013), project-based industry collaborations as part of wil programs (brimble et al., 2012; gilbert, 2012; keogh, sterling, & venables, 2007; martinez leon, 2019), practice-based elearning (blackburn, 2017), mentoring programs (jenkinson & benson, 2016), and the development of a framework for students to master graduate attributes over time (windsor, rutter, mckay, & meyers, 2014). most studies presented the views of students, institutions and industry and included evaluations of student and institutional outcomes. initiatives varied in the number of students included in the evaluation [n=28 (cord & clements, 2010) to n=865 (jackson & collings, 2018)], and duration of the initiative [16 days (cord & clements, 2010) to three-year degrees (brimble et al., 2012)]. overall, there were a diverse range in both type of workplace used and types of initiatives; the findings of these are summarised and evaluated in the following sections. placements the most common initiatives described were work-based placements, where senior undergraduate students worked for varying periods in the industry or profession to gain work experience prior to graduation. placements varied in models and collaborative processes yet showed similarity in reported outcomes. a case study reported in the accounting discipline explored a non-compulsory six or 12 month paid wil structure, delivered in combination with pre-placement processes and training, supervision and performance reviews (elijido-ten & kloot, 2015). the pre-placement process included information sessions and seminars on the wil process, resume and application writing, training on generic work skills and workforce expectations. workplace training included company-specific inductions and courses. students were also paired with an academic mentor for additional support. placement supervision, training and performance evaluations were conducted by the employer. employers reported improved soft skills such as teamwork, ability to work to deadlines, managing the supervisor relationship and contribution to a reinvigorated workplace atmosphere from students. students indicated that the experience gave them an employment advantage of having knowledge and skills that others would need additional time to develop. larger employers contributed more to employment outcomes by hiring 80-90% of wil graduates. stakeholder views of wil were examined in a sport education placement that involved 350 hours of unpaid self-sourced work experience during the final year of an undergraduate degree (fleming & haigh, 2017). results from questionnaires and surveys indicated that skills obtained from a workplace setting such as effective communication and teamwork were complementary to the theoretical knowledge obtained in the university setting. murray, e., mcleod, s., biesiekierski, j., ng, a., croxford, s., stirling, e., bramley, a., & forsyth, a. (2020). employability initiatives in undergraduate education and application to human nutrition: a scoping review. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 11(1), 63–80. 68 student perspectives of compulsory teacher education placements as well as their perceived readiness for a career in the teaching profession were analysed by aprile and knight (2019). identified benefits included not just the development of skills for practical competence, but also greater awareness of their future roles and a sense of responsibility to the profession. professional preparedness was negatively influenced by relationships with workplace supervisors and performance pressure associated with assessment during placements. fletcher-brown et al. (2015) reported increased confidence, problem-solving and teamwork skills from students through live-client learning activities. live-client activities included existing or potential business problems or projects directed by industry organisations. the quality and value of work performed by students exceeded expectations from industry partners. jackson and collings (2018) reported graduate employment outcomes at four and 16 months from two undergraduate cohorts in 2013 and 2015. although approximately one third of each cohort completed wil during their studies, no differences were found in the rates of full-time employment between students who had completed wil and those who had not. however, students who completed wil perceived their roles to reflect their qualifications, while their counterparts were more likely to report feeling over-qualified. finally, rawlinson and dewhurst (2013) used learning laboratories to simulate the placement experience for tourism and hospitality vocational degrees. the learning labs were a collaboration between university and industry to provide students with an opportunity to deliver a commercial service under supervision. although employment was not directly assessed via job status, the success of the initial trial lab resulted in students and industry partners reporting increased student employment skills such as communication and teamwork and an increase in graduate employment support and opportunities from industry partners. ongoing success of these labs were attributed to using local employers who offered support and resources in the form of internship concepts, information on internal operation processes, management and training programs and representation on the university advisory board. additionally, the use of operating manuals provided clarity in the roles and responsibilities of the employer, the university and the students, and the use of one tutor as a single point of contact aided communication between all parties. project-based industry collaboration four studies (brimble et al., 2012; gilbert, 2012; jenkinson & benson, 2016; martinez leon, 2019) explored collaborations between institutions, students and industry in the development of new undergraduate programs or projects to ensure employability skills were captured and addressed throughout the course. these collaborations aim to increase students’ understanding of workplace expectations and to create a link between the learning and working environments. a case study presentation of a collaborative approach between industry and an advisory board was the development of a new accounting undergraduate program (brimble et al., 2012). over time, the program evolved to include 64 industry partners who offered two-year internships and active engagement within an integrated continuous professional development program. data collected across a four-year period (n=76) reported high industry partner satisfaction with average scores of 4.59/5 on a likert scale. the success of this program was credited to the collaborative approach taken with industry during the design, which allowed students to develop industry knowledge, professional skills and exposure to industry partners. gilbert (2012) developed the innovation fastrack programme (ifp), which was embedded in an undergraduate entrepreneurship program and relied on a high level of engagement from industry partners for its success. stakeholders reported high satisfaction from students (n=132) with average scores of 4.88/5 across their entrepreneurship and innovation four-year degree. additionally, 77% of students attributed employment success to the skills and capabilities derived from the program. murray, e., mcleod, s., biesiekierski, j., ng, a., croxford, s., stirling, e., bramley, a., & forsyth, a. (2020). employability initiatives in undergraduate education and application to human nutrition: a scoping review. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 11(1), 63–80. 69 more than 96% of students surveyed indicated that employers specifically asked about the ifp during job interviews and almost 77% of students reported that employers hired them due to the skills and capabilities obtained from the programme. while student satisfaction rates were high across the two studies, they did not assess student employment post-graduation (brimble, 2012; gilbert, 2012). martinez leon (2019) proposed a framework to make a lean six sigma (lss) engineering capstone project that replicates professional work conditions, appropriately balances theoretical knowledge and practical experience, provides students with an industry-recognised certification and that promotes synergistic collaborations between academia and industry. the eag2er framework (explore, agree, recognise gaps, get started, execute, and realise and reward) was implemented over a calendar year with project execution occurring in the academic semester. students who completed the lss capstone project had much higher satisfaction rates when compared with students of other capstone projects. 72% of students who completed the lss capstone strongly agreed that their capstone project helped them better understand how to apply theoretical models or concepts to real-world situations, compared to 32% of students in other capstones (martinez leon, 2019). the fourth initiative implemented a year-long project in collaboration with industry stakeholders across three australian tertiary institutions (keogh, sterling, & venables, 2007). success of the initiative was attributed to careful project selection, identifying supportive clients, clear project aims, ‘signposts’ to identify possible problems that may arise in the workplace and guides to address problems when they occur. ‘signposts’ consisted of a support system that provided students with guidance, security, and confidence during their project. reported outcomes and student feedback demonstrated that students were able to develop knowledge and skills that led to employment readiness. furthermore, an industry partner acted as professional referees for students while another project resulted in graduate employment for some students. ongoing industry projects with new student cohorts have yielded similar student feedback to indicate that the experience enhanced project management skills and knowledge (keogh, sterling & venables, 2007). practice-based elearning a university-wide elearning tool was introduced to undergraduate programs across a range of disciplines that mimicked realistic industry-based scenarios (blackburn, 2017). designed using esimulation software, this elearning tool aimed to develop higher-order thinking, critical thinking and problem-solving skills. one example included a series of clinical cases within a virtual veterinary hospital where students were assessed on their chosen diagnostic pathway during final examinations. aside from developing key graduate attributes, the tool encouraged domain-specific knowledge development. while employment status was not measured as an outcome of this initiative, feedback from teaching staff and students was presented. of 240 undergraduate students surveyed across 12 different programs, 72% found that the elearning tool scenario presented was realistic and reflected cases they would encounter in future employment. however, some students reported elearning experiences were still not as realistic as being in the workplace. overall, 77% of students strongly agreed or agreed that the tool helped them to develop a greater understanding of key concepts that promoted problem-solving strategies. qualitative feedback also suggested that most students were enthusiastic about the task and found it to be beneficial and engaging. challenges identified by students included the added complexity from the computer-based tool on learning and course materials, and a lack of adequate instruction and feedback. murray, e., mcleod, s., biesiekierski, j., ng, a., croxford, s., stirling, e., bramley, a., & forsyth, a. (2020). employability initiatives in undergraduate education and application to human nutrition: a scoping review. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 11(1), 63–80. 70 mentoring programs the efficacy of an 18-week mentorship program, where fourth year physical education students mentored second year students from the same degree to develop graduate attributes such as problem-solving skills, feedback and reporting skills was reported (jenkinson & benson, 2016). employment post-graduation was not directly assessed, however, qualitative feedback found that mentors valued the opportunity to work with others as it offered greater benefits in understanding and adapting communication styles to different people. building graduate attributes another approach to wil focused on building employment-orientated graduate attributes across a three-year chemistry degree (windsor et al., 2014). key attributes deemed important for graduate employability were communication skills and creative and critical thinking. graduate attributes were embedded into course curriculum with the aim to master these by the end of the degree. all comparative measures showed an increase in student perceptions of knowledge and skills from first to third year. however, the measure was based on a single oral assessment in each year with a small sample of 55 students. such skills are also expected to naturally evolve over a three-year course and results prior to the implemented changes were not recorded. furthermore, employment status was also not assessed as an outcome of employability in this study. discussion the aim of this scoping review was to identify trialled and evaluated employability initiatives in undergraduate programs, to assess the feasibility and effectiveness of such initiatives and their potential application to undergraduate nutrition programs. although the goals of all included studies in this review were of graduate employability, the aims of individual initiatives varied with some targeting the upskilling of personal attributes applicable to the workforce, while others built upon discipline-specific knowledge and skills required for a particular industry or developing a link between learning and workplace environments (gilbert, 2012). findings from this review highlight that the most common employability initiatives were placements, with seven out of 14 studies describing these strategies. these studies also had the longest date range of publications (2010-2019) and included student cohorts ranging from 15 to 865. the employability initiative with the strongest evidence of satisfaction, either as a positive rating or scale by staff, students and/or industry, was project-based industry collaborations. brimble et al. reported an employer satisfaction score of 4.59/5 from their initiative (brimble et al., 2012) and gilbert reported student satisfaction scores of 4.88/5 in their ‘innovation fastrack programme’ (gilbert, 2012). project-based industry collaborations and placements provide immense value for students through exposure to real-world scenarios, experiential learning and opportunity for professional network development. students build confidence to navigate the workplace environment and develop skills such as managing their own time and a supervisor relationship. however, industry collaborations and placements are labour intensive from an administrative perspective. they rely on ongoing relationship development, management and effective communication to manage stakeholder expectations to ensure the continuity and success of the partnership (whatley, 2012). additionally, managing workplace relationships and feeling performance pressure from the assessable component of a placement can be limiting factors to a student’s feelings of preparedness to enter their profession (aprile & knight, 2019). murray, e., mcleod, s., biesiekierski, j., ng, a., croxford, s., stirling, e., bramley, a., & forsyth, a. (2020). employability initiatives in undergraduate education and application to human nutrition: a scoping review. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 11(1), 63–80. 71 when viewed in the context of nutrition undergraduate programs, it is important to find industry placements that are appropriate for graduate level nutrition students that address both professional competencies as well as graduate and employability attributes. given the diversity of jobs within the nutrition field, this may be challenging and limit the impact of a placement program on achieving an employability outcome. this diversity is recognised through the newly defined five core competencies for undergraduate nutrition degrees along with a further three specialist competencies in food science, public health and animal nutrition (lawlis et al., 2019). furthermore, with the popularity of nutrition-related courses, it may not be feasible to ensure that all graduates will be exposed to programs that include an industry collaboration or placement. the administrative burden of cultivating industry relationships that adequately represent student interest, is a potential barrier to offering thoroughly diverse placements to all graduate level nutrition students. the respective categories of practice-based elearning, mentoring programs and building graduate attributes were represented in individual studies and produced valuable insights with the potential for scalability. it was demonstrated that a practice-based elearning tool can be designed to provide a realistic scenario, as rated by 72% of students (blackburn, 2017). an effective peer-to-peer, student-run, mentoring elective was shown to assist students to develop graduate attributes (jenkinson & benson, 2016). building graduate attributes through an integrated curriculum in a three-year degree was also demonstrated to be an effective model (windsor et al., 2014). these findings are important when considering feasibility in large cohorts, in courses with fluctuating student numbers, or in regional or online courses and may have advantages when considering inclusiveness and equal opportunity. such theoretical approaches allow for the incorporation of domain-specific training, which would meet the evolving needs of the nutrition industry as a multitude of scenarios could be developed to reflect the variety of nutrition-related jobs that currently exist. furthermore, having the flexibility to build different industry-based scenarios provides opportunity to adapt to an ever-changing industry landscape. however, a limitation in these theoretical frameworks is the lack of opportunity for practical application and authentic learning within real-world settings that a project-based industry collaboration or placement offers. overall, most initiatives attributed the success of their approaches to (a) incorporating the development of diverse real-world, problem-solving skills, (b) delivering programs with realistic experiences or settings and, (c) characterising and balancing the most appropriate support with independent self-directed learning. other methodological considerations reported when developing an initiative include a) the use of a published framework b) consulting stakeholders c) conducting a quality assessment and d) the development of cooperative models between universities, students and industry. strengths and limitations a strength of this scoping review is the methodological approach and inclusion of a quality assessment. however, as only initiatives that have been published were included, there may be other innovative models that have not been captured. a further limitation lies in including programs from different curriculums (brimble et al., 2012) or that were implemented university-wide (blackburn, 2017). these programs may lack transferability to undergraduate human nutrition courses, given the differences between and within undergraduate disciplines. measurements of employment outcomes varied widely in the studies analysed and depended on the goals of each initiative. most explored student satisfaction, confidence and transferable graduate attributes such as communication and problem-solving skills and workplace professionalism and preparedness. graduate employment as an outcome was only measured in three studies that incorporated practical workplace experience through industry collaboration or placement (jackson & collings, 2018; gilbert, 2012; keogh, sterling, & venables, 2007). from these, only one compared murray, e., mcleod, s., biesiekierski, j., ng, a., croxford, s., stirling, e., bramley, a., & forsyth, a. (2020). employability initiatives in undergraduate education and application to human nutrition: a scoping review. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 11(1), 63–80. 72 graduate employment outcomes in student cohorts who have completed wil activities against those who have not (jackson & collings, 2018). therefore, while project-based industry collaboration and placements were the most commonly reported initiatives, the overall evidence of success, measured by graduate employment, was limited. collecting data on employment outcomes of student cohorts is challenging and requires faculty investment, which may contribute to the low numbers of studies that report such outcomes. as such, there is a bias toward publication of other outcomes that are easily collected such as overall satisfaction. implications for research and practice with undergraduate nutrition programs being widely available in australia with at least 52 programs available (international education specialists, 2020), education designers must become more creative to ensure high student satisfaction as well as graduate capability achievements. tangible and authentic work scenarios embedded into programs appear to provide the best opportunities for increasing graduate employment. from the sparse yet varied literature in this review, it is evident that further sharing of such practice is important. based on the current review, it can be recommended for undergraduate nutrition programs to collaborate with industry partners to provide student placements. placement offerings should be representative of the diversity of pathways in nutrition and may be developed as a component of a broader agreement between tertiary institutions and industry where the needs of both parties are met. value can be added to the partnership through building a foundational framework for student contribution to larger industry projects and goals. while industry placements will vary, preparation for employment can be developed universally through development of transferable graduate attributes. students are now expected to graduate with a range of transferable skills to be successful in the workforce. a range of identified graduate skills and attributes have been deemed necessary by employers (selvadurai, er, & maros, 2012): planning and problem-solving skills; research skills including locating and manipulating information; public speaking and communication skills; social interaction skills across all levels of an organisation; self-confidence; commitment and passion; and entrepreneurial skills (kucel, robert, buil, & masferrer, 2016). several models identified from this review may be useful for development of graduate skills. the use of elearning simulations for industry-specific preparation, provides opportunity for a broad and objective reach across the student cohort. it is important that skill development is embedded at critical points within the curriculum and not as isolated additional learning. greater success is seen when students value and engage in skill-development rather than as a burden (jackson & collings, 2018). while peer mentoring holds advantages for senior and junior students, formal mentoring and situational mentoring could be explored. in summary, future undergraduate nutrition programs with a focus on graduate employment could consider the following: 1. university-based curriculum with embedded transferable skills development that uses elearning or mentoring for delivery of key ‘soft’ skills learning in addition to or in place of more conventional methods. 2. industry-based placements where both industry and transferable skills are further developed through project-based placements or student projects that sit within a broader industry project. as more literature becomes available, these considerations should be adapted to reflect new understandings towards successful nutrition graduate employment. murray, e., mcleod, s., biesiekierski, j., ng, a., croxford, s., stirling, e., bramley, a., & forsyth, a. 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(2020). employability initiatives in undergraduate education and application to human nutrition: a scoping review. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 11(1), 63–80. 75 appendix table 1: characteristics of employability initiatives author location student population and discipline sample size duration of study study design type curriculum initiative research objectives main outcome measures aprile & knight, 2019 australia 3rd & 4th year teacher education students from one regional australian university 15 one time point case study well-established initial teacher education placements the study investigated the students’ placement experiences and the impact of these experiences on their perceptions of readiness for a career in the teaching professions. thematic analysis is the method used to identify two key themes in the data collected through semi-structured interviews. blackbur n, 2017 germany undergradua te; university wide 12 teaching staff and 240 students one time point explorator y case study practice based e-learning :an interactive elearning tool based on problem based learning (pbl) and acquisition of domain-specific knowledge 1. how to create or utilise existing materials that are aligned with the goals of pbl to establish significant differences in terms of student learning in an elearning environment? 2. what issues are experienced by educators when adopting technologybased pbl resources in their teaching? 3. what are students' perceptions of such elearning courseware? 4. how can technology be used to stimulate higher level thinking skills? number of students who thought that scenarios (cases) used in the pbl tool to a certain degree represented real-life issues that graduates were likely to encounter. number of students who thought pbl was easy to comprehend number of students who agreed it was beneficial to incorporate graphics components into the learning materials number of students that believed using the pbl software had helped their understanding of key concepts and scenarios promoted a logical though process rather than straight forward factual recall student perspectives on use of pbl tool faculty staff perspectives on use of pbl tool brimble et al. 2012 australia undergradua te; accounting and financial planning 190 students 76 industry participants 68 end of year surveys 3 years case study via evaluation and surveys project based industry collaboration: design of a new professional degree that includes a 2-year internship and a continuous professional development program, created in collaboration with industry work closely with industry to deliver a program that addressed their concerns about the work readiness and generic skills of graduates, and engaged students to enable them to make informed choices about their vocation. determine the impact of the degree and the pd program in terms of: industry engagement overall satisfaction of industry integrating the university with the profession development of students' professional skills and impressions cord & clement s, 2010 australia undergradua te; commerce 28 students one time point case study via reflections and semistructured interviews placement: the commerce internship program (cip) is a 16-day placement conducted during session. the placement description is based on the needs of the host organisation, as is the selection of the student. one semester before the placement, host organisations submit a description of the role while students apply for the program through an online application system directly to the faculty. the faculty shortlists applications and the host organisation is invited to interview three students. the placement can take place anytime over the following semester. explore students' self-reported learning outcomes and development through reflection at the completion of the cip. n/a murray, e., mcleod, s., biesiekierski, j., ng, a., croxford, s., stirling, e., bramley, a., & forsyth, a. (2020). employability initiatives in undergraduate education and application to human nutrition: a scoping review. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 11(1), 63–80. 76 author location student population and discipline sample size duration of study study design type curriculum initiative research objectives main outcome measures elijidoten & kloot, 2014 australia (melbourne) undergradua te; accounting 12 employer representatives 35 students (30% response rate) one time point explorator y case study via interview and survey placement: evaluation of work-integrated learning 1. how are accounting wil programs perceived by both sme and non-sme employers? 2. how do wil programs enhance students' experiential learning and are there difference in the role played by smes and non-smes in providing wil experience as perceived by accounting students? 3. how can university wil programs be enhanced to achieve better outcomes for both students and employers alike? employers' perception of wil and their role in learning wil advantages and disadvantages to employers and students students' perception of experiential learning from wil placement students' experiential learning through wil suggestions for wil improvement students overall wil experience and suggestions for improvement fleming & haigh, 2017 new zealand (auckland) undergradua te; sport education questionnaires: 91 students 18 academic supervisors 28 workplace supervisors interviews: 6 students 5 academic supervisors 5 workplace supervisors one time point explorator y case study via questionn aires and interviews placement: a sport cooperative education program that involves students completing 350 hours of workplace experience in a sport or recreation organization during the final year of their undergraduate degree. the experience was generally unpaid and part-time (normally two days per week), allowing for academic studies to be completed on campus during the rest of the week. in most cases, students secured their own placements in response to advertisements and contacts provided by the university, or through their own personal contacts. students negotiate appropriate work activities with a workplace supervisor and developed a learning agreement that included the responsibilities of students, host organizations, supervisors and the university as well as the students' individual learning outcomes. the student learning experience was supported through regular fortnightly meetings with an academic supervisor during their on-campus time. examine the degree of alignment of stakeholder views on the defining features of cooperative education as a model of work integrated learning students', industry supervisors' and academic supervisors' views on "the purpose of cooperative education". students', industry supervisors' and academic supervisors' perspectives on "what cooperative education means". fletcherbrown, knibbs & middlet on united kingdom (portsmouth) undergradua te; marketing 85 students/ "engagers" 5 employers 5 educators one time point case study placement: live-client learning activities are activities where students are directed by an organisation to work on a current or potential business problem or project either as individuals or groups. the responsibility associated with meeting the needs of an existing organisation and the potential of contributing value often increases student motivation, enjoyment and engagement. review live-client learning activities in higher education explore the value of live-client projects as both an alternative to traditional placements and an opportunity for students to provide higher level, strategic input to smes in particular murray, e., mcleod, s., biesiekierski, j., ng, a., croxford, s., stirling, e., bramley, a., & forsyth, a. (2020). employability initiatives in undergraduate education and application to human nutrition: a scoping review. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 11(1), 63–80. 77 author location student population and discipline sample size duration of study study design type curriculum initiative research objectives main outcome measures gilbert, 2012 australia (melbourne) undergradua te; entrepreneur ship 132 students four years longitudin al quantitativ e and qualitative projectbased industry collaboration: the innovative fast track program program design was not included. it was designed specifically to overcome: differing stakeholder perspectives and evolving expectations, variability in student experience, and level of industry partner engagement. 1. how can higher education entrepreneurship programmes foster opportunity recognition and realisation capabilities in largely inexperienced undergraduates? 2. what are the key determinants that may contribute to developing entrepreneurial and innovative workready skills in undergraduate entrepreneurship students? did the ifp meet participate expectations? the good teaching scale employability create-substantiate-activate (csa) scale jackson & collings, 2018 australia bachelor graduates; a range of disciplines 865 total students sample 1 n=628 sample 2 n=237 sample 1 = 16 months sample 2 = 4 months double cohort study placement: work-integrated learning defined as a work placement whereby students are physically based in the workplace for a given period, combined with reflective activities which integrate their learning in the professional and classroom settings 1. examine the influence of wil on graduate employment and underemployment 2. examine the influence of paid employment during studies on graduate employment and underemployment 3. explore graduate perspectives of inhibitors and enablers to employability and employment full-time employment underemployment inhibitors and enablers of employability and employment jenkinso n & benson, 2016 australia (melbourne) final year; physical education 25 pre-service teacher mentors 2 years (20142016) focus groups mentoring: the assessment and mentoring program (amp) is a four-way collaborative mentoring learning community underpinned by social constructivism. it promotes the development of assessment and mentoring skills which are readily transferable to future teaching environments. the mentors are year 4 pre-service physical education students mentoring and assessing year 2 pre-service physical education students. the purpose of the program is to provide additional authentic opportunities within the degree to learn how to design and then actually implement assessment tasks, and complete assessment as a formative process. the amp runs for 18 weeks including training (3 days), preparation, and assessment and mentoring within the semester (12 weeks) and concluding focus groups for reflection. describe an attempt to design higher education curriculum using mentoring to further improve graduate outcomes and work readiness. what skills did amp mentors perceive they would develop through participation in the program to assist with their future teaching career? do the skills they perceive they will develop align with the aitsl graduate standards? keogh, sterling & venable s, 2007 australia undergradua te; computing case study (of 3 sites) project based-industry collaboration: year-long team projects with external clients provide a wellrecognized opportunity for students to gain industry experience, whilst being supported and guided by staff to minimize risks. propose a structure for year-long projects that is scalable to any class size and portable across institutions and potentially across technical disciplines. n/a murray, e., mcleod, s., biesiekierski, j., ng, a., croxford, s., stirling, e., bramley, a., & forsyth, a. (2020). employability initiatives in undergraduate education and application to human nutrition: a scoping review. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 11(1), 63–80. 78 author location student population and discipline sample size duration of study study design type curriculum initiative research objectives main outcome measures rawlinso n & dewhurs t, 2013 united kingdom (buxton) university students in vocational courses n/a n/a qualitative case study placement: the university learning laboratory is founded on the concept of real world learning (rwl) and is an example of work-integrated learning. a university learning laboratory allows local organisations to become a "real world learning" venue for applied vocational learning supported by staff from the organisation in onthe-job training. a learning laboratory also presents the opportunity for students to engage in live project work that can support an organisation in delivery its strategic and operational goals. describe the university learning laboratory model used at the university of derby n/a martine z leon, 2019 united states engineering and management design course students not identified one time point case study the core of this approach is the problem-based learning through the execution of lean six sigma (lss) projects implemented via university-industry partnerships. the case study presented offers a detailed analysis of the design and implementation of the proposed framework. the authors also present the results of a survey conducted to assess the extent to which the proposed approach contributes to bridging the gap between theory and practice. results from pilot implementation & student survey results windsor et al., 2014 australia undergradua te; chemistry major in a bachelor of science 1st yr students 65 pre 73 post 2nd yr students 12 pre 10 post 3rd yr students 8 presentations 11 one year interventi on study design graduate attribute framework: the 12 graduate attributes that the university expects students to attain, are incorporated into a new chemistry major using three methods; they are taught in lectures; practiced in tutorials; and assessed in examinations, practical reports and oral presentations and feedback provided after each assessment piece. ascertain students' perceptions of their acquisition of graduate attributes through surveys and compare with student performance on assessment tasks. first year students' perceived theoretical chemistry knowledge first year students' perceived practical chemistry knowledge second year students' conceptions of their skill sets before and after studying the course staff assessment of second year student performance at the oral debate changes between the initial and final oral presentation percentage score in the third year course third year students' perceptions on their ability to solve physical chemistry problems murray, e., mcleod, s., biesiekierski, j., ng, a., croxford, s., stirling, e., bramley, a., & forsyth, a. (2020). employability initiatives in undergraduate education and application to human nutrition: a scoping review. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 11(1), 63–80. 79 table 2: critical appraisal of study quality using the casp qualitative appraisal tool aprile & knight (2019) blackburn (2017) brimble et al (2012) cord & clements (2010) elijidoten & kloot (2014) fleming & haigh (2017) fletcherbrown, knibbs & middleton (2015) gilbert (2012) jackson & collings (2018) jenkinson & benson (2016) keogh, sterling & venables (2007) martinez (2019) rawlinson & dewhurst (2013) richardson & marshall (2019) windsor et al. (2014) q1. was there a clear statement of the aims of the research?              x  q2. is a qualitative methodology appropriate?              ?  q.3 was the research design appropriate to address the aims of the research?              ?  q4. was the recruitment strategy appropriate to the aims of the research?              ?  q5. was the data collected in a way that addressed the research issue?              x  q6. has the relationship between the researcher and participants been adequately considered?  ? ? ? ? ? ? ?    ?  ?  q7. have ethical issues been taken into consideration?   ? ?   ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?  murray, e., mcleod, s., biesiekierski, j., ng, a., croxford, s., stirling, e., bramley, a., & forsyth, a. (2020). employability initiatives in undergraduate education and application to human nutrition: a scoping review. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 11(1), 63–80. 80 q8. was the data analysis sufficiently rigorous?              ?  q9. is there a clear statement of findings?              x  q10. how valuable is the research?              x   = yes; ? = can’t tell; x = no espinoza, o., gonzález, l., sandoval, l , mcginn, n., & castillo, d. (2020). the limited value of ‘employability’ as an objective in training of psychologists: evidence from chile. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 11(1), 50–62. 50 the journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability issn: 1838-3815 (online) journal homepage: https://ojs.deakin.edu.au/index.php/jtlge/ the limited value of ‘employability’ as an objective in the training of psychologists: evidence from chile luis gonzález1, oscar espinoza2, luis sandoval3, noel mcginn4, dante castillo1 corresponding author: oscar espinoza (oespinoza@academia.cl) 1programa interdisciplinario de investigaciones en educación (piie) and instituto interuniversitario de investigación educativa (iesed), chile 2facultad de educación y humanidades, universidad de tarapacá and instituto interuniversitario de investigación educativa (iesed), chile 3universidad tecnológica metropolitana, chile 4harvard university, usa abstract this study, carried out in chile, describes difficulties in the incorporation of employability as an objective in the training of psychologists. prior research emphasized confusion of key actors about how to train and measure employability. to illustrate that confusion, we compared perspectives of university psychology department heads and employers of their graduates. semi-structured interviews revealed understandings of various elements in the employment process. the department heads began by describing the process and criteria they follow to design, operate and assess their programs. employers described the skills they have looked for when hiring graduates. where possible the study notes the match between university training objectives and employer preferences. the skills promoted by universities and employers match on only some dimensions. ‘employability’ varies in meaning across actors, occupations, and contexts. at present, universities and employers have little understanding of what the other seeks to accomplish. keywords: employability, quality of training, psychology, higher education, human capital, chile introduction this article illustrates several complexities that arise when assessing the employability of university graduates in psychology. we compare how the construct is understood by those who organize and supervise training with how it is understood by employers. differences in interpretation raise questions about employability as a measure of the quality of university training (oraison, konjarski, & howe, 2019). psychology has a long history in chile, beginning in 1885 when two german psychologists were hired to work in the national education system (makrinov, scharager, & díaz, 2006; salas, scholten, hernández-ortiz, rojas-jara, & ravelo-contreras, 2019; urzúa, vera-villarroel, zúñiga, & salas, 2015). formal university training of psychologists did not begin until 1946, but by 1968 the title of psychologist was limited to graduates of universities accredited by a national council. the military government that seized power in 1973 limited training to only two universities, and many psychologists left chile. with the restoration of democracy in 1990, the field blossomed again. by https://ojs.deakin.edu.au/index.php/jtlge/ espinoza, o., gonzález, l., sandoval, l , mcginn, n., & castillo, d. (2020). the limited value of ‘employability’ as an objective in training of psychologists: evidence from chile. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 11(1), 50–62. 51 2018, 40 out of 64 universities offered degrees in psychology, of which 28 are currently accredited (sies mineduc, 2019). the majority of these universities are private and offer only classroom instruction. in 2018, 34,826 students were in psychology degree programs in chile. the country’s largest program, nursing, had 45,115 students. in that year, the ministry of education reported 4,319 new psychologists of which 71% were employed within one year after graduation (mi futuro, 2019). the national accreditation commission (cna) established by law in 2006 is responsible to carry out the processes of institutional accreditation. in 2019, 81% of chilean universities were accredited by cna. (sies mineduc, 2019). the cna defines a psychologist as a generalist professional with competences in diagnosis, evaluation and intervention with individuals, groups or organisations (urzúa & laborda, 2018, p. 125). the cna does not directly certify individuals but does assess and accredit universities. up until 2018, accreditation of psychology programs was carried out by a group of private agencies, certified and supervised by the cna. at present, only the cna can accredit undergraduate programs. i a national association of psychologists has defined nine specialisations in the field and requirements for certification of individual psychologists, but this certification is not obligatory. the areas of specialisation are: clinical, labour, educational, community, sports, health, emergencies and disasters, law and forensics, and neuropsychology (colegio nacional de psicólogos, 2019). the psychology program requires five years of study. the first two years cover the various theories or schools of psychology (e.g., psychoanalytic, behaviourist, cognitive) from a general perspective as well as related subjects. the second two years provide a more detailed examination of applied fields of psychology. in most programs, fifth year students specialize in a field of their choice (e.g., clinical, educational, organisational). some universities offer a master’s degree requiring one or more additional years of study. about half of the five-year graduates work as clinical psychologists in public and private clinics. a third is hired to work in organisations, in organisational or personnel psychology, and about 10 percent work as educational psychologists hired by schools (urzúa & laborda, 2018). review of previous research the construct of employability has been discussed from three complementary perspectives, labelled as ‘possessive’, ‘positional’, and ‘processing’ (holmes, 2013; okay-somerville & scholarios, 2015). the ‘possessive’ approach argues that employers select personnel who will be highly productive. in economic terms, productivity is a function of possessing technical knowledge and skills, or ‘human capital’, initially defined as years of schooling (sweetland, 1996). the ‘positional’ view of graduate employability argues that the likelihood of employment of a given individual or category of people depends on attributes and actions of other people (tholen, 2013). competition for jobs increases when the expansion of higher education creates credential inflation (brown & hesketh, 2004). social elites make use of their resources to acquire more prestigious credentials, to position themselves better in the queue for limited high-skilled (and more highly rewarded) vacancies, and therefore, to secure an advantage in the competition (brown, hesketh, & williams, 2003). graduates from working-class backgrounds who, because of their position in society, have less cultural and social capital, are less employable. they are more likely to find employment in non-graduate occupations and to earn significantly less money than their middleclass counterparts (kalfa & taksa, 2015). from this perspective, position in a social network or relationship may contribute more to employability than does a job applicant`s skill (hinchliffe & jolly, 2011). instead of hiring based on tangible evidence of competency, employers are said to look for indications that, in a future situation, candidates will respond effectively. this approach is called ‘signaling theory’ (humburg, van der velden, & verhagen, 2013). both the institutional background of the job seeker and their espinoza, o., gonzález, l., sandoval, l , mcginn, n., & castillo, d. (2020). the limited value of ‘employability’ as an objective in training of psychologists: evidence from chile. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 11(1), 50–62. 52 appearance, speech, or behaviour can be interpreted by employers as information about likely future performance (connelly, certo, ireland, & reutzel, 2011). the signals can include behavioural attributes associated with family or social group membership, sometimes referred to as ‘cultural capital’ (cai, 2013; tholen, 2013). in that sense, attendance at a prestigious university could be considered to grant a form of cultural capital (benbow & hor, 2018). social relations provide access to information about opportunities, and to influential persons. the relationships also help in the development of communication skills. these attributes are known as ‘social capital’ (clarke, 2017; lenton, 2015; otto, sobiraj, & schladitz, 2019). in periods of economic expansion, possession and positional factors are better predictors of employment (kalfa & taksa, 2015). as the supply of labour begins to exceed job openings, however, employment outcomes depend more on the job-seeking skills of candidates (okay-somerville & scholarios, 2015). the ‘processing’ perspective defines employment as a series of stages through which an individual can move, improving status, income and satisfaction. the likelihood of employment depends not just on the quality of the university’s training program but on the efforts of the student or graduate to ‘manage’ their career trajectory (llanes, figuera, & torrado 2017; mcgrath, madziva, & thondhlana, 2017). for example, in some countries employment opportunities are greater for students attending prestigious universities (ciriaci & muscio, 2014; drydakis, 2016). once enrolled, students can begin to make themselves look like successful occupants of their profession. the development of a professional ‘identity’ can be recognized (and appreciated) by future employers who see the candidate as capable of contributing to the organisation (hinchliffe & jolly, 2011; jackson, 2014, 2016). in the process perspective, employability is a function of the graduate’s ‘career management’ or career building skills (evans, 2008; gill, 2018). researchers have developed an instrument that measures job applicants’ self-confidence, curiosity, self-control and concern for performance, producing an ‘adapt-ability’ scale (savickas & porfeli, 2012). these characteristics have been shown to contribute to the employability of a job candidate. universities can foster ‘career management’ and the building of a professional identity in the degree program curriculum, as part of subject courses, as a separate course, and through practicum and work placement experiences (bennett, eagle, mousley, & ali-choudhury, 2008; boahin & hofman, 2013). to date only a relatively small number of studies have evaluated university efforts to improve the employability of their graduates. a sophisticated study involving universities and employers in portugal points to a major obstacle: the major actors in the process, universities and employers, define employability in different ways (sin & amaral, 2017). an australian research study found that various stakeholders—students, alumni, educators and employers—differ in how they relate student assessment to employability, with only educators emphasising the importance of assessment (kinash, mcgillivray, & crane, 2013). a comprehensive review of studies on employability concludes that it is not possible (at this time) to isolate a definitive set of requisite skills (small, shacklock, & marchant, 2018; suleman & costa, 2018). employers are not able to define a clear list of abilities especially in segmented markets some with rapidly changing technologies, and vary in their ability to assess candidates’ qualities. universities differ in their prestige. they also differ in the cultural and social capital of their students. training emphasises changes in individuals’ attributes and skills, but employability depends on social processes. some research suggests that only direct work experience has a major impact on employment (jackson, 2016; mason, williams, & crammer, 2009). some research on employability has been done in chile. widespread use of the term ‘employability’ began in chile in the 1990s, stimulated by the bologna process in europe (leoni, 2014; sin & neave, 2014). one study compiled a list of 10 generic competencies based on the tuning report (gonzález & wagenaar, 2008) and other sources. students in seven programs (not including psychology) in two universities were asked to assess the importance given to each of 10 competencies (thieme, 2007). students in university 1 gave significantly higher ratings than those in university 2. differences in espinoza, o., gonzález, l., sandoval, l , mcginn, n., & castillo, d. (2020). the limited value of ‘employability’ as an objective in training of psychologists: evidence from chile. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 11(1), 50–62. 53 ratings were explained by characteristics of students, especially previous work experience, rather than by university courses. a second study included a representative sample of 2003-2004 graduates from 40 universities and eight fields, including psychology (centro de medicion mide, 2008). replying to a self-administered questionnaire, students assessed their university training in terms of the 27 tuning competencies. an intentional sample of 66 employers was asked to rate the overall extent to which graduates demonstrated competency in the 27 skill areas. the overall results of the study are positive in their evaluation of university training. on the other hand, the study makes clear that graduates lack information about the occupations or careers they are seeking, and employers know little about what graduates learn in university. the most recent publications on employability assess employability effectiveness of programs that train secondary school teachers (cifuentes, villarroel, & geeregat, 2018). based on focus groups and interviews with graduates, the study concludes that employability outcomes depend on more than the quality of the degree program. outcomes also are based on personal qualities of the graduate, social and cultural capital, and the prestige of the university. other studies have found a relationship between university selectivity and employability of graduates (espinoza & mcginn, 2018; espinoza, gonzález, mcginn, castillo, & sandoval, 2019; espinoza, gonzález, mcginn, sandoval, & castillo, 2020). research questions the research reviewed above suggests that universities and employers hold different perceptions of the definition and measurement of employability. this study poses these comparative questions (suggested by benbow & hor, 2018) designed to provide concrete examples of differences in understanding: 1. how do program directors define and assess cognitiveand non-cognitive knowledge and skills? 2. how do employers define and assess knowledge and skills? 3. what methods are used to determine that graduates/employees possess the appropriate knowledge and skills? 4. how do valued knowledge and skills differ as a function of contextual variation? methods employability is a subjective concept. in the absence of established theory as to why employers and educators should have different definitions, we used elements of the grounded theory approach. grounded theory, as a qualitative research approach, has been shown to be effective in providing descriptive information and understanding, as well as contributing to interpretation (el hussein, hirst, salyers, & osuji, 2014). we hoped that by eliciting the perceptions of university educators and employers of their graduates, we could explain their differences (glaser, 2001; pandit, 1966). sources of data at the end of 2017, semi-structured interviews were carried out with three university program directorsii responsible for the organisation and implementation of professional degree programs in psychology; and interviews with nine employers of graduates from these programs. in the course of the interview we adjusted our questions in order to fill out information suggested by their responses. this approach is described in alonso (1998) and taylor and bogdan (1998). the first objective of the interview was to identify the theoretical and practical orientation of the psychology curriculum in the university, and its specific content and objectives.iii the second espinoza, o., gonzález, l., sandoval, l , mcginn, n., & castillo, d. (2020). the limited value of ‘employability’ as an objective in training of psychologists: evidence from chile. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 11(1), 50–62. 54 objective was to assess implementation of the curriculum and realisation of its objectives. our concern was to distinguish between the direct impact of the curriculum, as graduates of the university as an institution, and of the psychology program. a third objective was to obtain directors’ understanding of how employers assess the program’s graduates. interviews with the program directors covered the following areas: a. the underlying conceptual model of the degree program for which they were responsible; b. objectives and contents of the study plans; c. the relationship between the university’s public image and the program; d. how 2012-2014 graduates were received by the labor market. employers were asked about the requirements of the positions for which they hired the graduates, and their opinion of how they performed once employed. respondents we interviewed the psychology program directors in three universities that differ significantly in the stringency of their admission of applicants. students entering the most selective university (hsu) must score 600 points or above on the national university selection test (psu). average scores are above 650. as a public, and ‘traditional’iv university, applicants who score highly on the psu receive tuition waivers. it was recently accredited by the national accreditation commission for six years (the maximum is seven). more than 100 years old, this university ranks among the 20 best universities in the qs world university list for latin america.v the second university was established less than 40 years ago. it is private and receives no direct financial subsidies from the government. a minimum of 475 points on the psu is required for admission. students entering this university had average scores of 550. its most recent acreditation was for three years. we refer to it as the moderately selective university (msu). the third university also is private and more recently established. applicants are required to take an admission examination but all are admitted. we refer to it as the low selective university (lsu). it is not accredited. sample of employers the universities provided lists of employers of the graduates from psychology programs for the years 2012-2016, a total of 31. we then randomly chose three employers for each university, for a total of nine, combining purposive and volunteer sampling to select interviewees (cohen, manion, & morrison, 2007). we have masked their identity with a code that indicates the selectivity of the university (l: low; m: medium; and h: high), and their gender. interviews were carried out in places of employment and lasted about one hour. evidence indicates that, in a study of decision processes, six to 12 interviews are sufficient to identify the important elements involved (guest, bunce, & johnson, 2006). results the material below is a selection of the comments made by program directors and employers. the material is arranged to permit comparisons of what directors and employers think is important in selection among job candidates from the three universities. perspectives of program directors the three directors varied in their capacity to describe the basic orientation and content of their programs. none of them could express clearly their philosophical paradigm, or the theoretical idea espinoza, o., gonzález, l., sandoval, l , mcginn, n., & castillo, d. (2020). the limited value of ‘employability’ as an objective in training of psychologists: evidence from chile. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 11(1), 50–62. 55 or principles behind their programs. they explained this was in part, because their psychology degree program trains three kinds of professionals. there is no one…prevailing paradigm. what we have that distinguishes us (from other universities) and sustains us is a well-integrated approach. other universities are very much psychoanalytic, or into cognitive behaviorism, others more humanist…one of our principles is that we go beyond the traditional training of clinical psychologists, educational psychologists, or organisational and labor psychologists…the school has never married any one theoretical model (hsu) similar ideas are expressed by the other two directors. the msu director said that they could not be boxed in by a paradigm. the ideal of our model is transformative, as we have ‘declared’. the lsu director said: i suppose it is a generalist curriculum, with a systemic-humanist focus. both the msu and lsu directors noted that changes in their study plans reflected the demands of accreditation rather than conformity to a given conceptual orientation. the hsu director described that program in terms of subject content: our integrative focus contemplates formation based on three pillars: research in psychosocial phenomena; assessment of psychological and psychosocial processes; and implementation of actions based on that assessment.... it is a psychological model and theory sustained not just in one psychological current, but all, psychoanalysis, cognitive behaviorism, neuroscience, and humanism. (hsu) on the other hand, all three directors put great emphasis on the importance of their institutional identity. the lsu director proposed that versatility and flexibility are defining characteristics of their graduates. …they have flexibility, the capacity to assume different roles. although what is now a strength was once seen as a kind of weakness, an “excessive humility”, now it is a positive aspect of our core values. what the employers noted was that our graduates had a good predisposition to assume different tasks. (lsu) the msu director noted that the university seeks to produce graduates who will do research and practice their profession. increased emphasis on the msu graduates doing research came as a result of the accreditation process. emphasis on research is even stronger in the institutional stamp (or public identity or image, ‘sello’ in spanish) that the hsu seeks to place on each graduate. the stamp points toward a professional whose attitude and formation prepare him/her for research. [the power of the stamp is such that] by the second year, students can identify problems and carry out important analysis in research projects…i can tell you that a guarantee that we are training well is the stamp with which our students leave, in direct response to social demands… .(msu) the directors also differ in the importance they assign to their graduates’ competencies, as opposed to external factors. for example, the lsu has had a difficult time in placing its graduates with employers. the program director attributed this difficulty to: …the quantity of psychologists graduating each year and the higher priority given to graduates from the traditional universities. add to this that the university has not acquired much prestige, or accreditation. this taints how employers see us and translates into a low early hiring rate for our graduates. (lsu) the msu director explained problems of placement in terms of the absence of concrete and specific mechanisms to insure the fit between the graduate profile and labor demands. intents and efforts there are, but these are sporadic and short. espinoza, o., gonzález, l., sandoval, l , mcginn, n., & castillo, d. (2020). the limited value of ‘employability’ as an objective in training of psychologists: evidence from chile. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 11(1), 50–62. 56 to state something about the coherence of the profile with what the job requires would be a shot in the dark at this time. i think that is the task facing the next accreditation: linkage with employers, linkage with graduates, is the first priority for next year. we are well connected with the environment, but we don’t have a means to measure the fit of our profile in that environment. (msu) in contrast, the hsu appears to have a clear set of strategies for measuring the fit between its profile and the labor environment. this set includes an agreement with other traditional universities who share experiences and have identified seven competencies that every professional psychologist should manage. the director stated that students and graduates are encouraged to participate in research projects, and to attend national and international professional conferences. constant promotion of the university’s stamp within the institution and in the labor market also contributes. employers’ perspectives graduate psychologists are placed in a variety of positions, which require distinct sets of knowledge and skills to perform well. in this study, some worked in private counselling settings, others in schools, others in outpatient mental health clinics, some working with adults, others with children. while overlapping in some dimensions, the employer-determined profiles for each position as a psychologist varied significantly in others. the employability criteria important for one position were not significant for others. employers who hired graduates from the lsu were generally positive in their evaluations of their performance. their comments, however, suggested that non-technical skills were more important in their hiring. one referred to psychological factors as important in the exercise of the profession. i can find many good professionals, both technically and theoretically. but the professional, besides being good, theoretically or technically, also should be persistent. it is this professional i value, more than one who can recite all the theory. (lsu-m)vi this same employer also said that graduates from the lsu were less skillful in teamwork when they first came, but improved with time. the other employers of lsu graduates, on the other hand, thought they had better social skills than graduates from other, more selective, universities. graduates in psychology from the lsu were highly rated (by most of the employers) for their understanding of family issues and group work in schools. they were poorly prepared, however, in the application of psychometric tools and interpretation of results. for the position in question, nontechnical skills were considered more important than technical skills. we have chosen to hire more professionals from the lsu. of course, we will be delayed a bit in teaching them how to use tests but feel that this will be of benefit to students because test administration is a technique that can be learned, but empathy, connecting oneself with students, can’t be learned. (lsu-f) this employer (in a school) went on to say that previously employed psychologists from a highly selective university were much more rigorous, but less empathetic than those from the lsu. the hsu graduates were viewed as careful in their relationships with the teachers, more clinical than educational. most of the graduates in psychology from the msu work in community settings, others do organisational psychology (principally personnel services), and others work in youth services. employers’ assessment of the psychologists’ performance preparation varies widely as a function of the position. most criticism was directed toward the personnel psychologists, seen as lacking both theoretical knowledge and technical skills. a critic stated that while msu graduates want to get ahead, their general knowledge is low, and they lack certain technical and theoretical skills. he offered this general advice to universities. espinoza, o., gonzález, l., sandoval, l , mcginn, n., & castillo, d. (2020). the limited value of ‘employability’ as an objective in training of psychologists: evidence from chile. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 11(1), 50–62. 57 you can’t get anywhere teaching them technical skills if they don’t know how to get along. (the university) should teach them practical skills for their work. if you know that your students’ profile lacks certain things, because for example, you are recruiting people with low (test) scores, that come from a low economic sector, that you know in terms of education will be on another scale, take time to teach them and make up for their deficiencies. (msu-m) in other words, employability criteria vary according to the position for which a person is being hired. the same background features criticized by the organisational employer are seen as positive attributes by employers in community and youth service organisations. the employability criteria considered important may also differ according to the location of the particular job. cultural attributes seen as a handicap in one setting can be regarded as capital in another. as one employer said: look, what we are looking for in candidates from the msu is the stamp of the community. the professionals bring experiences from community practices, things that you observe are infrequent in the profile of other universities, things that fit one to what we are doing here. (msu-f) other employers take the point further, asserting that psychologists trained at the msu have formative strengths not found in graduates from other universities, making explicit reference to more selective universities. [referring to msu graduates] these are people who know the idea of community work, have more time and experience with clinical practice from a community perspective (msu-f). i think that (the fact that they do well in this job) is because of their (university) formation. because when one has an education oriented more toward the community you aren’t afraid to work in [names a rough neighbourhood]. the perspective of the msu allows you to face these challenges head on. this perspective is much more community-oriented than [that of other universities which train in traditional psychotherapy]. (msu-m) the graduate psychologists from the hsu also work in various settings. their employers agree that they are well-trained in generic competencies, but not as well in skills required in their particular jobs. for example, psychologists prepared for work in clinical settings had to be re-trained to meet the demands of working in organisational settings. the employers did not see this as major deficiency, however, commenting that the training of graduates from the hsu was more complete than that of psychologists from other universities. (these professionals) have a more comprehensive technical training. there are universities with gaps in the numerical part, in research statistics…there are others that are strong in theory while in other areas their students are less well prepared. the hsu is a bit more comprehensive, as you can see that they had a more complete education in everything. (hsum) i believe that their stamp [identity] is that critical sense that differentiates one person from another of his colleagues in a team; that you get from where you study. i think that the training programs differ in how they ask (their students) to think. i think that what universities do is prepare us in a general way, but we are not so prepared for the world of work that seeks us. if you are pointing toward the organisational (workplace) in your training program, it could be that you will see more of what is found in a business. the social environment is different, as is the community environment or the education environment. these differences tend to change the expectations one has. (hsu-f) in summary, hsu graduates are considered adequately trained and quick to learn on the job. msu graduates perform best in community service positions, primarily because their family backgrounds have made them more familiar with the social culture in which they work. lsu graduates are viewed espinoza, o., gonzález, l., sandoval, l , mcginn, n., & castillo, d. (2020). the limited value of ‘employability’ as an objective in training of psychologists: evidence from chile. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 11(1), 50–62. 58 in the same way. employers appear to use different profiles or sets of competencies chosen as a combined function of the university in which the candidate was trained and the particular position for which they are being considered. discussion the psychology directors as a group have not yet selected or produced a conceptual framework to structure the curriculum that would be acceptable to most scholars and practitioners. instead, each must reconcile the sometimes sharply differing perspectives of different theories or paradigms. this situation is not unique to chile. in mexico, for example, most programs attempt to cover all perspectives, but behaviourist and psychoanalytic perspectives dominate (carlos & núñez, 2008). in cuba, psychology is described as a ‘divided’ science or, better, yet, as a science that has not yet found a stable body of knowledge respected by all professionals and admirers, in short, ‘the paradigm’ (corral, 2018); psychology is not a unified discipline and, some researchers say, never will be (green, 2015). employers distinguished between graduates from the three universities on two dimensions. first, those from the nonand moderately selective universities generally were characterised as having had an incomplete training in theory and technical skills. that is, candidates from these two universities did not meet all the requirements in the job profile. some psychologists, for example, had not been trained in the application of the latest version of a children’s intelligence test. others were not familiar with a statistical test. lack of specific conceptual or practical knowledge and skills were attributed to their training program (or university), and not described as reflecting the graduates’ level of intellectual ability. second, satisfaction with the performance of graduates varied significantly across the work setting. graduates from the nonand moderately selective universities performed much better in situations with which they were familiar by virtue of their own socio-economic background. psychologists from these universities were more likely to be employed in municipal (public) and lower cost, subsidised private schools. they were effective in their position because of their origin (cultural capital), and not their training (human capital). this is consistent with findings described in studies carried out by okay-somerville and scholarios (2015) and rothwell, herbert and rothwell (2008). the employers varied in terms of the relative importance given to cognitive formation in the discipline, or to non-cognitive (soft) skills demonstrated in application of knowledge. overall, the graduates of the hsu were more highly evaluated in terms of their disciplinary formation as compared to the other two sets of graduates. even so, the employers were more critical of graduates trained in the less selective universities, in both discipline-based knowledge and noncognitive skills. in the case of hiring from the other two universities, the study supports ‘signaling theory’; employers acknowledged looking for graduates from particular universities because of the socio-economic and community origins of those students, rather than for information about their knowledge and skills. by virtue of their backgrounds they were better positioned to serve their clients. the interviews showed that employers hiring psychologists to work in office settings value skill in application and interpretation of specific measurement tools. they prefer to hire graduates from universities that provide that kind of training. employers in community health or welfare organisations, on the other hand, prefer to hire people familiar with the problems and habits of clients. they look for cultural and social capital. in summary, the employers view these graduate psychologists as varying in their level of competence as well as institutional identity. each one of them may find employment, but they are not equally well-prepared for their fields and are not equally employable for all jobs. in terms of quality, however, each program has produced graduates who have been effective in the jobs they espinoza, o., gonzález, l., sandoval, l , mcginn, n., & castillo, d. (2020). the limited value of ‘employability’ as an objective in training of psychologists: evidence from chile. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 11(1), 50–62. 59 have taken. in principle, the programs are of the right quality for the publics they seek to serve. on the other hand, this reality preserves the social inequalities of the labour market for psychologists. conclusion this qualitative study provides valuable information about the perspectives of psychology program directors and employers of their graduates with respect to employability. the data provides hints rather than definitive proofs. the three psychology programs vary in the human capital of their graduates. this difference is partly a result of the population of students who consider application, and the selection/admission policies of the university. it is also a result of differences in the content of the training program and the intensity and quality of instruction. the psychology programs provide some content and skill training specific to different types of professional practice, but not in great depth. the hsu places heavy emphasis on academic knowledge and skills (human capital), and the professional identity of its graduates. much less attention is given to cultural and social capital. the lsu graduates, in contrast, are known for their social skills and psychological persistence on the job. the public image of the hsu, heavily promoted by the psychology program director, is that its graduates are knowledgeable and skilled professionals. graduates of the lsu, on the other hand, are assumed by their director to be able to relate effectively to clients from low-income neighbourhoods. each of the programs studied is strongly oriented toward employment of its graduates. employment rate could be considered therefore as the measure of their success. universities that seek to improve their own status may seek to place graduates in those positions to which employers attach greater value (and for which pay higher salaries). this can be accomplished by recruiting students who already have those attributes the employers believe are important, rather than by improving the quality of degree programs. alternatively, it can be accomplished by, once having chosen certain employers, designing degree programs matched to the demands of their industry. placement of students in these firms prior to graduation will increase the likelihood that graduates have the professional identity the employers’ desire. these strategies will benefit the university, and employers, but not necessarily reduce economic inequalities. the ambition to reduce social and economic inequality through improved ‘employability’, is a chimera, something to be desired but not likely to be achieved. in fact, the risk is that efforts to improve graduates’ ability in order to increase their employability could end up training graduates to fit into fixed socio-economic categories, replicating universities’ inequality in the labour market. given the limitations of data and sampling, the study sought primarily to map the boundaries of the problem rather than provide generalisable conclusions. the findings apply only to one field, psychology, and may not describe the full range of universities at various levels of selectivity. for that reason, the conclusions drawn should be treated at hypotheses to be tested in future research. references alonso, l. 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(2015). psicología en chile: análisis de su historia, presente y futuro (psychology in chile: analysis of its history, present and future). universitas psychologica, 14(3), 1141–1158. i in 2015 the national accreditation commission listed the following elements included in certification of professional degree programs, inlcuding psychology: a) objectives; b) completeness; c) graduate profile; d) study plan; e) relation to field; f) organisation and administration; g) teaching staff; h) infrastructure and instructional resources; i) participation and student welfare; j) research by teaching staff; k) effectiveness and results of formative process; l) self-regulation and continuous improvement (cna, 2015). ii in spanish, “jefes de carrera”. program directors are qualified professionals in their field, with rank of professor, appointed by the dean of the faculty, who supervise the implementation of the curriculum. iii universities in chile offer a professional degree in psychology after five years of study. iv the 8 traditional universities were established before 1981. v see http://www.topuniversities.com/universityrankings. vi l-m = lsu graduates, male employer. clarke, d., & winslade, m. (2019). a school-university teacher education partnership: reconceptualising reciprocity of learning. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 10(1), 138–156. 138 a school-university teacher education partnership: reconceptualising reciprocity of learning deb clarke1 and matthew winslade1 dclarke@csu.edu.au; mwinslade@csu.edu.au corresponding author: deb clarke 1charles sturt university abstract as initial teacher education students transition to the profession, the experiences offered by the university and partner institutions require intentional, careful, and strategic planning, to ensure positive relational, organisational, and pedagogical experiences for all stakeholders (lynch & smith, 2012; moss, 2008). to minimise the tensions between the theoretical positioning of the university and the practicality of the classroom, respectful and collaborative partnerships need to be central to the design and facilitation of professional experience programmes (lynch & smith, 2012). the ‘hub’ is a longitudinal research and practice partnership between a nsw regional university with initial teacher education (ite) programmes, and a local, multi-campus secondary college. this paper describes the outcomes of one collaboratively designed initiative of the project: evaluating a team teaching approach in the bachelor of education degree. survey and interview data were gathered from all key stakeholders regarding the efficacy of the ‘teaming’ of academics and teachers to facilitate workshops in professional experience subjects. survey data were statistically analysed, while thematic analysis was applied to qualitative artefacts. results of the initial pilot indicate significant value-adding to the professional experience subjects, particularly flagging students increased readiness for employability. reciprocally, the school teachers indicated their increased understandings of the preparedness of ite students to engage in professional experience, their heightened capacity to reflect on practice, and enhancement of their leadership and mentoring skills. keywords: community of practice, initial teacher education, partnership, professional experience, regional university, secondary school, team teach introduction initial teacher education (ite) programs have been perennially criticised by school educators for their lack of connection to the authenticity of ‘real-world’ classroom practice. despite university offerings of carefully sequenced opportunities for ite students to participate in professional experience placements, there remains a divide between what is privileged, valued and practised within the university context, and that of school partners (darlinghammond, 2006; zeichner, 2010). the historic model of ‘applying theory to practice’, with the universities assuming the role of theorist and the school the role of practice, creates tensions for ite students as they translate their university understandings in the reality of contemporary classrooms. darling-hammond (2006) exemplifies the disconnect between university courses and professional experience placements as the achilles heel of teacher education. mailto:dclarke@csu.edu.au mailto:mwinslade@csu.edu.au clarke, d., & winslade, m. (2019). a school-university teacher education partnership: reconceptualising reciprocity of learning. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 10(1), 138–156. 139 it has been argued that there is a lack of understanding of each institution’s (school and university) structure, culture, organisation and practice, and the research literature is rife with findings that cry of the conceptual, organisational and relational difficulties of university-school partnerships (le cornu & peters, 2009; lemke & sebelli, 2008; lynch & smith, 2012; martin, snow, & franklin-torrez, 2011; smith, 2016). for universities, the focus of teacher education partnerships has been on operational issues such as sourcing and monitoring placements for ite students (toon, 2017), rather than engaging in meaningful, substantive relationships that connect the school and university as institutions, and enhance outcomes for both ite students, and the partnership schools. the dominant model of the ite program is designed, taught and administered by the university: historically, a space in which school teachers’ contributions are silent and void. the ‘place’ of the school teacher is seen as ‘in the school’; undertaking the role of supervising, supporting and mentoring the ite student, in context (brady, 2002; moran, abbott, & clarke, 2009; fullan, 2007; smith & lynch, 2006). however, this arrangement raises the question of the potential loss of the professional value of schools and their teachers, in contributing further to ite programs. consequently, the research team have pondered the following questions: how could a university engage with school teachers beyond a supervisory role of their ite students? would a closer more interwoven arrangement in which the partners blurred the boundaries of their individual institutions result in deeper engagement for all stakeholders? is there the potential for partners to teach in each other’s educational contexts, resulting in a broadened understanding of the learning environments, and learners? how could an authentic partnership that aimed to increase understanding of university and school cultures and practices related to the preparation of ite students, be created and sustained? here, the work of seminal researchers in the field, point to the disconnect between schools and universities and offer ways to rethink partnerships. goodlad (1991) states any teacher education programme created or conducted without the collaboration of surrounding schools is defective (p. 10). bhabha (1990) points to the positives and identifies the ‘hybrid spaces’ in which two cultures with different traditions and perceptions meet, and through communication and negotiations new understandings emerge (in smith, 2016, p. 26). thus, in this hybrid space, a shared goal and practice of preparing ite students for the profession may arise as an outcome of effective partnerships. when creating partnerships however, it is essential to recognise that academics and school teachers speak different languages, despite their common goal as teachers. in addition, weerts and sandmann (2006) note, that although academics do often engage in research in schools, they are ‘out of touch’ with the daily realities and needs of secondary schools, teachers and students. however, there is the potential to bridge temporal, organisational and cultural gaps, when employing school-university partnerships. effective partnerships may lead to the sharing of knowledge and skills between the institutions and the renewal of the elements of the partnership (allen, butler-mader, & smith, 2010; stephens & boldt, 2004). partnerships can allow the pooling of resources, sharing expertise and collaborative decision making to enhance the student experience and their learning outcomes (smith & lynch, 2002). furthermore, zeichner (2010) proffers the notion of a ‘bringing together of knowledges’ in which the knowledge of teaching in schools meets the knowledge about teaching in universities. underpinning successful partnerships is the notion of communities of practice (wenger, 1998). as a conceptual frame for this research, lave and wenger’s (1991) notion of communities of practice (cops) illustrates how two institutions who engage in a common practice or joint enterprise can forge meaningful connections and foster belonging (henschel, 2000). however, in order to do this, the members require shared understandings, sympathies, and insights of the others’ practices. in a true partnership, stakeholders unite to design and facilitate an enterprise. therefore, the proposed channel to a meaningful partnership between universities clarke, d., & winslade, m. (2019). a school-university teacher education partnership: reconceptualising reciprocity of learning. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 10(1), 138–156. 140 and schools is a joint enterprise, (lave & wenger, 1991) aimed at effectively preparing ite students to transition to the teaching profession and reciprocally building the leadership capacity of partner teachers. sanctioned by contemporary initial teacher education reform strategies, this study has been driven by the call to create mutually beneficial partnerships between universities and schools. a key direction of the australian teacher education reform report action now: classroom ready teachers (temag, 2014), points to the need for an integrated system incorporating partnerships to ensure initial teacher education meets the needs of employers and schools (p. vii). furthermore, the report hails the current inadequacy of opportunities for initial teacher education students to translate theory to practice: a signal for creating and sustaining quality reciprocal school-university partnerships. the hub project with this notion of joint enterprise at the fore, the ‘hub project’ was conceived. funded by the nsw department of education (nswde), the hub comprised five contributing projects including: 1. a review of the university teacher education processes; 2. a school-based review of valuing the practicum; 3. introduction of a technological tool (swivl) to assist in reviewing ite teaching practice and classroom resources pilot; 4. a university and college professional experience teaching partnership; and 5. a professional development mentoring project. this paper reports on the processes and outcomes of the university and college professional experience teaching partnership. the project teamed an experienced teacher education academic with two secondary school teachers from the local multi-campus college to design and facilitate a third-year professional experience subject in the bachelor of education (health & physical education) and bachelor of education (k-12) degrees. research aims the aims of this project were to: 1. more authentically prepare ite students to transition to the teaching profession; 2. provide opportunities for academic staff to view contemporary teacher practice and enhance their understandings of school culture, systems, policies and management; and 3. provide capacity building and leadership opportunities for school teachers. team teaching partners selection in 2017, principals of a multi-campus local secondary government college called for expressions of interest (eoi) from teachers, to participate in the team teaching of a professional experience subject at the local university. the eoi document outlined the role and duties of the partner teachers which included co-designing and team-teaching ept329 ‘working within the community’ subject, team-marking of subject assessment tasks, and providing weekly reflections regarding their role. in addition, the teachers created and led mentoring and leadership workshops for their colleagues in their campus schools, to assist clarke, d., & winslade, m. (2019). a school-university teacher education partnership: reconceptualising reciprocity of learning. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 10(1), 138–156. 141 them to supervise the hub ite students, and share their experiences teaching at the university. principals accommodated the teachers’ involvement in the university subjects by adjusting teachers’ school timetables to allow for one day a week release time to teach at the university. two teachers (one from each campus) were competitively selected by a panel of university and school staff, inducted into the processes and technology platforms of the university and commenced their involvement in the project in late july 2017. the academic involved in the project volunteered to teach the subject, as she had previously taught in the professional experience strand of subjects. her decision was largely based on her teaching philosophy that drew on the notions of authentic learning, and her extensive experience in secondary schools, as a teacher, and supervising teacher of multiple ite students. tasks of the team designing and teaching the subject the initial tasks of the teaching team included reviewing the previous session’s subject experience survey (ses) scores and subject outline. these data, together with shared teacher and academic dialogue, informed the design of the forthcoming professional experience subject. the six two-hour workshops aimed to provide ite students with authentic examples of classroom practice thus providing insights into the complex realties of teaching and the nature of young people. the resultant workshop topics scaffolded ite students’ knowledge of schools and policies, embellished with meaningful and contemporary examples drawn from the teachers’ practice and knowledge of schools. for example, the teachers illustrated their approaches to building rapport with, and disciplining students, and liaising with executive staff members. additionally, the teachers explicitly modelled behaviour management strategies, shared teaching strategies and called on ite students to team teach aspects of each week’s workshop: a rehearsal opportunity which provided practice in facilitating syllabus content to their future learners. the academic overlaid the facilitation with connections between university subjects that students were currently studying and drew on her knowledge of the teacher education degree to ignite meaningful connections between theory and classroom practice. reflective practice was a key feature of each workshop and provided opportunities for the ite students, the teachers and the academic to reflect on their experiences in the project. the workshops were designed to be highly interactive, and given there were three facilitators, a breadth of teaching strategies and facilitation styles were employed. weekly preparation and reflection prior to each workshop, the academic and the teachers met to discuss and design the following week’s content, allocate tasks, teaching strategies, and assign roles to each member to facilitate aspects of the two-hour workshop. often, the teachers and academic ‘fed off each other’ as they facilitated ite student discussion and other learning activities: adding crucial elements from practice or theory to integrate the knowledges of and about teaching. furthermore, each week the teaching team debriefed and engaged in formal narrative reflection that provided insight regarding the efficacy of the week’s workshop and students’ engagement. these reflections also acted as a primary data source for the action research aligned with this project. clarke, d., & winslade, m. (2019). a school-university teacher education partnership: reconceptualising reciprocity of learning. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 10(1), 138–156. 142 marking as a further duty the teaching team co-marked each of the subject assessments that included ite students writing smart goals for the upcoming professional experience placement and creating a professional portfolio that illustrated students’ achievement of the australian institute of teacher standards and leadership (aitsl) graduate standards. the process of co-marking drew on the rich in-context knowledge of the teachers, together with the theoretical insights of the academic’s grasp of the aitsl documents. supervision contact within hub schools in addition, the teachers were charged with the role of contact mentors within their home campuses of the college. this role required the teachers to act as a first port of call for the ite students, many of whom were intentionally placed in the two hub campuses. the teachers acted as a sounding board rather than in a supervisory capacity; offering support and professional advice when the ite student found lessons, procedures or students challenging. the contact mentors were tasked with inducting the ite students into the organisation, administrative, structural and political requirements of the school contexts. collegial mentoring in their role as partners, the teachers were invited by their home campus principals to design and facilitate mentoring and leadership professional development opportunities for their colleagues. the aims of the professional development were to raise awareness of the culture, knowledges and practices of the university, by sharing their experiences and insights of the hub project and build capacity of other college teachers to participate in the project. conceptual framework communities of practice (cops) was the term coined by lave and wenger (1991) to describe the situated learning model of apprentices. learning as a situated practice involves communities of practitioners sharing understandings and experiences relating to particular domains of knowledge. participating in these domains is how people learn: constructing, sharing and applying knowledge to a specific practice. in this case, the practice is teaching, and the sharing of practice includes the practices of the ite students, the partner teachers and the academic. according to wenger (2002) a community of practice consists of: groups of people who share a concern, a set of problems, or a passion about a topic, and who deepen their knowledge and expertise in this area by interacting on an ongoing basis … (as they) accumulate knowledge, they become informally bound by the value they find in learning together. over time, they develop a unique perspective on their topic as well as a body of common knowledge, practices and approaches. they also develop personal relationships and establish ways of interacting. they may even develop a common sense of identity. they become a community of practice (p. 4-5). in this paper, communities of practice act as a helpful framework to investigate, understand and explain the dynamics of a school-university partnership centred around the practice of initial teacher education. a community of practice is based on collective expertise: it offers opportunities for participants to co-construct knowledge by inviting them to share, build upon, and transform what they know about effective practice (buysse, sparkman, & wesley, 2003, p. 265). in order to understand the workings of a community of practice, we need to investigate its three defining characteristics: shared repertoire, mutual engagement and joint enterprise. clarke, d., & winslade, m. (2019). a school-university teacher education partnership: reconceptualising reciprocity of learning. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 10(1), 138–156. 143 shared repertoire a shared repertoire is a set of resources that members use to engage in, make meaning of, and refine their practice. members share a cultural context for their work. the hub project as a cop, shares a history associated with the practice of teaching, the socio-historical influences on teaching and the value attributed to the practice of teaching. mutual engagement wenger (1998) suggests that members of a cop participate in a shared domain of interest. in a cop, shared competence is valued. interactions between members are encouraged in order to distribute knowledge and create solutions to problems. members of the hub project cop have formed relationships around their engagement with and interest in teacher education, and teaching. they participate in knowledge sharing at university or school and draw on the expertise of overlapping communities of practice. joint enterprise members of a cop participate in joint tasks and activities and negotiate meaning of their practice through shared solutions: their practice is communally negotiated. in the case of the hub project, the interaction of three stakeholders in the university classroom lends itself to shared and negotiated workshop content and facilitation strategies. the enterprise is informed by the cop members’ perspectives of their overlapping communities. boundary members the hub project cop includes what wenger terms ‘boundary members’ (1998) who work on the periphery of multiple cops. the purpose of boundary crossing is to bring together academic and teacher knowledge in a synergistic way in support of ite student learning. in this case, all the members are boundary workers of overlapping cops: the teachers cross both the physical and intellectual borders from the school to the university; the ite students straddle the school-university boundaries, and transfer their university understandings about schools to the teaching in schools; and lastly the academic, is challenged when positioned on the borders of school practice: albeit within the comfort of the physical environment of the university. research design the research design was constituted by mixed methods that allowed for comparative analysis and provided a depth of understanding of the participants’ responses through a layering process of statistical and qualitative data. multiple data sources were used to determine the efficacy of the project aims. gay, mills and airasian (2012) claim that mixed method research builds on the synergy and strength that exists between quantitative and qualitative research methods in order to understand a phenomenon more fully than is possible using either quantitative or qualitative methods alone (p. 481). data sources and tools teacher partners the two teachers from the separate campuses of the local college formed the sample for the interviews. the teachers varied in age, teaching experiences, subject content areas, teacher education qualifying degrees, and had diverse teaching and life experiences from each other. the disparate nature of the teacher sample, albeit only two, added to both the complexity and authenticity of the project. clarke, d., & winslade, m. (2019). a school-university teacher education partnership: reconceptualising reciprocity of learning. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 10(1), 138–156. 144 semi structured interviews were undertaken with the teachers, preand posttheir teaching the professional experience subject. semi-structured interviews allowed for flexibility to pose probing questions when seeking further information and for clarification by the interviewee (burns, 2000). the interview schedule opened with demographic questions and further proceeded with the teachers’ impressions of the efficacy of the hub project, particularly in relation to the connection between the learning environments and the outcomes for the ite students, and their leadership capacity. the interviews were conducted during week 1 and week 14 of the university session (preand post-teaching the subject content) by the project lead, in his office, on a day when the partner teachers were scheduled to be at the university. the interviews were audio recorded to retain data and transcribed by a professional company. additionally, the partner teachers prepared weekly reflections, written as a narrative, after the facilitation of each workshop with the ite students. these reflections were submitted by email to both the academic partner and the project lead each week. the nature of the reflections related to the content, students’ engagement and evaluation of constraints and successes. ethical clearance was approved by the university human research ethics committee to undertake the research project. initial teacher education students in order to capture the student voice, the following measures were undertaken, from a sample of 38 bachelor of education (health & physical education) and bachelor of education (k-12) degree students in their third year of a four-year degree. the data were gathered from late july to october 2018. for the k-12 students, ept329 was their first exposure to learning about secondary schools and engaging in a professional experience placement in a secondary school. the health and physical education (hpe) students had previously engaged in two five-week placements in secondary schools. as an initial workshop activity in week 1 of the session (july 2018), the ite responded in blog postings to a series of questions that explored their understandings and expectations of the hub project. the questions included: 1. what is the nature and purpose of the hub project? 2. how can the hub staff contribute to your learning in ept329? 3. why is establishing connections between schools and universities important? the ite students formally consented to the use of these data in the action research aspect of the project. thus, their blog postings acted as initial or baseline data to represent one cop members’ perspective. as a further data source, the ite students were required to complete the university subject experience survey (ses) at the end of the teaching session (october 2018). the ses comprises 16 mandatory questions and employs a 5-point likert scale using a continuum from ‘to a very large extent’ to ‘to a very small extent’. additionally, students responded to two open-ended questions that sought their feedback regarding the ‘most helpful aspects of the subject’ and ‘the least helpful aspects of the subject’. the ses survey was a highly respected form of data throughout the university in that it was cost effective, expected in the normal proceedings of university life, students were aware of the nature and purpose of the questions and thus required minimal clarification as to their intent. the survey had been validated and was reliable across years, cohorts and subjects. as with all surveys, completion rate was a potential research issue. in order to maximise data collection, the teaching team administered the ses in the final week tutorial after ite students completed their placement. students were requested to bring a mobile device to the workshop to use to complete the survey. the survey completion was voluntary, and students who did not wish to participate, continued with the prescribed tutorial work, thus not identifying their non-completion. the survey was completed during week 14 of the session. survey completion time averaged 8 minutes. clarke, d., & winslade, m. (2019). a school-university teacher education partnership: reconceptualising reciprocity of learning. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 10(1), 138–156. 145 the academic to ensure data were gathered from all participating members of the hub project cop, the academic prepared a journal of evaluative statements and a narrative after each week’s workshop. the framework to guide the reflection included responding to the following questions: what happened? what did i do and feel? how did others respond to my actions? so what? now what? the journal acted as a secondary source of data against which to triangulate the ite students’ and teacher partners’ statistical and interview responses. journaling provides rich data and has been described as a legitimate and valued method for qualitative data collection due to its richness, depth and extension of information (friedemann, mayorga, & jimenez, 2011, p. 2). data analysis the partner teacher interview data, ite student blog postings and open-ended survey questions were analysed using coding and intraand inter-textual analysis to determine themes (burns, 2000). data driven coding (saldana, 2013) was used as the principle analysis method. preliminary codes were initially assigned to the raw data (interview transcripts), followed by assigning a final code that was thematically driven from the initial codes. coding was a way of indexing or categorizing the text in the interview transcripts to create a framework of themes (gibbs, 2007). these data were compared with the academic’s reflective narrative to determine commonalities. the ses results were analysed by the university data unit, using descriptive measures including means, percentages and percentiles. subject means were identified for each of the mandatory 16 items and compared with each subject located in the university’s school. the ses output was released to the academic after the close of the university session in late october 2018. results the findings of the research are presented in sections aligned with members of the community of practice: teachers, ite students and the academic. furthermore, the results present both the benefits and challenges of the project, as perceived by each of the member groups, of the hub project community of practice. initial teacher education students a range of themes arose from the data analysis of the open-ended survey questions and blog postings. these themes included: 1. partner teachers’ contemporary classroom knowledge; 2. realistic expectations of secondary school environments; and 3. increased confidence and readiness to participate in professional placement. theme 1: teachers’ contemporary classroom knowledge initial teacher education students highly valued the teachers’ knowledge and experience. the ite students realised that as ferns, campbell and zegwaard (2014) stated the boundaries of the university and the community should be blurred. while being mindful to respect the knowledges gained from their university studies, the ite students overwhelming voiced the significant credence appointed to the currency and authenticity of the practice of the teachers. in this ‘third space’ (zeichner, 2010), the knowledges of both the teachers and the academic are treated with mutual respect. the following quotes illustrate these findings: clarke, d., & winslade, m. (2019). a school-university teacher education partnership: reconceptualising reciprocity of learning. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 10(1), 138–156. 146 [the academic] has always gone above and beyond to ensure we are learning relevant content that we can use in our future careers, now we are having real live teachers in the class which was great. they all have so much to offer in different ways (p27). it was good to have the teachers with real life experience come in and share their experiences. a lot of subjects at uni are taught by lecturers who have limited, outdated or no field experience (p1). the teaching staff being able to use relevant experiences from their current teaching. the use of team teaching in the subject was very effective as it allowed all teachers to share their different experiences from the classroom. these teachers were also able to give further information on areas of content that needed clarification (p7). i think the collaboration between csu and the college is very beneficial for us as we are offered insight and experience from current teachers (p9). it was refreshing having more than one teacher involved and those that were involved really knew their stuff. they were experts in their field and really approachable (p24). the ite students further acknowledged the importance of gaining different perspectives of teaching from the two teachers during the workshops. from the discussions in workshops, the different nature of the two campuses from which the teachers were drawn, was certainly obvious to the ite students. these differences assisted the ite students to understand the importance of the teaching context, as valued teacher knowledge. students stated: everything seemed to work well, and more teachers was a much better arrangement as i was able to gather multiple opinions and views from the same subject (p23). the team teaching was very valuable! having all 3 staff members working together was great. they bounced off each other and presented theory and practice in different ways and together. there were huge differences between uni and the schools, and between [emphasis added] the schools, but now we understand why (p2). from the perspective of communities of practice, the ite students those with legitimate peripheral participation in the teaching profession highly valued the notion of learning about the secondary teachers’ breadth of experiences. wenger (1998) points to the need for those on the boundaries of practice, to be exposed to the full realities of the profession’s practice. theme 2: realistic expectations of secondary school environments a pertinent comment from a student illustrated the honesty of the teachers when discussing the role of a teacher. valuable insights into the role of the contemporary classroom teacher, with its challenges and joys, were shared with the ite students. students genuinely appreciated the fidelity of dialogue with the teachers as seen in the following comments: they were very honest about the role of a teacher and were always responsive to our questions providing personal experiences and management strategies (p6). the teachers got everyone engaged and involved in one way or the other, helping us understand the different elements of secondary school teaching (p2). bringing school teachers into university to give students first hand insight into what teaching in a school is really like (p18). furthermore, the students appreciated the breadth of teaching and management strategies which were modelled in the workshops. this modelling further showcased the teachers’ contemporary practice and assisted students to feel prepared for their upcoming professional experience placements, as they were now keenly aware of what would be expected in regard clarke, d., & winslade, m. (2019). a school-university teacher education partnership: reconceptualising reciprocity of learning. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 10(1), 138–156. 147 to facilitating lessons and managing student behaviour in a secondary classroom. students’ comments highlight the invaluable modelling of how to deal with the secondary school environment as follows: working with the teachers provided a great insight into secondary teaching (p17). this subject provided me with a toolkit to go to my next placement with strategies to manage the classroom and getting to know how students learn (p11). the hub project was an invaluable experience that provided me with the opportunity to experience quality, contemporary teaching (p15). the hub project was valuable as the teachers shared their real and current knowledge of classroom management (p8). … some realistic advice and a current view into the teaching profession (p21). here wenger (1998) would suggest that the ite students were undergoing ‘an apprenticeship of observation’ as they viewed the modelled practices of the experienced teachers. theme 3: increased confidence and readiness to participate in professional placement as evidenced by the ite students’ responses, it was overtly clear that they were feeling more confident, and were prepared to transition to the teaching profession, as a direct outcome of the hub project. the ite students’ comments highlight their depth of understanding of the teaching context, lessened anxiety levels, increased repertoire of teaching strategies, enhanced perceived ability to manage student behaviour, and their ‘readiness’ to assume a teaching role in a secondary classroom. students’ state: i feel more prepared for my practicum now than i have with previous ept subjects (p30). before this subject i was apprehensive about teaching in a secondary school yet interacting with the teachers allowed me to think more widely about my placement. i feel confident into my next placement as i have been able to identify what i would like to work on and include into my smart goals. having teachers work with us has focused the placement around learning how to teach in a classroom environment and has made me less anxious to go to prac (p12). this project was beneficial as i have become more confident and prepared for a placement (p31). the content of each tutorial and how it was presented was excellent. i believe much of what i learnt in this class will significantly help me in my future studies and my teaching career (p4.) interestingly the ite students realised their development as they progressed through the degree and were now ‘seeing themselves’ as beginning teachers as they established a professional identity. one student states: i loved that the teachers came into the uni and loved that we were treated like teachers. i was able to see my own development from my first ept subjects in my professional portfolio assessment. i see that i have ‘become’ a teacher (p23). as the ite students participate in the community of practice, albeit practices modelled by experienced teachers in a university context, their sense of belonging and professional identity develops and grows (wenger, 1998). clarke, d., & winslade, m. (2019). a school-university teacher education partnership: reconceptualising reciprocity of learning. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 10(1), 138–156. 148 table 1: subject experience survey expected received this subject prepared me to participate in the work placement. the work placement provided me with the learning experiences required by this subject. the learning activities in this subject prepared me to complete my assessment tasks. the learning resources in this subject supported my learning in the work placement. the assessment tasks in this subject allowed me to demonstrate my workplace learning. this subject helped me formulate goals that were related to my professional development. 201660 n=31 n=7 14.3% 71.4% 57.1% 57.1% 57.1% 42.9% 201860 n=38 n=35 100% 100% 66.6% 66.6% 100% 100% *the percentages relate to the number of students who responded with “to a very large extent” or “to a large extent” to each of the questions. in addition to the qualitative data the subject experience survey likert scale results illustrate the positive contribution of the hub project to ite students’ preparedness to transition to the teaching profession. table 1 illustrates the comparison between the subject experience survey results from 2016 (pre-hub project) and 2018 (post-hub project). the survey items changed from 2016-2018 so the comparison was drawn between common items only. teacher the analysis of the teacher interviews revealed multiple themes relevant to both the teachers and the ite students. themes included: 1. mentoring and leadership roles at school; 2. improvements in personal practice; 3. enhanced awareness of ite students’ needs, expectations and knowledge; and 4. enhanced confidence and readiness for classroom reality. the themes are presented as benefits and challenges for the ite students and the partner teachers themselves. here it is important to recognise the complex inter-relationship between teachers and the ite students. as participants in a community of practice, relationships are formed based on the participants’ interactions, sharing of experiences associated with their common professional activities (wenger, 1998). benefits for the teachers theme 1: mentoring and leadership roles at school the pre-pilot interview data revealed that both teachers were expecting to further develop and refine their leadership skills through their participation in the hub project. as an initial aim of the research, it was pleasing to hear the acknowledgement of this leadership development, as a goal for the teachers. the teachers stated: i think i’ll learn more skills as far as awareness of the accreditation requirements and develop leadership skills (pt1). i am hoping to further develop my ability to mentor and lead others in my school (pt2). after participation in the hub project, the teachers recognised their enhanced ability to lead others and were charged with the task of mentoring their colleagues who were responsible for clarke, d., & winslade, m. (2019). a school-university teacher education partnership: reconceptualising reciprocity of learning. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 10(1), 138–156. 149 supervising ite students during professional placement. the following quote illustrates the opportunity afforded one of the teachers: i think one of the benefits is, my principal has started tapping into me in a mentoring role for beginner teachers as well. he is thinking of this role is as “okay if you’re going to be at uni teaching students then supporting them when they come to the school, you can also start to support beginning teachers”. i have started inviting beginning teachers into my room to view my lessons and classes. to watch me teach, and also for me to go into their rooms and start giving them some support and coaching. this has been a natural flow on effect from being involved in the project (pt1). theme 2: improvements in personal practice weekly facilitation of the workshops provided opportunities for the teachers to re-assess their own practice. a resultant, but rather unexpected outcome, was the enhanced level of reflective practice in which the teachers now engaged. the teachers acknowledged that there had been reciprocal learning, in that they had learnt from the ite students during the partnership. partner teacher 2 stated: it has re-ignited me … made me think a little bit more, critically analyse what it is that i do, look at how it is that i can incorporate things that i am talking about with the students, how i can hone those a little bit more, i suppose because i’m thinking about them instead of just doing them. i have now looked into the standards far more than i have ever before, and i’ve got some new resources and found some new things out that were actually really beneficial, like the sites for differentiation learnt from the other teacher as well as the ite students. theme 3: enhanced awareness of ite students’ needs, expectations and knowledge one of the identified points of disconnect between the university and the partner schools, was a lack of communication and understanding of the nature of the university degrees, and the preparedness of the ite students to participate in professional experience. schools, because of their previous silenced position in the design and implementation of the professional experience subjects, had little knowledge of contemporary teacher education degrees, which resulted in teachers holding differing expectations of ite students’ knowledge, skills and abilities. partner teacher 1 states: i’ve definitely learnt a lot. i think from a school’s perspective, having an understanding of what’s happening at the uni, and that constant contact with the uni students, gives me a really clear understanding of what their knowledge is, what level they’re operating at, and what support they need going into schools. having one prac student at a time, in the past, has narrowed my perspective of what they’re experiencing and what their needs are, whereas now i’ve been in a room with 38 of them! partner teacher 2 expresses: i think i am more prepared this time than i have been for any praccie that i’ve had before because i’ve gone through the process and gone “well, you know what… they need this and this”. the project has increased awareness and knowledge between the two institutions. benefits for ite students theme 4: enhanced confidence and readiness for classroom reality the teachers were acutely aware of the increased confidence levels of the ite students as they progressed throughout the session. the engagement in discussions regarding the role of clarke, d., & winslade, m. (2019). a school-university teacher education partnership: reconceptualising reciprocity of learning. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 10(1), 138–156. 150 the teacher in a secondary school, and the requirements of professional accreditation formed critical aspects of each workshop. these discussions were highlighted with explicit and authentic examples from the partner teachers’ practice, and each emphasised the importance of viewing teaching as a profession. a significant and highly positive outcome was the enhanced confidence and professional maturity of the ite students. partner teacher 1 states: having that constant to and fro about their professional practise with a current teacher, i just feel like their confidence levels have increased. so having people who are actually doing that, having six periods a day, being realistic about what goes on in a school, i think is invaluable for the students. they have been so engaged and are now so mature in their thinking and approach. they are acting like teachers. i think the students are more ‘ready’ to undertake their professional placement. by providing them with real examples of everyday teaching, they can see what is required of a teacher. i have tried to model professionalism and now they can understand that teaching is a profession with standards. they have grown significantly throughout the workshops. given a significant aim of the project was to more authentically prepare ite students to transition to the teaching profession, it is clearly evident from the perspectives of the teachers that this aim has been achieved. benefits for the academic the academic involved in the project had not taught in secondary contexts for over 15 years. as such, her knowledge of contemporary classrooms was gleaned from her ite students’ accounts of their experiences during professional experience placements. as a result of her involvement in the planning meetings, and by viewing the teachers modelling their own teaching practice in schools, the academic’s understandings of school policy and the complex nature of contemporary classrooms was heightened. the teachers shared technologies, education system policies and examples of their own accreditation documentation. these glimpses into the everyday work of contemporary teachers has resulted in the academic reflecting on the possibilities for subject redesign, and creating further opportunities for other academics, removed from the current school context, to participate in the team-teaching experience. the academic noted in her journal: i was confronted by the accounts of practice of dealing with young people in today’s classrooms. i know i don’t have the skills anymore to be a classroom teacher, because of the changed nature of schools and classrooms. i had until now, prided myself on still being connected to schools through consultancy and curriculum work, however, the project has opened my eyes to the realities of what happens in secondary classrooms and the complexities of young people’s lives. this has been a reality check for me and i think that it is very important for my colleagues, many of whom are very disconnected from schools, some of whom have never taught in a classroom, to be involved in this project. i have some ideas of how we might expand the team teaching. academics should not be teaching professional experience subjects without knowing what schools and young people are like. i have learnt so much, new ways of engaging students, software to create resources, about positive behaviours for learning,…things i never knew about policy. the aim to provide opportunities for academic staff to view contemporary teacher practice and enhance their understandings of school culture, systems, policies and management was, as evidenced by the academic’s journal narrative, certainly achieved. however, as will be highlighted in the discussion section, further exposure to schools and their processes is needed. clarke, d., & winslade, m. (2019). a school-university teacher education partnership: reconceptualising reciprocity of learning. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 10(1), 138–156. 151 challenges a number of challenges were highlighted by all members of the hub project community of practice. these challenges related to the place of theory in workshops, the perceived inequity experienced by some ite students, the differences in expectations of the working environments, and relationships and power. awareness of the place of theory an enduring criticism of university degrees by teachers in general, has been the emphasis on theory, rather than practice (le cornu & peters, 2009; lynch & smith, 2012). each institution commonly adopts firmly-held beliefs regarding their role in contributing to the preparation of ite students (botha & beets, 2015). interestingly, the place of theory in the workshops became a contested topic of discussion between the partner teachers and caused considerable tension in planning meetings. teacher 1 illustrated her frustration with her school colleagues’ lack of engagement with theory as follows: i think that it is important for people involved in the project to be aware of and respectful of the place and importance of the theory that underpins everything that we do because this attitude of, ‘once you’ve left uni leave all that [theory] behind, come and do the real learning in the classroom’, that is false. it’s been an interesting experience being a part of this because there are professionals who still want to refute the place that the theory has in teaching practice, they just want to look at the application of day to day teaching, but they don’t want to acknowledge that the teaching is informed by theory. this tension resulted in redesigning the roles of each of the teachers, in regard to what and how each partner teacher would facilitate their section of the weekly workshops. insufficient places at the college one of teachers acknowledged the hub project as ’enriching’ and identified the concern for those students who were not placed at either of the college campuses for their placement. this is a pertinent issue to consider for future student placements. however, the increasing number of ite students in the degrees needing to be placed, does significantly draw on the professional generosity of both college campuses. broadening of the net of schools involved in the hub project acts as a solution to the inequity of placement context for future ite students: i think the students who go to the college for placement, i think their experience is much more enriching. i’m concerned for the students who aren’t involved in the project. as one of the students stated during a workshop ‘this is all well and good but i’m not going to the college i’m going elsewhere for placement’. this lack of equity was acknowledged by ite students as follows: i get that there are only so many places in the hub schools, but i feel like i am missing out on very important relationships and conversations by going elsewhere for my prac (p17). relationships and power a difficult and complex issue that arose was related to professional relationships, and power. the teachers’ professional and personal experiences were what could be described as ‘polarised’. the extreme differences in their teaching philosophies, approaches and identities resulted in difficult conversations at times, and opposing opinions. clarke, d., & winslade, m. (2019). a school-university teacher education partnership: reconceptualising reciprocity of learning. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 10(1), 138–156. 152 teacher 1 noted that the type or nature of the teacher undertaking the role of facilitator with the ite students was paramount, emphasising the importance of selecting appropriate teachers for the project. the teacher states: if it’s the wrong person delivering the content, i think it loses the focus, of what we’re all trying to achieve. both teachers acknowledged the strains of working together. teacher 2 pointed out that working with two teachers has been a bit of a challenge. however, the teacher concluded: we got there in the end. we had very different ideas about how to deliver and what to deliver, and there were some activities that i had to push really hard to deliver in the classroom. in addition, there was a perceived power differential between the partner teachers and the academic. during the planning meetings and workshops, it was obvious that the teachers deferred to the academic in terms of university policy, degree structure and expectations. the academic’s knowledge was obviously privileged and seen as authoritative (smagorinsky, cook, & johnson, 2003). conversely, the academic deferred to the teachers when discussing classroom practice and secondary school students. partner teacher 2 illustrates this power relationship as follows: i’ve found the three members ... you know we’ve got the university representative and then the two teachers, having that three-way relationship, it’s been challenging because you’ve got the school and you’ve got the university, and obviously they’re very different work environments and they’ve got very different cultures, and bringing them together … has been challenging. at times, i wasn’t sure where i fitted in. this practice of deferring, actually represented a space in which academic and teacher knowledge was shared and valued. a space in which there was reciprocal and transformational learning (gutierrez, 2008). differences in working environments as boundary workers in the hub project cop, the teachers experienced a ‘clash of culture’ (pt2) as they negotiated the rules, and practices of the university learning environment. both teachers recognised and struggled with the differences between aspects of the university’s work, pace and focus, when comparing it with that of their schools. the teachers and the academic acknowledged the ‘parallel universes’ (pt1) from which the members of the community of practice drew their values and practices. the teachers described their impressions of the environments as follows: the two very different work and learning environments, and bringing them together, there’s been some challenges. navigating where students are up to in their courses… what subjects they have already studied … what they know before they go on placement. how i am supposed to work on that in this short space of time (pt2). so when you’re looking at a collegial group, if you haven’t got an even balance from two different, i’m going to use the word cultural backgrounds, because the cultures in the two environments are so different. i felt like there’s been a resistance to, there’s a school way of doing things and there’s a uni way of doing things, and they are different. but i’ve worked really hard at bridging the two. i am employed by my school but i am working at the university. when you are at uni you are under the same rules as every other university employee, but you work there [at school] (pt1). for the academic, the physical environment in which she was working was certainly one of comfort and familiarity in regard to expectations, procedures and practices. however, she too was challenged by the task of team teaching with experienced and current classroom clarke, d., & winslade, m. (2019). a school-university teacher education partnership: reconceptualising reciprocity of learning. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 10(1), 138–156. 153 teachers. her environment, until now had been filled with practice relating to theory, peppered with examples from classroom experiences which were more than a decade old. in this regard, the teachers acted as conduits between the classroom and the university. their boundary work was to negotiate the practices, cultures and identities of both classroom teacher and academic facilitator. they acted as models of teaching and professionalism, providing relevant real insights into everyday practices, sharing tips and hints, and creating links for students to forge the ever-increasing gap between university and the authentic classroom experience. discussion this paper has reported on the efficacy of a school-university partnership in which teachers brokered across the boundaries of the university landscape. as evidenced in the results, the partnership was effective, as the members began to develop a common understanding of practice, shared vision for ite students and the teaching profession, and mutually respected each other’s expertise (halvorsen, 2014). for the teachers, the project allowed them to draw on their knowledges from their overlapping cops in schools and model the practice of teaching to the ite students. in doing so, they were acutely aware of their peripheral positioning in the university cop, reflecting their initial membership identity, and legitimate peripheral participation (lave & wenger, 1991). however, the balance of power came from the teachers’ heightened experience and credibility in the school context (wenger, 1998). for both the academic and the ite students, this power associated with classroom expertise, was respected and valued. wenger (1998) notes that cops operate as a collective in which members co-construct knowledge that is meaningful and useful to their work. in this case, the knowledge of schools was held by the teachers, while the knowledge of universities was held by the academic. during the work of the partnership, neither knowledge was more highly legitimised or valued. the boundary workers, in this case, were the ite students as they navigated their understandings of the culture, identities and knowledges of both settings to meet their professional learning needs. the ite students were quickly subsumed into the college’s community of practice. together with their five-week professional placement, the hub project provided them with in-roads to the authentic practice of teachers and schools. the depth of experiences offered in the hub project allowed the ite students a safer and more efficient transition when gaining access to the school cops. as legitimate peripheral participants in a practice, they had already viewed examples of the community’s activities from the teachers in the hub project. as lave and wenger (1991) suggest, to be accepted as a full participant in a community, the newcomer must have access to a wide range of ongoing activity, old timers, and other members of the community; and to information, resources, and opportunities for participation (p. 101). the ite students were overtly aware of the realities of practice, the expectations of their supervising teachers, the culture of schools, and the nature of young people. the hub project exposed ite students to the authenticity of classroom practice, through explicit modelling of and dialoguing about what ite students need to know, need to do, and what they should expect. for the academic, the hub project offered the opportunity to re-assess the currency of knowledge of school procedures and policies, and the culture of schools. while the academic’s curriculum knowledge was contemporary, her understandings of schools was based on her historical teaching positions in the 1990s. her involvement in the hub project alerted her to the acute and changed complexities of young people’s lives and their influence on teaching. furthermore, the increased requirements of continual professional learning, the significant demands of administrative tasks, and the need to meaningfully relate to the school community were certainly lessons for the academic. the academic became a border worker as well, as clarke, d., & winslade, m. (2019). a school-university teacher education partnership: reconceptualising reciprocity of learning. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 10(1), 138–156. 154 she engaged in dialogue with university colleagues regarding the ‘realness’ that the teachers brought to the subject, to the ite students’ experiences and in raising the academic’s awareness of the nature of 21st century young people and their social and educational needs. conclusion the hub cop provided opportunities for all members to share knowledge, skills and understandings during their mutual engagement in the weekly workshops. participation in the workshops: albeit a microcosm of the teaching profession, provided the ite students with the opportunity to learn of the culture of schools: their conventions, codes of conduct, and rules (wenger, 1998) as the teachers modelled contemporary practice and shared experiences with both the academic and ite students. reciprocally, the teachers from the college engaged in dialogue with both the ite students and the academic: creating learning spaces for development of new knowledges of university practice and building leadership capacity in an overlapping community of practice. despite the identified challenges, the partnership could indeed be viewed as effective and successful. the community of practice members acknowledged and celebrated the disparate cultures of the each other’s practice, creating bridges into each other’s worlds. this negotiation of practice, culture and identity, assisted members to weave links across [their] landscape of practice (wenger, 1998, p. 61). the future of the project lies with the issues of upscaling and sustainability beyond the funded model. the possibilities for the future call for the university to change shape and purpose to become a place of sharing, collaboration and cooperation … (ferns & lilly, 2015, p.2). clarke, d., & winslade, m. 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(2020). graduate employability skills through online internships and projects during the covid-19 pandemic: an australian example. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 11(1), 146–158. 146 the journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability issn: 1838-3815 (online) journal homepage: https://ojs.deakin.edu.au/index.php/jtlge/ graduate employability skills through online internships and projects during the covid-19 pandemic: an australian example robert gill1 corresponding author: robert gill (rgill@swin.edu.au) 1 swinburne university of technology, melbourne abstract during the covid-19 pandemic many students undertaking professional placements and internships had to leave their physical place of employment due to restrictions. some students doing professional experiences lost their placement, while others entered work arrangements where they worked online remotely. this paper investigates the potential advantage from their experiences in terms of now being more capable in online work skills due to remote working, as the professional world potentially moves to a more flexible working arrangement that may include a remote working environment mixed with an office environment. it investigates, through a case study methodology analysing assessment content from student experiences, the type of new professional purpose that may evolve as a result of a changing workforce environment. keywords professional purpose, employability skills, covid19, remote working introduction for the past two decades the australian higher education sector has grappled with conceptions regarding employability skills and what attributes graduates should be bringing to the workplace (moore & morton, 2017). this has led to an increased focus on practical skills and professional purpose in the higher education curriculum (bates, rixon, carbone, & pilgrim, 2019). the education environment has shifted due to an evolving labour market process (particularly with digital and mobile capabilities) which has resulted in universities being placed under increasing pressure to produce employable graduates, with less focus on philosophical and higher-order thinking skills and greater focus on being job-ready (bridgstock, 2009). work-ready and purposeful skills are ever-evolving, as the work environment moves from a 20th century man-powered workforce to 21st century technology-powered workplace through a central processing unit (cpu) (cook, 2020). much of the systems’ work can now be managed by artificial intelligence. as a result, people-power now focusses on a professional purpose mindset that reflects a person’s commitment to developing a professional future aligned to personal values, professional aspirations and societal outlook (bates et al., 2019). however, has this societal outlook taken a uturn in recent history due to the enormous influence of the covid-19 virus and its impact on the professional working space globally? https://ojs.deakin.edu.au/index.php/jtlge/ gill, r. (2020). graduate employability skills through online internships and projects during the covid-19 pandemic: an australian example. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 11(1), 146–158. 147 this paper investigates the professional working space experiences for media and communication students at an australian university who have engaged in professional placements and projects during the covid-19 office shutdown, and questions whether the future office working environment may need a new set of employability skills as part of graduate attributes. students studying this discipline typically would be exposed to substantial practice in using digital and mobile media skills through the course of their study. the paper specifically investigates whether key employability skills associated with remote learning are identified, and whether these skills will reshape the professional purpose of communication graduates of the near future. the case study methodology reviews the reports presented as part of a university project unit conducted during the covid pandemic lockdown from march to june in 2020. literature review graduate attributes and employability skills graduate attributes are the skills, personal attributes and values, which are expected to be acquired for professional practice by graduates during their time of study, regardless of their discipline or field of study (smith & bath, 2006; bridgstock, 2009). globally, higher education is progressively shifting from knowledge transfer towards a more practical and employment-focused curriculum that prepares students for professional careers and employment making graduate attributes a strong focus of higher education curriculum outcomes (martin, milne-home, barrett, spalding, & jones, 2000; moore & morton, 2015). employers typically need graduates with job-ready skills that effectively promote communication, teamwork and problem-solving above discipline specific knowledge. smith and bath (2006) consider such attributes are a combination of qualities such as: critical thinking, intellectual curiosity, problem-solving, logical and independent thought, communication and information management skills, intellectual rigour, creativity and imagination, ethical practice, integrity, and tolerance. according to oraison, konjarski and howe (2019) the education institution’s graduate attributes are designed to reflect student outcomes regarding measuring their abilities for 21st century professional skills and capabilities, keeping in mind the profession and the professional standards of the industry. therefore, graduate attributes should reflect both the requirements of the accreditation standards and the industry needs. to this end, these attributes represent academic and generic skills required for effective operation in a specific industry. the terms of ‘graduate attributes’ and ‘employability skills’ are sometimes used interchangeably. however, belwal, priyadarshi, and al fazari (2017) define the graduate attributes at university level as developing skills expected of an institute’s students, and within industry as defining employability skills being skills specific to helping a graduate effectively operate in a professional environment. yorke (2004) described employability skills as a set of achievements that graduates develop – skills in understandings and personal attributes – that make them more likely to gain employment and be successful in their chosen occupation, benefiting themselves, the workforce, the community and the economy. cranmer (2006) describes employability skills as enhancements that secure graduates a job as they enter employment ‘job-ready’. graduate employability, according to boden and nedeva (2010), is the level of development and nurtured skills that make graduates ready for work. employability and professional purpose the current professional environment for graduates is extremely turbulent, according to bates et al. (2019), due mainly to the unpredictability of corporate restructures, technology and advances, outsourcing and remote working. remote working has become more prevalent since australia experienced the covid-19 social distancing (smith, 2010). this new professional environment has created a philosophical re-think on what constitutes appropriate learning for employability. gill, r. (2020). graduate employability skills through online internships and projects during the covid-19 pandemic: an australian example. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 11(1), 146–158. 148 universities typically create student opportunities for developing transferable employability skills through: embedding the skills within curricula linked to graduate attributes (e.g., communication skills, teamwork, complex problem solving) and incorporating opportunities for work experience within courses (e.g., internships, placements, international study tours or exchanges) (bates et al. 2019). university students who commit to incorporating transferable professional skills into their study experience are best-able to adopt and maintain proactive career behaviours that enhance their employability after graduation (clements & kamau, 2017). according to fugate, kinicki and ashforth (2004), employability is a form of work-specific active adaptability that enables workers to identify and realise career opportunities. bates et al. (2019) refer to work-specific adaptability as students recognising their professional purpose in employability. the turbulent work environment is made more unpredictable by corporate restructuring, changing online economies, and the demand for flexible working conditions (smith, 2010). universities need to balance the current curricula focus on disciplinary knowledge with multidisciplinary and transferrable skills which help students adapt to the requirements of their working life (kinash, crane, judd, & knight, 2016). however, research suggests the current emphasis on skills development to enhance graduate employability is too narrow and insufficient to capture the full complexity of preparing students to be purpose-focussed in their working life (clark, zucas, & lent, 2011; jackson, 2016). bates et al. (2019) emphasise professional purpose as the importance of developing the individual’s capacity to manage their own career and stresses the role of graduates’ levels of self-awareness, confidence and adaptability. the challenge for higher education providers is to assist students to personally identify meaningful career decisions and to develop a practice of proactive career behaviours while still at university (bates et al., 2019). this is referred to as developing a professional purpose for employability. bates et al. (2019) also refer to the domains of development for university courses to encompass key learning outcomes that include: navigating the world of work, building networks, and self and social awareness. in 2017, rowe and zegwaard described a similar set of graduate employability measures as: networks, professional-identity and active citizenship. the attaining of such outcomes is best achieved through a real working environment embedded into courses, according to clarke (2018). nevertheless, the working environment has gone through major changes since the introduction of social distancing leading to remote and work-from-home (wfh) working arrangements. flexible working arrangements have evolved significantly from the pre-covid-19 strategies of occasional wfh, staggered start and finish times, and hot desking to fully functional online working arrangements including using online meeting platforms (flanders, 2020). the professional purpose domains of navigating the world of work, building networks, and self and social awareness have significantly different interpretations since working in isolation was introduced mid-march 2020 in australia. much of the student’s learning to navigate these domains had previously been cultured in a face-to-face working environment, but the new work environment is moving to considerable online and socially isolated work places which involve new ways of navigating these domains. the professional purpose model to employability proposed by bates et al. (2019) related behaviours of students across the full range of the student community and at different stages of experience in the workplace. but the workplace has significantly changed, and most likely will remain in a state of modification on a permanent basis when businesses assess the new working model post-covid-19 working isolation (flanders, 2020). the mindset for an effective working focus for remote and blended working arrangements is vastly different to the old ‘9-to-5’ office working environment, according to cohen (2020). the virus has had a global effect on the business world in that the ability to develop face-to-face networks has reduced and an increased awareness of intercultural communication through online platforms is required – all significant contributors to the professional purpose domains for employability. what may have been effective employability skills may not now be as effective in a post covid-19 new world order. gill, r. (2020). graduate employability skills through online internships and projects during the covid-19 pandemic: an australian example. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 11(1), 146–158. 149 internships used to develop professional purpose the wide range of employability skills described previously are considered difficult to develop in a classroom environment that seeks to replicate an authentic workplace (see for example: andrews and higson, 2008; moore & morton, 2017; rowe & zegwaard, 2017; smith & bath, 2006). a 2013 commissioned report by the australian federal department of education, employment and workplace relations identified these skills as missing from australian higher education curriculum yet are necessary to successfully transition from study to employment (commonwealth of australia, 2013). professional placements and work experience have long been used by institutions as a linkage between campus study and workplace skills. a work placement (internship or professional placement) provides undergraduate students with a real-life working opportunity where they can build skills around professional communication, time management, teamwork, and networking (shoenfelt, stone, & kottke, 2013). internships and professional placements have often been a student tool to ‘fill the gap’ between campus curriculum and real-world practice (andrews & higson, 2008; rowe & zegwaard, 2017). considering the domains of professional purpose stressed by bates et al. (2019), real world professional experiences place students in an environment that will challenge them to navigate workplace tasks and responsibilities, develop networks that help them negotiate through their experience and advance self-assurance. such skills and experiences are typically very difficult to replicate in the classroom (moore & morton, 2017). accordingly, gonzález, espinoza, sandoval, mcginn & castill (2020) argue that the employability skills employers want, and those universities see as important can often be different. bates et al. (2019) suggest that professional purpose aids students in identifying and understanding those skills needed to effectively operate in diverse and often dynamic working environments. the global professional environment has changed significantly during the months of the covid-19 pandemic, particularly through increased remote working and online engagement, and these changes may stay (mudditt, 2020). the boston consulting group’s 2020 survey found between 41 and 60 per cent surveyed had a preference to continue working two or three days a week from home if possible post-covid-19. this change to ‘hybrid’ working arrangements means graduates require a broader set of attributes for developing a highly effectual professional purpose. remote working the advancement of technology has enabled an office-based workforce to harness available technology (typically available to many households in advanced economies) to work remotely, or work-from-home (arruda, 2020). cook (2020) talks of the digital nomad workforce that subjectively rates themselves as highly mobile and work focused, as they utilise the remote working technology to fit work in around their lifestyle. this mode of professional work is dependent on reliable technology and a business model that supports work tasks which can be completed from an out-ofoffice location through digital devices (bishop, 2020; cohen, 2020). remote work [also referred to as work-from-home (wfh), telecommuting or flexible working] relates to the professional being able to complete work responsibilities offsite from the outwardly imposed structures of traditional office work (arruda, 2020). this arrangement places more value on autonomy, flexibility and the ability to travel and work wherever a person pleases (cook, 2020). the remote workplace, according to arruda (2020), requires and enables: corporate flexibility, headquarters 2.0 vision, work-ready homes, e-learning capabilities, relaxed business attire, and video virtuosity. in basic terms, remote working requires a digital capable computer device, internet, power source and semi-sophisticated instructional technology intelligence (mudditt, 2020). although the concept has been around for many decades, the evolution of the digital and mobile technology has enriched and progressed the capabilities of the remote workspace (cook, 2020). gill, r. (2020). graduate employability skills through online internships and projects during the covid-19 pandemic: an australian example. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 11(1), 146–158. 150 however, the simplicity of the remote working environment also can deliver working challenges that an office environment typically avoids. out-of-office work locations can carry their own distractions not associated with the primary professional purpose of the job or task. this is particularly evident in a wfh environment where workers can be side-tracked by household chores, family commitments, faltering (or over-burdened) internet connection, and poor office ergonomics (mudditt, 2020; bishop, 2020). although past surveys have indicated a fondness for the flexible working arrangement, many workers still admit that the office environment provides working security, support and structure that can go missing when working offsite (bcg, 2020). covid-19 working environment the covid-19 pandemic has transformed the office-based work mindset, with many institutions encouraging staff to work remotely from the office to avoid possible coronavirus infection. the scale of such a workplace to home-base shift had been unprecedented up until the pandemic (bishop, 2020; cohen, 2020; knaus, 2020). the change in work-space and mind-set to working remotely will undoubtedly lead to more considered viewpoints to working arrangements and flexible office environments in the future (cook, 2020; mudditt, 2020). the pandemic work model for wfh and flexible work times most likely will become an ongoing arrangement for many professional staff who have the resource capabilities to work from a remote environment (arruda, 2020; mudditt, 2020). the pandemic working environment has seen people from office-based jobs transfer their work stations from the office to the home, or another remote location. in australia, workers have been encouraged to wfh at every opportunity, with both state and federal legislation applying social distancing laws to all public and work spaces (cohen, 2020; knaus, 2020). the pandemic ‘remote office’ has involved the use of home broadband, digital and mobile technology and online video conferencing as the primary means of information and communication exchange (mudditt, 2020). cohen (2020) highlights that this form of working has been available as an alternative work arrangement for many years but has not been seen by mainstream management as an applicable option for the professional corporate work space, until the pandemic has forced the remote work option upon the broader community. in australia, the pandemic working environment was one created through government legislation and company policy at a macro-level, and imposed wholesale change on the working conditions for most office-based staff (cohen, 2020; knaus, 2020). as with many global economies, the australian professional environment is likely to remain in a state of alert with the working environment evolving from an office-based workforce to a mobile workforce that can operate in a blend of remote and centralised locations (bcg, 2020; muddit, 2020). post-covid-19 and professional purpose according to the boston consulting group (based on a management survey conducted in may 2020) peoples’ needs will be the priority focus on the ‘ramp-up’ to returning to the office environment, and that the working spaces must be more adaptable to accommodate the post-covid-19 staff requirements (2020). flanders (2020) highlights the need for offices to incorporate more flexible working arrangements for office staff returning from remote working. the physical office environment will be more focused on safety and protection than on cooperative work spaces, with organisations having to consider social distancing and virus community transmission (mudditt, 2020). the blended professional model will become more the normal, as opposed to the exception, as staff begin a schedule of mixed remote and office working locations (bcg, 2020). the blended model includes: staff having flexibility around onsite working hours or days; shared space and hot-desking with other employees; plasticity around working hours over the course of the day; remote and onsite office resources; and social distancing strategies (bcg, 2020; cook, 2020). communication will be dominated by digital communication strategies and social isolating (cohen, 2020; lawson, gill, feekery, & witsel, 2019). gill, r. (2020). graduate employability skills through online internships and projects during the covid-19 pandemic: an australian example. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 11(1), 146–158. 151 american consulting group, morning consult, conducted a survey from june 16-20, 2020 among a national representative sample of 2,200 u.s. working adults regarding their position on professional engagement and the working environment. major findings from the survey included: 75% of respondents stated they would like to continue wfh arrangements for part of their working week; the majority of people working remotely during the pandemic have had largely positive experiences; flexible working arrangements will be crucial for all companies going forward; and flexibility is important as not all workers report better productivity or a sense of comfort working from home (morning consult, 2020). professional purpose for students graduating into the new world order of a blended professional model will need to focus on a broader understanding of navigating in a work environment that supports in-office and remote operations, networking in a physical and digital environment while advancing their social networks and maintaining a presence in the working relationships. with 70% of current remote workers stating the new reality has caused at least ‘somewhat’ significant changes to their daily routine, workers now need an updated set of employability skills to navigate the new world order and remote communication (morning consult, 2020). communicating and creating meaning through digital media is vastly different to the face-to-face mode of information exchange, which most office workers have operated under before the pandemic (lawson et al. 2019). the new world order for business communication and operations will require significant skills in digital and mobile communication, including skills in holding engaging digital conversations through electronic devices, information sharing in electronic mode, and sign-off protocol through electronic signatures that are legally and bureaucratically compliant (cook, 2020). universities will need to explore ways of authenticating new workplace environments due to changes being introduced because of social distancing in workspaces post-pandemic. students who have completed professional placements as the coronavirus pandemic caused mass disruption to the australian workforce may have already began to exercise these professional work initiatives and have built an understanding of professional purpose for the current work environment. methodology this study adopts a case study methodology to investigate whether media and communication students have established an advanced process of developing professional purpose due to remote working environments. the primary question being investigated is: can key work characteristics or developed skills be identified as a result of completing a professional placement through a remote working environment? the secondary question is: are there identified key learnings that may direct professional purpose as a result of completing a professional placement through a remote working environment? research methodology the phenomenon of students undertaking professional placements (internships, work projects and work integrated learning placements) under the protocols of a pandemic lockdown is new, so there is limited data to analyse between march and june 2020. therefore, this paper uses a descriptive case study methodology to measure learning impacts identified in the assessment component of professional projects during the pandemic isolation. case studies are a popular research method in the business area and are commonly used to analyse specific issues within the boundaries of a specific environment, situation or organisation (dubrovskiy, 2018). this method is best suited to answer the research questions as it allows for a descriptive analysis of workplace practices used to complete professional placements in a remote working environment. gill, r. (2020). graduate employability skills through online internships and projects during the covid-19 pandemic: an australian example. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 11(1), 146–158. 152 context the example case investigates a project unit at the higher education level. swinburne university of technology has a project unit within its media and communication programs that requires students to engage in either an internship or complete a professional project. those students completing a project within their discipline are supervised and receive mentoring as part of the learning process. students completing internships must be supervised directly by their employer. assessment in the unit involves three parts: initial identification and planning of project/internship, folio of completed work, reflection on learning and new knowledge. students are assessed on their ability to: produce quality and professional work, identify key areas in their project that will enable knowledge and skills growth, and an ability to analyse and reflect on their professional experience. the purpose of the unit is to provide students with experience in professional work, and help the students identify professional purpose for employability skills they can transfer into their graduate roles. during the first semester of 2020, which began on 2nd of march and ran until 5th of june, the university was forced into shutdown after the second week of study because of the covid-19 pandemic. those completing projects needed to receive mentoring and supervision via online technology to conform to new social distancing rules. those students completing internships either had to work remotely offsite or follow a strict timetable of rotating rosters onsite with employer supervision from a distance. both methods required students to work remotely and utilise digital technology to complete their projects or internships. a few students had to change from an internship to a project by week 3 of the semester, as the business they were interning with closed due to the pandemic. data collection the data collected refers to key terminology associated with the characteristics aligned with professional project as identified by bates et al. (2019), as listed in table 1. these characteristics are related to digital and video communication, teamwork, self-management, remote supervision and working remotely. a quantitative study of the professional practice reports (that include feedback and work folios) for the unit was undertaken to identify characteristics of learning relating to employability skills for professional purpose. there were 50 students who completed the unit. internships placements accounted for 24 of the initial work folios, however, when covid-19 social distancing rules were enacted seven students lost their placement opportunity (and needed to switch to their plan b project work) leaving 17 ongoing work placements. this resulted in 33 professional project students who now were required to receive supervision and mentoring through digital and online communication. data analysis analysis framework the framework for investigation employed the method clustering for quantitative analysis and coding reliability (krippendorff, 2004; wedel & kamakura, 2000; neuendorf, 2002). the final work folio and the feedback text (as part of the assessment) was analysed to identify key characteristics or employability attributes that may shape professional purpose – and rate them as positive, negative or neutral learning experiences. the professional purpose themes embedded in the characteristics included: performing professional functions, maintaining and building professional networks, ability to socially interact for work, ability to manage workload, and ability to manage technology for work. for this research, the methodology was to interpret the entire text, rather than look for associated meaning in a single word or short phrase – so the overall characteristic for the sentence or paragraph indicated the rating. this is the most simplistic and commonly used approach to character identification, which in past studies has best represented the samples’ cluster credentials, although gill, r. (2020). graduate employability skills through online internships and projects during the covid-19 pandemic: an australian example. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 11(1), 146–158. 153 this method is open to an element of subjective interpretation by the researcher in terms of cluster qualities (wedel & kamakura, 2000). the analysis was conducted over 50 pieces of assessment. the number of mentions refers to the number of times the characteristic was addressed in folio content or feedback text. each of these mentions is then coded as positive, neutral or negative in order to ascertain the rating for the employability characteristic and provide a numeric value. the key characteristics were identified by recurring themes relating to the employability characteristic most often presented in the assessments (see table 1). the analysed data has been collated from content present reports and assessments associated with professional practice, and then coded for clustering to allow quantitative analysis. there was no eliciting of information, with individual student comments or student demographics not represented in the data, but rather the data is a representation of collective of characteristics observed, coded and collated by the unit convenor/author. results and findings the table below illustrates the clustering results identified for the key professional purpose characteristics. the results highlight a number of key skills core to this working environment for professional practice students working remotely. table 1: work characteristics common to content for remote professional projects characteristic no. of mentions positive negative neutral key learnings digital and mobile communication platforms 112 86 77% 18 16% 8 7% can be professional simple and easy use as a work tool, not social unreliable technology online video communication 73 57 78% 16 22% preparation time management teamwork 16 6 38% 10 62% frustrating asynchronous unbalanced workload self-management of workload 66 45 68% 21 32% self-discipline planning and timetabling – break down tasks receiving supervision and information remotely 44 22 50% 7 16% 15 34% desk-top research skills are important time-delay in responses can be frustrating and inefficient gill, r. (2020). graduate employability skills through online internships and projects during the covid-19 pandemic: an australian example. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 11(1), 146–158. 154 working offsite 44 22 50% 5 11% 17 39% flexible preparation and commuting decreased relaxed working environment meeting work objectives* 60 17 28% 3 5% 40 67% need to build smart objectives partial successes are ok attainable and realistic *unit assessment terminology for digital and mobile communication platforms was mentioned 112 times, with 77% of comments being positive about the experience with this work characteristic over the course of the professional project work. negative ranked comments accounted for 16%, and 8% of comments regarding digital and mobile communication platforms were considered neutral, as a value could not be applied by the comments. themes included: how to use social media professionally, the simplicity of the platforms, the need to concentrate on social media as a tool and not a social outlet, and issues around unreliable technology. online video communication was specifically identified 39 times, with 78% of the comments valued as positive and 22% valued as negative regarding the experiences with this technology. comments focussed on being prepared to deliver content and dressing appropriately for professional communication. other issues included poor time management, identification and confusion regarding meeting log-ons. teamwork was identified 16 times, with 63% deemed to be positive about teamwork performance in remote working, and 37% negative. many of the projects would have involved working autonomously making teamwork a non-factor in the reports. some negativities were themed around frustration with trying to synchronise discussions and an uneasiness with balanced workloads across teams. regardless, the asynchronous approach to teamwork was identified many times to be a positive. self-management of workload was mentioned 66 times. many comments indicated positive selfmanagement at 68%, whereas 32% of comments deemed the experience with self-management to be negative. of the negative comments, many could be themed as a lack of self-discipline in managing tasks and adhering to a timetabled workload. terms relating to guidance, supervision and acquiring information remotely were mentioned 44 times. of these mentions, 50% were positive, 34% were neutral and 16% were deemed negative. negative comments typically referred to delays in responses from employers, manager and sometimes university supervisors. many comments referred to the need to be efficient with desktop research. there were 44 comments regarding working offsite. positive comments were coded at 50% and related to not having to commute, flexibility around work times and a more relaxed working environment. neutral comments accounted for 39% of comments, and 11% disliked the relaxed atmosphere as it could be demotivating. meeting work objectives was requirement of reporting for assessment involved 60 mentions. the high neutral count of 67% was due to deliberating on success at achieving objectives set for the gill, r. (2020). graduate employability skills through online internships and projects during the covid-19 pandemic: an australian example. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 11(1), 146–158. 155 professional projects. it is difficult to attribute characteristic values, as these objectives are specific to the unit, and not the work. discussion the employability attributes of graduates appear to have evolved to fit the remote working purpose (cook, 2020) as a result of experiencing social distancing because of the pandemic. the majority of employability characteristics being coded positive (60% of all comments being coded positive and 74% being positive/neutral) indicates the students completing professional practices under remote working experiences have identified positively with skills sets that will contribute to their evolving professional purpose. students who have completed professional projects and placements under remote working conditions have been exposed to a set of employability skills that may well represent the professional office environment going forward as indicated by cook (2020) and cohen (2020). these skills will continue to evolve for the office environment beyond professional purpose and employability skills considered to be best practice before the pandemic instituted social distancing in the workplace (bates et al., 2018; rowe & zegwaard, 2017). the swinburne example of how students have advanced their professional purpose through completing professional placements and projects to suit the new world order of work post-covid-19 isolations has highlighted an evolving shift in employability attributes for the workplace, as discussed by academics and industry experts (see for example: arruda, 2020; cohen, 2020; cook, 2020; flanders, 2020; mudditt, 2020). skills aligned with working remotely have emerged as significant for the workforce. students have specifically signalled positive learnings central to their professional experiences to include: the use of social media technology as a primary strategic communication tool (77%); video-conferencing skills (78%); strategies for self-management of tasks (68%) flexible timetabling (50%); and, desktop research (50%). many of these skills may not have been prominent in the students’ reports without their imposition being so obvious as a result of having to conduct their professional work from remote locations. these skills match the new working world order expressed by many experts and commentators regarding the skill set necessary to function in the post-pandemic working environment, especially those put forward by arruda (2020), cook (2020) and flanders (2020). students undertaking a work placement or project during the height of covid-19 isolation and remote working have experienced working conditions that will shape professional purpose in the near future and beyond. at the time of writing, many australian corporations and government offices were grappling with the reality of a second wave of coronavirus infections affecting the office working environment. these such students have been part of the office-based realisations regarding remote working capabilities that will undoubtedly shape the covid-normal workplace (cohen, 2020). this paper’s case study is not intended to be an absolute model of student experiences and new attributes, due to the small sample number and the unpredictable change that continues to occur as a result of the emergency working conditions imposed on many global office-based workforces. nonetheless, it does indicate a change in direction and operations for many office-based workforces in post-pandemic australia. it should also be noted that the subjects analysed have a media and communication discipline background, with substantial exposure to social media and digital technology than possibly would be included in other discipline majors. summary graduating students need not only transferrable professional skills, but also to identify and understand attributes that will allow them to function in an ever-diversifying workplace (cook, 2020; rowe & zegwaard, 2017). graduate attributes have been defined as skills acquired while studying gill, r. (2020). graduate employability skills through online internships and projects during the covid-19 pandemic: an australian example. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 11(1), 146–158. 156 that enable professional practice, regardless of the discipline studied (smith & bath, 2006). employability skills are defined as a set of achievements that graduates develop that make them more likely to gain employment and be successful in their chosen occupation (yorke, 2004). bates et al. (2019) emphasise the institution’s role in developing professional purpose through enhancing the student’s capacity to manage their own career by accentuating the role of graduate attributes such as: self -awareness, confidence and adaptability. the literature examined in this paper has shown that graduate students who understand the notion of professional purpose for their chosen discipline are advanced in learning and are better placed to effectively transition from study to the workplace; as this is an important advancement on graduate attributes (gill, 2018; bates et al. 2019). results from assessing the employability skills development for students doing professional practical during the social-isolating phase demonstrates these students have been exposed to a range of employability skills that will more-likely become common for the workplace going forward, as also demonstrated by leading authors and industry experts (see for example:; cohen, 2020; cook, 2020; flanders, 2020; mudditt, 2020). the current emphasis on skills development to enhance graduate employability by institutions is suggested by clark et al. (2011) and jackson (2016) as being too narrow and insufficient to capture the full complexity of the task of preparing students to be purpose focussed in their working life. many institutions have utilised the professional placement (internship or work placement) to provide students with the opportunity to develop their professional purpose toolkit as a key purpose to their graduate attributes (rowe & zegward, 2017; oraison et al., 2019). this has enabled graduates the opportunity to mature their professional networks, understand their self and social awareness in relation to their chosen discipline, and provide insight into navigating their professional environment – opportunities that are difficult to replicate in a classroom (bates et al., 2019; moore & morton, 2017). the workplace has gone through a rapid metamorphous as a result of imposed social distancing policies due to the covid-19 pandemic. since early 2020, the office workspace has evolved to include social distancing, non-contact interactions, flexible working arrangements, remote workstations and an explosion in the use of digitally engineered communication – not typical to office environment pre-2020 (flanders, 2020; bcg, 2020). this case study measured the characteristics identified for such professional purpose skills from folio content and feedback in work placements and projects completed during social isolation due to the covid pandemic. the data demonstrates the value of certain employability skills that will enhance professional purpose, particularly for the new remote working conditions likely to be in many future workplaces that will employ higher education graduates. conclusion the higher education students who have worked on professional projects during the covid-19 pandemic isolation phase that involved remote working and non-contact business operation may have experienced a working environment that will more closely mirror the future office working conditions. these students already have insight into employability attributes necessary to foster professional purpose for their chosen work discipline, giving them a distinct advantage in the graduate recruitment process against students who have not experienced such working conditions. references andrews, j., & higson, h. 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(2020). graduate work-readiness in mauritius: a multi-stakeholder approach. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 11(1), 93-109. 93 the journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability issn: 1838-3815 (online) journal homepage: https://ojs.deakin.edu.au/index.php/jtlge/ graduate work-readiness in mauritius: a multi-stakeholder approach sarita hardin-ramanan1, shafiiq gopee1, vikash rowtho1, odylle charoux1 corresponding author: vikash rowtho (vrowtho@curtinmauritius.ac.mu) 1curtin university, mauritius abstract characterised by strong human capital dependency, small island development states (sids) such as mauritius depend largely on work-ready graduates to boost their economy. yet, graduate work readiness (gwr) and graduate unemployment feature prominently on the mauritian government agenda. this paper investigates the previously unexplored issue of gwr in mauritius through four key stakeholder lenses – those of the government, employers, universities, and undergraduates – before suggesting collaborative strategies to enhance graduate employability. the paper findings build on government and parastatal body interviews and qualitative survey responses from the top 100 companies, higher education institution directors and final year undergraduates in mauritius. study results and recommendations are derived from a thematic content analysis of interview transcripts and qualitative survey data. results indicate that there is a strong need to (1) strengthen stakeholder links, (2) enforce industry-centric university curricula, (4) improve graduate work experience, (4) hone graduate soft skills, and (5) their attitude to work. a graduate work readiness integrated stakeholder framework (gwrisf) supported by a national work integrated learning committee (nwilc) is then recommended. it is envisaged that proposed strategies will not only assist mauritian stakeholders in better joining forces for gwr improvement but can also be useful to other comparable sids. keywords: graduate workreadiness, employability, graduate capital, work integrated learning introduction there lies a stark paradox in the organisational challenge to recruit the right candidate when many university graduates remain unemployed. globally, in countries ranging from the united states and the united kingdom to asia pacific nations, the quality of graduates is questioned by prospective employers (verma et al., 2018). in most cases, the problem appears to stem from the massive ‘production’ of graduates with little focus on employer skills requirements (winterton & turner, 2019). firms rely strongly on the capabilities of graduates to remain globally competitive, and yet face difficulty hiring them due to serious shortcomings in their employability skills (mcarthur, https://ojs.deakin.edu.au/index.php/jtlge/ hardin-ramanan, s., gopee, s., rowtho, v., & charoux, o. (2020). graduate work-readiness in mauritius: a multi-stakeholder approach. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 11(1), 93-109. 94 kubacki, pang, & alcaraz, 2017). changes in the labour market also raise concerns about the skills and mindset of graduates who are now increasingly expected to self-manage dynamic careers, and be sufficiently agile to transfer their employability skills across areas and industries (jackson & tomlinson, 2020). higher education students therefore need to be pro-active in their career focus and build their employability profile even before they graduate. more than ever, universities, government and companies among other stakeholders are thus required to collaborate to better guide students in enhancing their graduate employability (belwal, priyadarshi, & al fazari, 2017). the situation is no different for the small island development state (sids) of mauritius. constrained by its geographical isolation, dearth of natural resources and extreme vulnerability to climatic changes, the island is largely dependent on its people for its economic growth. education is key, and young mauritians wishing to pursue tertiary level studies are presented with a variety of options originating from the island’s 10 publicly funded institutions and 45 private providers as well as overseas study (tec, 2019). in 2018, tertiary education enrolment amounted to 47 398 (tec, 2019) and, with the government policy of free tertiary education in publicly funded institutions announced in 2019 (budget speech 2019-2020, 2019), this number is expected to increase in the coming years. nonetheless, graduate work readiness (gwr) remains a problem. in the third quarter of 2019, 28% of the 39 300 unemployed mauritians were graduates (statistics mauritius, 2019). from 49th in 2018 to 52nd in 2019, the island lost three places in the global competitiveness rank, as its inadequate human capital prominently features in the list of mauritian business challenges (shwab, 2019). employers continue to face considerable difficulty in finding career-ready candidates locally (verde frontier, 2016), and frequently turn to other countries to find employees with the desired profile. for example, indian professionals are often found working in the mauritian information technology (it) sector due to the lack of it skills (such as business analytics and artificial intelligence) locally (human resource development council (hrdc), 2017). this not only adds to labour costs, but also greatly influences the employment opportunities of mauritian graduates (kisto, 2015). both the quality and relevance of higher education curricula on the island are thus questioned (world bank, 2015). the island’s dominant asian culture does not help. with more than 60% of its population having roots in asia, mauritians have inherited deeply ingrained asian cultural traits which includes an uncompromising strive for academic excellence, often to the detriment of a well-rounded educational experience (united nations educational scientific and cultural organisation (unesco), 2015). this research therefore aimed to explore the issue of gwr in mauritius through four stakeholder lenses government, employers, universities, and students before proposing solutions to grow graduate capital in mauritius. the paper sought to shed light on existing employability strategies from various mauritian stakeholder perspectives and suggests practical recommendations for key stakeholders to consolidate forces in the realisation of a common goal – that of building mauritian graduate capital to enhance national productivity. graduate work-readiness and graduate capital for university students preparing to join the labour force, gwr merges discipline expertise with a host of transferable skills termed as employability skills, which resonate with productivity at work. viewed from a resource-based angle, finch et al. (2016, p. 64) refer to these employability skills as a set of valuable, rare, hard to imitate and to substitute resources with employer-preferred ones being soft skills, problem-solving, and pre-graduate work experience. chhinzer and russo (2018) further highlight professional maturity (high quality of work, initiative and interest), continuous development, professional attitudes and willingness to work as important graduate recruitment considerations. graduate qualifications are no longer enough, as employers look for work experience and prioritise generic and personality traits like communication skills, time management hardin-ramanan, s., gopee, s., rowtho, v., & charoux, o. (2020). graduate work-readiness in mauritius: a multi-stakeholder approach. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 11(1), 93-109. 95 and assiduousness when recruiting (mcarthur et al., 2017). graduate capital acquisition becomes even more important with the digital disruption arising from the fourth industrial revolution. as traditional careers and upward career movements give way to more protean careers, graduates are increasingly expected to take ownership of their career progression in line with their capabilities and aspirations (jackson & tomlinson, 2020). such emphasis on employability skills has resulted in a struggle to hire graduates, thus further catalysing the importance of gwr. realising their role in addressing this issue, many universities offer two main strategies believed to foster gwr outcomes: embedding employability skills within curricula in the form of graduate outcomes; and providing students with real-life work opportunities such as work placements and other work integrated learning (wil) endeavours (clarke, 2017). nonetheless, gwr skills in themselves do not necessarily carry the promise of a job. beyond the development of discipline and transferrable skills, graduates should be encouraged to understand their career possibilities, gain experience in these areas, and, through self-efficacy and self-awareness, work towards the achievement of their job aspirations (bennett, 2016). jackson (2016) referred to this wider view of gwr as pre-professional identity (ppi) which she explains as an understanding of and connection with the skills, qualities, conduct, culture and ideology of a student’s intended profession (p.926). tomlinson (2017, p. 340) extended this concept further to define gwr as the acquisition of graduate capital a pool of five dynamic and interactive forms of capital. he suggested that honing human capital through employability skills acquired from authentic learning experiences works in pair with the development of meaningful connections with potential employers to better understand their expectations and identify job possibilities. developing a deeper relationship with industry members will thus enable students to grow their social capital and this can be achieved via platforms such as professional group memberships, career fairs, social media (such as linkedin), industry placements and other wil activities (clarke, 2017). by engaging closely with companies, students also get to build their cultural capital, as they become more familiar with organisational values, accepted behaviours (tomlinson, 2017) and professional attitudes (chhinzer & russo, 2018). this, in turn, helps them develop and favourably articulate their identity capital through enhanced selfawareness and the ability to align their strengths with the expectations of their coveted employers (holmes, 2013). students also need to develop and nurture psychological capital through selfefficacy or adaptability to dynamic labour market conditions to nurture resilient behaviour when faced with new challenges (donald, baruch, & ashleigh, 2017). stakeholder initiatives in mauritius building graduate capital on their own or with support from their universities alone could prove to be hard work for most higher education students. it is imperative that other stakeholders, including government and future employers, collaboratively support and complement the work-readiness initiatives of universities and students for the development of a skilled and sustainable graduate workforce. ideally, governments should take ownership of the design, funding, regulation and evaluation of strategies and policies for the development of an appropriately skilled workforce; educational institutions should implement the strategies for employable graduates; and employers should attract and retain them (cameron et al., 2015). winterton and turner (2019, p. 538) refer to this synergistic stakeholder relationship as the ‘triple helix’, which binds governments, universities and employers in the creation of graduate capital, and propose that students join the ‘helix’ as they are increasingly expected to take ownership of their career. to build or reinforce such a ‘triple helix’ relationship, mauritian gwr stakeholders have devised and implemented several strategies (indicated in figure 1). the mauritian government set the tone through several joint government-employer-university schemes including temporary government hardin-ramanan, s., gopee, s., rowtho, v., & charoux, o. (2020). graduate work-readiness in mauritius: a multi-stakeholder approach. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 11(1), 93-109. 96 paid jobs at smes, government-subsidised internships, and apprenticeship programmes, as well as graduate training programmes. besides government-led initiatives, many mauritian employers deliver job-readiness training initiatives such as graduate training and participate in industry skillbased competitions where they join forces with universities. in addition, mauritian universities often strive to blend graduate discipline expertise with soft skills and on-the-job learning. such authentic experiences provide students and graduates with opportunities to build their human and psychological capital through real life, industry exposure, understand acceptable organisational behaviours (cultural capital), network with professionals (social capital), and build a portfolio to support their career interest (identity capital). reflective reports also aim at enhancing student selfawareness and pre-professional identity building. figure 1: summary of stakeholder programmes for gwr improvement in mauritius, source: authors. despite the above-mentioned plethora of stakeholder initiatives for building work-readiness, graduate employability remains a perennial issue in mauritius. graduate unemployment ranks high on the government agenda (budget speech 2018-2019, 2018), as employers continue to report difficulty in recruiting graduates with real-life skills (verde frontier, 2016). although graduate workreadiness has been studied in different parts of the world, gwr literature remains scarce for mauritius. as underlined by winterton and turner (2019), a one-size fits all global solution for gwr cannot exist due to varying country contexts. given the specificities of mauritius and its graduate hardin-ramanan, s., gopee, s., rowtho, v., & charoux, o. (2020). graduate work-readiness in mauritius: a multi-stakeholder approach. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 11(1), 93-109. 97 unemployment dilemma, an exploration of gwr in mauritius is warranted. this research therefore sets out to capture the thoughts and perceptions of stakeholders on the issues surrounding gwr in mauritius, before proposing recommendations to improve its graduate capital development. it is envisaged that, along with shedding more light on the insufficiently explored mauritian gwr landscape, the suggested recommendations will encourage greater collaboration among universities, government and employers to facilitate the pro-active and continued career focus of higher education students. universities could thus better structure their career learning strategies, employers could provide enhanced support in grooming work-ready graduates, and the government could further improve their gwr guidance. the aims of this study were to examine what government, universities, employers, and students perceive are the issues surrounding gwr in mauritius and to determine how stakeholders work better together to improve gwr in mauritius. methods the study used an exploratory qualitative approach to source data from key stakeholders, namely government, employers, educational institution directors, and undergraduate students. the rationale behind this approach was to use the most appropriate tools for gathering data from diverse stakeholders, each with their own specificities. first, representatives from relevant ministries and parastatal bodies were interviewed. given that there were only three ministries and three parastatal bodies (see table 1) concerned with addressing work-readiness development on the island, an interview was considered the best method to obtain rich insights into gwr challenges in mauritius. as shown in table 1, all six institutions concerned were willing to participate in the study, and both group and one-to-one interviews were conducted. interviewees were purposively-selected high-level office bearers from each ministry and parastatal body, as they were deemed well-suited to provide an accurate picture of gwr in mauritius. their request for anonymity, however, prevented more details about them from being provided. akin to finch et al’s (2016) research methodology, interviews were semi-structured and based on an open-ended interview protocol which favoured objectivity and spontaneous discussions for a deeper insight into the issue. questions asked were therefore not directly based on the different forms of graduate capital identified, but instead encouraged a wider conversation on the extent and nature of gwr in mauritius and employability challenges faced by stakeholders. examples of questions include:  what is the extent and nature of work-readiness challenges facing employers, governments, and he institutions in mauritius?  what are the causes of these challenges?  which stakeholders and institutions (governments, educational systems, employers) are most associated with these causes, and how are they responsible?  what are the consequences of these work-readiness challenges? following ethical clearance from the authors’ institution and a pre-test of interview questions, interviews were conducted over a period of six months. each interview lasted for an average of one hour and was transcribed immediately afterwards. for further objectivity, transcriptions were documented separately by two researchers before identifying and consolidating common themes. hardin-ramanan, s., gopee, s., rowtho, v., & charoux, o. (2020). graduate work-readiness in mauritius: a multi-stakeholder approach. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 11(1), 93-109. 98 table 1: government and parastatal body interviewees organisation number of interviewees ministry of labour, human resource development and training ministry of education, tertiary education, science and technology ministry of finance, economic planning and development tertiary education commission (tec) mauritius qualifications authority (mqa) the human resource development council (hrdc) 2 2 4 2 1 1 qualitative surveys then followed to gather the gwr perceptions of employers, educational institution administrators, and undergraduate students. questionnaires were the preferred data collection method in these cases due to the number of people in the targeted population and the resource constraints faced by the researchers. the questionnaire used was comprised of openended questions, and like the interview questions, revolved around the nature and challenges of graduate employability. once designed, the questionnaire’s ethics were approved, and a pilot test carried out prior to running the survey. the surveys were administered in two different ways. an electronic version of the questionnaire together with an information sheet and consent form were first emailed to human resource managers from all the top 100 companies in mauritius as well as directors from 11 public and private tertiary education institutions with over one thousand students (company and institution names could not be cited due to their request for anonymity). this mode was convenient for the respondents and aligned with the resource constraints of the researchers. where required, follow up phone calls were made over a period of two months to boost questionnaire completion. the final response rate of 37 (37%) employers (details provided in table 2) and six (55%) institutional directors aligned with acceptable figures for managers mentioned in literature; for example, cycyota and harrison (2006) considered 32% adequate, while baruch and holtom (2008) viewed 35% to 40% as being sufficient. table 2: employer respondents industry number of companies retail trade accommodation & food services professional, scientific & technical services financial & insurance services transport, postal & warehousing manufacturing information media and telecommunications other 5 2 2 4 1 8 2 13 total 37 hardin-ramanan, s., gopee, s., rowtho, v., & charoux, o. (2020). graduate work-readiness in mauritius: a multi-stakeholder approach. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 11(1), 93-109. 99 for students, a hard copy of the questionnaire, the information sheet, and consent form were distributed in class to optimise the response rate and time. the student population comprised of undergraduates from three, purposively-selected large public and private higher education institutions in mauritius. these institutions were deemed appropriate for the study as they not only consented to conducting the student surveys, but they also have student populations exceeding 2000 along with a strong drive for student employability. given their request for anonymity, the institution names could not be mentioned. questionnaires were distributed to final year students, as many of them would soon join the labour market and would have experienced internships and other wil initiatives where applicable. since there was no publicly available data on the number of final year enrolments, it was assumed that the total number of third year students in 2018 could not exceed the number of new enrolments in 2015. from the tertiary education commission report (tec, 2018), this figure was 11,979 and the sample size calculated to be 265 (margin error: 5%; confidence level: 90%). the 254 responses received, following data cleaning, were thus deemed adequate for further analysis. analysis and results to obtain the study results, a conventional thematic content analysis method was used where codes were identified directly from the transcribed interview text and questionnaire answers. transcripts and compiled questionnaire responses were read multiple times, each time highlighting findings and annotating with codes. similar codes were then grouped under four emerging themes related to the aims of the study. these are summarised in table 3 and described with supporting quotes in the subsections which follow. table 3: codes and themes resulting from content analysis codes overarching theme stakeholder collaboration stakeholder linkages stakeholders working in isolation need to consolidate stakeholder links lack of awareness about stakeholder initiatives poor response for stakeholder initiatives difficulty in capturing stakeholder-related data strong academic focus of university programmes university curricula insufficient student preparation for workplace academics insufficiently exposed to the workplace industry insufficiently interacts with students mismatch between university curricula and industry requirements traditional teaching does not encourage gwr skills development graduates lack work experience work experience and adaptability internships insufficiently structured by university and industry internships insufficiently mentored by industry hardin-ramanan, s., gopee, s., rowtho, v., & charoux, o. (2020). graduate work-readiness in mauritius: a multi-stakeholder approach. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 11(1), 93-109. 100 on-the-job learning opportunities insufficiently seized by students long and hard graduate work adaption periods unreasonable graduate work expectations graduate attitude graduates lack agility need for positive work attitude stakeholder linkages one of the main findings, which resulted from stakeholder interviews, was their agreement on the need to improve collaboration in addressing the gwr problem. the following comment from a highlevel government official is an example of responses received: there is a strong sense of wanting to contribute to addressing the issue. collectively, all stakeholders understand that there is a challenge and that they have to work together to come up with better solutions. yet, irrespective of this general understanding, it seems that in practice, the various stakeholders often work in silos. we can do much better in terms of building linkages between, for example, universities and enterprises. there is a big problem of mismatch between what enterprises need and what universities in general are providing for gwr. other respondents emphasized the need to reinforce the linkage between providers of gwr initiatives and students. much was said about the poor response received from students to the rich panoply of gwr opportunities offered by the mauritian government. as indicated by the following comments from industry and students respectively, reasons voiced for this situation were two-fold: poor communication about what is on offer and lack of awareness about the need to be proactive among students: people seem to be either unaware or else un-receptive. there is a communication problem somewhere, so ways must be found to reach people with the right kind of information. industry and students should be more involved and look for the different programmes that are available instead of waiting for the information to come to them. students are not sufficiently aware of existing employability programmes. employability-related data capture, sharing and access for improved monitoring and control of gwr were also described as being issues. while some mauritian governmental regulatory bodies strive to collect data for a better understanding of the current and future requirements of industry, response rates remain low and organisational human resource support considered insufficient. employer employability surveys are the hardest because of the low response rate. on one hand, industry seeks readily employable people, but on the other, they do not provide sufficient input. enterprises do not always know what skills they require in the near future and the government is unable to make accurate forecasts. hardin-ramanan, s., gopee, s., rowtho, v., & charoux, o. (2020). graduate work-readiness in mauritius: a multi-stakeholder approach. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 11(1), 93-109. 101 as a result, career counselling, whether by the government or at educational institutions, is not as effective and is an impediment to graduates’ understanding of the skill requirements of the labour market. a human resource (hr) director offered the following recommendation: we need to review our career counselling in mauritius in terms of what should be done at primary, secondary, and tertiary level. we need to also train counsellors and teachers. university curricula the second gwr issue identified by the four stakeholders referred to the structure and delivery of the undergraduate curriculum. respondents were critical of the current curricula used, describing them as too academic, and insufficiently focused on the preparation of graduates for the workplace. this is reflected in the following comments from two government representatives. university curriculum is very theoretical and the delivery approach so academic that when students graduate, they do not often have the skills that employers want. the feedback from industry has never been that the graduate’s academic knowledge is poor, it is more to do with the graduates’ difficulty in adapting to the workplace. as mentioned by a university respondent cited below, there is a need for academics to be more exposed to the workplace, and for industry professionals to occasionally share their knowledge with students for them to experience more current and industry-specific learning. use of industry guest lecturers or even staff exchange is lacking; for example an academic can go and work in a firm for six months and someone from industry can lecture for some time or even work on a joint research project with students and lecturers. employers further supported the need for more industry-centric curricula for graduates to better align with the requirements of the workplace and for them to be productive as early as possible. it is felt that education programs focus too much on academia while limiting the student from becoming a ready professional for the world of work. thus, the employer, having, at times no choice than to select from what is available on the local market, needs to accompany the fresher for longer periods of time to grasp and get familiarised with work requirements. similarly, for students, the mismatch between what universities teach them and industry expectations remains a strong cause for concern as their hard work for good grades does not seem to always be useful to industry: theory learnt at university is very different from real life situations in the business world. we study to get good grades but are not taught to put this knowledge into practice. ineffective learning and teaching methods have also been identified as a major obstacle to gwr. many educational institutions are criticised for failing to implement a student-centred approach and putting little emphasis on innovative pedagogies to prepare students for the world of work. this opinion, voiced by a representative of one of the regulatory bodies, clearly shows the importance of using contemporary teaching strategies to develop gwr capabilities. in many institutions, there is only one way of teaching. students come to class and take notes while the lecturer talks. there is no case study, group work, or other delivery methods for the development of necessary skills such as communication. hardin-ramanan, s., gopee, s., rowtho, v., & charoux, o. (2020). graduate work-readiness in mauritius: a multi-stakeholder approach. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 11(1), 93-109. 102 work experience and adaptability graduates’ general lack of on-the-job experience was unanimously highlighted by all stakeholder respondents. while it is acknowledged that universities and companies are collaborating to provide students and young graduates with work placement opportunities, stakeholder representatives interviewed believe that universities, employers and students need to invest more effort in preparing for and structuring the internship/ industry project experience. as indicated by the following comment from a government official, universities do not always structure their internship programmes. student interns are sometimes left unsupervised and unsure of how to best derive value from the work experience. the aspect of work placement is very crucial, and it should be very structured, but some universities have the tendency of leaving student interns on their own. while employers also have a critical role to play in supporting interns, this is not always the case as companies often lack the resources required to work on an internship programme and mentor students closely. this is apparent from the two employer comments below: the competitive nature of business makes it difficult for industry to plan long-term and invest in its future labour force. on gwr programmes, there is a need for a dedicated company resource to coordinate all the activities and issues arising throughout the programme. this is not always feasible. there are times when managers are too busy to accompany the trainees thus leaving them to learn from subordinates or on their own. had managers set programs and targets for the graduates, the experience would have been more structured and helpful to the incumbents but with work pressure, this is not always possible. in addition, despite realising the importance of work experience for improved gwr, students do not always seize the on-the-job learning opportunities offered. as mentioned by two university representatives: students do not always understand that a job demands personal work to meet its needs and requirements before applying. very often, they claim that they will learn on the job and do not seem to understand that industry wants qualified people and is not necessarily ready to train. students often ignore opportunities to learn job skills claiming the following: ‘it does not count for my exam and anyway i’ll get my degree without the work experience’. as a result, graduates join the workplace with little understanding of organisational cultures, values, and expectations. this could explain why employers reported long and sometimes difficult graduate work adaptation periods as being a major issue: from an employer perspective, the pool of candidates is restricted. when these candidates are employed, they are often completely lost and have difficulties to adapt to the workplace. they are theoryoriented and experience difficulties in relating to the market realities. students also raised the issue of long work adaptation times due to their insufficient exposure to the workplace and their lack of preparation for a smooth transition into the new work environment. as mentioned by a student: we fear the unknown. students also expect their employers to understand this and induct them gradually to the organisational culture and job requirements. such concern is raised in the two student comments below: hardin-ramanan, s., gopee, s., rowtho, v., & charoux, o. (2020). graduate work-readiness in mauritius: a multi-stakeholder approach. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 11(1), 93-109. 103 employers believe that graduates are ‘finished products’ and are expected to know everything in detail. instead, they should invest in the training and development of new recruits. the competitive industry landscape makes employers impatient and there are no induction/introductory sessions. graduate attitude another recurrent theme emerging from this study is the graduates’ attitude. graduates were often viewed as insufficiently motivated to learn on the job and of having unreasonable expectations. the following comment from a government official encapsulates this recurrent complaint: graduates often have an attitude problem. they often display fixed, very narrow, and selfcentred mind-sets. as cited below, many employers surveyed also support this perception, as graduate attitude problems appear repeatedly in their responses. for many of them, graduates seem to want too much, too quickly and without putting in too much effort. unfortunately, a degree is often falsely associated with the guarantee of a highly paid job. graduates are often unwilling to work odd or long hours, are impatient to climb the corporate ladder and not always receptive to learning from seniors. graduates have high level of expectations (e.g. salary, work conditions and hours of work) which sometimes do not measure with their lack of experience. graduates often expect managerial positions before even learning the basics. there is a perception that a degree automatically results in high level jobs and high salary. responses from institution directors also highlighted the problem further by not only mentioning the sometimes-unreasonable graduate expectations, but also the fact that graduates are not always flexible enough to adapt to changing workplace requirements. expectations of graduates are too high in terms of salaries and working conditions as compared to what the market is prepared to offer them. graduates do not always seem to realise that the major changes taking place in the business world are so fast that they are the ones who need to adapt to these changes if they want to maintain their position in the work place. in contrast, many students emphasised the need for a positive work attitude as being an important employability skill. as stated by a student: we need to have a good attitude towards work and be eager to learn. no work is too ‘small’. nonetheless, when asked about the challenges associated with workplace productivity, some students expressed concerns about working hours, which did not reflect too well on their attitude: at university, we get a lot of ‘free’ time. it takes time to adapt to long hours required at work. we are not used to working constantly from 8:30 to 17:00 working too much can lead to extreme fatigue. hardin-ramanan, s., gopee, s., rowtho, v., & charoux, o. (2020). graduate work-readiness in mauritius: a multi-stakeholder approach. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 11(1), 93-109. 104 based on the four clusters of challenges, it was deduced that stakeholders can do more to collaboratively boost graduate capital on the island. university curricula do not always align with industry expectations, and there is a need to focus more on employability skills to develop graduate human capital. universities, industry, and government should work more closely together to provide students with ample opportunities to build their human capital and encourage them to envisage and work towards a career path (identity capital). findings indicated that the world of work often remains a mystery to students leading to longer adaptation times in the work environment. while, on one hand, graduates often step into unknown territory when they join the workplace, on the other hand, employers expect freshly employed graduates to be productive right from day one. this issue coupled with the graduate attitude problem experienced by several employers indicate the need for higher education students to develop a deeper understanding of accepted organisational behaviours through improved social and cultural capital, as well as stronger resilience and adaptability (psychological capital). industries, universities, and governments should therefore team up to identify and implement valuable actions for graduate capital-building. the next section proposes recommendations to better cement stakeholder links for improved gwr. recommendations to address the gwr challenges identified, this study proposes the implementation of a graduate work readiness integrated stakeholder framework (gwrisf) supported by a national work integrated learning committee. as shown in figure 2, the gwrisf has graduate capital building at its heart and consists of three main legs linking stakeholder pairs and suggesting actions for stronger partnership, improved university curricula and more valuable work experiences, as well as positive graduate attitudes. measures to reinforce each stakeholder relationship pair are discussed in more details following figure 2. figure 2: the gwr integrated stakeholder framework • employability criteria included in institution and course audits to ensure that: graduate attributes include employability criteria employability criteria are embedded in the curriculum employability criteria are clearly evaluated through detailed marking rubrics • intensive and sustained student and institution awareness campaigns • wil support • promotion of international student mobility programs • support for gwr research • wil programs • industry mentorship programs • increased hr engagement as: facilitators catalysts for wil • industry support to boost research in the area of employability governmental and parastatal bodies  wil programs  industry mentorship programs  increased hr engagement as: facilitators catalysts for wil  industry support to boost research in the area of employability human graduate capital cultural social psychological identity universities employers hardin-ramanan, s., gopee, s., rowtho, v., & charoux, o. (2020). graduate work-readiness in mauritius: a multi-stakeholder approach. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 11(1), 93-109. 105 relationship between universities and government/parastatal bodies the first action suggested to enforce government/parastatal bodies and university collaboration is the co-development of a set of graduate attributes to be embedded within the curriculum of each university course. these attributes need to be taught, developed and assessed throughout each programme (halibas et al., 2020). several universities on the island cater for a separate credit-based module to ‘teach’ employability skills deemed essential. while this is a good start, a standalone ‘work-readiness unit’ does not necessarily show the relevance of employability skills and graduate capital building to what is taught in discipline-specific units, and to the workplace. instead, chavan and carter (2018) recommend that employability skills be embedded in the curriculum right from first year to promote industry interface and engagement. clearer marking rubrics to evaluate and provide specific feedback on the development of employability skills are also required for students to understand gwr and its importance in the workplace (cavanagh, burston, southcombe, & bartram, 2015). if reinforced through mandatory tertiary education accreditation and audit bodies, such measures could assist mauritian universities in better entrenching graduate capital building in their core values. despite government efforts to advertise their graduate employability skills development programmes on various media, awareness of these schemes still appears to be an issue. universities and government/parastatal bodies are therefore recommended to work more closely for intensive and sustained promotion of the various programmes available. universities and the government could also collaborate in the active promotion of wil to provide students with a more industrycentric tertiary education experience. in addition to the traditional student internship, wil endeavours encompass authentic industry projects, service-learning activities, industry events, guest lectures, and even research tasks (ferns & lilly, 2016; xia, caulfield, & ferns, 2015) for students to build their graduate capital. such early immersion in the world of work also creates opportunities for students to improve their understanding of organisational expectations and foster a more positive attitude. the government could further support such activities through enhanced wil awareness, capacity building, and even the design of set templates for wil activity recording and evaluation. to further boost wil buy-in, the government could provide performance-related incentives for academics, and financial assistance to enhance student wil experiences. it could also work with universities to support student mobility experiences (tran, 2016) such as student exchange programmes, and international wil projects which could even be organised virtually. such opportunities would be invaluable for students wanting to be more work-ready, particularly as work becomes increasingly characterised by global job mobility (jackson, 2016). for accurate evaluation of these gwr initiatives, the government could team up with universities to encourage research about the impact of gwr projects on graduate capital building, workplace productivity, and even graduate attitudes. relationship between employers and government/parastatal bodies employer participation is vital to the success of gwr government programmes. while the mauritian government offers some incentives to employers such as trainees’ stipends and training fees, further encouragement could motivate employers to increase their engagement. this could include company tax rebates on gwr programmes or other wil initiatives such as internships and students’ industry projects. such incentives could encourage employers to provide dedicated resources to support graduate training. government could also guide employers on how to better contribute to the development of employable graduates. support from government could range from clear guidelines on wil project scope definitions and selection of industry mentors to student evaluation templates and sharing of best practice. hardin-ramanan, s., gopee, s., rowtho, v., & charoux, o. (2020). graduate work-readiness in mauritius: a multi-stakeholder approach. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 11(1), 93-109. 106 human resource (hr) professionals have a critical role in cementing a mutually beneficial relationship with government for the development of graduate capital. verma et al. (2018) proposed an ‘inside out’ paradigm for hr specialists to facilitate collaborative stakeholder strategies. as ‘policy influencers’, hr professionals could assist government in graduate employability policy-making and the implementation of quality assurance measures for gwr programmes. as facilitators, they could act as liaison between the government and industry to provide valuable information on the state of gwr from an employer perspective, as well as represent industry on government educational panels, and employability skills development programmes. verma et al. (2018) further contended that hr professionals could act as catalysts to assist the government in promoting employability programmes and wil activities. relationship between employers and universities smith et al. (2017) highlighted the importance of wil as an ideal opportunity for students to understand professional roles, experience organisational culture, and build their social capital through networking and mentoring programmes. universities could also collaborate with industry for valuable career advice and mock interviews as part of their wil initiatives. to prevent engaged students from exclusively capitalising on wil opportunities, universities are encouraged to include mandatory wil programmes in their curricula (donald et al., 2017). such experiences should be followed by reflective sessions (such as presentations to faculty and employer representatives) for students to be mindful of their strengths and areas of improvement (xia et al., 2015), and reflect on their attitude. more employers could support mentoring programmes by acting as role models to students and giving them insights into work requirements and career progressions. in addition to human, cultural, social and identity capital building, industry mentors could share their experiences to help students understand the importance of self-efficacy, adaptability, and resilience in growing their psychological capital for successful career pathways. extending verma et al.’s (2018) ‘inside out’ hr professionals’ paradigm to the employer-university relationship, company hr representatives can act as ‘catalysts’ and ‘facilitators’ to strengthen their links with higher education institutions. for example, they could catalyse wil opportunities by engaging with university representatives to define industry projects, creating meaningful internship opportunities and channel guest lecture requests to the appropriate industry expert. they could also play a facilitating role through clear articulation of industry gwr expectations that universities should focus on, and encouragement of industry input in curriculum design, course delivery, as well as gwr research. national work integrated learning committee to support wil activities proposed in the gwrsif, the establishment of a national work integrated learning committee (nwilc) is suggested. the committee could be set up under the aegis of the ministry of education, tertiary education, science and technology and include representatives from industry, tertiary education institutions, and other ministries. its primary mandate would be to develop and continuously review a national wil strategy, which would serve as encouragement, guide, and support to all wil stakeholders. the committee would also be responsible for wil success measurement in line with graduate capital building. instead of evaluating graduate employability on the ability to secure a job within six months from graduation, gwr measures could be extended to include the time taken for new graduates to secure a job, the job type, and the period over which graduates stay in their first job (clarke, 2017). hardin-ramanan, s., gopee, s., rowtho, v., & charoux, o. (2020). graduate work-readiness in mauritius: a multi-stakeholder approach. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 11(1), 93-109. 107 conclusion, limitations, and future work despite individual and collaborative projects by government representatives, employers, and universities, the challenge of producing employable graduates in mauritius persists. university curricula remain too academic, and students appear to have insufficient industry experience upon which to build their graduate capital. internships are not always valuable or properly mentored and employers do not always have the time or resources to train fresh graduates. the latter are often accused of having an attitude problem, which is a barrier to their work-readiness. more than ever, universities, employers and government are required to collaborate to help students grow their graduate capital. through its gwrisf and national wil committee, this research proposes recommendations to bring together key gwr stakeholders of mauritius and suggest actions to reinforce their collaboration in forging industry-focused university curricula, valuable employer and government support, as well as the right graduate attitude. shaping graduate capital needs to start early in the life of the undergraduate student with government, universities, and employers providing ample opportunities for graduates to build industry-centric skills, networks, and expected behaviours for strong career foundations. unless mauritian gwr stakeholders work together for a common understanding of their needs and collaborative actions to meet them, the wedge between graduate capabilities and employer expectations cannot be filled. while it is understood that all sids have their own specificities, the mauritian context could be comparable to some other small island states with common stakeholder issues and implications. recommendations provided could thus also be useful to these islands. the main limitation of this study lies in the stakeholder groups explored. only the top 100 companies and final year undergraduate students were surveyed. the tertiary education perspective came from few mauritian universities and excluded the vocational education sector. future research could include a wider range of companies, the vocational sector, as well as university alumni for a deeper insight into their degree of preparation for the world of work. further exploration could also consider other stakeholder dimensions such as the role of the undergraduate’s family, both in the development of professional networks (smith et al., 2017), and in the encouragement of graduate capital building. a quantitative slant would also be useful for objective verification of findings. acknowledgement this research was supported by the mauritius research council under grant award number mrc/rss-1713. references baruch, y., & holtom, b. c. 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(2019). implication of public speaking anxiety on the employability of omani graduates. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 10(2), 122–135. 122 the journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability issn: 1838-3815 (online) journal homepage: https://ojs.deakin.edu.au/index.php/jtlge/ implication of public speaking anxiety on the employability of omani graduates omer ibrahim1 and sonal devesh1 corresponding author: omer ibrahim (omeribrahim@cbfs.edu.om) 1college of banking and financial studies, oman abstract the paper examines the implication of public speaking anxiety on the employability of omani graduates. the study adopted a sequential, mixed research strategy, starting with in-depth interviews of teachers and managers in industry, followed by a structured questionnaire involving 200 students selected randomly from two colleges in muscat. the statistical approach included exploratory factor analysis (efa), and parametric tests. the study found that public speaking anxiety is widespread among students in higher education institutions in oman, with a prevalence rate amounting to 55%, much higher compared to the rates reported globally. the main factors involving public speaking anxiety in these education institutes in oman were attributed to a lack of self-confidence, foreign language anxiety, being unprepared in, or fear of, talking in a foreign language, lack of experience, or forgetfulness/loss of memory. the implication of public speaking anxiety on employability of graduates in oman is identified and some suggestions made based on the findings. keywords public speaking anxiety, employability skills, exploratory factor analysis, oman introduction employability skills have dramatically changed over the last two decades from original, or basic life skills and some knowledge to increasingly work-oriented concepts (sung et al., 2013). globalization and competition have greatly altered the way industry regards employment and the skills required for a job. employability skills are perceived as a set of achievements – skills, understandings and personal attributes – that make graduates more likely to gain employment and be successful in their chosen occupations, which benefits them, the community and the economy (yorke, 2006). these skills, which may be taught through education and workforce development systems, fall into three broad categories: applied knowledge, effective relationships and workplace skills. employability skills such as public speaking and effective communication have recently been considered pivotal for graduate recruitment (campbell & larson, 2013; dunbar, brooks, & kubickamiller, 2006; paadi, 2014; polziehn, 2011; selvadurai, choy, & maros, 2012). according to klaus, (2010), about 75% of long-term job success is attributed to people skills, and only 25% to technical knowledge. moreover, soft skills including public speaking and business communication were rated the most important for entry-level success in employment (wilhelm, 2004). these skills are required by students when they face interviews, presentations and public speaking occasions. they are also required in workplaces where employees are expected to communicate with the company’s external https://ojs.deakin.edu.au/index.php/jtlge/ mailto:omeribrahim@cbfs.edu.om http://cte.ed.gov/employabilityskills/index.php/framework/applied_knowledge http://cte.ed.gov/employabilityskills/index.php/framework/effective_relationships http://cte.ed.gov/employabilityskills/index.php/framework/workplace_skills ibrahim, o., & devesh, s. (2019). implication of public speaking anxiety on the employability of omani graduates. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 10(2), 122–135. 123 partners and customers and internal employees, using video conferencing and panel discussions. benefits of effective public speaking in the workplace include marketing the business and promoting products to a larger audience, producing a faster sales cycle, improving internal communication and increasing employee productivity, as well as establishing greater credibility and maintaining client loyalty (nikitina, 2011). despite the importance of public speaking skills for graduate employability, studies have shown that many people, including students, experience great anxiety when contemplating public speaking (çagatay, 2015; dwyer & davidson, 2012; goberman, hughes, & haydock, 2011; tse, 2012). for instance, burnley, cross and spanos (1993) reported that approximately 85% of the general population showed some form of anxiety when delivering a speech. eharman (1996) indicated that fear of public speaking is widespread among students, which may have a negative impact on their engagement with oral communication assessments and undermine their future career and employability. mccroskey (1982) defined public speaking anxiety as a feeling of uneasiness or a state of fear, anticipating a threatening event, while brown (1994) referred to it as a quality that causes people to be in a state of discomfort. the american psychiatric association (2013) considered it to be a fear of negative evaluation, which in the context of education is a measurable result that forms a part of the assessment process. public speaking anxiety can negatively impact student employability and employee performance (çagatay, 2015; motley, 1997; tse, 2012). in oman, the employment of graduates has become a challenge with the recent decline of oil prices and increasing numbers of graduates (ncsi, 2018). the global competitive report has also confirmed that there is a lack of an educated workforce with employability skills, which constitutes the second most problematic factor impeding the ease of doing business in oman (world economic forum, 2017). graduates need to enhance their employability skills to compete effectively in the tight labour market. earlier research has shown that many omani graduates leave their schools and/or colleges with limited communication skills, which impacts on their employability and future academic careers (almahrooqi & denman, 2016; alamri, 2011; carroll, razvi, & goodliffe, 2009). several reasons have been cited, including the limited qualifications of teachers, outdated teaching methods, lack of teacher motivation, and lack of a communicative-focused curriculum (al-mahrooqi, 2017). what is unknown is the level of anxiety among omani students when delivering public speeches and how that impacts their employability. also, the dynamic of causes needs to be explored to discover whether the limited communication skills relate only to english. despite the prevalence and potential severity of the symptoms of public speaking anxiety among graduates in oman, little research has been undertaken in this context. the paper attempts to answer the following questions:  what is the prevalent rate of public speaking anxiety in higher education in oman?  what are the main drivers of anxiety, and how do they impact graduates’ employability? although in the workplace, interpersonal skills and communication are equally important, public speaking is just one element of oral communication skill development required by students to make them more employable. this paper focuses on public speaking anxiety and its influence on graduates’ employability. the findings are beneficial to the higher education policy makers in oman as they offer insights into the major causes of anxiety experienced by students when speaking in public, and the strategies required to overcome such anxiety, thereby enhancing the employability skills of the graduates for better and effective engagement in the workplace. ibrahim, o., & devesh, s. (2019). implication of public speaking anxiety on the employability of omani graduates. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 10(2), 122–135. 124 literature review most people experience some level of anxiety when contemplating speaking in public, whether as students or employees. the rate of public speaking anxiety has been cited in the range of 20 to 30%, or higher depending on the form of measurement used. a survey conducted by chapman university in 2014 found that a fear of public speaking was the biggest phobia among respondents and 25.3% indicated a fear of speaking in front of a crowd. of those who did present, nearly 70% agreed it was critical to their success at work (ledbetter, 2014). also, according to the national survey in the us, 21% of the respondents reported that they experienced a lifetime social fear of public speaking, which they considered to be on the extreme side, causing them considerable stress or avoidance (ruscio et al., 2008). one study reported a prevalence rate of approximately 25% in a sample of a youth community who had a significant degree of fear of speaking in front of others (knappe et al., 2011). thirty four percent of a sample from canada reported that they would be more nervous than others when speaking to a larger audience (stein, walker, & forde, 1996). however, in general, studies suggest that public speaking anxiety may affect up to 75% of people (mcconnell, 2009; motley, 1997; tse, 2012). in the higher education context, beidel, turner, stanley and dancu (1989) reported that, in a sample of undergraduates, 19% of the students were prone to a diagnosis of social phobia, whereas in a study conducted by strahan (2003) on undergraduate males in an introductory psychology course, the findings indicated that 33% of the group suffered from social phobia symptoms. studies conducted in uk universities by russell and shaw (2009) and in sweden by tillfors and furmark, (2007) have documented clinically significant levels of social anxiety in 10 and 16% of students respectively. this paper argues that public speaking anxiety is widespread among students in higher education institutes in oman. causes can be learner induced or foreign language related. this relates to the fact that in most public secondary schools, the medium of instruction is arabic, and when students move to colleges, they have to learn through english instruction. language anxiety is highly documented in the literature. the following literature supports this argument. çagatay (2015), studying turkish students at the english preparatory program of the turkish state university, showed that most of the students perceive speaking skills to be a major cause of anxiety. cheng (2009) investigated the relationship between fear of public speaking and english-speaking proficiency among 300 students, selected from the department of english at the ming chuan university. his results revealed that a lack of oratory skills, english proficiency, and weak knowledge of the topic being discussed, were among the most important factors triggering the fear of public speaking among the students surveyed. occhipinti (2009) found that the majority of non-english speaking employees fear speaking in public, where lack of confidence, insecurity, and anxiety were among the main reasons contributing to their fear. the study added that a lack of experience in public speaking could extend to the college students because for most of them, their mother tongue was arabic and they were required to convert to english, a foreign language. al-mahrooqi (2012) related the fear of speaking among omani students to the fact that students themselves failed to see improvement in their english language proficiency; the lack of proficiency was the reason for anxiety when speaking. moreover, despite the call for basic educational pedagogy in oman to be learner-centred within a communicative-focused approach to teaching, more traditional teachercentred approaches still tend to dominate, contributing to the increase in students’ fear of public speaking (al-mahrooqi, 2017). a student-centred approach is more likely to incorporate peer learning strategies and hence reduce anxiety. other strands of literature regard the causes of anxiety as learner induced or class related. according to zhang and zhong (2012), learner induced causes include: learners’ unrealistic, erroneous or preconceived beliefs about language learning; setting of high, unrealistic standards; poor language skills; self-perception of poor ability and having a competitive nature, and fear of negative https://blogs.chapman.edu/press-room/2014/10/20/what-americans-fear-most-new-poll-from-chapman-university/ https://blogs.chapman.edu/press-room/2014/10/20/what-americans-fear-most-new-poll-from-chapman-university/ https://blogs.chapman.edu/press-room/author/sledbett/ https://www.researchgate.net/profile/rahma_al-mahrooqi2 ibrahim, o., & devesh, s. (2019). implication of public speaking anxiety on the employability of omani graduates. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 10(2), 122–135. 125 evaluation. classroom induced anxiety causes include: level of perceived student support; manner of error correction; impact of complex speaking tasks, and instructors ignoring or exhibiting a lack of empathy for students’ speaking anxiety. for pertaub, slater and barker (2006) social anxiety was shown to be induced by the audience and the type of audience feedback the speaker received. a hostile or negative audience was found to generate more anxiety in speakers. similarly, wilson, (2006) reported that classroom activities and the learning/ teaching environment seem to have a direct bearing on students’ anxiety and on their performance in speaking. to address this anxiety, çagatay (2015) recommended that students be provided with opportunities to speak in real-life situations, and that teachers create learning environments where the students can progress towards a stronger understanding and delivery of oral competence in front of their peers. a similar study conducted by coleman (2005) considered that students be given the opportunity to feel more relaxed and confident while speaking english. ward, baruah and jackson (2016) showed that use of a modified public speaking competence rubric (pscr), developed by schreiber, paul and shibley (2012) in assessment of a sequence of presentations, can rule out any predictable effect of assessor fatigue or gender bias. many studies have investigated the role of technology in addressing public speaking anxiety. dupagne, stacks and giroux (2007) stated that students who observe their communication competency through self-directed technology can enhance their communication skills. by following a video recording of themselves, for example, students can monitor their performance or ask friends or peers for feedback. this can help reduce apprehension and improve their public speaking skills. yalçın and i̇nceçay (2013) reported that practicing speaking spontaneously supports students in the process of overcoming their fear. using games as spontaneous speaking activities can also play a significant role in decreasing speaking anxiety. al-mahrooqi (2012) demonstrated that adopting elearning techniques and joining english speaking clubs also can be effective ways to improve english proficiency. only campbell and larson (2013) reported that there were no significant differences in the amount of anxiety, between delivering a traditional face-to-face speech and one using webconferencing technology. they suggested that public speaking skills are essential for presenting a clear understanding of the topic to the audience. public speaking anxiety has many implications for those experiencing it, whether as a student or in the workplace. some studies show evidence that high rates of social anxiety result in more passive coping skills among students; reporting poor grades for tutorial participation, avoidance of units where oral presentations are required, or withdrawal from a degree and career pathway where public speaking is mandatory (strahan, 2003). other studies showed that individuals suffering from social phobia reported low work attendance, poor grades at school, lower education levels and lower overall pay (schneier, et.al, 1992). in some severe cases, this form of anxiety can lead to a more extreme situation with complete social withdrawal (goberman et al., 2011). given the above background, the purpose of this paper is to estimate the level of public speaking anxiety common among students in higher education in oman and identify its main causes and how these impact graduates’ employability. the research adopted a sequential mixed approach strategy to explore the extent of public speaking anxiety among students in higher education institutes in oman, and its potential implication for employability. methods the methodology of the study adopted was in-depth interviews followed by a questionnaire survey. the qualitative design was in the form of interviews with employers in the industry and teachers in public and private colleges in muscat, to provide insight into the causes and implications of social anxiety on graduate employability. the quantitative design, on the other hand, adopted a structured questionnaire to measure the prevalence of public speaking anxiety among the student population of the colleges. ibrahim, o., & devesh, s. (2019). implication of public speaking anxiety on the employability of omani graduates. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 10(2), 122–135. 126 chronologically, the procedures for designing the survey questionnaire were conducted as follows: 1. a thorough literature review on public speaking anxiety and employability was conducted by the two authors. following this, the authors developed an adapted survey questionnaire to suit the case study. 2. the questionnaire was then validated by two experts in the field, for construct and content validity. 3. the questionnaire was piloted with a sample of twenty respondents and demonstrated a high reliability of 0.804 based on cronbach’s alpha. 4. as a result of the pilot test, three items were deleted to increase reliability, and the remaining twenty-nine items were considered for the final version of the questionnaire. 5. four students were trained and assigned to collect the required data under the supervision of the second author of this study. the sampling frame of the study was based on a stratified random sampling scheme to provide a better representation of the student population. the sample size for the survey was 200 students, selected from two colleges in muscat. this sample size has been calculated with a precision of 5%, margin of error of 6% and prevalence rate of graduate employability of 48% (moh, 2016). the target sample was originally 266 students; however, only 200 completed the questionnaire, providing a response rate of 75.2%. this sample size would ensure that the survey results would provide good inference about the population, with 95% confidence. the recruitment of participants was based on a systematic selection from the list of students provided by the registration department of the respective colleges. the sampling interval was calculated by dividing the student population by the desired sample size in each college. the inclusive-exclusive criterion was based on nationality of students, involving omani students only. the study was conducted according to the principles stated in the declaration of the institute of the authors. the informed consent was collected from the students participating in the study. they were made aware in the consent form, that the results of the study would be published but that no data would be presented, to maintain anonymity of individuals. the project received ethical clearance from the authors’ department of postgraduate studies and research (ref 1-2019). in addition to the questionnaire, the study employed semi-structured interviews with nine human resources managers (working in government ministries and private sector) and three teachers from the two colleges. the interviews were conducted during the period feb-march 2019. the interview time was about 25 minutes, on average. for the statistical analysis, a parametric methods approach was used to estimate the prevalence of anxiety of public speaking and assess its implication on student employability. the relevant model in this respect is the one-sample ttest, where the mean prevalence of anxiety was compared to a benchmark of 2.5. this benchmark is the middle value in the likert-type scale that was used to assess the existence of the anxiety based on the following research questions: 1. what is the prevalence of public speaking anxiety among omani students? 2. what are the main drivers of anxiety, and how do they impact graduates’ employability? in addition, the researchers were interested in whether gender accounted for any difference in public speaking anxiety and the analysis of variance framework (anova) was also used to determine whether there was a difference in public speaking anxiety related to level of study. to investigate the pattern of public speaking anxiety among graduates in oman, exploratory factor analysis (efa) was used. the model was based on a principal-components analysis as the extraction technique, and varimax as the orthogonal rotation method. the eigenvalue of greater than 1, and ibrahim, o., & devesh, s. (2019). implication of public speaking anxiety on the employability of omani graduates. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 10(2), 122–135. 127 the cross loadings of at least 0.5 criteria were used, as suggested by hair et al.(2010). the computer software of spss version 24 was used in the analysis of the data. results a descriptive analysis was conducted to describe the characteristics of the students selected in the sample, in terms of gender and level of study at the colleges. table 1: demographic profile of the sample data (n=200) demographic variables categories n % gender male 62 31 female 138 69 length of time at college one year 100 50 two years 60 30 three years 40 20 source: authors’ calculation as table 1 indicates, most of the respondents (69%) were female and 50% were first year students. year level was introduced as a proxy to assess the effectiveness of the communicative-focused curriculum adopted by these colleges to reduce the anxiety of speaking in public. exploratory factor analysis an exploratory factor analysis was conducted to identify the factors influencing the anxiety of public speaking in higher education institutes in oman. keiser-meyer-olkin measure (kmo) measure of sampling adequacy and bartlett’s test of sphericity were found to be 0.930 and 0.000 respectively, as shown in table 2. these results indicate a high sampling adequacy and justify proceeding with factor analysis. table 2: kmo and bartlett’s tests kaiser-meyer-olkin measure of sampling adequacy 0.930 bartlett’s test of sphericity approx. chi -square 3810.1 degree of freedom 325 significance 0.000 source: authors’ calculation factor analysis, as shown in table 3, led to seven factors, which account for 72.38 % of the cumulative variance, which is acceptable in a multivariate analysis technique such as factor analysis. table 3: factor analysis for public speaking anxiety initial eigen values extraction sum of squared loadings items total % of variance cumulative % total % of variance cumulative % 1 11.5 39.8 39.8 11.5 39.8 39.8 2 2.4 8.4 48.2 2.4 8.4 48.2 3 1.7 6.0 54.2 1.7 6.0 54.2 4 1.7 5.8 60.0 1.7 5.8 60.0 5 1.3 4.6 64.6 1.3 4.6 64.6 ibrahim, o., & devesh, s. (2019). implication of public speaking anxiety on the employability of omani graduates. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 10(2), 122–135. 128 source: authors’ calculation the interpretations of the seven factors are shown in table 4. the first factor, referred to as ‘symptoms of anxiety’, consists of items 14, 24, 27, 32, 36 and 38. this factor explains 39.79% of the total variance. the second factor, referred to as ‘self-confidence’, contains items 9, 11 and 13, and accounts for 8.3% of total variance. the third factor, ‘foreign language anxiety’, consists of items 16, 17, 25, 29 and 31, and accounts for 6%. the fourth factor, ‘preparedness for presentation’, consists of items 28 and 30, accounting for 5.78% of total variance. the fifth factor, ‘fear of foreign language speech’, consists of items 8, 10 and 23, accounting for 4.6% of total variance. the sixth factor, referred to as ‘experience’ consists of item 37, accounting for 4.51% of total variance. the seventh factor, ‘memory loss /forgetfulness’ consists of items 18 and 34, accounting for 3.67% of the total variance. table 4: speaking anxiety factors item no. initial communalities extraction cronbach’s alpha overall alpha 0.804 symptoms of anxiety q14 when the instructor announces an english speaking assignment, i can feel myself getting tense. 1.000 .673 q24 my heart beats very fast just as i start to speak. 1.000 .599 q27 realizing that only a little time remains in a presentation makes me very tense and anxious. 1.000 .571 q32 i feel anxious when the teacher announces the date of an english speaking assignment. 1.000 .668 6 1.2 4.2 68.7 1.2 4.2 68.7 7 1.1 3.7 72.4 1.1 3.7 72.4 8 0.8 2.8 75.1 9 0.8 2.6 77.8 10 0.7 2.4 80.1 11 0.7 2.3 82.4 12 0.6 2.1 84.5 13 0.5 1.8 86.3 14 0.5 1.6 87.9 15 0.5 1.6 89.5 16 0.4 1.4 90.9 17 0.4 1.2 92.1 18 0.3 1.1 93.3 19 0.3 1.0 94.3 20 0.3 0.9 95.2 21 0.2 0.9 96.1 22 0.2 0.7 96.8 23 0.2 0.7 97.5 24 0.2 0.6 98.1 25 0.2 0.6 98.7 26 0.1 0.4 99.1 27 0.1 0.3 99.4 28 0.1 0.3 99.7 29 0.1 0.3 100.0 ibrahim, o., & devesh, s. (2019). implication of public speaking anxiety on the employability of omani graduates. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 10(2), 122–135. 129 q36 my heart beats very fast while i am giving a presentation in english 1.000 .667 q38 while giving a presentation in english i get so nervous i forget facts i really know 1.000 .756 self confidence q9 right after giving a speech in english i feel that i have had a pleasant experience 1.000 .582 q11 i am not afraid of giving a speech in english. 1.000 .686 q13 i look forward to giving a speech in english. 1.000 .576 foreign language anxiety q16 i feel relaxed while giving a speech in english 1.000 .630 q17 i enjoy preparing for a speech in english. 1.000 .588 q25 i experience considerable anxiety just before my presentation starts. 1.000 .625 q27 realizing that only a little time remains in an english presentation makes me very tense and anxious. 1.000 .571 q29 i breathe faster just before starting a presentation in english 1.000 .591 q31 i perform less well in oral presentations because i am anxious. 1.000 .641 readiness/preparedness for language speech q28 while giving an english speech, i know i can control my feelings of tension and stress. 1.000 .711 q30 i feel comfortable and relaxed in the hour or so just before giving an english speech 1.000 .598 fear of foreign language speech q8 my thoughts become confused and jumbled when i am giving a speech in english. 1.000 .733 q10 i get anxious when i think about a presentation in english coming up. 1.000 .731 q23 i perspire just before starting a speech in english. 1.000 .545 experience q37 i feel anxious while waiting to give my speech in english 1.000 .552 loss of memory/forgetfulness q18 i am in constant fear of forgetting what i prepared to say when speaking in english. 1.000 .593 q34 during an important speech in english, i experience a feeling of helplessness building up inside me 1.000 .626 source: authors’ calculation to test the level of anxiety of public speaking among students in higher education institutes in oman, a one-sample test was used, and the result is given in table 5. table 5: the average level of anxiety among students in the sample mean test value tvalue p-value df 95% confidence interval of the mean difference ibrahim, o., & devesh, s. (2019). implication of public speaking anxiety on the employability of omani graduates. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 10(2), 122–135. 130 lower upper 3.054 2.50 14.637 0.000 199 0.4802 0.6298 source: authors’ calculation as can be seen from table 5, the average level of anxiety about public speaking experienced by the students amounted to 3.05, which is significantly higher than the cut-off of 2.5 (p-value of the test 0.000 < 0.05). in fact, 55 % in the sample indicated this high level of anxiety when speaking in public. table 6: the average anxiety of public speaking by gender gender average standard deviation t-value p-value male 3.03 0.54 -1.563 0.128 female 3.21 0.52 source: authors’ calculation table 6 shows the average level of anxiety about public speaking as experienced by male and female students in the sample. results revealed that there is no significant difference in average anxiety between male and female students (p-value > 0.05). table 7: the average anxiety of public speaking by level of study level of study n average standard deviation f-value p-value first year 100 3.41 .37 75.95 .000 second year 60 2.69 .41 third year 40 2.72 .48 total 200 3.05 .54 source: authors’ calculation the results of the anova in table 7 indicated a significant difference in average public speaking anxiety across the levels of study. the average level of anxiety declines as students’ language proficiency increases. this might be attributed to the fact that as students progress, they will be exposed to many oral-focused courses, resulting in a decrease of anxiety about public speaking. discussion and implication when addressing the first research question about the prevalent rate of public speaking anxiety in higher education in oman, the study found that this amounts to 55%. this rate is relatively higher than the average rate of 20% reported globally in some higher education contexts (beidel et al., 1989; russel & shaw, 2009 ; tillfors & furmark, 2007). it is also higher than the rates shown in the general public, identified by knappe et al. (2011). the study indicated no significant difference in anxiety rates between male and female students, which is consistent with many studies, including those by aida (1994), campbell (1999), mathew et al. (2013), and matsuda & gobel (2004). however, this is inconsistent with studies by fariadian, azizifar and gowhary (2014), eleldi (2016) and gargalianou (2015), who reported that male students have a higher level of foreign language anxiety than female students and other studies which revealed that females feel more anxious than males (torres, 2006 ; pappamihiel, 2001; piechurska-kuciel, 2012). it may be that in oman, cultural factors may be responsible for males and females being exposed to some level of anxiety. khan and al-mahrooqi (2015) demonstrated that omani higher education students are well known for being polite, considerate and respectful to their teachers, and hence they care about sustaining this image in front of their teachers. for the second research question, relating to the factors influencing anxiety in higher education in oman, results indicated that several elements, such as self-confidence are contributing factors ibrahim, o., & devesh, s. (2019). implication of public speaking anxiety on the employability of omani graduates. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 10(2), 122–135. 131 confirming the findings of crookall and oxford (1991), alharbi (2015), al-mahrooqi (2012), çagatay (2015), cheng (2009), and coleman, (2005). foreign language anxiety and fear of speaking in public in a foreign language, are other identified factors. many omani students lack confidence when speaking in english, which may affect them negatively as confirmed by al-mahrooqi and denman (2016), alamri (2011), tanveer (2007), and young (1990). the lack of readiness/preparedness creates anxiety, as demonstrated by al-mahrooqi (2017). temporary memory loss or forgetfulness has been found to influence anxiety of students when about to speak in public. this factor is consistent with horwitz and cope (1986) who reported that some students faced a ‘mental block’ during speaking in front of others. the study also found that the average level of anxiety declines as students progress in their language skills. the same result was confirmed by dalkilic (2001) and liu (2006) who demonstrated that public speaking anxiety declines with students’ progress towards higher levels of proficiency. the implications of public speaking anxiety on student employability in oman emerged during interviews with teachers and managers in industry and included the inability of students to demonstrate their skills well and a lack of self-confidence, resulting in low overall performance. these results are consistent with the findings of schneier et al. (1992). interviews with managers emphasized the importance of interpersonal skills (such as leadership and teamwork), including public speaking, which is necessary for the training they conduct, video conferencing and panel discussions when communicating with staff and customers. managers working in the public sector, in particular, added that graduates experience anxiety even when using arabic, their mother tongue. this is an unexpected finding worth exploring in the future. moreover, the teachers interviewed suggested that anxiety about public speaking sometimes influences students’ choice of specialization after they graduate. they may choose a profession that requires less public speaking, even though it is not their choice of specialization. this confirms the opinion of strahan (2003). when dealing with the problem of public speaking anxiety, students demonstrated different coping strategies that need to be considered when establishing initiatives to mitigate the effects of their anxiety. these include coaching, laughing, taking a walk to relax, seeking direction and training to improve public speaking skills, paying attention to the physical signs of stress during speaking, and writing their experiences in a learning logbook so that they can reflect on how they felt and consider how to improve. the teachers emphasised that public speaking should be a highly rated component of the curriculum as it is one of the most useful soft skills required for employability. they recommended increasing the number of public speaking courses in the curriculum, inviting guest lecturers who specialize in public speaking to motivate and encourage group discussions, peer conversations, and paying attention to group dynamics among students. they also highlighted the importance of encouraging students to note their experiences of public speaking anxiety in a learning logbook, work on areas of weakness and strength, and monitor their progress. the use of visualization techniques has also proved to be effective in enhancing public speaking performance, as well as reducing anxiety (ayres & hopf, 2009). to promote student employability, managers recommended providing more training to develop students’ confidence in their ability to stand up in public and talk to a group of people. training that simply provides information about ‘how to present’ may be insufficient, whereas models that borrow from psychological interventions which address social anxiety and fear of negative evaluation would be useful (england et al., 2012). they also called for the development of other interpersonal skills (such as leadership and teamwork) as public speaking is just one element of the broader set of oral communication skills required by students to make them more employable. moreover, interviews with teachers and managers revealed that public speaking anxiety in oman should be addressed at earlier stages of education, at primary or secondary levels, so that by the time students reach college they are confident to speak in public, both in arabic and english and can use these skills later to become effective in their workplace. http://www.tandfonline.com/author/ayres%2c+joe ibrahim, o., & devesh, s. (2019). implication of public speaking anxiety on the employability of omani graduates. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 10(2), 122–135. 132 limitations and future research one limitation of this study is its small size and focus on colleges in the capital (muscat) only. despite this, there are some interesting findings worthy of further investigation in an expanded study to include all higher education institutions in oman. it would also be worthwhile exploring why students feel anxious when speaking in public in their own language. other soft skills, such as interpersonal skills, are important and need to be explored in future research regarding student’s employability in oman. conclusion public speaking anxiety is widespread among students in higher education institutions in oman. its prevalence rate was 55%, much higher than reported internationally. public speaking anxiety has major implications for student performance, career choice and employability, and higher education institutions in oman must address this concern as a priority. they should enhance interpersonal skills, including public speaking, among students through professional development of teachers, incorporating an updated communicative-focused curriculum. this can be achieved by conducting training sessions for higher secondary and tertiary educators, promoting oratory skills in the curriculum, and developing appropriate assessment techniques. this will further provide students with effective strategies that reduce their anxiety and promote their communication skills. when designing the curriculum educators should consider feedback obtained from employers, as this can further improve the standard of education, resulting in fulfilment of the needs of students and society. promoting public speaking skills at the earlier stages of education in oman is essential, to reduce the need to address this at tertiary levels. in the workplace, managers must identify related problems early and provide their employees with the required training, as well as communicate with the education institutions regarding the skills required in the labour market. references aida, y. 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(2021). the value of embedding work-integrated learning and other transitionary supports into the first year curriculum: perspectives of first year subject coordinators journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(2), 51–64. 51 the journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability issn: 1838-3815 (online) journal homepage: https://ojs.deakin.edu.au/index.php/jtlge/ the value of embedding work-integrated learning and other transitionary supports into the first year curriculum: perspectives of first year subject coordinators hannah milliken1, bonnie amelia dean1 and michelle j. eady1 corresponding author: bonnie amelia dean (bonnie_dean@uow.edu.au ) 1school of nursing, university of wollongong abstract the first year of university, also known as the first year experience (fye), is a crucial time for students as they learn a range of new practices that enable them to study and pursue a discipline or profession of interest. the function of this transitionary time however in relation to providing both a successful transition into university as well as an orientation to the profession is under-developed. work-integrated learning is a leading pedagogy in tertiary institutions to build student’s career-readiness by applying theory within work experiences. however, despite the growth of wil across discipline contexts, little is known about the prevalence and impact of wil practices within the first year of tertiary study. the purpose of this study was to explore the perspectives of those who design and facilitate first year subjects on the value of embedding wil and other transitionary supports into the first year curriculum. a qualitative case study was employed, with interviews from ten first-year subject coordinators within a single degree and institution. the findings reveal three crucial areas of transition in the first year: transition into learning, transition into being a student, and transition into becoming a professional. recommendations centre on benefits of a whole-ofcourse approach to transition and wil for developing students with the necessary knowledge and skills to succeed both at university and into the workplace. keywords transitions, workintegrated learning, first year experience, primary education introduction university graduates are entering an ever-changing work environment, impacted by the gigeconomy and affordances of technology enabling virtual workspaces and global communications (winchester-seeto & piggott, 2020). the nature of contemporary work means graduates are likely to experience multiple workplaces during their careers, reflecting the need for higher education providers to focus on the transference of learning (jackson et al., 2019) and workplace transitions (dean & sykes, 2020). while the transition into work is an important moment for preparing students for success, higher education features ongoing, multiple and concurrent transitions (jindal-snape, 2010). transitions within higher education are key points that may be particularly challenging and represent a distinct change from one phase to another, such as the transition into university, transitions throughout different years of study and transitions out of university into further study or work (cheng et al., 2015a). https://ojs.deakin.edu.au/index.php/jtlge/ mailto:bonnie_dean@uow.edu.au milliken, h., dean, b.a., & eady, m. j. (2021). the value of embedding work-integrated learning and other transitionary supports into the first year curriculum: perspectives of first year subject coordinators journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(2), 51–64. 52 the transition into university for many students is highly anticipated, requiring adjustment into a new and unfamiliar setting. studies have revealed that the transition phase into the first year of university can have a critical effect on the long-term attitudes and success of students (van rooij et al., 2018). this transition is complex and involves students developing skills such as self-reflection and self-efficacy, when supported through strategies to enable student engagement and empowerment (cheng et al., 2015b). higher education institutes need to nurture, support and engage students within the first year of study, in order to enhance student achievement and retention (krause & coates, 2008; nelson et al., 2011). most institutions implement a variety of strategies to support first year students within and external to the curriculum. these strategies focus on psychological factors such as resilience, motivation and stress, which can effect students’ engagement and perseverance in their studies (soiferman, 2017; ayala & manzano, 2018). however, given the importance of preparing students for a complex work environment after their studies, it is curious that little research has investigated how the first year of study supports learners for their future world of work and developing professional identities. driven by policy and legislative changes that recognise the importance of producing career-ready graduates with competitive skills for the demands of the labour market, universities have emphasised the need to introduce work-integrated learning (wil) within tertiary degrees (dean et al., 2020; patrick et al., 2009). wil is a pedagogical strategy designed to facilitate students’ transference of skills and knowledge into work applications (ferns et al., 2014; jackson et al., 2019). wil is the australian term, and increasingly recognised globally, that describes a myriad of experiences within or alongside the workplace such as placements and non-placement activities, for example virtual internships, industry projects and simulations (dean et al., 2020). however, attention to developing practical skills through wil is often located in curricular towards the end of a student’s degree (dean et al., 2020). while locating wil in the final years of study is useful for supporting students’ transference and applications of learning, it may however limit rich learning opportunities to develop these skills, knowledge and identities throughout formal studies. recent research shows the importance of scaffolding wil across a degree, from the first year, to engage students in a variety of placement and non-placement wil activities (dean et al., 2020; ferns & lilly, 2016; young et al., 2017). while research advocating for wil across a degree includes or addresses wil in the first year, there remains little research specifically investigating wil in the first year experience (fye). engaging students in a variety of wil activities throughout the degree would better prepare students for a moving, dynamic and often challenging workforce (winchester-seeto & piggott, 2020). this study aims to investigate the role of wil and other forms of transitionary activities in the first year curriculum that support the transition into university and beyond. it does so through investigating the perceptions of teachers who facilitate a subject. in the context of this study ‘subject’ refers to the unit or course that a student studies on a specific topic, with multiple subjects comprising a degree. a subject coordinator is responsible for the facilitation, teaching, marking and administration of the subject, a role which elsewhere may also be known as a unit coordinator or module leader. exploring these curricular elements will illuminate the impact of the first year of studies on students’ academic and professional readiness. this paper unpacks some key understandings in the fye literature and explores the role of wil in fye. first year transition students in the first year face a number of challenges as they transition into university and create a new identity for themselves (briggs et al., 2012). fernández et al. (2017) explain that transition into university is a challenging experience that involves significant life changes and adaptation to multiple demands whose effects and significance must be interpreted in the sociocultural context in which milliken, h., dean, b.a., & eady, m. j. (2021). the value of embedding work-integrated learning and other transitionary supports into the first year curriculum: perspectives of first year subject coordinators journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(2), 51–64. 53 they are produced (p. 71). these can include social, emotional, academic or administrative challenges (kift, 2015). research into improving student engagement and retention during the first year of university has been prevalent in recent decades (nelson et al., 2011; baik et al., 2019; bowles et al., 2020). nelson et al. (2010) note the need for universities to identify, monitor and promote students’ personal, social and academic engagement. first-year curricular must be inclusive and intentional, with learning environments that have application to work expectations, are well-structured and provide opportunities for learning through social communities with access to support (nelson et al., 2011). kift (2009) states that students come to university to learn and: …it is within the first year curriculum that students must be inspired, supported and realise their sense of belonging not only for early engagement and retention, but also as foundational for later year learning success and a lifetime of professional practice (p.1). kift (2009) further recommends the consideration of a ‘third generation approach’ for higher education institutions, described as a collaborative and strategic leap that requires whole-ofinstitution transformation (p. 9). this third generation approach comprises integrated and coordinated strategies of teaching and curricular practices across multiple years. while kift’s transition pedagogy focuses on the whole institution’s approach to the fye, her earlier work (kift, 2004, p. 5) identifies two core beliefs for students in their first year: (i) students must be engaged primarily as learners if they are to have a successful university experience. the ‘informal curriculum’ of social and community interactions, and external commitments such as work and family need to be acknowledged, incorporated and supported, but it is within the formal or academic curriculum that students must find their places, be inspired and excited, and work towards mastery of their chosen area to the best of their ability. (ii) students in their first year have special learning needs arising from the social and academic transition they are experiencing. from multiple starting points, all students are on a journey to becoming self-managing or self-directed learners and the first-year curriculum must help get them there. these two core beliefs offer a useful starting point when examining educators’ perspectives on their role in supporting the first year transition. it articulates the importance of supporting students towards becoming better learners and as they master their chosen discipline area. how these beliefs are enacted by first year educators and the role of wil activities in this transition, is the space of enquiry for this study. wil in the first year due to the focus on integrating theory with work practice within university subjects, wil aims to both consolidate and support learning while also developing the skills necessary for employment (rowe & zegwaard, 2017). it is vital that universities focus on developing students who are well equipped with the relevant and transferable knowledge and skills in their discipline, in order to prosper in a competitive market (orrell, 2004; jackson et al., 2019). these refer to transferable skills including problem-solving, motivation, persistence, critical thinking, teamwork and effective communication (saunders & zuzel, 2010). this emphasises the need for university students to actively seek and participate in opportunities that develop relevant skills. it also highlights the need for higher education institutions to integrate wil pedagogies within the curriculum to support their students’ employability and success (bates et al., 2019). too often though, wil is conceptualised within curricular as supporting students in the transition out of tertiary studies and found mainly towards the end of a degree. wil is described as the ‘stepping stone’ or ‘bridge’ into workplace practice as it introduces students to performing and reflecting on milliken, h., dean, b.a., & eady, m. j. (2021). the value of embedding work-integrated learning and other transitionary supports into the first year curriculum: perspectives of first year subject coordinators journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(2), 51–64. 54 work practices. recently, scholars have argued that in order to effectively build student careerreadiness, wil is best supported across a degree, through a variety of scaffolded placement and nonplacement activities that engage students in authentic work experiences (dean et al., 2020). given kift’s (2004) positioning on the imperative role of the fye on students’ success in tertiary studies, it seems greater alignment between wil and transition pedagogies is required. both pedagogies, while historically polarised at the beginning or end of a degree, are now emerging as holistic approaches that support successful transitions when embedded throughout a learner’s tertiary journey. methodology this study aimed to explore subject coordinators’ perceptions and practices that support students’ transition into university and development of work practice through embedding wil within the firstyear curriculum. while a range of methodologies are adopted to investigate phenomena in wil research (fleming & zegwaard, 2018), a qualitative study was considered most commensurate for eliciting the perspectives and understandings of wil experiences (coll & chapman, 2000). a single case study was selected to investigate the commonalities or differences that emerge from within the same site (hodkinson & hodkinson, 2001). that is, participants were invited as they coordinated a subject within the same cluster of first year students. importantly for wil research, as a case study this project aimed to reflect a flexible and multiple perspective research approach (lucas et al., 2018, p.222) that enabled the researchers to view the case from the inside out (gillham, 2000, p.11). this method allowed the researchers to take on the perspectives of the subject coordinators and their experiences with both wil and transition support within a specific degree. ten subject coordinators across ten subjects within the first year of the bachelor of primary education degree at the university of wollongong were participants in this study. following approval for the study from the university of wollongong’s human research ethics committee (hrec2019/091), these first-year coordinators were invited via email to participate in a 30 minute semi-structured interview. they had each been in their current role for a range of years, with two participants teaching this subject for one year, while one participant had taught the subject for the last six years. the ten subject coordinators and subjects for this study included seven core first year subjects on the topics of math, critical writing, developmental psychology, language, special instance, indigenous studies and science and three elective subjects on the topics math, social development and studies of society. all ten subject coordinators agreed to participate in an interview. the interview questions focused on exploring subject coordinators’ understandings and perspectives of fye and wil and to highlight examples within their subject’s curriculum. for example, tell me about your subject and how you support students in their first year? what role does wil play in your subject? are there any barriers or challenges to supporting students in their first year? what do see as important for supporting students transitioning in their first year? interview data was analysed through coding using nvivo® software to generate potential themes. iterative and reflective thematic analysis was practiced to identify patterns and themes (braun & clark, 2006). interview transcripts and related themes from analysis were emailed to each participant for ‘member checking’ (lincoln & guba, 1985) to confirm that the data and emerging findings reflected their intended meaning (patton, 2002). this enabled a reflexive process for the researchers to challenge and recognize their own personal bias, explore alternative explanations, and gain a more holistic understanding of the phenomenon (kornbluh, 2015, p. 397). alongside the semi-structured interviews, data was also collected in the form of relevant educational materials such as subject outlines or teaching resources. this provided the researcher with a deeper understanding of the assessments, weekly content and learning intentions of the subjects. milliken, h., dean, b.a., & eady, m. j. (2021). the value of embedding work-integrated learning and other transitionary supports into the first year curriculum: perspectives of first year subject coordinators journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(2), 51–64. 55 findings perceptions of the first year experience participants reported the importance of assisting students to envision the ‘bigger picture’ by focusing on their long-term goals right from the beginning of their degree. assisting students to see where they are going was identified as helpful to student learning and transition in the first year. as one coordinator stated: i feel like if you’re giving people a sense of what they’re working towards, it would all make a bit more sense to them. i think they’d become more excited; they’d be more motivated knowing [what] is to come (sc10). participants felt it was important that students understood that their studies formed part of a broader process of entering a profession and their role was to shape that development. this included getting students to understand the realities of what they're going into as early as possible (sc4) because the possibility of transference of learning is much greater if you start [connecting theory with practice] right at the beginning (sc7). it was recognised that the beginning of higher education is potentially daunting and difficult for students to navigate. one subject coordinator highlighted common emotional responses in the first year: so often students feel isolated when they first start because they’re transitioning from being really supported to being in a really independent environment. and unless you’re a student who lives on campus, you don’t have that kind of connection… (sc8). the majority of participants recognised how their first year subject played a critical role in developing students’ foundation academic literacies and long-term success. it isn’t however, until explicit examples of support are highlighted and explored through this study that it can be understood whether or not these perceptions have transferred into the curricular design and activities of each subject. examples of first year support participants were asked to discuss and provide examples of how their subject supported students’ transition into university through their first year of study. examples of this support were found within most of the subjects from the first year of the primary education degree. these examples centred around two types of support; academic and social, which align with kift’s (2004) core beliefs for first year support. academic the data revealed a range of academic activities within first year curricular that supported students’ transition into being a learner in tertiary education. two subjects in particular from the first semester of first year highlighted support for students’ academic literacy development. for example, one subject, facilitated by subject coordinator one (sc1), was found to focus on developing students’ academic writing skills. the first assessment was highly scaffolded and modelled to outline the expectations of academic writing and facilitate student success. the coordinator explained in great detail: we're very explicit about looking at models of what we expect. we deconstruct them, we use the teaching learning cycle that was used in schools and tertiary institutions to work through building the field, modelling the text, deconstructing it (sc1). this joint construction allowed students to take up the modelled activity and use it as a launching pad for their own theses, their own arguments that they can prosecute across the text (sc1). this milliken, h., dean, b.a., & eady, m. j. (2021). the value of embedding work-integrated learning and other transitionary supports into the first year curriculum: perspectives of first year subject coordinators journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(2), 51–64. 56 subject also targeted students’ personal and professional literacy through a diagnostic test in week two of the subject that helped them evaluate their own literacy skills and areas for improvement. the results of this test were applied in a later assessment. the coordinator offered further support through this personal literacy competency report as it's sort of a step into research too, because the students are using their own literacy skills as data (sc1). data collected in the interview with subject coordinator ten revealed similar findings. this subject focussed on foundational assessment skills to help students develop their writing and to understand different assessment genres that they will experience in the degree. this emphasis therefore led to the inclusion of a variety of academic supports for students within the subject. examples of support included: … focus[ing] on learning to reference correctly, how to structure an essay, how to write a report and being able to find low quality and high quality articles to then use in [the student’s] papers (sc10). it was revealed that students had several opportunities to engage with peer support. in two subjects, students were able to learn literacy skills outside the subject in a peer program aligned to this subject’s curriculum called pass (peer assisted study sessions). one coordinator highlighted this by saying we have something placed in particular to help these students which is called these help sessions (sc2). similarly the other coordinator with a pass program offered we have peer assisted sessions as well they can sign up to, so we have pass (peer assisted study sessions) (sc5). while details on the pass program were not investigated further, it is noted that these two first year subjects have peer support programs outside curriculum to support academic literacy skills. research skills were highlighted as an important academic skill developed in first year. subject coordinators 4, 5 and 8 each shared a similar examples allocating time to the first workshop [where] we focus on research skills (sc4), or spending a whole tutorial basically on researching” (sc5) and “we do some academic skills mixed into our tutorials (sc8). one participant explained that they include on moodle: …a little article on five top tips to succeed in your first year at university…a tab on writing and referencing so they can go to that and a learning development guide (sc5). participants claimed these research skills are important in first year to develop problem solving and analytical skills, as well as evaluative judgements about quality research. one subject coordinator pointed out that: …in terms of foundational skills it does teach students how to analyse and make sense and interpret information and it really does boost that theory to practice link (sc9). in addition to this, another noted: we look at finding journal articles, we look at deconstructing journal articles and reconstructing (sc8). the academic language and vocabulary of students was also targeted as one subject coordinator explained the subject focused on: …scaffolding them from simple language into using scientific vocabulary that they will use in the classroom (sc8). one subject focused specifically on the academic skill of writing assessments and academic integrity issues. as a subject in the autumn (initial) session of the first year, students were provided with easy access to the university’s academic integrity matters information, the quick guide for the six types of misconduct and a student checklist as well (sc5). while a wide range of examples of supporting students’ academic literacy and research skills were provided, some subjects did not focus on the development of students’ academic literacies. this led to further investigation of any types of milliken, h., dean, b.a., & eady, m. j. (2021). the value of embedding work-integrated learning and other transitionary supports into the first year curriculum: perspectives of first year subject coordinators journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(2), 51–64. 57 support being practiced within the subjects. through the data it became evident that social support within the first-year experience was another crucial domain to be explored. social in addition to supporting student’s academic literacies, the data further clustered around descriptions of approaches that related to nurturing transition through social practices. the role of the tutor emerged as an interesting point of social support for students in first-year subjects. subject coordinators presented the tutor’s role as a positive and supportive influence as they could share relatively similar experiences to those they were teaching. one subject coordinator suggested: they [tutors] were able to be really honest with the students about the challenges of university and what was required (sc10). the opportunity for students to interact with someone in a position of knowledge was a beneficial aspect of the particular subject and its social support for students. a second area of social activity that unfolded connected to supporting students through the unchartered spaces, both physically on campus and virtually through online learning spaces. this support assisted in developing students’ independence and awareness of the spaces around them that would have logistical implications for their long-term success. participants described how they help to navigate the physical and online learning spaces through sharing maps, orienting students to the learning management system and showing the relevant communication platforms. another approach described to support students’ social development was the inclusion of group presentations that encouraged peers to collaborate. in this way, students were meeting people that they’ve never met before and they’re having opportunity to hear different points of view (sc6). one participant believed in the importance of giving students opportunities to make friends and connections (sc8) all as a part of building a community (sc8). in alignment with this social support, students in subject four were exposed to discussions related to how to work together as a group and how to create a group contract so that you discuss the expectations up front of what it is that you're wanting to do (sc4). as the data suggests, there are a variety of approaches adopted by subject coordinators to support students’ transition into first year. both academic and social approaches are cited in the literature as conducive to an effective transition (soiferman, 2017). what remains unexplored, however, is the link between authentic work-based practices in first year and the perceptions of the importance of including wil from the beginning of a student’s tertiary education. perceptions of wil of the ten available subjects in the first year of the bachelor of primary education, over half of the subject coordinators were unsure of, or had a limited understanding of wil (n=6). when asked if they had heard about wil or knew what it was, participants elicited similar responses including: no…is it different from prac? (sc10) … know what it stands for, but not really (sc2). these comments suggest that wil is not a widely used and known term for first year coordinators in the primary education degree. those who were unaware of the term wil were informed of the definition by the researcher, and after hearing this, relayed to the researcher that they had positive views of activities that can be described as wil. the data revealed that the majority of subject coordinators recognised and valued the place of wil within higher education, noting its contribution to developing and empowering employable graduates. through discussion on personal philosophies and experiences, coordinators offered perspectives such as: milliken, h., dean, b.a., & eady, m. j. (2021). the value of embedding work-integrated learning and other transitionary supports into the first year curriculum: perspectives of first year subject coordinators journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(2), 51–64. 58 it is my belief that whenever you can learn and actually apply your knowledge simultaneously, that’s ideal (sc2) in terms of the social work curriculum this [wil] is really important because that’s how students learn (sc9). from an educational perspective, participants shared the potential influence of wil experiences on students’ later professional career. most agreed that wil experiences contribute significantly to preparedness and success as a primary school teacher in australian schools and should therefore be included across the curriculum of a degree, beginning in first year. subject coordinators reflected that doing whatever we can from as early as we can is valuable. one explained: if you’re not integrating the learning of these pedagogies with practical application, then you’re not getting the whole picture and that results in a disconnect between what they’ve learnt at university and what they’re doing in the classroom (sc7). one participant noted the importance of partnerships between universities and schools for preservice teachers to facilitate integrate learning in university curricular with work practices. this participant explained that it was about finding ways to connect those [partnerships] in more meaningful ways (sc4). when the university and the workplace are viewed equally as significant contributors to student success, there are greater opportunities for the development of skills and knowledge. this was articulated by a participant who said: there is value in what you do at university, but there's so much more value when you can connect it with the school. it's not just learning about theories in isolation, you want to have that connection into the schools. and doing that as soon as you possibly can is a really valuable thing (sc4). these positive perceptions of wil support the arguments presented by patrick et al., (2008), orrell (2010), and billet (2009) and more recently by authors such as aprile and knight (2020), jackson et al. (2019), rowe and zegwaard (2017) and silva et al. (2018), on the broad range of benefits in wil. the data suggests that coordinators of first-year subjects in the bachelor of primary education value and understand how wil experiences can develop students’ skills through interaction with both theory and workplace. examples of wil in the first year experience analysis of the ten subjects’ curriculum material and assessments, revealed a small number of activities and assessments that are wil experiences. all these activities can be clustered under the umbrella of non-placement wil. activities included simulations, authentic case studies, role plays, observations and industry projects. the majority of activities took place in-class and were supported and assessed by the subject coordinator. one subject however had a clear link to wil through engaging students with an industry partner. named ‘special instance’, this subject served as an introduction to the profession featuring immersion days at a local primary school observing practice and developing a resource to support a lesson. this subject featured opportunities for students to observe, develop and reflect on teaching professional practices. while none of the subjects featured placement modes of wil, those with non-placement wil activities described these as important for applying ideas to practice and for supporting the transfer of learning from the textbook to a skill of an emerging professional. reflecting on the transfer of learning one participant suggested: you're putting it into perspective of where they're going to be. so rather than not leaving it to where they’re going to be at the end of their degree, in the actual milliken, h., dean, b.a., & eady, m. j. (2021). the value of embedding work-integrated learning and other transitionary supports into the first year curriculum: perspectives of first year subject coordinators journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(2), 51–64. 59 classroom, if you start them early, the possibility of transference of learning is much greater if you start right at the beginning (sc7). furthermore, participants advocated for the implementation of these experiences within the first year of study to provide students with a sense of what they’re working towards (sc10), in turn producing students who are ‘excited’ and ‘motivated’ for their future as a professional. subject coordinator 10 continued to raise an argument about the value of connecting the workplace with university learning as an important step in allowing students to visualise themselves as a professional. this coordinator discussed the current disconnect between university students and their role in the workforce upon graduation. it was suggested therefore, that bringing a wil approach to learning into university curriculum could alleviate such pressures for students and provide them with the opportunity to view themselves as useful in the workplace (sc10). learning through wil experiences (dean & sykes, 2020) and facilitating learning transfer is recognised as crucial for enabling students to operate in diverse workplace settings throughout their careers (jackson et al., 2019). participants’ comments in this study prompt questions around who may be involved in the planning and structuring of wider tertiary studies as well as when in the degree the facilitation of learning transfer takes place. discussion in light of the findings above and through the dual lens on the fye and wil, this study has identified three key transitions: transition into learning, transition into being a student and transition into becoming a professional. conceptualising transition through this tripartite approach offers a way to frame the first year through reflecting on pertinent developmental areas. under these three broad transitions, strategies such as those in the findings of this study, academic and social supports activities and wil pedagogies, can be better conceived as an integral part of the first year experience. transition into learning: academic support a significant transition for first year students revealed in this study was the transition into learning which encompasses the strategies coordinators implement to support students into formal study. according to the literature, the first year of tertiary study is of paramount importance to the longterm success of students academically, socially and professionally as they are creating for themselves a new identity as higher education students (briggs et al., 2012, p.4). developing academic literacies early in the degree will assist students succeed as a student at university. the findings of this study demonstrate that first-year subject coordinators within the bachelor of primary education degree at the university of wollongong held similar opinions to that presented by the literature regarding the value of the first year and the need for appropriate academic support. participants in the study agreed on the importance of including specifically targeted strategies for students’ success throughout their first year of study and across their degree. it similarly became clear that the majority of subject coordinators recognised the impact of providing this purposefully scaffolded support into their subject curriculum. in addition, subject coordinators understood the challenges faced by students during this transition phase. the findings show a variety of examples of how subject coordinators aimed to target and improve students’ academic literacy and research skills within the curriculum. subject coordinators offered support for academic writing and referencing through tutorials, purpose-built workshops, peer assisted study session (pass) availability and scaffolded writing examples. forming a major component of the degree, assessments commonly involved academic writing, researching and referencing. this emphasises the impact of the first-year on students’ long-term trajectory and the influence of subjects that provide targeted support to help students progress through their degree. milliken, h., dean, b.a., & eady, m. j. (2021). the value of embedding work-integrated learning and other transitionary supports into the first year curriculum: perspectives of first year subject coordinators journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(2), 51–64. 60 transition into being a student: social support the second major transition identified in this study is the transition into becoming a student that emerged through practices that enable social support for students in their first year. as outlined by kift (2015), one of the unique challenges of transition into the first year of university was the social change and learning that occurs. labelled as a crucial time for students (gibney et al., 2011, p. 1), the first year of university involves participation within the socialisation process as well as introduction to the discipline area. li and colleagues (2018) explain social support within higher education contributes to students’ academic achievement. young people who lack access to appropriate social support have been found more likely to be negatively affected by stress and pressure (rueger et al., 2016). this social support is comprised of both the reception and perception of available assistance within university (hefner & eisenberg, 2009). the findings also discern available supports for students through tutor availability and relatability. in addition to these examples, julal (2016) describes a challenge commonly faced by first-year students at university is the unfamiliarity of a new learning environment and its effects on their success. as the findings show, several subject coordinators implemented supports such as campus maps and tutorials on how to use their student email and moodle page to address this challenge. this assists students in developing independence and confidence, which are positive attributes for students navigating their way through university. the formation of independent learning skills contributes to the development of positive student identity (briggs et al., 2012). both the literature and the findings in this study highlight the significance of social support for first-year students. it appears that the participants have identified this and aimed to implement such supportive strategies into their subject curriculum in order to assist students in their transition into university. transition into becoming a professional: orientation to the profession the third and final transition identified in this study was transition into becoming a professional. assisting students to transfer this learning across classroom and workplace contexts and between theoretical and applied settings can be achieved through wil opportunities (jackson et al., 2019). wil develops employability skills by engaging with industry and practicing discipline skills ((aprile & knight, 2020; ferns & lilly, 2016; jackson et al., 2019). however, the degree to which this preparation takes place from first year, to help students transition into becoming a professional right from entry into tertiary education, has been an area of uncertainty. it was important to identify the current understandings and perspectives of first year subject coordinators in relation to wil before making comment on practice. prior to this study, the extent to which subject coordinators had been exposed to wil pedagogy and understood its purpose was unknown. approximately half of the participants had no understanding of wil or were misinformed about what it entailed. it was common that subject coordinators perceived wil activities to encapsulate only what is done through practicum and internships. the findings revealed that subject coordinators recognised the value of wil for students and the workforce, aligning with the perspectives of edwards et al. (2015), who agreed that wil has been proven to be an effective tool for preparing students to enter the workforce upon completion of their degree. it was deemed ideal (sc2) that students are exposed to experiences that combine learning and application in order to see the ‘bigger picture’ of the degree towards long-term career goals. it was acknowledged that the inclusion of both theoretical understandings and opportunities to practice were important to maximise learning and skill development. the findings emphasised that due to the significance and impact of the first year, it is essential that students are provided with wil opportunities to look forward and visualise their long term, professional orientation and career possibilities. a number of subjects featured non-placement wil experiences such as in-class activities and one subject with school-based exercises. these practical activities can help students see their skills strengthened through career clarification, helping to milliken, h., dean, b.a., & eady, m. j. (2021). the value of embedding work-integrated learning and other transitionary supports into the first year curriculum: perspectives of first year subject coordinators journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(2), 51–64. 61 develop a professional identity, and the opportunity to build networks (cooper et al., 2010; sotiriadou et al., 2020). through wil experiences, educators have the opportunity to start encouraging students to be cognisant of their employability skills including their developing identities, values and practices (hinchcliffe & jolly, 2011). recommendations for practice more than a decade ago, the term fye entered the higher education lexicon through kift’s (2009) seminal work on transition into university. kift’s work frames a ‘third generation’ approach which endorses a whole-of institution approach to supporting all students and their success within tertiary education. key to this approach is embedding first year support strategies and approaches within curriculum, rather than ‘add-ons’ or co-curricular activities. this paper proposes that non-placement wil activities are included in this approach and argues for non-placement wil activities to be integrated within first year curriculum experiences. non-placement wil experiences may include, but are not limited to, authentic assessment tasks, wil projects with industry partners, gallery walks (ramasaroop & petersen, 2020), professional role-plays or simulations, and engaged workshops with local professionals. the results of this study have raised implications for supporting students’ transitions in the first year of university. students do not attend subjects in isolation, rather a full-time student typically participates in multiple subjects concurrently. while the findings of this study suggest that academic, social and wil strategies were evident, what wasn’t revealed was consistency across the subjects regarding transitions or skill development. each subject was designed and facilitated independently to the others. what is needed is more purposeful curricular design across the course and across the first year. elsewhere, educators have argued for whole-of-course approaches in curriculum design (dean et al., 2020). a whole-of-course approach facilitates learning towards the goals of the course and works to ensure learning through curriculum-embedded activities and authentic assessments. reflecting on the findings in this study, it is recommended that all subject coordinators work together in a whole-of-course approach to support student transitions. a whole-of-course approach to envisioning student transition would contribute to integrating transition pedagogy into institution fabric “by ensuring that it is embedded in perennial curriculum design for sustainability and longevity” (kift, 2015, p.67). as a result of the findings, we suggest that: 1. first year curriculum be reviewed as part of a whole-of-course approach to wil and transition support 2. wil is purposefully embedded into first year, which includes looking for opportunities to start connecting theory to practice and practicing professional skills. engaging with workplace practitioners is also of high importance in this preparation 3. a variety of non-placement wil experiences are embedded into curricular. these activities enable equitable access for all students to start developing practical skills and knowledge at an early stage in their degree 4. educators in the first year have access to professional development opportunities to learn about and discuss the three transition pedagogies and how this can be reflected in first year curriculum 5. educators design non-placement wil activities that are scaffolded into larger wil experiences across the degree conclusions this study has gone some way towards enhancing understandings of transitions in the first year, particularly in relation to embedding wil strategies to engage in early experiences around preparing graduates for a dynamic work environment. this study has made a theoretical contribution through milliken, h., dean, b.a., & eady, m. j. (2021). the value of embedding work-integrated learning and other transitionary supports into the first year curriculum: perspectives of first year subject coordinators journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(2), 51–64. 62 the articulation of three core transitions in first year: transition into learning, transition into being a student and transition into becoming a professional. through the investigation of wil in the first year, the transition into becoming professional arose and was supported by coordinators practices and understandings. the current practice of subject coordinators revealed that both wil and transition support for first year students were occurring to varying degrees within the specific site. participants recognised the value of such pedagogies in addressing their curricula and supporting student learning and future success. it was recommended that increased communication and wholeof-course planning and scaffolding of wil and transition support would be an effective means of further targeting the needs of students within the degree. through wider literature and the findings of this study, it is evident that the careful and planned implementation of wil within first year practice works towards connecting theory and practice, developing the knowledge and skills students require to become employable graduates. the findings of this study should be addressed within the context of the research design, considering its limitations. this study was qualitative in its approach and included a sample size of ten participants who were subject coordinators in a primary education degree at one institution. while this limits the applicability of the findings to broader contexts, the results of the study still contribute towards developed understandings of subject coordinators perceptions of wil and transition support within the first year of a university degree. future directions for research could explore wil activities and transition support within other universities and within other discipline areas to assist in the development of greater understandings of wil and its benefits for first-year students. future research would also benefit from including a wider sample of participants to share their experiences, including students and policy makers, in order to develop a more comprehensive understanding of the prevalence of wil and other transitionary supports within the first year of tertiary study. this would present the opportunity to explore wil activities within the curriculum from different perspectives, similarly, offering an authentic voice to the effectiveness of transition support measures. references aprile, k.t., & knight, b.a. 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(2017). good wil hunting: building capacity for curriculum re-design. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 8(1), 215–232. doi: 10.21153/jtlge2017vol8no1art670 https://ro.uow.edu.au/jutlp/vol17/iss4/11 fisher, k., smith, t., brown, l., wakely, l., little, a., wakely, k., hudson, j., & squires, k. (2018). value-adding to health professional student placement experiences: enhancing work readiness and employability through a rural community engagement program. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 9(1), 41–61. 41 value-adding to health professional student placement experiences: enhancing work readiness and employability through a rural community engagement program karin fisher1, tony smith1, leanne brown1, luke wakely1, alex little1, katrina wakely1, judith hudson2 and kelly squires1 karin.fisher@newcastle.edu.au; tony.smith@newcastle.edu.au; leanne.brown@newcastle.edu.au; luke.wakely@newcastle.edu.au; alexandra.little@newcastle.edu.au; katrina.wakely@newcastle.edu.au; nicky.hudson@newcastle.edu.au; kelly.squires@newcastle.edu.au 1university of newcastle department of rural health 2university of newcastle, school of medicine and public health abstract enriching health professional students’ placement experiences through targeted community engagement has the potential to help develop their preparedness to provide healthcare to the broader community. in 2011 the university of newcastle department of rural health (uondrh) embarked on a program of multidisciplinary community engagement which consisted of short, extracurricular community-engaged learning experiences integrated with the students’ professional placements. the aim of this study was to investigate whether the program was adding to the students’ rural health placement experiences based on perceptions of both the students themselves and uondrh staff. a mixed methods approach used a student survey (n = 96), which included both closed and open-ended questions, and semi-structured interviews with staff members involved in delivery of the community engagement program (n = 15). data were explored together for intersections and commonalities. the overarching key concept was ‘enhancing work readiness and employability’. both student and staff perceived that students’ participation in community engagement improved their employment prospects. three themes emerged from the data, which underpinned and supported the key concept. these were: ‘expanding professional practice capabilities’; ‘building confidence and showing motivation’, and ‘better understanding the nature of rural practice’. the results of this study provide support to the notion that there was value for students in this form of short-term, community engagement activities, many of which could be readily integrated into existing health professional education programs with considerable benefits. it would also lend itself to other non-health professional programs, such as law, journalism or business studies, as a means of broadening the students’ perspectives beyond the limits of their own professional horizons. keywords: graduate attributes; rural health; undergraduate education; workforce; work integrated learning; professional placements mailto:karin.fisher@newcastle.edu.au mailto:tony.smith@newcastle.edu.au mailto:leanne.brown@newcastle.edu.au mailto:luke.wakely@newcastle.edu.au mailto:alexandra.little@newcastle.edu.au mailto:katrina.wakely@newcastle.edu.au mailto:nicky.hudson@newcastle.edu.au mailto:kelly.squires@newcastle.edu.au fisher, k., smith, t., brown, l., wakely, l., little, a., wakely, k., hudson, j., & squires, k. (2018). value-adding to health professional student placement experiences: enhancing work readiness and employability through a rural community engagement program. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 9(1), 41–61. 42 introduction changes occurring in higher education, such as new technology, globalisation, economic and industrial restructuring, along with the need to improve productivity, place pressure on universities to respond, adjust to changes and produce capable, work-ready graduates (universities australia, 2015). industry demands and employer expectations require graduates to have a broad skill set that will enable them to integrate readily into the workforce and be able to solve complex problems (millican & bourner, 2011). these broad skills valued by employers include resilience, teamwork, communication, personal and social qualities, and self-management (caballero & walker, 2010; caballero, walker, & fuller-tyszkiewicz., 2011; hager & holland, 2006; messum, wilkes, & jackson, 2015; walker et al., 2013). generally students themselves also want to develop such skills (thompson, clark, walker, & whyatt, 2013) and thus enhance their employment prospects (qenani, macdougall, & sexton, 2014). to address these expectations, there is an argument for an increasing use of communityengaged models of learning, increasing students’ social consciousness, adding richness to educational experiences (furze, black, peck, & jensen, 2011) and improving graduate employment potential. it is also important to concurrently address particular community needs (butin, 2010). universities can develop a range of collaborative community partnerships and support a diversity of student experiences beyond traditional educational models and modes of delivery (baum, 2000; boelen & woollard, 2009; bringle & hatcher, 2002) that includes community engaged programs. the term ‘community engagement’ is a contested notion with multiple interpretations. it has been argued elsewhere that there is no agreed definition (moore, mcdonald, mchugh-dillon, & west, 2016) and that it is a free-floating philosophy (butin, 2010, p.133), which is adaptable along a continuum. there are a range of different definitions such as work-integrated models (universities australia, 2015) service learning models (stanton, giles jr, & cruz, 1999) and experiential learning models (kolb, 2014). inherent within the different definitions, theories and applications however, is agreement that there are a number of student benefits for personal and academic growth (deeley, 2014; hébert & hauf, 2015), collaborative practice (croker, brown, little, & crowley, 2016) and transformative learning (caspersz & olaru, 2017; prout, lin, nattabi, & green, 2014). community benefits are less articulated and include co-produced outcomes where partnerships are initiated by communities to address areas of need (jones, mcallister, & lyle, 2016a). many of the studies fall into two types of community engagement: curriculum-based and noncurriculum based. curriculum-based programs, namely service learning, is a form of learning that combines student learning with community service. the program explicitly articulates learning objectives where students participate in an organised service activity that meets community needs and is followed by structured reflection as it relates to course material (bringle & hatcher, 1996). according to butin (2010) service learning rejects the banking model of education where students are passive recipients who accept deposits of knowledge from teachers (friere, 1996). by rejecting the banking model, service learning is perceived to be a way to re-engage students in their knowledge quest and civic values (butin, 2010). examples of curriculum-based community engagement focus mainly on social justice and responsibility (marullo & edwards, 2000; peck, furze, black, flecky, & nebel, 2010) and are experiential and transformative (prout et al., 2014), where others focus on the acquisition of knowledge and skills (jones, mcallister, & lyle, 2015; rooks & rael, 2013) for instance public health (cashman & seifer, 2008). non-curriculum based programs are generally extracurricular and tend to focus more on ‘life-wide learning’ (thompson et al., 2013), and are complementary rather than specific to an undergraduate degree (clark, marsden, whyatt, thompson, & walker, 2015). fisher, k., smith, t., brown, l., wakely, l., little, a., wakely, k., hudson, j., & squires, k. (2018). value-adding to health professional student placement experiences: enhancing work readiness and employability through a rural community engagement program. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 9(1), 41–61. 43 hence, promotion of a university-community collaborative model (eklund, 2014), with reinforcement of mutually beneficial outcomes (dettwiller, maroney, & brown, 2015) and development of inter-sectoral partnerships (kirby, held, jones, & lyle, 2018) are at the forefront of university priorities, responsibilities and strategies. however, although community engagement has potential benefits for all concerned, in particular for students such as enhanced employability, self-efficacy and skill set (millican & bourner, 2011), it is not without challenges and risks (moore, mcdonald, mchugh-dillon, & west, 2016; weerts & sandmann, 2008, 2010). while there are benefits for students, there are challenges and impediments to creating mutually beneficial relationships with the community (blouin & perry, 2009). the valuable role of the community must be acknowledged, individual and organisational voices heard, and the risk of demanding too much of the community, leading to disillusionment and disengagement, avoided (butin, 2010; moore et al., 2016). background and context in order to help broaden the range of students’ educational experiences, in 2011 the university of newcastle department of rural health (uondrh) began a community engagement program with a suite of activities (table 1). the uondrh is funded under the australian government’s rural multidisciplinary training (rhmt) program, the primary aim of which is to build future rural health workforce capacity by supporting effective undergraduate student rural placement experiences (australian government department of health, 2016). the uondrh is located in the northern new south wales (nsw) region of australia. like other regional, rural and remote areas, both in australia and internationally, the region experiences health workforce shortages (humphreys et al., 2008; joyce & wolfe, 2005; lyle et al., 2007; wakerman & humphreys, 2012), exacerbated by difficulty recruiting and retaining adequate numbers of health professionals (buykx, humphreys, wakerman, & pashen, 2010). students from the disciplines of medicine, nursing, nutrition and dietetics, occupational therapy, medical radiation science, diagnostic radiography, speech pathology, physiotherapy, pharmacy and podiatry participate in rural professional practice placements in the region with the support of staff from uondrh. placements vary in duration from two weeks to a full academic year, depending on curriculum requirements, the latter including both academic and professional placement weeks. the uondrh employs academic staff in all of the above disciplines to provide teaching and placement support to students, in collaboration with supervisory staff in the local public and private health service facilities. in addition, the uondrh employs administrative (or professional) staff members to operationalise and support the community engagement program. community engagement activities are undertaken by the students either as a formal component of their professional placement or voluntarily as an extracurricular educational activity, depending on the discipline concerned. based on an asset approach (mathie & cunningham, 2003) the purpose of the uondrh community engagement program is to encourage students on professional placements in the region to integrate with the local community, particularly with rural people from low socioeconomic and indigenous backgrounds. the health outcomes of these groups are generally poorer than for the australian population as a whole (australian institute of health and welfare (aihw), 2014). it is intended, therefore, that through engaging with the community as part of their rural educational experience, students gain a better appreciation of their future potential role in health promotion and disease prevention as graduate health professionals. it is also intended that they become more acutely aware of issues related to healthcare service delivery and access in non-metropolitan communities as there are many characteristics of rural practice that differ from urban-based practice (furlong, clews, & randall, 2009; joyce, mcdonald, & lawlor-smith, 2016; mcgrail, humphreys, joyce, scott, & kalb, 2012). fisher, k., smith, t., brown, l., wakely, l., little, a., wakely, k., hudson, j., & squires, k. (2018). value-adding to health professional student placement experiences: enhancing work readiness and employability through a rural community engagement program. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 9(1), 41–61. 44 table 1 lists examples of community engagement activities in partnership with the local community that are offered to uondrh students, the duration and frequency of each and the various partner organisations involved. table 1: examples of the range of community engagement activities on offer to university of newcastle department of rural health (uondrh) students partner organisations community engagement activity duration & frequency local primary schools in the uondrh region eat-well-2-learn-well breakfast club 1½ hours, monday to friday in school terms after school learning centres (2 different schools) 2 hours, 3 x per week at one school and 2 x per week at the other multicultural cooking in schools 46 hours, 2 x per year isolated aboriginal primary school – multidisciplinary health education days 1 school day, 3 or 4 x per year tamworth family support services dhiiyaan early childhood playgroups 2 hours, 5 x per year biralee macs multifunction aboriginal children service birrelee early development program 2 hours x per year tamworth lands council midnight basketball 4 hours, 1 day each week for 2 x 8 week tournaments healthwise new england northwest ag quip agricultural field days – health and hearing checks 3 full days once per year tamworth aboriginal medical service & healthwise new england northwest one deadly step – aboriginal chronic disease health screening 1 full day, 1 x per year isolated regional primary schools teddy bear hospital & bush kids first aid education ½ to 1 day, up to 15 x per year primary schools and support unit fine motor skills workshops 2 hours, 1 day per week for 4 weeks in 3 different schools uondrh* & regional secondary schools health careers forum once per year in two different regional centres *university of newcastle department of rural health most activities range in duration from two hours to one day. with the exception of the teddy bear hospitals and careers forums, the activities listed in table 1 are not planned, implemented or funded by the uondrh. rather, the uondrh community engagement team identifies existing community-based activities where students may become involved (fisher, squires, & woodley, 2016). they then liaise with the external organisations, negotiate partnership agreements, and resource the uondrh students’ involvement, in collaboration with the relevant academics. for example, eat-well-2-learn-well breakfast clubs existed before the nutrition and dietetic students began providing the primary school students, fisher, k., smith, t., brown, l., wakely, l., little, a., wakely, k., hudson, j., & squires, k. (2018). value-adding to health professional student placement experiences: enhancing work readiness and employability through a rural community engagement program. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 9(1), 41–61. 45 parents and teachers with additional information about healthy eating and cooking. similarly, after school learning centres existed before uondrh students started doing health education activities with the primary school students. the same is true of midnight basketball, the dhiiyaan early childhood playgroups and birralee early development program; the activities belong to the community, with their own, pre-existing aims and objectives, but the uondrh students engage by providing complementary, hands-on, health-oriented, practical and educational contributions. thus, the ownership is vested in the community and should the uondrh discontinue involvement, the programs and activities would continue, though without the university students’ input. the guiding principle of the partnership agreements is collaboration to support involvement of university students in existing community-based activities. the uondrh undertakes to coordinate staff and student involvement and provide the necessary resources to conduct, for example, ‘information sessions or workshops on health-related topics’. all uondrh students receive local indigenous cultural training as part of their professional placement, as a requirement of the rhmt funding agreement. students must have completed this training before they undertake any community engagement activities. the partner organisations undertake to conduct the activities and communicate opportunities for uondrh students’ involvement. students attend in multidisciplinary or profession-specific groups, depending on the activity. they are briefed and given any necessary specific preparation by the academic staff and debriefed afterwards about what they gained from the experience and what could have been improved. table 2 shows the number of students who completed placements in the region and the number who participated in community engagement activities annually between 2011 and 2016. some students participated in multiple activities on multiple occasions, with the hours of participation for individual students ranging from two to 65 hours. the program grew rapidly over the first two years to involve more than 150 students a year, with more than 500 occasions of participation. table 2: student participation in the university of newcastle department of rural health (uondrh) community engagement program from 2011 to 2016. measures of student participation 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 total eligible students on placement 201 161 328 341 320 314 total students that participated 64 89 149 213 184 157 total occasions of student participation 179 257 534 842 973 673 average occasions of participation per student ststudentstudents ststudent student 2.8 2.8 3.58 3.95 5.3 4.3 average hours of participation per student 7.4 10.2 10.1 9.9 14.0 11.5 total student-hours 474 908 1,503 2,099 2,585 1,813 aim of this study this study was grounded in a pragmatic approach. informal evaluation and anecdotal feedback suggested that the students were gaining new skills and finding considerable value in their involvement in the relatively brief community engagement activities. however, it was also recognised that the program consumed considerable financial and human resources and there was a need to conduct more formal, structured evaluation and research to assess the perceived value of the program to uondrh students and staff. higgs’ (2011) view of practice fisher, k., smith, t., brown, l., wakely, l., little, a., wakely, k., hudson, j., & squires, k. (2018). value-adding to health professional student placement experiences: enhancing work readiness and employability through a rural community engagement program. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 9(1), 41–61. 46 based education provided an appropriate framework for the community engagement program research. the aim of this project, therefore, was to investigate the impact of the community engagement program on students’ rural health placement experiences from the perspectives of both the students themselves and uondrh staff members. the findings could then inform executive level decision-making about ongoing sustainability or potential for further development of the uondrh community engagement program. method ethics approval for this mixed methods research was obtained from the university of newcastle human research ethics committee. data was collected from both the uondrh staff and students involved in the program, thus increasing the validity and reliability of the findings (vaismoradi, turunen, & bondas, 2013). students who had participated in the community engagement program were surveyed over the period between 2011, when the program first began, and 2013. however, it was difficult to recruit past students in large numbers as their contact details were not necessarily up-to-date. pragmatically, because staff were much fewer in number and more easily accessed, it was decided to invite the academic and professional staff involved in the delivery of the program to participate in qualitative, semistructured, in-depth interviews. this had the added benefit of enriching the data. a representative group of the uondrh academic staff members created a purpose-designed questionnaire and students were invited by email to participate in the survey between march and may 2014, which was delivered online via surveymonkey®. a mixture of categorical, closed-ended and open-ended questions gathered information about the students’ gender, age and duration of their placement, as well as their perceptions of the objectives of the community engagement program, their level of satisfaction, and their opinions about perceived benefits of and barriers to their participation. responses to closed-ended survey questions were downloaded into a microsoft excel® spreadsheet, imported into spss v22 (lyle corporation, 2013) and analysed by descriptive statistics. nvivo 10 qualitative data analysis software (qsr international pty ltd, 2012) was used to manage the data. qualitative interviews with staff members took place in the second semester of 2014 in a quiet location in the workplace, at a time of the participant’s choice. the first author (kf), who had no other involvement in delivering the community engagement program, conducted the recruitment, communications and interviews with the participants. the schedule of interview questions is shown in table 3. interviews lasted between 30 and 60 minutes, were audiorecorded, with field-notes made immediately after each interview. a professional transcription service with which the uondrh has a confidentiality agreement produced microsoft word® verbatim transcripts of the audio recordings. accuracy was checked against recordings and participant validation was invited before files were imported into nvivo 10 for analysis. because of the differences in question style, data types and perspectives of the two participant groups, the open-ended student survey responses and transcripts of the staff interviews were initially analysed separately. later data were explored together for intersections and commonalities. through interpretation common data categories and themes were developed. two of the authors (kf and jh) did further comparative analysis and subsequently all authors validated and agreed upon the themes. fisher, k., smith, t., brown, l., wakely, l., little, a., wakely, k., hudson, j., & squires, k. (2018). value-adding to health professional student placement experiences: enhancing work readiness and employability through a rural community engagement program. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 9(1), 41–61. 47 table 3: schedule of open-ended questions used for semi-structured staff member interviews.  how are you involved in the community engagement program (cep)?  what do you think are the aims and objectives of the cep?  what role did you play in the planning of the cep?  to what extent were the cep activities implemented as planned?  describe any barriers and enablers that influenced the design and delivery of the cep.  how were or are you involved in the implementation of the cep?  what are your thoughts on the value of the cep?  to what extent can you make changes to the content and delivery of the material?  what is your opinion of resource allocation for the cep? (e.g. costs, time, equipment, props)  describe what aspects of the cep are working or not working (e.g. for whom, why/why not?)  how do you think the cep could be improved?  how well do the educational activities match the intended purpose of the cep?  please comment on the students’ participation in the cep.  what impact, if any, has the cep had on the students’ professional development?  what impact, if any, has the cep had on the students’ satisfaction with their placement? results emails were sent to the 302 students who had been involved in the community engagement program in 2011, 2012 and 2013 inviting them to participate in the survey; however, only 95 (32%) responded, reflecting the difficulty of contacting past students. most respondents (55%) had participated in community engagement activities in 2013, while 27 per cent of respondents took part in 2012 and 18 per cent in 2011. the duration of the students’ placements varied according to the discipline and the course requirements. most (38%) had placements of between three and five weeks duration, with 17 per cent having shorter, one or two week placements and 19 per cent having six to twelve week placements. twenty-six percent of respondents had placements of 12 weeks or more, including 16 students who reported semester-long or year-long uondrh attachments greater than 18 weeks duration. the sample was predominately female (82%), reflecting the gender distribution in the health professions. nutrition and dietetics students accounted for 25 per cent of respondents, with physiotherapy and occupational therapy each being 14 per cent and medicine 16 per cent. the other five disciplines (nursing, speech pathology, podiatry, medical radiation science and pharmacy) made up less than 10 per cent each. of the 41 staff members invited, 15 consented to be interview informants, including seven non-academic or professional staff members and eight academics. the latter were from the fisher, k., smith, t., brown, l., wakely, l., little, a., wakely, k., hudson, j., & squires, k. (2018). value-adding to health professional student placement experiences: enhancing work readiness and employability through a rural community engagement program. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 9(1), 41–61. 48 disciplines of nutrition and dietetics (n = 2), medicine (1), medical radiation science (1), physiotherapy (1), occupational therapy (2) and speech pathology (1). the findings from both the student survey and staff interviews were integrated to inform the development of a diagrammatic representation of the thematic relationships (figure 1). a detailed explanation of the diagram follows, with reference to the survey data and illustrative quotations from both the students and staff members. student quotations are coded by gender, discipline and the year of participation. given the small number from each discipline, due to confidentiality, the specific discipline of academic staff members is not given against their quotations. both students and staff members have been allocated a unique, two-digit identification number (id#) to differentiate one informant from another. embedded within the diagrammatic representation is higgs (2011) practice based framework. in particular, her focus on the social practice dimensions and the key pedagogical practices of independent workplace learning and experience and blended learning. figure 1: a diagrammatic representation of the thematic relationships of ‘enhancing work-readiness and employability’ of health professional students through the university of newcastle department of rural health community engagement program. it was perceived that the community engagement program strengthens and builds on the students’ pre-existing capabilities. the students who come to the uondrh on both shortterm or long-term professional placements and extended attachments are already in the process of developing both profession-specific and generic health professional knowledge, fisher, k., smith, t., brown, l., wakely, l., little, a., wakely, k., hudson, j., & squires, k. (2018). value-adding to health professional student placement experiences: enhancing work readiness and employability through a rural community engagement program. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 9(1), 41–61. 49 skills and abilities. that is, the students arrive already equipped to take part in professional placements or attachments, as well as in community engagement, though the latter is less familiar to them than their core professional roles. the students pre-existing capabilities are represented in the model in figure 1 as the foundation layer of their ‘pre-placement academic learning and previous practice-based educational experiences’, upon which the ‘community engagement program’ rests and without which the program would not be possible. this was represented in the data where staff members made observations about pre-existing knowledge such as the following: … obviously our students have almost finished their degree so they have got a very strong and large amount of clinical knowledge, … so, if they’re asked a question about something, they have got an opportunity to share their knowledge and look like an expert. (academic staff member, id#90) they actually get to consolidate, so if they're developing education workshops, they're actually applying their knowledge, so they're actually getting a context where they can try things out. they can use their knowledge and the things that they've learned and be able to communicate that. (professional staff member, id#82) another of the academic staff members drew a distinction between the students using preexisting ‘propositional’ knowledge, as opposed to the broader, ‘non-propositional’ knowledge, which it was perceived the students gained through community engagement: … they often come on placement and they have good theoretical or propositional knowledge and this – if i’m getting those terms right – but they often have really poor life knowledge. i think that’s the non-propositional knowledge and so i think that’s the key part for me in terms of what they get out of it. (academic staff member, id#80) in figure 1, the experiences and potential value and benefits are represented by the three emergent themes, shown as the pillars: ‘expanding professional practice capabilities’; and ‘building confidence and showing motivation’ and ‘better understanding the nature of rural practice’. a description of each theme is given below. themes are not mutually exclusive but relate to each other horizontally, as indicated by the double-headed broad arrows in figure 1. of equal importance, all three ‘theme pillars’ provide support for the overarching key concept, ‘enhancing work-readiness and employability’, represented by the large, triangular ‘capstone’. strategies applied are shown as the foot of each theme pillar and the potential benefits that support the key concept are shown at the head of the pillars. expanding professional practice capabilities many of the students volunteered to participate in the community engagement program because it was applicable to their professional practice (44%). therefore, the central of the three theme pillars, ‘expanding professional practice capabilities’, relates to how the students were able to apply both profession-specific and generic skills in a different context, outside their usual professional placement environment. students identified that factors limiting their participation in the community engagement program included time constraints (33%), scheduling difficulties and conflicting obligations of their other academic commitments 29%). about half (47%) of the students ‘strongly agreed’ that they obtained valuable professional experience and 65% ‘agreed’ or ‘strongly agreed’ that it led to changes in their professional practice. students reported improved ability to communicate (70%) and engage with those from vulnerable groups (62%), such as aboriginal people, thus contributing to the perceived benefit of ‘augmenting their knowledge, skills and abilities’. both the professional and academic staff members worked to intentionally develop learning opportunities that would fisher, k., smith, t., brown, l., wakely, l., little, a., wakely, k., hudson, j., & squires, k. (2018). value-adding to health professional student placement experiences: enhancing work readiness and employability through a rural community engagement program. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 9(1), 41–61. 50 benefit the students’ future practice and broaden their professional skills, as illustrated in the following quotations: … that propositional learning experience and the extra teaching and learning. … they use their natural skills, with feedback they can focus on new skills they need to develop. (academic staff member, id#84) … with the community engagement project it’s more probably, like the soft skills, i guess, like their communication style and how they build rapport in that environment. part of their assessment might also be looking at their ability to interact across agencies. so, it’s probably a whole bundle of skills the students are using when they get involved with the after-school learning centre … (academic staff member, id#90) students also recognised the opportunity to practice their communication skills as seen in the following comments: an opportunity to practice my communication skills outside of a clinical or hospital environment! (female, occupational therapy, 2012, id#11) gain experience in community setting & build communication skills. (female, nutrition and dietetics, 2013, id#50) there was strong recognition among the students of the need to practice their paediatric communication skills and that the community engagement program gave them the opportunity to build their skills of working with children (female, occupational therapy, 2013, id#57), particularly with children from remote or more vulnerable sectors in the community. their responses included: to enhance my skills in dealing with children in the outer community. (male, physiotherapy, 2013, id#61) gain more knowledge of the aboriginal community services for school aged children. (female, nursing, 2013, id#94) staff members also commented on the importance of students practising working with children and the benefit students gained: just knowing how to talk to children, which is really our bread and butter when you work in paediatrics. so getting that experience and exposure to chatting to children of different ages, to children of different abilities. … (academic staff member, id#90) … a lot of students haven’t had any experience in terms of interacting with children. … they’re often children of a lower socioeconomic background or aboriginal children. so again, i think that’s important for them to actually be involved in just learning to communicate with them. (academic staff member, id#89) in the survey, 75 per cent of students either ‘agreed’ or ‘strongly agreed’ that participation in the community engagement program increased their knowledge about the social determinants of health. in addition to practising professional communication skills, staff members also recognised that students gained generic knowledge about the context in which health care is delivered to specific societal groups. there was a perception that this would make them better health professionals as shown in the following comments: they’ll build better rapport and have a better client-therapist relationship because they’ll have a deeper understanding of possibly the needs and the issues around that client. (academic staff member, id#80) fisher, k., smith, t., brown, l., wakely, l., little, a., wakely, k., hudson, j., & squires, k. (2018). value-adding to health professional student placement experiences: enhancing work readiness and employability through a rural community engagement program. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 9(1), 41–61. 51 … the whole ‘walking a mile in other people’s shoes’ and trying to understand, particularly for marginalised groups, what their day-to-day experience is, has huge impacts on their expectations of things like health literacy, of compliance, and that understanding of context has to make them better professionals. (academic staff member, id#77) both staff and students commented on the potential for students to expand some of their profession-specific practice capabilities through the community engagement program: i think that’s one of the unique aspects of some of these community projects, is the sports nutrition side of things. because most of our students are really interested in sports nutrition, so it’s nice that they can go out and do that. (academic staff member, id#88) in some cases students were tutored in specific aspects of professional practice to prepare them to engage in particular activities, thereby ensuring that, as this staff-member commented, the students were not set up to fail: i like to give them some paediatric tutorials so that they know a bit about fine motor handwriting and hand strengthening in preparation if they're going to do a learning experience with the school students on those areas… (academic staff member, id#84) students also made reference to the benefits in terms of their profession-specific practice capabilities gained outside their formal placement setting. they commented: give students opportunity to practice in their discipline and build skills (female, nutrition and dietetic, 2013, id#50) to expand my skill set and experience. (female, speech pathology, 2013, id#11) it gave me a chance to gain extra experience in areas other than my specific placement. (female, occupational therapy, 2013, id#37) building confidence and showing motivation while many students found community engagement an enjoyable or rewarding experience (43%), they also found it broadened their life experience and thus contributed to them becoming more confident in their health professional roles. therefore, another of the three theme pillars, ‘building confidence and showing motivation’, illustrates how, through participation in community engagement activities, with help from uondrh staff, students gained a feeling of confidence in their ability to handle new or unfamiliar situations. these activities gave me confidence and real life experience. (female, nutrition and dietetics, 2012, id#04) uondrh staff helped to come up with and supplement our ideas for activities, which gave the group more confidence to participate. (male, physiotherapy, 2013, id#61) develop rapport and links with people low socio-economic or culturally diverse backgrounds. (female, physiotherapy, 2013, id#67) staff members recognised the progressive development of the students’ confidence as they gained more experience in community engagement, commenting that: you usually find the first couple of times they go out they struggle with that but by the end of their placement when they’ve been out a few times they’re much better at it fisher, k., smith, t., brown, l., wakely, l., little, a., wakely, k., hudson, j., & squires, k. (2018). value-adding to health professional student placement experiences: enhancing work readiness and employability through a rural community engagement program. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 9(1), 41–61. 52 and they can do it more confidently. … it’s something that they learn about managing groups and the group dynamics … (academic staff member, id#88) so in practice, we are working across agencies all the time. having the confidence to do that, knowing what that role of the other person is, at what level do you communicate with them at, and how do you tailor what you do to meet their needs. they’re getting exposed to that sort of stuff through the after-school learning centre. (academic staff member, id#90) one staff member referred to a particular student who they perceived had grown in confidence as a direct result of practical experiences he had in the community engagement program while on placement. the staff member felt that this experience was potentially transformative and would ultimately lead to him being a better practitioner as seen in the following comment: he was just a very insulated young fellow that did not have a lot of world knowledge … [community engagement] changed a lot of his views because of that and i think changed it in a positive way that will actually make him a better clinician because the next time he has to have knowledge of someone, like interact with someone from a rural area or a child that he’ll actually be better at that sort of thing. (academic staff member, id#80) many informants believed that increased confidence and motivation contributed to students improving their employability, so this theme offers the benefit of ‘increasing potential to get a job’, as illustrated in figure 1.this theme has direct relevance to the over-arching key concept of ‘enhancing work-readiness and employability’. it was strongly represented in the data that students knowingly participated in community engagement in order to improve their employment prospects. they were conscious of entering the labour market as a commodity and commented that participation assisted with gaining employment post-graduation (female, nutrition and dietetics, 2011, id#30), that it was both an additional challenge and for my cv [curriculum vitae] (female, speech pathology, 2012, id#76) or that it enabled them to add another line my cv or resume to aid myself in future employment (male, physiotherapy, 2013, id#94). staff members recognised the potential benefit and encouraged students to demonstrate motivation by becoming involved in the community engagement program: so, midnight basketball, it’s a voluntary thing but if you’re talking to them and saying, “it looks really good on your resume and it will give you experience and you’ll go and you’ll have fun and the [other] students are there”. it just takes on a different aspect … [students] give up your saturday night for a few hours and go and do this. (academic staff member, id#88) … [students’ involvement in community engagement] really makes them stand out and we have been very successful in our students obtaining employment at the end of the program. i think it’s something when you’re looking through 100 cvs. the employers are going to pick out something that stands out. (academic staff member, id#79). better understanding the nature of rural practice exposure to the characteristics of rural practice is important to help build rural health workforce capacity and encourage recruitment and retention of health professionals in regional, rural and remote locations: so, getting them out there and involved in the community gets the feelings of belonging and being home type of feeling and trying to get the students, especially fisher, k., smith, t., brown, l., wakely, l., little, a., wakely, k., hudson, j., & squires, k. (2018). value-adding to health professional student placement experiences: enhancing work readiness and employability through a rural community engagement program. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 9(1), 41–61. 53 the city students that have never experienced rural before, … getting them out into the smaller areas … and seeing how that functions as opposed to a bigger rural community or a city community. (professional staff member, id#92) the last of the theme pillars, ‘better understanding the nature of rural practice’, is about how, through community engagement, students gain an appreciation of the health care needs and priorities of the local community. it thus also relates to developing their knowledge of the social determinants of health, broadening their perspective on how they could contribute to the health and well-being of the community, even outside of the hospital or clinic in which they perform their core health care roles. for example, staff members commented: … they [students] really get to know the community … so, rather than people walking through the door and presenting to them as a health professional, they're actually getting to know some of the background. … so, they actually get to know some of the context for those individuals and families and groups. (professional staff member, id#82) … they will have a much greater understanding of why they are where they are, being able to tailor their treatment and their support much more closely in a way that would allow that person to benefit … with no understanding of context, they are a person with a problem and they get formularised treatment a, b or c, with no understanding of the social ‘of health. (academic staff member, id#77) fifty-one percent of students either ‘agreed’ or ‘strongly agreed’ that participation in the community engagement program led them to consider working in a rural location. while the results do not show whether they changed their previous intentions, some students commented that, although they were already inclined to become a rural practitioner, participation reinforces my attitude or i feel more strongly about it now. students also recognised how participation in the program deepened their understanding of rural health and enhanced their sense of belonging. they responded as follows: to provide students, particularly those are not from rural areas, with the opportunity to engage with the local community and gain an understanding of the local culture. (female, occupational therapy, 2013, id#37) help us health students understand some issues faced in the local rural area. (female, medicine, 2013, id#82) encourage future health workers to consider employment in rural areas engaging in the community promotes feelings of belonging, validation. (female, medical radiation science, 2011, id#58) similar to the other two themes, this theme was perceived to have the direct benefit to the students of improving their employment prospects and so links strongly to the core concept of ‘enhancing work-readiness and employability’, particular for those students who intended applying for positions in rural locations: so they’re hoping these last few weeks of being involved … will give them an edge on someone else who comes from a university in the metropolitan area, applying for a job in a rural area but never worked with the community (professional staff member, id#78). indeed, by the students gaining an improved understanding of rural communities they are perhaps more likely to seek employment in non-metropolitan areas where they perceive they can have a positive influence on the health of the community: fisher, k., smith, t., brown, l., wakely, l., little, a., wakely, k., hudson, j., & squires, k. (2018). value-adding to health professional student placement experiences: enhancing work readiness and employability through a rural community engagement program. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 9(1), 41–61. 54 … a lot of our students of course are from metropolitan areas and haven’t engaged in those kinds of activities with people from low socio-economic backgrounds. so that’s very important to them so that they can go away and get something out of it but also maybe want to return to the rural areas. (professional staff member, id#78) i see them as opportunities for students to realise and see the community in action and i think that is actually a very attractive part of rural communities. … i want them to see a bigger picture, which is that embarking on a health career in a rural and regional area, they have an added and really important responsibility to support those in the community that are less able. (academic staff member, id#77) in summary, what is for most of the participating students an extra-curricular educational experience in community engagement, serves to hone their professional practice capabilities. it also improves their confidence and provides a platform to explore self-motivation, as well as increasing their understanding of rural health. in the survey, most students reported that they were either ‘extremely satisfied’ (35%) or ‘very satisfied’ (52%) with the community engagement activities and that their participation provided ‘very valuable’ (42%) or ‘valuable’ (41%) experience. it is argued that, consequently, they are more work-ready and employable in an increasingly competitive job market, as suggested by this final quotation from a staff member: i think the whole experience gives them something a bit different which makes them stand out from the crowd and they get extra practical time so they’re more competent when they qualify. (academic staff member, id#79) discussion this study was initiated because of a perceived internal organisational need to inform decision-making about ongoing sustainability or potential for further development of the community engagement program. the results revealed that the program is indeed a useful strategy that provides health professional students with diversity in applying some of their base knowledge, skills and abilities and broadens their perspectives in a way that is perceived to enhance their work-readiness as future health professionals. consequently, the program is ongoing, based on the perception that it meets important core aims and priorities of the uondrh. further, it provides an alternative, non-traditional platform for students to be proactive in development of their own knowledge and enables them to draw on their community engagement experiences to generate and shape their understanding of what it is to be a health professional. the students’ participation in community engagement activities promotes dialogue and opportunities to encounter community members in authentic and diverse contexts that engender humanisation (freire, 1996), outside of the health care practice setting. the unique aspect of the uondrh community engagement program, in comparison with other such programs, is that the uondrh students’ community engagement activities are relatively short and often extracurricular and voluntary. this offers advantages that may be relevant for other undergraduate programs. when on professional placement, students’ main priority is the acquisition of profession-specific clinical knowledge, skills and abilities (qenani et al., 2014; thompson et al., 2013). while these are essential to their future health professional roles, literature suggests that employers place value on students possessing a broader, more generic skill-set (caballero & walker, 2010; caballero et al., 2011). this and other previous studies suggest that community engagement targets these generic competencies, as well as adding to their core clinical competencies. with the emphasis heavily focussed on the acquisition of the latter, the challenge for university educators is to create opportunities for students to participate in community engagement and, thus, extend their fisher, k., smith, t., brown, l., wakely, l., little, a., wakely, k., hudson, j., & squires, k. (2018). value-adding to health professional student placement experiences: enhancing work readiness and employability through a rural community engagement program. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 9(1), 41–61. 55 understanding of their health care role and enhance their employability. because the uondrh community engagement program is largely voluntary, students are selective about whether or not they participate, some commenting that time constraints were an inhibitor. while there are some benefits to embedding community engagement in the curricula and making it a priority for students, ultimately to their longer-term benefit, there may be some consequences. one consequence is that it may discourage students from ‘life-wide learning’ (thompson et al., 2013). the work-readiness and employability of new university graduates has been the subject of previous investigations and commentaries in australia and internationally (artess, forbes, & ripmeester, 2011; australia government department of education, 2000; billett, 2012; caballero & walker, 2010; o’leary, 2013; oprean, 2007; thune, støren, & mccracken, 2015; walker, storey, costa, & leung, 2015). in acknowledging this issue, in 2015, universities australia launched a national strategy focussed on work integrated learning to strengthen collaborations with industry and communities in order to better prepare university graduates for employment (universities australia, 2015). while traditional, formal models of university education provide students with many of the pre-requisites for employment in their chosen field, they also need contextually authentic and relevant activities that extend their capabilities (higgs, 2011) and ensure they are work-ready, improving their chances of obtaining a job when they graduate (clark et al., 2015; prout et al., 2014) and meet the expectations of potential employers (caballero & walker, 2010; caballero et al., 2011; hager & holland, 2006; walker et al., 2013) in order to develop their broader generic skill set that employers value. the perceptions of both uondrh students and staff members in this study is that the community engagement program provides additional opportunities that have the potential to set the students apart from their peers when applying for job. in addition to providing a platform for applying profession-specific capabilities in a variety of situations, it increases their appreciation of the context in which health care is delivered and of the social determinants of health (and illness). others have made comparable observations about similarly structured, collaborative community engagement initiatives (deeley, 2014), including the value in promoting students’ awareness of local public health issues (cashman & seifer, 2008) and a social justice perspective on the delivery of health care (marullo & edwards, 2000). such potential outcomes align with prospective employer and community expectations. health professionals have a much wider responsibility to the community in which they live and work than just providing specific clinical services. this can be particularly true in rural and remote areas, where the health care challenges are greater than in cities (smith, 2014). there is a paucity of information about community-engaged learning in rural areas (jones, mcallister, & lyle, 2016b). in countries like australia that have a geographical misdistribution of health workforce and services (joyce & wolfe, 2005; mason, 2013), it is essential to encourage students to consider rural or remote practice after graduation. it follows that it is necessary to provide students with positive rural and remote placement experiences. this study has shown the value of a rural community engagement program in immersing students in the local community and exposing them to rural lifestyles. the evidence suggests that the novel experiences of the program, such as working with indigenous primary school children in small outlying communities, are both enjoyable and rewarding for the students. as a result, they may be more inclined to apply for positions in rural and remote locations. there are many characteristics of rural practice that differ from urban-based practice (furlong, clews, & randall, 2009; joyce, mcdonald, & lawlor-smith, 2016; mcgrail, humphreys, joyce, scott, & kalb, 2012) and developing an understanding of these differences is important to help build rural health workforce capacity and encourage recruitment and retention of health professionals in regional, rural and remote locations fisher, k., smith, t., brown, l., wakely, l., little, a., wakely, k., hudson, j., & squires, k. (2018). value-adding to health professional student placement experiences: enhancing work readiness and employability through a rural community engagement program. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 9(1), 41–61. 56 limitations and strengths it is acknowledged that the views of the community partners about the community engagement program are not represented in this study. this may be considered an inadequacy in light of recognised challenges for community engagement in building collaborative relationships (moore et al., 2016; weerts & sandmann, 2008, 2010). the aim of this study, however, was to investigate the impact of the program as perceived by uondrh students and staff. there is a further need to examine the impact of this or other community engagement programs from the perspective of community partners and other key stakeholders. with this program ongoing, limited data has been collected from uondrh community partners under a separate research project; however, staffing changes and funding instability in those organisations has made this difficult. such variability, which is common in rural and remote areas, results in a need to continually identify new partners and to renegotiate partnership agreements. however, the generalisability of the findings is limited by the fact it is based in one rural region of australia and on a specific program of community engagement. further, the response rate of the student survey was low, it having proved difficult to recruit students who had left the region, many of whom had graduated since they participated in the program. survey responses were also only from students who participated between 2011 and 2013, which has potential to bias perceptions compared to students who participated in later years. strengths of this study include that the mixed-method design has permitted triangulation and integration of the perceptions of both staff and students who have been involved in the community engagement program, increasing the validity of the findings (vaismoradi et al., 2013). it is also based on the perceptions of participants from a wide range of health care disciplines. in spite of the above limitations, the findings add to the evidence that broadening undergraduate health professional curricula using community-engaged learning is beneficial to students and potentially improves their employment prospects. while potentially limiting its transferability to other settings that have different forms of community engagement, this research provides direction for future deliberation in relation to the replication of this model in other settings. further research is needed to investigate the post-graduate employment outcomes of participating students and whether they secure positions in regional, rural or remote locations. while it was perceived that graduate employability was improved by participation in the uondrh community engagement program, at this time there is no objective evidence of that outcome. however, an allied health longitudinal graduate outcome study is ongoing (brown et al., 2017), which may add to the evidence-base. conclusions it has been argued elsewhere that universities have wider responsibilities to communities than simply producing graduates (butin, 2010). for higher education institutions to support students in developing capabilities and prepare them for future practice requires engagement with a variety of learning and teaching strategies. community engagement programs can offer relevant authentic situated ‘in context’ learning opportunities and foster tangible outcomes for health professional students as they develop knowledge of self and communities in which they may work. these attributes should serve them well in the employment market. the results of this study provide support to the notion that there was value for students in the short-term, community engagement activities, many of which could be readily integrated into existing health professional education programs with considerable benefits. it would also lend itself to other non-health professional programs, such as law, journalism or business studies, as a means of broadening the students’ perspectives beyond the limits of their own professional horizons. fisher, k., smith, t., brown, l., wakely, l., little, a., wakely, k., hudson, j., & squires, k. (2018). value-adding to health professional student placement experiences: enhancing work readiness and employability through a rural community engagement program. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 9(1), 41–61. 57 conflicts of interest the authors declare there are no conflicts of interest. source of funding the university of newcastle, department of rural health (uondrh) is funded through the australian government department of health, rural health multidisciplinary training (rhmt) program. this research received no other specific grants or funding from any external agency. fisher, k., smith, t., brown, l., wakely, l., little, a., wakely, k., hudson, j., & squires, k. (2018). value-adding to health professional student placement experiences: enhancing work readiness and employability through a rural community engagement program. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 9(1), 41–61. 58 references artess, j., forbes, p., & ripmeester, n. 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(2021). graduates’ employability skills in east africa. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(2), 169–184. 169 the journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability issn: 1838-3815 (online) journal homepage: https://ojs.deakin.edu.au/index.php/jtlge/ graduates’ employability skills in east africa lourdes guàrdia1, federica mancini1, pedro jacobetty1 and marcelo maina1 corresponding author: federica mancini (fmancini0@uoc.edu ) 1psychology and educational sciences department, universitat oberta de catalunya abstract this paper reports a study about the perceptions of the academic community, employers and civil servants regarding graduates’ employability skills in east africa. specifically, it focuses on the mismatch between skills acquired in higher education (he) and those in demand by employers, and explores factors influencing the situation. a mixed method approach was implemented including a survey and a set of focus groups. the questionnaire on employability skills was distributed among regional stakeholders attending the open day events organised by three east african he institutions. a principal components analysis was applied for the categorisation of the most in-demand skills and the identification of four major workplace skill sets. to gain further insights into the stakeholders’ perceptions of the graduate employability skills gap, 11 focus groups were organised at the same universities. the general results showed that employability skills were mostly perceived as insufficiently developed during the students’ progress in their programs. the final results enabled a better understanding of the nuanced relationship between labour market valuation and graduates’ acquisition of each skill set. it also allowed us to identify problems and barriers, and suggest possible solutions to overcome the shortcomings experienced by the sub-saharan he system. keywords: east africa, higher education, skills gap, employability, employability skills, competences, labour market, graduates introduction in 2015, world leaders and intergovernmental, philanthropic, human rights and private organisations partnered to draft the sustainable development goals (un general assembly, 2015). among these goals, sustainable development is related to the creation of jobs that pay reasonable wages and promote the development of new skills (e4d/soga, 2020; wild & omingo, 2020). in this scenario, the debate on graduates’ readiness to contribute to the economy through work has become increasingly prominent leading the he agenda to set graduate employability as one of its priorities (tomlinson, 2017). despite the global compromise to improve the quality of the skills of the workforce and align them to market demands, unemployment and informality in the labour market are major problems for the developing countries of sub-saharan africa (ssa) (international labour organization [ilo], 2020a). the unemployment rate grew from 18 million in 2010 to more than 26 million in 2020 according to the estimations of the ilo weso data finder¹, while informal employment referring to the economic activities by workers and economic units that are in law or in practice not covered or insufficiently https://ojs.deakin.edu.au/index.php/jtlge/ mailto:fmancini0@uoc.edu guàrdia, l., mancini, f., jacobetty, p., & maina, m. (2021). graduates’ employability skills in east africa. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(2), 169–184. 170 covered by formal arrangements' (ilo, n.d. para. 4) is essentially the norm, affecting 89.2% of workers in the sub-saharan region. the extant literature reveals concerns on the missing link between graduates’ skills and employers’ requirements at the workplace (arias, evans, &santos, 2019; hayward & ncayiyana, 2014) in the ssa region. improving young people’s employability skills is critical, as noted by betcherman and khan (2015), given the region’s large youth bulge and the potential development spillovers that go along with a productive and engaged youth cohort (p.1). in this paper, we explore the skills gap among graduates in the ssa region by capturing the perspective of local stakeholders involved in the epica₂ (strategic partnership for the co-design of an innovative and scalable eportfolio) project. the term skills gap has been used in this study to indicate the mismatch between the skills in demand by employers in the labour market and those of the workforce, while the term employability is used to refer to the possession of relevant knowledge, skills and other attributes that facilitate the gaining and maintaining of worthwhile employment (mccowan, 2014, p.4). employability is distinct from but related to employment (holmes, 2017) which refers to the number of graduates employed and the types of jobs they do. finally, the notion of employability skills is used in this study to designate the attributes that graduate students possess and which are valued by employers, i.e. attributes which make graduates worth employing. the next section of this paper presents a literature review on the graduates’ skills gap in the african continent and more specifically in ssa. the section summarises relevant aspects related to the skills demand and supply as well as the main factors impacting the graduates’ skills gap. the methods section discusses the methodological approach and the procedures used for data collection and analysis, including the description of the sample involved in quantitative and qualitative data gathering. the results section is divided into three parts: the first part presents the perception of local stakeholders on the ssa graduates’ readiness for work gathered through a questionnaire, the second part focuses on the outcomes of a principal component analysis on employability skills and presents the resulting dimensions, and the third part provides a detailed analysis of stakeholders’ perceptions of the employability skills gap by dimension including the results obtained from a set of focus groups. we conclude by providing some recommendations for he institutions and policymakers as well as for further research on this topic. literature review sub-saharan graduates face the challenge of finding qualified work whilst employers report dissatisfaction with their skills and competencies (crossman & clarke, 2010; ilo, 2020b). the ilo (2020a) also reveals that despite formal qualifications, young workers lack the actual skills demanded by employers while in some cases they are even over-skilled for their current jobs. in the inter-university council for east africa (iucea) meeting held in 2015 it was emphasized that the challenges of graduates in meeting current labour market expectations are due to the lack of important skills such as communication, decision making and problem-solving skills (kalufya & mwakajinga, 2016). moreover, corporations operating in the african continent also point out the challenge of finding appropriately trained graduates with complex skills and cognitive flexibility (leopold, ratcheva, & zahidi, 2017). fenta et al. (2019) underline that graduates’ transition from higher education to the workplace is a multidimensional phenomenon that is subjected to several parameters. one of them envisages the level of development of generic skills (interpersonal skills, communication skills, time management skills, teamwork ability, and internship engagement). according to choi, dutz and usman (2020), generic skills and high-end skills are increasingly gaining importance in the sub-saharan region also to maintain a momentum of innovation. however, the low level of human capital is hindering this goal. stem (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) skills, for example, are crucial in the region to pursue innovation and creating conditions for job creation and expansion. data analysis, computer science and engineering skills are growing in demand in africa (leopold et al., 2017) but guàrdia, l., mancini, f., jacobetty, p., & maina, m. (2021). graduates’ employability skills in east africa. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(2), 169–184. 171 only about 19% of students in sub-saharan africa are enrolled in stem-related programs (choi et al., 2020). in this scenario, companies have very little interest in hiring fresh graduates and prefer to retain workers with sufficient training and experience in the company (jiboku, 2018). on the other side, industries currently lack highly skilled positions for graduates and a recent employment analysis reveals that only 12.3% of workers are employed in occupations that are classified as high-skilled following the isco-08 classification (ilo, 2020a). in this context, young workers more than others face deeply ingrained work deficits. the level of optimism about future graduate opportunities also varies based on their field of study: the majority of those who acquire a highly qualified job studied business or information technology, leaving other degrees lacking in work aspirations (leopold et al., 2017). the scarce quality of jobs is also determined by the difficulties for governments to attract investments that could offer highly skilled positions even if regional governance stability has been steadily improving in the last years (world economic forum, 2017). the challenge of youth unemployment is also raised by the growth of the working-age population in africa. according to the african development bank (afdb, 2019), the continent’s youth population is projected to increase by 105 million people by 2030 with 94 million living in the sub-saharan region (ilo, 2017). as such, the large number of young workers who enter the african labour market every year makes the need to create employment opportunities even more pressing. numerous publications highlight the importance of finding ways to benefit from this rapid working-age population growth instead of perceiving this trend as an employability problem (africa-america institute [aai], 2015; leopold et al., 2017). among various solutions discussed, education plays the most significant role, as data from different sources (awad, 2020; ilo, 2020b; organisation for economic co-operation and development [oecd], 2011) highlight the positive relationships among educational attainment level and employment rate and status in work. higher and better levels of education, therefore, can facilitate entry into better jobs. good quality youth employment, however, is not only related to the level of preparation, but also to the appropriateness of the competences developed (ilo, 2020b). in fact, it is often reported that the lack of employability skills is one of the major constraints to expanding employment (fox & gandhi, 2021). in addition, the african development bank (2019) commented as follows: other developing countries show a fairly competitive labour market structure, africa has a more segmented labour market. segmented labour markets tend to improve with economic policies that facilitate labour mobility, a competitive environment for private sector operations, and better skill development programmes (p. 17). likewise, the world economic forum white paper (2019) advocates that an effective employability strategy for the new economy must consider the integration of a skills approach to learning and in the workforce ecosystem, together with providing an enabling environment through alignment between different stakeholder groups (p.2). on the supply side of the labour market, therefore, skills and education mismatches are among the most pressing policy concerns suggesting that skills development needs to become a central strand of national policy-making (ilo, 2020a). as such, after decades of neglect, he is finally on the development agenda of african policymakers (manji et al., 2015). nevertheless, despite the recognition of the importance of a skills approach to learning, sub-saharan africa has not sufficiently invested in tertiary education as government spending is severely limited. for this reason, the demand for he caused by a growing population and increased rates of secondary school completion is much higher than the existing offer of quality he courses. in fact, this pressure has been perceived to lower the quality of tertiary education (mccowan, 2014) and it is no wonder that the provision of quality he is being outstripped by the growth in demand (manji et al., 2015). in this context, overcrowding in lecture halls at some african universities is becoming all too common (aai, 2015), while curriculum and teaching methods fail to integrate non-cognitive skills and guàrdia, l., mancini, f., jacobetty, p., & maina, m. (2021). graduates’ employability skills in east africa. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(2), 169–184. 172 employability knowledge (fox & gandhi, 2021). therefore, while the offer of he programmes is growing in the african continent, these do not always translate into new curricula targeting the development of employability skills. the literature also identifies shortcomings in he when it comes to the practical application of skills as one of the main causes behind graduates’ gap in employability skills. universities tend to provide theoretical rather than practical skills in most fields (mccowan, 2015), a worrying fact since practical experience is another important factor for employability (bhorat, naidoo, & ewinyu, 2017). many lecturers lack the proper qualifications and training, and as a consequence resort to relying on rotelearning methodologies based on memorisation. the result is limited analytical and transferable skills development at the he level (leopold et al., 2017) and no long-term sustainable innovation is possible without correcting this course (choi et al., 2020). this view is confirmed by sparreboom and staneva (2014), who point out that a significant number of young people in low-income countries such as tanzania are not yet benefiting fully from the education system and are therefore unable to move towards the development of important employability skills and better labour market outcomes. according to mgaiwa (2021), this gap is partly due to the fact that tanzania’s universities and their degree programs have been nonreactive to the changing priorities of the country’s development plans. likewise, ngoma and dithan ntale (2016) claim that skills inadequacy in uganda is mostly due to the failure of universities to convey appropriate employability skills through students' career training, poor social networking orientation, and insufficient preparation of graduates to face challenges. kalei (2016), who analysed the situation in kenya, also claimed that young people do not possess the knowledge and skills required by employers as the local education system is mainly focused on achieving good grades in examinations rather than in taking into account the broader needs of the country over time. in this regard, kalei (2016) also highlights the pressure for students to pass exams in order to receive a certificate and argues that the kenyan education system is so focused on learners obtaining good marks that it denies the opportunity to acquire the desired skills for the job market. fenta et al. (2019) reveal that marks or academic grades are one of the factors affecting entry-level employment, especially when the number of job-seekers is usually much higher than the number of vacancies. nevertheless, field-specific skills and soft skills are crucial for a successful transition from education to work (siraye et al., 2018). similarly, the inter-university council for east africa (iucea) and the east africa business council (eabc) highlighted the gaps in skills training in universities, the low quality of university careers services and the urgency for academic institutions to improve the monitoring of graduates for labour market outcomes as core aspects to improve (kerre, kitima, & mwawaza, 2014). students in kenya also cited an irrelevant curriculum as one of the main reasons behind shortcomings in graduates’ employability skills (njeg’ere kabita & ji, 2017). in terms of ict, for example, even if graduates acquire technical knowledge in ict, the skills they are taught are often out of date or irrelevant, and not on a par with the latest technologies (mccowan et al., 2016). to cope with this evidence, kalufya and mwakajinga (2016) stress the need to link the curriculum with the demand-side sector and to place employability strategies at the core of teaching and learning to ensure students take a consistent range of employability skills on board. additionally, the findings of a study carried out in tanzania on the perspective of final year students and employers in relation to their employability skills proficiency and preparedness for employment emphasized the relevance of internships, work placements and work-based learning as an effective opportunity for equipping graduates with employment-relevant skills, knowledge and awareness of employer culture (kalufya & mwakajinga, 2016). a list of reports from ghana, kenya, nigeria and south africa also claimed that internships and even volunteering have a positive impact on students’ employability prospects (walker, 2015). as such, work-integrated learning (wil) which refers to educational activities integrating academic learning of a discipline with its practical application in the guàrdia, l., mancini, f., jacobetty, p., & maina, m. (2021). graduates’ employability skills in east africa. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(2), 169–184. 173 workplace, responds at least in part to the dilemma of designing a contemporary curriculum aligned with current industry practice and to prepare students to work (whelan, 2017). the issue related to the employability skills that graduates are currently acquiring through he tuition and their relevance for the workplace, therefore, cannot be solely addressed using a business approach, but requires innovation in teaching and learning, reaching youth in and out of educational institutions and involving different stakeholders. according to kalei (2016), links between universities and business/industry can be enormously helpful in facilitating graduate employability. the involvement of stakeholders in an active social dialogue at the national, sectorial and local level is key to aligning supply-driven skills development with the demand of the job market (guardia, maina, & mancini, 2021; ilo, 2020b). with this goal in mind, fenta et al. (2019) recommend as a further study the analysis of the mismatch between the skills acquired by graduates while at university and the skills demanded by the industries as it is one of the key factors responsible for the difficulty in finding employment. methods this empirical study applied a mixed methods approach following the mixed methods appraisal tool (mmat) recommendations (hong et al., 2019). said approach is typically employed to address multidimensional research questions by selecting and integrating the most appropriate techniques (teddlie & tashakkori, 2010). a survey was used to explore whether or not graduates were equipped with the right skills and which employability skills showed a more marked gap. a set of focus groups were also implemented to identify nuances and deeper meanings on the reasons behind the perceived skills gap. a questionnaire was designed to answer the following research questions: ● how do stakeholders perceive the employability of graduates? ● what does the skills gap identified by stakeholders in graduate students consist of? the quantitative data was gathered through paper-based questionnaire forms based on a convenience sample during open day events held in three east-african universities: the open university of tanzania, makerere university in uganda, and maseno university in kenya. the intention of these events was to engage in a dialogue with local stakeholders on the purpose of the project. stakeholders were invited to participate by the local partners on the basis of their role, experience and interest in the project’s goals. the questionnaire explored whether graduates were equipped with the right skills for employment. respondents were given a list of skills and asked to rate them using a four-point likert scale according to how valuable they believed they were for the labour market. finally, respondents were asked to rate the same skills according to how much they felt they had been developed throughout he, using a similar scale. the list of employability skills provided in the questionnaire is based on the taxonomy elaborated by the ‘skill up project good practices in connecting workplace and learning in higher education’ (ornellas, falkner, & edman stålbrandt, 2019). this taxonomy focuses on key skills for success in the workplace that should be developed mainly through he courses —basic skills and those acquired throughout professional life remain excluded. the exploratory quantitative approach provides a baseline for identifying patterns and trends, as well as for organising our main arguments. these findings were then synergised with the results obtained in the focus groups, where nuances emerged and deeper meanings could be identified. the questionnaire explored whether graduates were equipped with the right skills for employment. respondents were given a list of skills and asked to rate them using a four-point likert scale according to how valuable they believed they were for the labour market. finally, respondents were asked to rate the same skills according to how much they felt they had been developed throughout he, using a similar scale. the list of employability skills provided in the questionnaire is based on the taxonomy elaborated by the skill up project good practices in connecting workplace and learning in guàrdia, l., mancini, f., jacobetty, p., & maina, m. (2021). graduates’ employability skills in east africa. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(2), 169–184. 174 higher education (ornellas et al., 2019). this taxonomy focuses on key skills for success in the workplace that should be developed mainly through he courses —basic skills and those acquired throughout professional life remain excluded. the exploratory quantitative approach provides a baseline for identifying patterns and trends, as well as for organising our main arguments. these findings were then synergised with the results obtained in the focus groups, where nuances emerged and deeper meanings could be identified. a total of 89 respondents participated in the survey: 18 from kenya, 44 from tanzania, 25 from uganda and two additional respondents who withheld their origin. although the participation of three universities from different countries assures diversity and strengthens our interpretations, academics represent a more significant number. despite this limitation, the study contribution lies in an exploratory mapping and an indepth exploration of the skill gap in a context where sources of information are scarce. our research is exploratory and does not seek to thoroughly quantify the studied phenomena. table 1: profile of the respondents to the survey role n percentage academic staff 52 58 business community 9 10 public sector 13 15 students 5 6 no answer 10 11 total 89 100 with the purpose of enriching and further clarifying the findings from the questionnaire, 11 focus groups were organised during the open days events. hence, two additional research questions were formulated: ● what are the reasons behind the perceived skills gap among the region’s graduates? ● what local initiatives are already in place to address graduates’ skills gap? the participants of the focus groups were selected from the scientific and educational community (including students), the business community, and the public sector, ensuring a balanced participation of stakeholders (see table 2). four focus groups were set up in makerere university in uganda, three in maseno university in kenya, and four in the open university of tanzania, involving over 20 people per institution. the duration of each session was one hour. the discussion focused on the skills required or valued by employers in today’s and the future african labour market, personal perceptions of recent graduates’ readiness for entering the labour market, and new graduates’ skill shortages. the qualitative analysis was conducted using atlas.ti, computer aided qualitative data analysis software (caqdas). a first, more general level of categorisation (primary codes) for the qualitative analysis emerged from the main concerns of the research (e.g. skills valued in the labour market, skills developed in he, skills gap explanatory factors). the second level of categorisation (sub-codes) involved second-order tags related to the elements that had emerged during the qualitative data analysis, which helped complete the analytical framework with the participants' contributions. subcodes were assigned after a primary code to provide greater detail and level of specificity for categorisation and analysis (gibbs, 2018; miles & huberman, 1994). this paper presents the concepts and ideas that were most significant and relevant for the stakeholders that participated in the focus groups. guàrdia, l., mancini, f., jacobetty, p., & maina, m. (2021). graduates’ employability skills in east africa. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(2), 169–184. 175 table 2: profile of the participants in the focus groups university nº focus groups nº participants profile maseno 3 22 students (7), academics (8), business community (5) public sector (2) makarere 4 30 academics (7) students (5) business community (8) public sector (10) out 4 27 academics (11) students (9) business community (3) public sector (5) results graduates’ readiness for work according to our survey data, there is a generalised perception of a partial skills gap among graduates. the vast majority (80%) of respondents considered graduates to be equipped with employability skills to some degree (table 2). only 10% of respondents identified graduates to be ready for employment, whereas an equal proportion of respondents said they were not. table 3: employability skills partial insufficiencies at the level of employability skills were also confirmed by the qualitative analysis. the majority of focus group participants from the three sub-saharan countries agreed that there was a skills gap, or at least that the skills graduates acquired in he are not exactly those required by employers. in the focus groups, the most mentioned factor behind the present skills gap was the emphasis he programmes place on theory at the expense of practical skills development. participants claimed graduates acquire theoretical knowledge which cannot be easily applied to professional practices. they also mentioned that the he system trains graduates to handle common professional general activities but not to efficiently solve those corresponding to specific contexts. participants indicated that outdated programmes and unqualified teaching staff were also accountable for the skills gap. curricula are not frequently reviewed, they claimed, whereas the labour market is dynamic. participants from kenya stated that teachers do not find support to further develop, and there were no opportunities for them to connect with industries for continuous professional development. no to some degree yes total graduates equipped with adequate skills for employment 11% 80% 10% 100% n (employment) = 84 guàrdia, l., mancini, f., jacobetty, p., & maina, m. (2021). graduates’ employability skills in east africa. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(2), 169–184. 176 a small number of groups in kenya and tanzania highlighted the lack of standards in universities, indicating that it is difficult to establish whether universities are issuing certifications correctly. in addition, our interlocutors in kenya stated that curriculum design is left to the teacher alone, without any support to assist them on whether or not international standards are met. another reason for the skills mismatch identified by focus group participants was related to the shortage of services and programmes connecting students and employers. participating universities do not have robust alumni services, job boards, industry liaison offices or technology transfer offices. in addition, there are few initiatives to foster entrepreneurship, mobility and internationalisation. participants in tanzania argued that industry associations do not take an active role in connecting employers, he institutions and training organisations. they also mentioned the lack of governmental support. lastly, a group of participants from kenya stated that the massification of he had resulted in overloaded facilities and equipment, preventing graduates from developing their skills. they also claimed massification negatively impacted the connections between students and employers: despite government efforts to facilitate connections, finance internships and job placement services, it is not possible to meet student demand. employability skills in graduates the quantitative analysis sought to understand if there were any identifiable patterns in terms of labour market skills valuation by regional stakeholders. we performed a dimension reduction technique called principal component analysis (pca), which combines several variables into a smaller number of components that represent the most important original information. the objective of pca is to reduce redundancy in variables and meaningless noise in the dataset. pca was employed on the skill taxonomy created by the ‘skill up’ project, comprising 16 skills (ornellas et al., 2018, pp. 21-22). participants were asked to rank the labour market valuation of each skill in a four-point likert scale. the goal of conducting the pca in our study is to identify patterns in how respondents valued those skills. it allowed us to group variables together, thus summarizing skill valuation data and supporting the creation of the skill typology we employed in our analysis. the pca was performed in the r programming language (version 3.4.0) using the principal component analysis (‘principal’) function of the procedures for psychological, psychometric, and personality research (‘psych’) package (version 1.8.4). the adequacy of using pca in our sample was confirmed using the kaiser-meyer-olkin (kmo) test with an overall value of 0.81 and the same measure for each variable with a minimum value of 0.72 (the minimum acceptability threshold is 0.6). we performed pca using the varimax orthogonal rotation method, which helps clarify pca results, and retained four components representing the original 16 skills. using cronbach’s alpha (α), we tested the internal consistency of our approach for grouping skills. all identified skill groups presented acceptable reliability (α ranged between 0.65 and 0.84), following hair et al. (2014) where 0.60 is acceptable in exploratory research. guàrdia, l., mancini, f., jacobetty, p., & maina, m. (2021). graduates’ employability skills in east africa. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(2), 169–184. 177 table 4: rotated component loadings skills knowledge economy uncertainty management leadership skills cognitive performance results-oriented performance 0.791 0.186 digital skills 0.750 0.318 foreign language 0.730 0.163 -0.118 0.273 cross-cultural and diversity competence 0.669 0.241 0.112 -0.114 teamwork 0.626 0.271 -0.248 the set of subject-specific skills required to successfully perform a specific occupation 0.600 0.345 analytical thinking 0.475 0.305 0.650 learning to learn 0.389 0.415 0.104 0.463 self-management 0.372 0.719 0.162 ability to cope with change 0.265 0.645 0.164 0.228 communication and interpersonal skills 0.206 0.794 stress management 0.851 0.239 conflict management 0.842 0.269 problem-solving 0.451 0.674 0.345 creative thinking 0.282 0.344 0.753 decision making 0.270 0.808 0.229 the naming of the component results from the interpretation of the associated variables (see variable loadings for each principal component in table 4). the first component is associated with results-oriented performance, digital skills, foreign language, cross-cultural and diversity competence, teamwork, and the set of subject-specific skills required to successfully perform a specific occupation. this component was named ‘knowledge economy’ to illustrate how these skills are related to proactivity, technological knowledge, and competencies needed to work in a culturally and linguistically diverse context. the second component is associated with stress management, conflict management, self-management and ability to cope with change. the connection between these skills is the ability to maintain performance under personal and environmental uncertainty, which would explain the naming of this component as ‘uncertainty management’. the third component is mostly associated with decision making, communication and interpersonal skills, and problem solving. these skills were interpreted as being aspects of ‘leadership’. finally, the last component is associated with creative thinking, analytical thinking, and learning to learn, which we considered to be elements of ‘cognitive performance’. this analysis refers to the second research question: which skills do stakeholders mostly consider to be missing. overall, we observe that (1) the skill gap is less prominent in the skills related to leadership, (2) there’s a moderate gap in cognitive performance skills, and (3) the gap is most marked for uncertainty management skills. the gap in knowledge economy skills seems to vary guàrdia, l., mancini, f., jacobetty, p., & maina, m. (2021). graduates’ employability skills in east africa. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(2), 169–184. 178 significantly between the associated individual skills. the next section presents this analysis in further detail, connecting the results from our survey with the analysis of focus groups. employability skills gap by dimension the following analysis shows the percentage of respondents who considered the skills in the survey to be valuable for the labour market in spite of not being explicitly taught in he, thus proving that there is a skills gap between labour market demand and he provision. it is clear that most respondents considered all skills to be significant. knowledge economy skills table 5: knowledge economy skills i [percentages of respondents who seemed to indicate a skills gap —i.e. who considered the associated skill to be important for the labour market (“moderately important” or “very important” for employers) and not taught in higher education (who either “disagree ” or “strongly disagree” graduates are currently developing the associated skill in higher education).] iii [percentages of respondents who considered the associated skill either “moderately important” or “very important” for employers in the present and future african labour market.] iii [percentages of respondents who either “disagree” or “strongly disagree” with a statement claiming graduates are currently developing the associated skill in higher education.] for the knowledge economy skill set (table 5), gaps are found particularly in the foreign language and cross-cultural and diversity skills (around 45% of participants). these skills, however, are among the least valued for the labour market. despite being significantly perceived as the locus of important gaps, the skills related to dealing with linguistic and cultural diversity are an aspect of the knowledge economy that is less valued in the workplace. the set of subject-specific skills required to successfully perform a specific occupation and results-oriented performance are averagely valued in the labour market although a gap was identified by a considerable number of participants. such findings replicate a major concern of the focus groups: practical and experiential skills are considered by some participants to be most relevant for the labour market. an emphasis on theory before practice in he programmes was regarded by a high number of participants, mainly from tanzania and uganda, to be one of the main causes behind the skills gap in the region. in many cases, graduates are expected to bridge the skills gap by themselves when they start to work, adapting their own skills to the workplace. this is considered to be a waste of time for employers. focus group results also revealed that he focuses more on exams and qualifications than on developing useful skills. in kenya it was stated that, from an early age, students learn to focus on skills gapi valuable in the labour marketii not acquired in higher educationiii foreign language 45% 85% 57% cross-cultural and diversity competence 43% 87% 51% the set of subject-specific skills required to successfully perform a specific occupation 35% 93% 37% results-oriented performance 29% 95% 31% digital skills 24% 97% 26% teamwork 24% 100% 24% guàrdia, l., mancini, f., jacobetty, p., & maina, m. (2021). graduates’ employability skills in east africa. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(2), 169–184. 179 grades and course results rather than on developing the necessary skills to be competitive in the labour market. finally, digital skills and teamwork are the most valuable skill sets in this dimension for survey respondents, and are also those which are less associated with a skills gap. according to the focus group interlocutors from the three sub-saharan countries, ict skills are highly valued in the african labour market. as one participant from kenya stated: “one of the key competences is ict skills because they are becoming the core mode of delivering services within organisations in kenya”. according to a smaller number of participants from the three countries, ict skills are acquired in he but students may be missing a critical view on the use of technology. in terms of teamwork, focus group participants tend to agree that this skill is highly valued by employers. uncertainty management skills table 6: uncertainty management skills skills gap valuable in the labour market not acquired in higher education stress management 55% 89% 64% conflict management 38% 87% 49% ability to cope with change 35% 97% 38% self-management 33% 94% 34% uncertainty management skills are those in which the skills gap is larger (table 6). for each of these skills, a gap is identified by at least one third of respondents. over half of the respondents recognise a gap with stress management, the only skills gap that is identified by such a large proportion of the sample. conflict management is identified as a valuable skill in the labour market by an equivalent percentage of survey respondents, but a considerably smaller proportion of our sample signals that it is not acquired in he. nevertheless, it still ranks high in terms of constituting a skills gap. in uganda, focus group participants mentioned emotional intelligence as an important skill for conflict resolution: dealing with crisis and colleagues in a way that supports communication, thus avoiding the intervention of superiors, is pointed out as a skill graduates tend to lack. the ability to cope with change and self-management appear to be highly valued in the labour market but a considerable number of participants acknowledge they also pertain to the skills gap. one of the most salient skills related to self-management is how graduates manage their time. as one focus group participant in kenya stated, employers value people that are ready to meet deadlines. leadership skills table 7: leadership skills skills gap valuable in the labour market not acquired in higher education problem-solving 30% 99% 31% communication and interpersonal skills 25% 100% 25% decision making 23% 97% 25% guàrdia, l., mancini, f., jacobetty, p., & maina, m. (2021). graduates’ employability skills in east africa. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(2), 169–184. 180 there seems to be near consensus about the value of all the identified leadership skills valued in the labour market. in addition, this skill set exhibits the lowest percentage of respondents who indicate there is a skills gap (30% or less). problem solving appears to be the most problematic skill. in several focus groups it was considered one of the most valued skills for employers. only 31% of participants, however, seemed to indicate that it is not acquired in he. in a focus group from kenya, the example of banking was provided as one of the particular fields that are highly reliant on numeracy and ict skills, requiring data analysis and finding solutions to problems. the ability to code and translate business ideas into product development is also mentioned as another example of problem solving. nevertheless, in groups from uganda and in one from kenya, participants stated graduates do not sufficiently acquire this skill in he. communication and interpersonal skills are considered of value for the labour market by 100% of respondents, and only 25% of participants considered them not to be acquired in he and to actually constitute a skills gap. the importance of communication skills for companies, namely in pr and social media marketing, was emphasised by a focus group in kenya. the same group indicated how a lack of communication skills may prevent skilled workers from being able to express their knowledge in an interview situation, for instance, stressing its fundamental value for employability. despite a relative satisfaction with he in this regard, focus group participants in uganda mentioned an issue that may suggest ways forward: graduates often seem unable to demonstrate their communicative skills during presentations due to fear, a matter which could be addressed by increasing presentation practice in he. interpersonal skills were also highlighted in kenyan focus groups as an important aspect of business operations: offering satisfying customer service. decision making is one of the key skills for the labour market which is least considered to be the locus of a skills gap. however, this skill was identified in one tanzanian focus group as one of the graduates’ skills where there are shortages. cognitive performance skills table 8: cognitive performance skills skills gap valuable in the labour market not acquired in higher education creative thinking 35% 99% 35% analytical thinking 31% 95% 32% learning to learn 28% 94% 32% finally, a large proportion of survey respondents seemed to indicate that there is a gap in the skill set related to cognitive performance. in this skill set, creative thinking is both the most valued skill and the skill most associated with a skills gap (35% of respondents). in tanzania and uganda, focus group participants indicated that graduates should be better skilled in terms of innovation and creativity. analytical thinking and learning to learn are also associated with a skills gap by a considerably smaller proportion of survey respondents (around 30%). according to participants in the three ugandan focus groups, analytical and critical thinking are among the skills required by employers in the region. in particular, analytical thinking was said to be required to ‘see’ and ‘remember’ what is relevant, enabling employees to make better sense of their operations. another important component of this type of thinking, mentioned in a kenyan focus group, is the ability to perform data analysis. finally, the idea that employees need to improve their own learning abilities was also mentioned in kenya, particularly in the field of it where innovation is sustained and fast-paced. guàrdia, l., mancini, f., jacobetty, p., & maina, m. (2021). graduates’ employability skills in east africa. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(2), 169–184. 181 discussion according to our findings, there is a marked perception among regional stakeholders of shortcomings related to the employability skills of graduates. this perceived lack is only partial, however, and may be the result of graduates’ inability to demonstrate their acquired skills or to put them into practice. our results corroborate what the existing literature highlights as potential causes behind the graduates’ skills gap: an emphasis of university programmes on the development of theoretical knowledge before practical skills (bhorat et al., 2017; leopold et al., 2017; mccowan, 2015), unqualified teaching staff, outdated curricula in he (fox & gandhi, 2021; njeg’ere kabita & ji, 2017), and overloaded facilities (aai, 2015; manji et al., 2015; mccowan, 2014). in addition, our focus group analysis also indicates that he tends to offer management-oriented training instead of occupational skills, does not meet international standards, and lacks connections with employers. through a more detailed analysis, we found that stakeholders in the region tend to value skills along four main axes or dimensions, which we named knowledge economy skills, uncertainty management skills, leadership skills and cognitive performance skills. in terms of knowledge economy skills, gaps are mostly related with foreign language and cross-cultural/diversity competence. as we have discussed, this is an obstacle to participation in global value chains of knowledge intensive economic production, which the literature relates to greater prosperity. the gap for the operative, occupationspecific skills is pointed out by a smaller but still significant number of survey respondents. the main causes are teaching staff disconnected from today’s knowledge and practices at industry level, and highly theoretical he programmes that lack practical focus. on the other hand, stakeholders seem to agree that graduates possess valuable skills from the knowledge economy skill set, namely resultsoriented performance, digital skills and teamwork. however, they also mentioned that a critical perspective on ict is missing, despite not considering this a serious skills gap. thus, this particular aspect of ict should be improved in he courses. most skills linked to uncertainty management are associated with gaps by a high percentage of survey respondents. this result highlights the lack of soft skills such as those related to keeping a positive attitude and the ability to deal with conflict, change and uncertainty. lastly, leadership and cognitive performance skills are less associated with a skills gap, indicating the ability of he to train good managers with interpersonal and decision-making skills, foster analytical thinking and autonomous learning, and provide theoretical knowledge to approach problems in professional contexts. conclusion our research sought to understand how university staff, employers and public civil servants in east africa, perceive the relationship between the skills graduates acquire throughout their studies and those valued by the labour market. our study shows that there is a marked skills gap in the region, albeit a partial one, mostly felt in some of the general knowledge economy employability skills and uncertainty management skills, but less so in leadership and cognitive performance skills. as a final note, we highlight the importance of critical engagement with the definition of graduate skills and competencies. this process provides he institutions with the opportunity of becoming agents of social transformation by identifying problems and educating for positive impact. the findings of this study also point to the active involvement of all stakeholders working together towards the same purpose of employability. particularly, findings support the need for universities to develop and enhance graduate skills in their programmes of study. endnotes ¹ https://bit.ly/3gfarec ₂ [epica (strategic partnership for the co-design of an innovative and scalable eportfolio) project website: https://www.epica-initiative.com/] https://bit.ly/3gfarec https://www.epica-initiative.com/ guàrdia, l., mancini, f., jacobetty, p., & maina, m. 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(2021). two sides of the same coin? internationalisation and employability: students’ perceptions of employability and career outcomes from international studies journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(2), 19–35. 19 the journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability issn: 1838-3815 (online) journal homepage: https://ojs.deakin.edu.au/index.php/jtlge/ two sides of the same coin? internationalisation and employability: students’ perceptions of employability and career outcomes from international studies beate mueller1 and julie robert2 corresponding author: beate mueller (beate.mueller.sydney@gmail.com) 1school of international studies and education, university of technology sydney: http://orcid.org/0000-00016062-450x 2school of international studies and education, university of technology sydney: https://orcid.org/0000-00016852-2137 abstract the australian higher education sector has promoted internationalisation opportunities for students, including through international studies (is) courses that entail language and culture study and international exchange. educators promote internationalisation for many reasons, including enhanced employability, and international studies degrees are increasingly offered in combination with professional courses. students, however, do not necessarily share in the belief that international opportunities and language study will increase their employability. a thematic analysis of statements (n=223) supplied on student applications to withdraw from combined international studies courses in favour of single professional degrees, reveals that students fail to see employability benefits and may even perceive their international studies course as a professional liability. understanding these beliefs can allow educators to more effectively promote the value of not only international studies degrees, but also language and culture study and exchange opportunities, and to counter some of the myths that prevent students from undertaking international opportunities. keywords employability, international studies, language learning, student perceptions, study abroad introduction universities’ internal quality and viability control processes, to say nothing of national reputational data and global rankings, increasingly measure the success of degree programs using factors relating to graduate employability.1 employability discourses have, often through the higher education (he) sector’s own marketing efforts, trickled down to students and undergraduates’ influencers (parents, teachers, career counsellors). employability, defined by yorke (2006) as a set of achievements— skills, understandings and personal attributes—that makes graduates more likely to gain employment and be successful in their chosen occupations, which benefits themselves, the workforce, 1 new australian performance-based funding protocols, introduced in 2019, further use graduate employment outcomes as a way to calculate a he provider’s overall effectiveness, and thus government support. https://ojs.deakin.edu.au/index.php/jtlge/ http://orcid.org/0000-0001-6062-450x http://orcid.org/0000-0001-6062-450x https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6852-2137 https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6852-2137 mueller, b., & robert, j. (2021). two sides of the same coin? internationalisation and employability: students’ perceptions of employability and career outcomes from international studies journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(2), 19–35. 20 the community and the economy (p. 8), has accordingly become an important factor for students in decisions about their education. at the same time as employability has exerted its influence on he, the sector has also adopted ambitious internationalisation agendas. these endeavours, which encompass a range of initiatives including inbound and outbound student mobility, full-degree international recruitment, language and intercultural learning opportunities, international internships and partnerships contribute to social change, global citizenship, community engagement and graduate employability in that they align with the role that universities play in educating skilled personnel capable of making positive contributions in rapidly changing contexts (crossman & clarke, 2010, p. 601). a key facet of internationalisation agendas is the promotion of international experiences for domestic students, often through international internships or study abroad. in australia, as in other contexts, institutions have responded by creating short-term programs (of up to 8 weeks), although the more traditional semester or year abroad are still popular (department of education employment & training, 2019). government support for student mobility, including through new colombo plan funding for the asia-pacific, has improved access and encouraged participation. one of the ways australian universities have responded to the twinned imperatives of employability and internationalisation has been to offer combined degrees in professional fields (business, communications, law, etc.) and international studies, a generic term for an area-studies course that encompasses the transferable skills of an arts qualification, foreign language and culture study and a substantial period of study abroad. while these degree combinations serve universities’ goals well, student perceptions about the holistic value of such programs and their constituent parts is mixed, especially in relation to employability. aligning student perceptions of employability as a result of internationalisation with the evidence is necessary if is courses are to fulfil their function as a popular way for universities to simultaneously improve these two strategic goals. this study seeks to identify and remedy the discrepancy which exists between the way in which he has developed combined is courses to promote employability and internationalisation and students’ views on the likely effectiveness of this strategy via an analysis of students’ negative perceptions of the value of an additional undergraduate-level international studies (is) qualification. a large australian university with a strong employability and internationalisation focus serves as a case study. a review of relevant aspects of the literature on choices in he, with a focus on employability, language learning and study abroad precedes the presentation of findings. these reveal that the perceived value of is with respect to employability, inclusive of foreign language study and study abroad, is subject to considerable negative opinion, some in contradiction of the evidence, for students. the challenge facing educators who champion internationalisation is therefore one of understanding and countering these beliefs so that internationalisation is no longer frequently perceived as coming at the cost of employability. literature review decision-making around he and course choices is part of life-long career development learning that comprises complex processes that are influenced by many considerations and stakeholders (mcilveen et al., 2011). starting in secondary school, where the influence of family and schools is as important as financial considerations, career aspirations and personal interest (leach & zepke, 2005), this process continues well into the first years at university (baik, naylor, & arkoudis, 2015) and is subject to varying external and internal influences. this review surveys the principal bodies of literature relevant to is – which includes language and study abroad and their impact on the development of employability competencies. the australian example, especially as it is relevant to is, is highlighted throughout, although general trends are also identified. mueller, b., & robert, j. (2021). two sides of the same coin? internationalisation and employability: students’ perceptions of employability and career outcomes from international studies journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(2), 19–35. 21 employability and he choices career considerations play an increasingly important role in the he decision-making process, owing in part to rising tuition costs (baik et al., 2015; greenbank, 2011) and changing labour markets (accenture, 2014). closer to matriculation, students consider individual courses and might project how each will provide a return on their educational investment (leach & zepke, 2005; holmes, 2013). over the last two decades, australian university students cited intrinsic interest in their field of study (96%), improving their job prospects (87%), developing their talents and creative abilities (77%), training for a specific job (77%), and fulfilment of parental expectations (41%) as motivations for their choices (baik et al., 2015). decision making, however, increasingly extends into the post-matriculation phase. students continue to ‘shop’ for subjects (units) and whole courses (majors or degrees) once enrolled, with approximately 35% uncertain about or intending to change their choice (baik et al., 2015). arts students are more likely to experience career indecision and anxiety compared to their peers in other professional degrees (daniels et al., 2011; kinash, crane, judd, & knight, 2017) with up to 15% of students in arts degrees and one third of students in cross-disciplinary degrees enrolled primarily to delay decision-making (baik et al., 2015). humlum, kleinjans, and nielsen (2012) examining the influence of identity on career choices, also found that lower career motivations correlated with career choices for the humanities. often, students find it difficult to find information on the value of certain degrees or degrees combinations (parks, mills, weber, & westwell, 2017). while professional identity formation for single degree students is relatively well established (see trede, macklin, & bridges, 2012), knowledge about field of study via a concurrent or combined degree, especially in relation to employability and professional identity formation, is comparatively understudied (culver et al., 2011). lock and kelly (2020) show that dual degree students often have a less defined career goal and a lower understanding of careers linked to their chosen degrees, which reveals greater uncertainty around degree combinations. this was also echoed by baldry, märtsin and eivers’ (2020), examining the struggles of dual degree students to building a professional identity that combines their two degrees. insecurity in employment markets for graduates has prompted many to seek out courses, skills, and experiences they believe will increase their employability via specialist degrees, as students tend to narrowly associate their career-motivated decision-making with their major area of study (arcidiacono, hotz, & kang, 2012). students' ideas about employability though are often out of sync with reality (accenture, 2014; australian education international, 2010). far from being entirely contingent upon curriculum-based activities, graduate capabilities leading to employment are developed via experiential learning opportunities such as internships and exchanges (jackson, 2016; jones, 2013), certain prerequisites and personal attributes (clarke, 2018), part-time work, career advice and networking (kinash et al., 2016). research into employability and internationalisation though, often either considers courses holistically (jackson, 2016), as is the case in studies of students opting to specialise in languages, or focuses on particular experiences, such as learning abroad (green, king, & gallagher, 2019; jones, 2013). by consequence, the complexity of factors that underlie students’ decision making in is degrees with regard to employability perception and values is relatively underrepresented. factors that influence students to study languages within the australian context, the highly prescribed nature of many undergraduate degrees, especially in professional fields, often means that elective space is limited and an additional or concurrent course, such as a combined degree or a separate diploma in languages, is one of the principal avenues for language study. where these options are more likely to provide students with a meaningful volume of language study (one that could be relevant to employability), questions about the motivations for language study, as well as the form and volume that study takes to also mueller, b., & robert, j. (2021). two sides of the same coin? internationalisation and employability: students’ perceptions of employability and career outcomes from international studies journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(2), 19–35. 22 support employability learning, must be considered. in european, asian and american contexts, knowledge of another language is often perceived as an ‘added value’ (heller & duchêne, 2012, p. 2) as it enriches a person’s economic, academic and symbolic capital (kramsch, 2014; mendoza & phung, 2019). this valuing of languages, including in relation to employability, has nonetheless led to a differentiated ranking of languages (heller & duchêne, 2012) with english being a sought-after employment-related skill for non-native english speakers (thompson, 2017). by contrast, native english speakers, especially in predominantly anglophone contexts, attribute less value to learning an additional language (young, 2018). while heritage language learning has a long history in australia (hajek & baldwin, 2020) and despite a large number of multilingual background speakers in metropolitan areas, language study in australian schools has declined rapidly, with less than 10% of secondary students completing language study throughout high school (moloney, 2018). students who embrace language studies value the affordances of fluency in another language and appreciate the diverse linguistic capital linguists bring to education specifically and to society as a whole (asia education foundation, 2014, p. 31). such conclusions are nonetheless based on the minority of students who persist with language study, a choice mitigated by a lack of continuity in learning the same language/s and parental support (munro, 2016). students specialising in languages in university are thus more likely to be intrinsically motivated through their previous language studies (campbell & storch, 2011) and less concerned about the future professional value of languages. however, recognising the value of transferable learning outcomes of language studies, more institutions are promoting the connections between languages and employability (oakes, 2013; fornasiero et al., 2020), a development assisted by the federal government’s inclusion of languges as a priority area in 2020’s ‘job-ready graduates’ legislation pertaining to university fees and funding (parliament of the commonwealth of australia, 2020). specific questions, such as how much language knowledge is required in australian workplaces, what other skills that are learnt through language acquisition are valued by employers and what role languages play in the he and career decision-making of students nonetheless require further research. pragmatic concerns, such as an inability to foresee oneself using the language in the future, thus have a dampening effect on the motivation to study a language at university, a factor that correlates most strongly for potential learners from lower socioeconomic backgrounds (gayton, 2018). the value of learning additional languages is often misunderstood or insufficiently developed by students, parents and other influential stakeholders. this makes language study, especially in the context of additional or concurrent courses that do not provide a straightforward professional pathway, at the mercy of intrinsic motivations rather than an evidence base about employability. factors that influence the choice to study abroad prior to the covid-19 pandemic, study abroad was an important part of many he students’ experience. australian students nonetheless differ from their european counterparts in terms of experiences sought and motivations. in europe, professional gains and language development are common motivations among erasmus cohorts and are frequently reported in the erasmus impact studies (european commission, 2014) and the uk broadening horizons reports (british council, 2017). in contrast to europe though, a greater share of australian university students chooses shorter overseas programs and in english speaking countries or in english language of instruction programs, a decision that attests to a lower value being placed on foreign language acquisition (daly, 2011), but that nonetheless speaks to a desire to travel and experience other cultures. universities australia (2016) reports that the motivations for study abroad are diffuse: it is an opportunity [for students] to challenge themselves, enhance their future job prospects, build new networks and gain independence. participants of longer programs nonetheless reported language, intercultural skills and global awareness development as motivators (daly & barker, 2005). exchange participation in australia also tends to be higher among humanities and business students compared to students of law, science, education, and health (daly & barker, 2005), a factor that may be explained by course mueller, b., & robert, j. (2021). two sides of the same coin? internationalisation and employability: students’ perceptions of employability and career outcomes from international studies journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(2), 19–35. 23 requirements in these areas, the lack of exposure to language learning in university, or a combination thereof. a considerable body of scholarship based on returned-students' experiences touts personal, intercultural, academic and professional benefits: enhanced personal development, skills, and knowledge (dwyer & peters, 2004; mueller, 2021); intercultural sensitivity (medina-lopez-portillo, 2004); improved communicative capacity (jackson, 2011); overall academic improvement (cardwell, 2019); career enhancement and the acquisition of various transferrable skills (european commission, 2014; jones, 2013; potts, 2015; 2018). a broadening of educational and occupational choices, lifestyle, perspectives, change in behaviours, personal and social skills are similarly listed among the long-term impacts that accrete to study abroad participants (dwyer & peters, 2004; fry et al., 2009). student enthusiasm and evidence of accreted benefits of study abroad are nonetheless weighed against significant and varied disincentives – financial or personal circumstances, the fear of not being able to adjust, speak the local language(s) and make new friends or worries about safety and wellbeing – which tend to apply evenly in australia and other contexts (british council, 2017; cushner & karim, 2004; forsey, broomhall, & davis, 2012). academic concerns about delayed course progression also dampen enthusiasm and discourage participation (young & harper, 2004). employability and the value of study abroad and languages as explored earlier, students’ choices about he, include broad concerns for employability. where we previously explored the reasons for students to enrol into specific degrees or degree components, evidence of the outcomes of these components in terms of employability is also relevant. following on from yorke’s (2006) definition, employability accrues via a combination of subject-specific and transferable skills, the latter of which are often promoted through generalist or arts degrees, including is. employability further comprises the networks a graduate gains through their experiences and how they use this social capital for employability purposes (bridgstock, 2016). learning abroad develops these networks beyond national borders. as genuine employability is difficult to quantify though, employment numbers are often used as a proxy. cross-cultural research suggests that the differential employment prospects of mobile and non-mobile graduates are roughly similar in europe, the united states and australia (european commission, 2014; potts, 2018). the australian graduate outcome survey (2016) reports a 4% higher full-time employment rate for students who engaged in study abroad during their undergraduate degree compared to students who did not, though the survey’s methodology considers subsequent full-time study as part of this figure and does not differentiate by program duration, structure or whether students studied in english or another language. even employment rates for mobile graduates therefore conceal many variables. research into study abroad participants conducted shortly after their time away show the benefits of spending a significant study period in a different country increased students’ linguistic and/or cultural skills and knowledge, and allowed them to develop personal attributes and transferrable skills. these are anticipated to significantly enhance their career capital and therefore offer a potential return of their investment of time, funds, and effort relative to those who did not study abroad (crossman & clarke, 2010; potts, 2015). australian study abroad participants overwhelmingly maintain that studying abroad helped them clarify their career direction, secure graduate employment, improve their long-term career prospects, broaden their transferrable skills (interpersonal and communication skills, teamwork, problem solving, analysis), and improve their maturity as well as academic and professional knowledge (potts, 2015). these findings confirm earlier and current research that attribute work-related skills such as self-confidence, decisiveness, teamwork, independence, problem-solving autonomy, the ability to work with diversity and cultural awareness to study abroad (farrugia & sanger, 2017; johnson & anderson, 2019). these skills are mueller, b., & robert, j. (2021). two sides of the same coin? internationalisation and employability: students’ perceptions of employability and career outcomes from international studies journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(2), 19–35. 24 increasingly viewed as essential transferable skills for globalised workplaces (jones, 2013; oliver & jorre de st jorre, 2018). more concretely for graduates with study abroad experience, experiential learning becomes a way to demonstrate achievement of employability skills and advantages participants relative to peers with only local and subject-specific knowledge (crossman & clarke, 2010; potts, 2015). some research points towards mobile students being more often employed in higher managerial positions in the private sector, in larger organisations and in positions with an international context (european commission, 2014; crossman & clarke, 2010), likely thanks to the qualities (intercultural adaptability, global competency, tolerance, inquisitiveness and self-awareness) that are required for these roles (bird & stevens, 2013). multinationals and ‘new generation employers’ seek graduates with international study experience (prospect marketing, 2006), although international work experience, and to a lesser extent, language skills and international networks are also valued (crossman & clarke, 2010). the above research purports the employability benefits for study abroad, but not all experiences are of equal value for prospective employers, with many preferring to a variety of different study abroad experiences (potts, 2015), or not attributing significant employability value to study-based international experiences compared to international internships or work experience (green et al., 2019; kinash et al., 2016). molony, sowter, and potts (2011) found that employers and recruiters in many anglophone countries, including australia, place a lower-than-average importance on graduates’ study abroad experience and foreign language skills. reasons cited for this are: their large multi-cultural communities, the high international mobility of youth, and the highly internationalized higher education system, which all combine to produce a base level of intercultural literacy (molony et al., 2011, p. 17). potts (2016) nonetheless predicts that the significance of study abroad and international experience in the australian context will grow as more graduates, and eventually more hiring managers, come through such programmes. the employability value of language studies – a key component of most is degrees – is even more uncertain in the australian context, especially in relation to the broader transferable skills. applied linguistics researchers cite interlinguistic and intercultural capabilities, general personal development and learning about aesthetics and creativity in language use as valuable gains (leung & scarino, 2016; otsuji & pennycook, 2010), but these attributes cannot be conclusively linked to language-related employability. in english-dominant contexts like australia, employers attribute less significance to foreign language learning (molony et al., 2011) and only a few studies even mention language acquisition in the area of employability development (crossman & clarke, 2010; potts, 2015). much of the scholarship in this field is based on research questions posed and data gathered from those who are highly invested in study abroad and language learning. prospective students, the broader population as well as employers are not as well represented in the literature. where factors such as employability and ‘return on investment’ are important considerations for students when selecting their course and experiences, their views on the perceived value of both language learning and study abroad are important but understudied considerations for he institutions looking to meet increasingly ambitious internationalisation and graduate employability targets. context and methodology methodology and research questions a large australian university offering a range of undergraduate courses combining international studies (is) with a professional degree (law, communications, business, etc.) as a double degree serves as a case study. a case study methodology was deemed suitable as, especially in educational research (gulsecen & kubat, 2006), qualitative student accounts allow for a deeper and multifaceted exploration of an authentic issue within a particular context (harrison, birks, franklin, & mueller, b., & robert, j. (2021). two sides of the same coin? internationalisation and employability: students’ perceptions of employability and career outcomes from international studies journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(2), 19–35. 25 mills, 2017). the exploratory nature of case study research permitted a meaningful and open approach to gain a deeper understanding of students’ perceptions and allowed for new perspectives to emerge. the data set fulfilled the requirements of case study analysis being complex, investigated within its setting and being contemporary (johansson, 2003). within the context of these features this case study seeks to answer the following research questions:  what reasons do students give for withdrawing from the international studies degree?  what are their perceptions of the value of the degree for their employability?  what can higher education institutions learn from this? case study background the demographic of the double degree is mostly comprised of domestic high school leavers of which many work part time and study full time. most students are admitted simultaneously to both degrees based on a choice made as they completed secondary study. the is component is not a standalone course but instead structured as a complementary arts degree that adds two years to the professional course (which is generally 3 years long) consisting of compulsory language study, cultural studies about the target/host society, a year-long exchange (in the studied language) and an independent research project to be conducted while abroad.2 students start their is studies in their second year, after having completed a year in their professional degree. at any point prior to their year abroad, students may withdraw from the is stream. over the past 15 years, withdrawal from the university’s is degrees has increased from 44% to nearly 57%. to effect this change, students submit an online form and provide a supporting statement outlining their rationale for withdrawing. the nature of the statement is purely administrative (all applications are granted) and as such are often quite candid. the supporting statements for withdrawal (n=223) from january 2017 to november 2018 were collated, categorised, and coded with the help of nvivo after receiving ethics approval. this process was undertaken by two researchers to ensure consistency in the interpretation of the data. working independently, they first identified a primary rationale for seeking the change of course and cross-checked those determinations. they subsequently agreed upon an inductively derived coding schedule to facilitate a more thorough thematic analysis of the statements (boyatzis, 1998). this second step allowed for the consideration of multiple rationales within a single request, a necessity as most students supplied several reasons and accounted for the uneven emphasis on multiple rationales within single responses. as a content analysis of the discourses that surround the value of language studies was the focus of this study, variables such as gender, degrees, age, language majors, socio-economic background were not controlled. of the 223 students applying to revert to a single professional degree, more than half did so at a point prior to or shortly after commencing the is component of their double degree, which is to say at a time when their he experience was focused on the professional studies component. their perspectives accordingly offer a glimpse into the logics of a notoriously inaccessible demographic: those who initially showed interest in but ultimately elected against learning an additional language as part of a double degree. findings of the 223 submissions, roughly one quarter explicitly identified employability as one of the drivers of their decision; employability was the third most cited reason for withdrawal after the related reasons of increased course length and wanting to revert to a single degree. other reasons provided include a range of academic, professional, and personal considerations often concerning the length of the degree and the year abroad. 2 the australian system of deferred undergraduate tuition and fee assistance, including for study abroad, mitigates some of the financial considerations that are paramount in other contexts. mueller, b., & robert, j. (2021). two sides of the same coin? internationalisation and employability: students’ perceptions of employability and career outcomes from international studies journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(2), 19–35. 26 as opposed to straightforward reasons such as health or finances, reasons that were categorised ’employability’ encompass a range of more nuanced understandings and assumptions about the perceived value of is degrees (as a whole or in relation to their constituent parts). employability most often features as one of several considerations for withdrawal. associated rationales, of which students supplied up to five in addition to employability, include the preference of a single degree, the course length, preference of postgrad studies or a shorter exchange instead of a year abroad, a simple loss of interest in is and financial reasons. the different notions connected to employability will be presented in more detail and supported by student quotes below. perceptions of added value most frequently, employability rationales are combined with a desire to focus on the professional degree, which is seen as more enjoyable, useful, or valuable. students typically ascribed insufficient employability value to the is component of the combined course. in looking at the careers that i would like to pursue i realised that i did not need the qualifications that international studies would give me. (media production) i have come to the realisation throughout this semester that doing a single degree will be advantageous for the career i want to pursue in the future. (medical science) the insufficiency reasoning rests on an unfavourable cost-benefit analysis; it does not add enough perceived value to the degree that students had previously chosen to justify the time, effort, and expense. opportunity costs, however, also enter students’ calculations. the notion of ‘not being worth it’ arises frequently in this context when students mention the length of the degree. i do not think it would help my employment opportunities and it’s not worth the extra two years. (public communication) international experience versus employment whether framed in terms of prospects (earlier entry to graduate employment) or immediate choices (internship, current part-time work), students weigh their options and often choose employment/employability over internationalisation. these framings suggest that the two objectives are often seen as incompatible. i don't see myself benefiting too much from international studies compared to jumping straight to the workforce. (design: animation) dropping that degree, and thus, not partaking in the compulsory in-country study, would allow me to not only save on money and time, but pursue alternative options in both my professional and personal life. (law) if i continue with this course i will only be partaking in one 3 month internship rather than two 6 month internships … i would like to gain more practical experience in engineering as well as focus my studies purely towards this course. risk to employment in some cases, the international element of the combined course was perceived as not just insufficient in terms of a ‘value-add’, but as a potential risk to employment prospects. these risks are of two main types: the first, perhaps unsurprising for a generational cohort attuned to the ‘fear of missing out’, is being left behind classmates who make an earlier entry into the workforce, including by staying in a job that is related to the professional degree. i am also extremely keen to get out into the workforce after completing my public communications degree and staying at university for an extra 2 years might put me behind other graduates who are looking to get jobs in the communications industry. mueller, b., & robert, j. (2021). two sides of the same coin? internationalisation and employability: students’ perceptions of employability and career outcomes from international studies journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(2), 19–35. 27 to take a year off to complete the in-country study would mean quitting my job, which i believe would be an unwise career move. (journalism) a second perceived risk is a conclusion that the is course will even be detrimental to future employability and is seen as distraction. international studies is currently a distraction to that career path and therefore i do not see the point in continuing. (social and political sciences) i personally believe that what i want to do will not be enhanced by my ability to learn about another culture/ language and will possibly set me back. (management) employability myths the basis for such conclusions is not always clear. some students cite influencers – parents, other students, co-workers, employers and even academics in their professional degree – as having informed their decision. where academics in is do occasionally counsel students to withdraw, their advice does not figure into rationales that cite employability. the international studies component of the course has become less relevant after having discussions with property companies. (property economics) i have discussed with family and work colleagues that it is not viable for me to study a double degree that will extend the period of study. (property economics) the early point of withdrawal for many students, before they begin to engage with academics or the is curriculum, accounts for what might be seen as misconceptions about is motivating their withdrawal. one of these myths concerns its orienting function for either domestic or international employment, with students believing that is was training for those seeking employment outside of australia. where students did not foresee their professional futures taking them further afield, they saw no purpose for undertaking the additional qualification. with my interests becoming focused solely on career fields of forensic science in australia, [i] therefore am no longer interested in studying 'international studies'. waning belief in the prestige or professional advantage/necessity of a double degree was also a consideration. i chose to do a double degree because i thought it would provide me with more job prospects when i finish my degree. not because i wanted to learn a language or go overseas. (law) i chose this double degree partly due to the pressure of those around me to pick an academic path that had a high atar [national entrance rank]. i was told i would not be reaching my full potential if i were to settle for just a communications degree. (journalism) in contrast to students who may have chosen the is degree for intrinsic motivations related to the field of study, the above rationales speak to primarily extrinsic motivations about the value or prestige of a double degree. students revisited this decision as more information, whether about these external factors or about their own internal motivations, became available to them. perceptions of the degree and its parts some students who withdrew showed limited understandings of what the course entailed, predominantly perceiving it as one of its parts, i.e. language study or year abroad. they often refer to the study abroad year as ‘travel’ or ‘the overseas trip’ and the coursework element is often perceived as only language-learning, not cultural studies or the independent research project. the components of the international studies course which appealed to me, such as language and travel can be found through other avenues such as exchange, which i have chosen to pursue instead. (public communication) mueller, b., & robert, j. (2021). two sides of the same coin? internationalisation and employability: students’ perceptions of employability and career outcomes from international studies journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(2), 19–35. 28 despite the challenge of learning a new language the only benefit of the international studies course is the chance of living abroad for a year and obtaining a new language, two aspects that will have minimal impact on my future in the creative industries. travelling abroad can be easily achieved in my own time. (public communication) these students recognise the inherent value in international experiences and language learning, but conclude that there are more expedient ways – such as a shorter international program that can be accommodated within a single degree – to gain the attendant benefits. consideration of transferrable skills and attributes developed by study abroad and language such as communication, independence and intercultural capabilities are noticeably absent from students’ discourse. it is perhaps in part because is is not seen as an arts degree with an emphasis on transferable skills as students also cite a lack of connection between their two fields of study, a perception that in some cases is understood as an incompatibility. the international studies course does not directly relate with my main degree of forensic science and i would like to put all my focus into the area of my interest. i plan to pursue a career in business and believe it is best to focus on this aspect of my degree. on the other end of the spectrum were students who withdrew from is who conceded that they could see the benefit of the additional study, including in relation to employability, but were motivated to withdraw for other reasons such as financial constraints or the perceived need to focus their academic efforts on an already demanding professional degree. discussion taken on aggregate, the rationale statements supplied at the time of withdrawal indicate that degree decisions and motivations are a complex web of reasons that were also echoed in kinash et al. (2017) and lock and kelly’s (2020) findings on education and career decision making. students cite a number of factors for their decisions, some of which may be contradictory or based on inclination, myths or unfounded beliefs about employment markets and what skills is degrees enhance, but which also speak to a search for certainty. within such rationales, however, are important insights about how (prospective) students construe the value of is courses as the sum of only their most obvious parts: language learning and study abroad. their perspectives reveal limited views of the employability value of these elements, especially in the domestic labour market. to gain more certainty, many withdraw in favour of a single degree that seems to offer a more conventional career path. neither foreign language and cultural study nor the experiential pedagogical value of study abroad and the transferable nature of the learning they would gain through these experiences were significant factors enticing them to remain in the degree. language learning was construed as a specialised skill to be used only in international, not domestic, contexts and study abroad was often likened to travel and effectively deemed to be separate from learning and employability development as experiential learning outcomes are so often not made explicit. there are consequently several myths that he institutions are likely to need to counter, and counter early-on in the student life cycle, if they are to meet both their ambitious internationalisation and graduate employment targets. the importance of transferable skills where two thirds of the graduate positions in australia are open to graduates of all subject areas, breadth of knowledge and transferable skills are advantageous (graduate prospects, 2005, p.17). the contributions that arts and humanities degrees make to employability in terms of transferable skills such as written and spoken communication, critical analysis, research and problem solving, are nonetheless often undervalued and not recognised by students or employers. statements from mueller, b., & robert, j. (2021). two sides of the same coin? internationalisation and employability: students’ perceptions of employability and career outcomes from international studies journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(2), 19–35. 29 students withdrawing from the is component of their degree confirm that the combination of language and cultural study and study abroad are similarly misunderstood in terms of employability: on the one hand because the degree is not seen to foster the development of transferable skills, and on the other, because these skills are perceived to be of lesser value than technical or disciplinespecific skills. the transferability of skills, and even multidisciplinary knowledge, is greatly undervalued among these students, as it is in many humanities degrees (dowling, rose, & o'shea, 2015). students, reifying these devisions, think of their course and subject areas as silos to which they either commit or abandon. many is degrees are, however, intellectually predicated on multidisciplinary, combining language study with elements of anthropology, sociology, history, politics, linguistics, and communication among others. further, the classes in many is degrees are likely to attract students – both elective and fully-enrolled – from a variety of fields where students find themselves collaborate in multidisciplinary groups. classrooms accordingly become microcosms of many contemporary workplaces, as people not only from diverse personal backgrounds but also from academic or professional ones come together. where the transfer of ideas and skills will be increasingly important in diverse workplaces and are core to innovation and progress, students are afforded important practice in this key employability skill. changing notions of employability and the labour market findings show that many students who enter university directly from high school still think about their employability in a rather traditional manner that might not reflect the many changes that work places and work practices are undergoing at the moment. the priority is minimal time spent in he, minimal disruptions, immediate fulltime employment and a priority accorded to employer perceptions of the degree as sort of black box rather than the experiences or learning therein. their views on the labour market, employment modes and job security also speak to a belief that they must be ‘first in’ and fit into a well-defined disciplinary or vocational graduate position. the importance of gaining a variety of skills and attributes that might be useful at a subsequent phase of their career is altogether absent from their accounts, as is students’ thinking on their impact on communities and society as a whole. more research into the long-term effects of study abroad and international skills will be a requisite to substantiating any claims the internationalisation-minded within he would make about the value of their activities (potts, 2015). nonetheless, convincing students and their influencers to shift from short to longer term thinking about employability will be equally important. the capabilities developed in many forms of experiential learning are, moreover, not widely assumed to accrue to students through study abroad. while experiential learning in the form of internships and practicums are routinely highlighted as boons to future employability and have seen the he sector invest heavily in work-integrated learning (universities australia, 2019), learning abroad (outside of international education circles) is not typically framed as a form of experiential learning, let alone one with an employability focus. rather, it is seen as travel or a gap year, notions that are construed as anathema to the career building activities of both study and work. the misunderstandings, however, do not rest solely with the students. the he sector, especially providers of undergraduate education, must also recognise that many australian students, including some of the respondents, are already part of the workforce. tertiary study is increasingly less of a precursor to employment (including in a specific field), than a way to enrich future prospects and career development (jackson & wilton, 2017). overseas study, which requires time away from the workplace and other commitments, consequently, becomes incompatible with current employment, which respondents saw as the surer path to professional advancement. where students are sceptical about the role of study abroad in providing additional employability value over the longer term, cost-benefit analyses will come up short. mueller, b., & robert, j. (2021). two sides of the same coin? internationalisation and employability: students’ perceptions of employability and career outcomes from international studies journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(2), 19–35. 30 limitations this exploratory study provides some valuable insights into students’ waning motivations and explored key themes around student perceptions of the value of an is degree as a whole and its component parts. although many statements were analysed, we cannot claim to generalise these findings, as many variables such as specific degree combinations, demographic and social factors, and motivational aspects were not explored. as for all qualitative accounts, findings are only ever as valid as participants are introspective and candid in their responses. this study also considers only the applications for withdrawal rather than the applications for admittance into the combined course. the applications would provide an important lens on the opposite cohort of students, arguably those who count employability as one of the reasons for undertaking an additional is course. two important considerations, however, motivated the choice to deal with these separately. the attrition figures grossly outnumber the countervailing applications for post-matriculation admittance into the combined course by approximately 8 to 1. in contrast to the largely administrative nature of the statements for withdrawal, applications for admission are assessed on merit by academics and often reflect the marketing discourse of the course rather than students’ and their influencers’ opinions. the difference in sample sizes and the need to account for the discrepancies in purpose and audience for the statements would have introduced complications to the present study and as such, were treated separately. further research could investigate more correlations or possibly explore the knowledge that students have of careers pathways and how they gained this information for this specific degree. it should also be acknowledged that current cohorts, those affected by travel restrictions arising as a result of the covid-19 pandemic, find themselves in a much different situation regarding international mobility that might have a lasting impact on future students’ decision making as well. recommendations the initial motivations that prompt students to elect is courses as commencing students must be shown to align with rather than undermine their employability aims. while he institutions may be confident in the value of is courses as a strategy to boost employability, its success ultimately depends on corresponding student confidence. students must have and maintain confidence in the complementarity of these objectives from the outset of their studies to persist so interventions need not only be convincing, but they must also be well-timed. international experiences, whether language study, study abroad or a combination thereof, have the potential to become more linked to employability, as the current discourses of disciplinary knowledge, skills and internships already are. interfaces between the career or employability-focused units of universities and the student mobility or international offices, to say nothing of the role of academics in relevant disciplines, however, are often weak and present many opportunities for productive and arguably necessary collaboration. as another important factor for their employability development, students need to be helped to articulate what skills and knowledge can be transferred to the workplace and how, even within professional learning in the he context, they can be valuable (green et al., 2019). one way of doing this is through reflection on learning outcomes in terms of employability and transferable skills and in thinking about professional identity early on. by increasing awareness of workplace requirements and employability skills, students can be guided to identify as valuable the skills and attitudes developed in language and culture classrooms and studying abroad (oguro & mueller, 2020). similarly, students can be prompted to anticipate the relevance and value of less conventional paths, which may include temporarily moving out of employment to develop different skills through international opportunities. early intervention in this space is, however, paramount. if he institutions are to meet their internationalisation and employability targets and not sacrifice one for the sake of the other, they mueller, b., & robert, j. (2021). two sides of the same coin? internationalisation and employability: students’ perceptions of employability and career outcomes from international studies journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(2), 19–35. 31 must do more to entice students to study languages, mobility initiatives and is courses. mobility offices can move away from promoting international work and study opportunities as travel (or a credit-bearing gap year) to instead promote these opportunities as assets to employability. changing the pre-departure discourse to one of career-value provides extrinsic reinforcement of intrinsic motivation rather than mistakenly (but for a matter of timing) pitting employability concerns against an initial desire to learn a language and experience other cultures. a key plank in this strategy will be to support those who had such experiences to translate their learning into terms that resonate with employers and their employability trajectory, as well as those they influence. high school teachers, parents, employers (including of student interns and cadets) who have themselves benefitted from is courses or elements thereof are essential advocates for the second (and subsequent) generations of successful is graduates, as they are able to provide this intervention before the decision to withdraw is made. conclusion employability is a significant and increasingly important factor for he students when choosing a course and options within a course, such as electives and study abroad. he providers are increasingly attuned to such concerns, but also seek to accommodate priorities such as internationalisation and student mobility that may be perceived to be at odds with the employability agenda. while those within international education have long touted and have amassed considerable evidence for the academic, personal, and professional benefits that accrue to those who study languages and study abroad, such messages are still not reaching (prospective) students and their influencers and are driving decreasing enrolments and hesitation about international opportunities. myths about the limited or even negative value of is degrees and their constituent parts (language and cultural study and study abroad) persist among peers, can be unwittingly reinforced, and not only deter students from applying to such programs in the first place, but also cause them to abandon their initial motivations in favour of the practicalities of current and future employment. recent events are likely to exacerbate the issue, as mobility restrictions and safety concerns are now further disincentives to international opportunities. the field will have to react to these demands by creating more hybrid and inclusive ways of delivering these experiences. in a he context where internationalisation is also a priority with increasingly quantified targets, the promotion of both employability and internationalisation requires an understanding of these myths. they must in turn be countered via a concerted effort – encompassing not just academics in ‘international fields’ and mobility offices, but also careers services and the marketing arms of institutions – to make employability and internationalisation two sides of the same coin. ‘curriculum-enmeshed interventions’ (kinash, 2020) will be essential to attaining the range of institutional objectives and equipping students with the variety of skills, knowledge, and experience they will need to secure employment and succeed professionally. references accenture (2014). what awaits 2014 grads in the working world? retrieved from https://www.accenture.com/in-en/~/media/accenture/conversion-assets/dotcom/ documents/global/pdf/strategy_3/accenture-2014-college-graduates-survey-infographic.pdf arcidiacono, p., hotz, v., & kang, s. 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(2020). ignorance is risk: an exploratory investigation of australian higher education students’ perceptions of their education–employment pathways. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 11(1), 22–36. 22 the journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability issn: 1838-3815 (online) journal homepage: https://ojs.deakin.edu.au/index.php/jtlge/ ignorance is risk: an exploratory investigation of australian higher education students’ perceptions of their education–employment pathways edward lock1 and kate kelly2 corresponding author: edward lock (edward.lock@vu.edu.au) 1victoria university orcid: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7728-7236 2 victoria university orcid: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2954-2009 abstract the widely held view that higher education constitutes a gateway to employment has underpinned the dramatic widening of access to university in recent decades. however, globalisation and technological development have complicated the task of enhancing the employability of students, as the future world of work has become ever-more dynamic and unpredictable. given such conditions, the delivery of employability teaching has become a central focus of many higher education providers (heps). to meet their responsibilities, heps must understand how students perceive their respective courses in relation to the employment pathways that they seek to follow. the present study aimed to gain an understanding of prospective students’ perceptions regarding this, but also to evaluate the accuracy of these perceptions. because some course types are more narrowly vocational than are others, a subsidiary aim was to investigate whether or not student expectations and knowledge varied depending on course-type. the findings gathered from 462 students enrolled into a wide range of courses at 15 australian universities were profound. they highlight that, while most students commence university with a career goal in mind, many have a poor understanding of the education-employment pathways on which they have embarked. students demonstrated a limited understanding of the careers to which their courses might lead, and of the relevance of postgraduate study to their chosen career goals. these findings varied significantly across different course-types. overall, these findings highlight the need for heps to educate their students explicitly about the educationemployment pathways that are available to them. keywords: employability, career planning, student voice, transition, higher education, australia, educationemployment pathways introduction in a world characterised by globalisation, technological development, and rapid economic change, employability has become a concept of increasing importance to all of the stakeholders involved in australian higher education (oliver, 2015; artess, hooley, & mellors-bourne, 2017). leaders in government and business articulate the expectations that they hold of higher education providers (heps) in terms of employability (commonwealth det, 2018; bca, 2018), and employers are https://ojs.deakin.edu.au/index.php/jtlge/ mailto:edward.lock@vu.edu.au https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7728-7236 https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2954-2009 lock, e., & kelly, k. (2020). ignorance is risk: an exploratory investigation of australian higher education students’ perceptions of their education–employment pathways. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 11(1), 22–36. 23 routinely surveyed in order to ascertain the quality of recent graduates (e.g., quality indicators for learning and teaching employer surveys). at the same time, heps consistently market themselves and their products through the lens of employability (dawkins, hurley, & noonan, 2019). students, too, see employability as being central to higher education. in the most recent first year experience (fye) survey, 87% of respondents listed ‘improving my job prospects’ as a reason for enrolling; furthermore, 77% of respondents stated that their enrolment choices were driven by the goal not merely of enhancing their general job prospects, but of getting training for a specific job (baik, naylor, & arjoudis, 2015, p. 24). and yet despite near-ubiquitous acceptance of the concept’s importance, research has shown that stakeholders have varying understandings of what ‘employability’ is and of what role heps should play with regard to this concept (saunders & zuzel, 2010; sin & neave, 2014). whilst the perspectives of many stakeholders regarding employability are important, understanding those of students are of vital importance because they impact not only on student choices regarding higher education, but also on student success within and satisfaction with their studies. understanding the perceptions of students regarding the relationship between their courses and their future employment is thus an important, if under-researched, topic, particularly in the australian landscape. literature review today, heps are increasingly understood as being located at the nexus between prospective students and the industries and organisations that will one day employ them. consequently, there has been great interest in the concept of ‘employability’ and the question of how heps might best support students to progress along their chosen education-employment pathways (bates & hayes, 2017; jackson, 2013; tymon, 2013). given the increasing pressure that heps face regarding graduate employment outcomes, it is unsurprising that much of the focus today is on whether or not the efforts of such institutions have proven successful (cranmer, 2006). while such research is valuable, it tends to focus upon the perspectives regarding employability of heps and employers. of even greater importance are the perceptions that students have regarding their future employment (tymon, 2013). students’ knowledge and expectations are important in relation to their choices regarding institutions and courses, but they also impact on student success (jackson & wilton, 2017). research has shown that students who have a level of certainty regarding their own education-employment pathway achieve better outcomes within higher education (graunke & woosely, 2005), even in their first semester of study. in addition, jackson and wilton (2017) identified that making informed and appropriate career choices early on is positively correlated with student well-being, as well as academic performance. research has also shown that graduates who enter their first job while uncertain about their past study choices experience greater feelings of incompetence in their new work role (daniels et al., 2006). as such, those interested in promoting student success ought to pay attention to the expectations and knowledge that students possess regarding their education-employment pathways, even as they enter university (daniels, et al., 2006). the australian higher education system, which consists of 43 universities, has expanded rapidly in the past half a century, and is characterised by trends similar to the higher education sectors of other developed countries: widening participation, declines in per-student government funding, and increasing demand for tertiary qualifications across society and industry. while it can be easy to assume that, in such a system, student choices regarding their courses are grounded in rational and informed decision-making processes (bovill, 2012), research gives us good reason to doubt the accuracy of students’ expectations and knowledge about their education-employment pathways, even once these pathways have been embarked upon (hemsley-brown, 2011). of course, to raise such doubts is not to blame students; the complexity, dynamism, and ambiguity that characterise the current and future world of work mean that many stakeholders are likely to have uncertainty lock, e., & kelly, k. (2020). ignorance is risk: an exploratory investigation of australian higher education students’ perceptions of their education–employment pathways. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 11(1), 22–36. 24 about how higher education can support students to progress towards and within future employment pathways (fya, 2017). still, research has shown that prospective students often lack either clear expectations regarding the education-employment pathways upon which they wish to embark, or accurate knowledge regarding the nature of those pathways. for example, researchers have shown how the context in which prospective university students make their decisions about courses can negatively impact the quality of those decisions (parks, mills, weber, & westwell, 2017). such research shows that australian high school students often make hasty decisions due to time constraints, and that they are not well supported during their processes of decision-making. in particular, when exploring how these students select their tertiary preferences, findings demonstrated that most prospective students are uncertain not only of how to source information about university courses, but more importantly, of what information regarding university courses is of value to them (parks et al., 2017). further research suggests both that young people may often utilise intuitive rather than rational approaches to decision-making regarding education-employment pathways (greenbank, 2014), and that their choices are shaped by the complex social relationships in which they are embedded (brooks, 2003). finally, it is worth noting that longitudinal research has also shown that the perceptions of young people regarding the employment pathways that they intend to follow often turn out to be inaccurate (croll, 2008). issues relating to students’ expectations and knowledge regarding employment pathways have been identified in research regarding various types of courses. students enrolled in a bachelor of arts, for example, often express uncertainty regarding their future employment, both as they enter university and, for some, throughout their studies (mestan, 2016). even within disciplines that are aligned with specific professions, students display a lack of accurate knowledge regarding the realities of their employment pathways (bennett et al, 2015). engineering students may possess only limited knowledge regarding the roles that engineers undertake in the workforce, and the skills that are necessary for such roles to be undertaken (bennett, kapoor, rajinder, & maynard, 2015). byrne and flood (2006) noted that while many accounting and business students pursue their degrees on the grounds that they are associated with job availability, financial return and job security, those students also demonstrate a lack of knowledge of what their future employment will actually involve. finally, within health courses, many students assume that upon graduation they will be able to be employed in the profession for which the degree is named, sometimes ignorant of the fact that such employment can require postgraduate qualifications requiring competitive entry (sethi, schofield, mcaleer, & ajjawi, 2018). collectively, this research reinforces the suggestion that many students may lack either clear expectations about, or accurate knowledge of the educationemployment pathways that lie before them. the present study this research is part of a broader project that is driven by the goal of enhancing employability teaching at australian universities. the phrase ‘employability teaching’ is used here to refer to the design and delivery both of employment-focused modules, units, or subjects, and of the many activities throughout a course or program that connect students to the education-employment pathways on which they are travelling. the research examined above suggests that there is a need to investigate the knowledge that prospective university students have regarding education and employment, but it also suggests that there might be, broadly speaking, different types of education-employment pathways that exist. this should come as no surprise given the diversity of the students who enrol in higher education, the diversity of the institutions that deliver it, and the diversity of the courses that are currently offered within the australian higher education sector. given this variation, the categorisation of courses into degree types offers a useful organising principle for researchers investigating this topic. typically, two such degree-types are identified: generalist degrees and professional degrees (graduate careers lock, e., & kelly, k. (2020). ignorance is risk: an exploratory investigation of australian higher education students’ perceptions of their education–employment pathways. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 11(1), 22–36. 25 australia, 2019). generalist degrees, such as a bachelors of arts or a bachelor of science, support broad fields of study, offer considerable choice of content to students, and offer students skills that are applicable to a broad range of vocational settings. professional degrees (also known as specialist degrees and including, for example, a bachelor of nursing or a bachelor of education p 12) are narrow in structure and are designed to lead to specific career outcomes (graduate careers australia, 2019). research regarding students’ expectations of and knowledge regarding education-employment pathways clearly must take into account the differences between such course types. specialist degrees are designed to prepare students to work in a particular field and thus offer students a seemingly clear and linear path from entry to university through to employment. the breadth of generalist degrees may make it challenging for students to navigate with confidence the pathways that are available to them (baruch, bell, & gray, 2005), although we can also conceive of such degrees as offering students opportunities to delay employment pathway choices and to support the making of such choices within rather than prior to higher education study (mestan, 2016; porter & umbach, 2006). in addition, however, not all degrees fit neatly into these two categories. more and more commonly, students are entering ‘named’ degrees that, while having a similar structure and appearance to specialist degrees, do not lead solely – or even primarily – to a specific career destination. for example, bates and hayes (2017) reviewed criminology and criminal justice degrees at griffith university in australia, and concluded that, while such courses have a linear structure and a discipline focus, students within them need to understand and navigate diverse career pathways to which these courses connect. these courses are not unique: it is known that psychology degrees prepare students for careers in allied health and human resources (whitlow, 2019), that exercise science students can use their knowledge in fitness settings, training programs, or in allied health as physiologists or rehab professionals (reddan, 2017) and that information technology graduates can pursue degrees as analysts, designers, technicians, and/or project managers (shally-jansen, 2016). given these points, this research utilises a three-part typology of degrees, including specialist degrees, generalist degrees, and mixed degrees. the aim of the present research was to investigate the expectations and knowledge of students from diverse backgrounds who have enrolled into a wide range of degree types at australian universities. more specifically, the research examines:  whether or not students selected their degree with a specific career goal (that is, a concrete job) in mind;  for those with a career goal in mind, the accuracy of their understanding of the educationemployment pathway required to reach that specific job;  for all students, the accuracy of their understanding of the careers that will be available to them as a result of completing their chosen course. method participants data was collected from 689 individuals following their university offer but prior to the commencement of their undergraduate university studies in february 2019. participants were removed from the data set if they were commencing tafe qualifications, postgraduate qualifications or if they failed to complete more than 80% of the survey successfully. following this screening, the final participant sample comprised 462 individuals. collectively, these participants were enrolled at 15 different universities across australia, and in a wide range of degrees and disciplines. of the 462 individual ages ranged from 17 to 69 years, with a mean age of 20.25 years (sd = 6.84). 310 of these students were 19 years of age or under and constituted as direct school leavers. in terms of gender 117 individuals identified as male, 342 as females and 3 chose not to disclose. 85.7% of the sample spoke english as a first language and 91.3% completed their final year of high school within australia. lock, e., & kelly, k. (2020). ignorance is risk: an exploratory investigation of australian higher education students’ perceptions of their education–employment pathways. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 11(1), 22–36. 26 materials through the use of the online software ‘qualtrics’, a survey was developed for use in this project. the survey comprised 41 questions. demographic questions were followed by a series of closed and open-ended questions enquiring about the process that students underwent when selecting their university and degree. the survey then contained questions regarding the career outcomes that students saw as being related to their chosen courses, and regarding the career pathways that they were interested in pursuing. all data was collated and analysed using ibm spss version 25. procedure prior to the commencement of this study, ethics approval was obtained from the victoria university human research ethics committee. participants were recruited through university-related social media groups, in particular those targeted at commencing first year students. individuals interested in participating could follow a direct link to the qualtrics survey, where they were first presented with a plain language statement, and then were asked to consent prior to proceeding with the survey. it consisted of a series of pages – based around the context of each set of questions – and individuals had to complete the survey within a single session. data analysis classification of variables so as not to prime individuals to respond in a certain way, questions related to degree choice, career goals, careers associated with their degree, and their intent to pursue postgraduate qualifications were posed as open-ended questions. to enable quantitative analysis of responses, these needed to be recoded into nominal variables. this process is outlined below. firstly, to evaluate the accuracy of participants’ understandings of the career opportunities associated with their degrees, participants’ responses had to be compared to a known source. data was collected from the websites of the 15 universities that were present in the sample. each degree choice was searched and the potential career outcomes associated with the degree from each university website were collated within an excel spreadsheet. the answer the participant supplied commenting about what careers were associated with their degree choice (where they were prompted to name as many as possible) was then compared to the aggregation of careers compiled in the excel spreadsheet. four categories were created to evaluate the extent of the participants’ knowledge in relation to the employment pathways associated with their degree: extensive, somewhat extensive, somewhat limited and limited. to determine what category a student’s response belonged to, the following decision-making process was followed:  participants who responded with either a blank response, or a variation of ‘i don’t know’ were categorised as having ‘limited’ knowledge;  to be categorised as having ‘somewhat limited’ knowledge, the participant had to respond with few answers, varying only slightly from one another;  to be categorised as having ‘somewhat extensive’ knowledge, the participant had to respond with multiple answers, with some variation present between job roles or discipline fields;  to be categorised as having ‘extensive’ knowledge, an individual had to respond with multiple career outcomes that, in the case of mixed or generalist degrees, extended beyond the namesake of the degree and, where relevant, beyond the discipline/field. in the case of specialist degrees, ‘extensive’ knowledge was demonstrated through the identification of further specialisations that exist within a specific career. lock, e., & kelly, k. (2020). ignorance is risk: an exploratory investigation of australian higher education students’ perceptions of their education–employment pathways. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 11(1), 22–36. 27 in all instances the degree type and extent of the answers compiled in the spreadsheet were the primary factors considered, and all answers were considered and coded on a case by case basis. secondly, the accuracy of the participants’ perceptions with regard to the necessity of postgraduate qualifications was evaluated. participants were asked to state their career goal and whether or not postgraduate qualifications would be required to meet this goal. those who suggested that such qualifications would be necessary were asked to identify which qualifications were needed. to evaluate the accuracy of their knowledge, each individual career goal was researched against industry data. participant answers were then cross-referenced with the actual career pathways stated by industry, and were coded as either accurate, inaccurate or somewhat accurate/somewhat inaccurate. an answer was classified as ‘accurate’ if there was a clear similarity between the answer the student provided and the career qualification requirements depicted by industry. similarly, an answer was coded as ‘inaccurate’ if no such connection was apparent. finally, if an individual correctly identified that postgraduate qualifications were required, but was unable to accurately identify which specific qualification was needed, their response was coded as somewhat accurate/somewhat inaccurate. statistical analysis as the present study aimed to be exploratory in nature and a significant portion of the data that was collected was categorical, percentages were calculated and compared to determine differences present between groups. percentages were presented in tables and a summary of the findings discussed. where appropriate, chi square analyses were conducted to determine whether a significant relationship between variables was present. results career goal in order to first evaluate how career-driven the sample was, data was analysed to determine what percentage of individuals were entering university with a clear career goal in mind. responses were then categorised according to the degree-type each individual was undertaking. degrees fell into 4 categories: generalist, mixed, specialist and dual. all results are as indicated in table 1. table 1. percentage of commencing students with a clear career goal categorised degree type yes % no % overall sample (n = 455) 74.1% 25.9% generalist (n = 87) 70.1% 29.9% mixed (n = 103) 68.1% 31.9% specialist (n = 159) 89.5% 10.5% dual (n = 106) 58.8% 41.2% it can be seen from table 1 that individuals who were studying specialist degrees showed the highest rates of confidence regarding the career they wanted to pursue after leaving university. alternatively, individuals undertaking dual degrees showed the highest rates of uncertainty. a chi square test was performed to examine the relation between degree type and students commencing university with a clear career goal in mind. the relation between these variables was significant χ (3, lock, e., & kelly, k. (2020). ignorance is risk: an exploratory investigation of australian higher education students’ perceptions of their education–employment pathways. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 11(1), 22–36. 28 n = 411) = 31.66, p < 0.001. this indicates that the likelihood a student has a clear career goal in mind when commencing university is significantly related to their choice of degree type. accuracy of knowledge: postgraduate study and career pathways in order to understand whether or not prospective students had an understanding of the pathway required to achieve their career goal, participants who answered yes to having a clear career goal were then questioned further about whether or not additional qualifications would be required to achieve this. the results are depicted in table 2 below. table 2. intention of students to pursue postgraduate pathways degree type yes % no % overall sample (n = 303) 57.5% 42.5% generalist (n = 54) 44.2% 55.8% mixed (n = 64) 59.8% 40.2% specialist (n = 128) 59.2% 40.8% dual (n = 57) 66.0% 34.0% the results displayed in table 2 demonstrate that most individuals in the sample believe that further tertiary education will be required to reach their goals. students commencing generalist degrees were the only degree-type where a higher percentage suggested that these qualifications would not be necessary. furthermore, those undertaking dual degrees yielded the highest percentage of yes results when answering this question. a chi square test was performed to examine the relation between degree type and intent to undertake postgraduate study as part of their education – employment pathway. the relation between these variables was significant χ (3, n = 408) = 8.79, p = 0.032. however, this data alone represents only the students’ perceptions of their pathways. to test the accuracy of these perceptions, each case was investigated. the results of this are displayed in table 3 below. table 3. accuracy of students’ perceptions regarding postgraduate requirements degree type accurate somewhat accurate somewhat inaccurate inaccurate overall sample (n = 303) 45.9% 29.8% 24.4% generalist (n = 54) 37.9% 24.1% 24.1% mixed (n = 64) 33.0% 31.1% 25.2% specialist (n = 128) 52.2% 17.0% 20.1% dual (n = 57) 31.1% 39.6% 19.8% lock, e., & kelly, k. (2020). ignorance is risk: an exploratory investigation of australian higher education students’ perceptions of their education–employment pathways. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 11(1), 22–36. 29 those individuals pursuing specialist degrees had more accurate understandings of their career pathways than other groups. students pursuing generalist degrees had more accurate understandings than those pursuing mixed or dual degrees. a chi square test was performed to examine the relation between degree type and the accuracy of their perception of postgraduate requirements. the relation between these variables was significant χ (6, n = 405) = 23.31, p = 0.001. accuracy of knowledge: career pathways linked to chosen course participants were also surveyed on what careers were linked to their degrees, and the accuracy of responses was then evaluated. the results of this are depicted in table 4 below. table 4. extent of student understanding about what careers are linked to their chosen degree degree type extensive somewhat extensive somewhat limited limited overall sample (n = 455) 12.2% 29.6% 24.4% 33.8% generalist (n = 87) 4.7% 12.8% 36.0% 46.5% mixed (n = 103) 9.7% 13.6% 34.0% 42.7% specialist (n = 159) 19.6% 53.8% 8.2% 18.4% dual (n = 106) 10.4% 20.8% 30.2% 38.7% the results are varied but do indicate that individuals enrolled into generalist, mixed and dual degrees have limited to somewhat limited knowledge about the career possibilities associated with their degrees. individuals undertaking specialist degrees tend to have more extensive knowledge. a chi square test was performed to examine the relation between degree type and knowledge about careers linked to degree choice. the relation between these variables was significant χ (9, n = 453) = 109.01, p < 0.001. discussion the present study aimed to explore the expectations and knowledge that prospective australian undergraduate students hold regarding education-employment pathways. this research identified several findings that warrant further investigation if curriculum designers are to better understand, respond to, and manage the expectations of students with regard to their future careers. below, findings are considered as they relate to, firstly, the expectations and knowledge that students hold regarding their choice of undergraduate course and, secondly, those regarding the relevance of postgraduate qualifications to their respective career goals. undergraduate course choice: expectations and knowledge in general, a substantial majority of respondents (74.1%) were entering undergraduate study with the expectation that doing so will help them to achieve a clear career goal. this aligns with existing research that suggests that 77% of australian students see higher education as a means of helping them “to get training for a specific job” (baik et al., 2015). within these general findings lies important variation, however. it is, perhaps, unsurprising that the vast majority of respondents who lock, e., & kelly, k. (2020). ignorance is risk: an exploratory investigation of australian higher education students’ perceptions of their education–employment pathways. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 11(1), 22–36. 30 had chosen to enrol in specialist degrees had a clear career goal in mind prior to beginning their university studies, and that, of those who had chosen to enrol into generalist degrees, a much smaller proportion of respondents held clear career goals. after all, it would be expected that students who are less certain regarding the career they might wish to pursue would choose to enrol into degrees which offer flexibility and choice rather than narrow vocational outcomes. two further findings are more startling. the first of these is that the proportion of respondents enrolling into mixed degrees who held clear career goals was marginally below that of those who had enrolled into generalist degrees. this finding is surprising to the extent that we might expect that students who choose mixed degrees – that is, courses with a primary professional focus – would do so with a clear career outcome in mind, or at least with greater clarity than is true of those who enrol into generalist degrees. the second finding worthy of particular note is that the students who appeared least likely to possess a clear career objective were those who had enrolled in dual degrees. this suggests that more than two out of five students enrolling into dual degrees may be doing so in order to expand rather than narrow their career options; their choice of course may represent an attempt to delay career choices rather than an expression of a prior career choice. dual degrees in australia tend to have higher entrance requirements than single degrees and may seem like a valuable investment in terms of time and money (russell, dolnicar, & ayoub, 2007). furthermore, students who achieve highly but are most uncertain may be drawn to these degrees as they often cover more than one discipline area and may initially be suited to providing a breadth of education that graduates and employers would evaluate favourably (batson, sharp, ramsay, & mackinnon, 2002). this research also examined the accuracy of students’ knowledge regarding the educationemployment pathways that they have chosen. after all, it is not merely whether or not students have expectations regarding the links between their course choice and career outcomes that is important; so too is the alignment between their expectations and the reality of the educationemployment pathways upon which they have embarked. perhaps the most striking finding from this research is that only a little over 10% of respondents demonstrated an extensive knowledge, and fully one third of students showed very limited knowledge of the career outcomes related to courses in which they were already enrolled. while this research is exploratory, the suggestion that more than half of students hold somewhat limited or limited knowledge regarding the career possibilities to which their courses lead clearly warrants attention. parks and colleagues (2017) identified that due to limited support, uncertainty about where to source valuable information, and the pressure to make a timely decision, students in their final year of high school tend to make hasty, ill-informed decisions, and often hope to find clarity at a later point. however, the results of the present study indicate that, in many cases, such clarity has not been found by students before they have made important and impactful decisions about their university study. the results of the present study indicated that the accuracy of students’ knowledge of the career outcomes to which their respective courses may lead varies according to course type. respondents enrolling into specialised courses demonstrated the highest levels of accuracy of knowledge regarding the career outcomes to which their chosen degrees could lead. this finding may represent evidence that the students who have chosen specialised courses tend to have the aptitude to seek out detailed knowledge. for example, ross, hannah and van huizen (2016) explored what motives underpinned the desire for paramedic students to pursue their course. the findings of this study yielded results that were directly related to the career outcome of their degree (e.g. attending emergencies, saving lives). what is notable here, is that despite this cohort of students demonstrating relatively high levels of accuracy of knowledge regarding education-employment pathways, more than one in four students enrolling into specialised courses demonstrated either limited or somewhat limited knowledge of the careers to which their chosen course might lead. the findings regarding student knowledge of the education-employment pathways flowing through generalist, mixed, and dual degrees are even more alarming. in each of these cases, majorities of lock, e., & kelly, k. (2020). ignorance is risk: an exploratory investigation of australian higher education students’ perceptions of their education–employment pathways. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 11(1), 22–36. 31 students demonstrated either somewhat limited or limited knowledge of the career outcomes related to their respective courses. this lack of accurate knowledge regarding career outcomes may be unsurprising insofar as it is evident in students enrolling into generalist degrees. firstly, online descriptions of the career possibilities linked to such degrees typically list a very wide variety of potential career outcomes, accurate knowledge of which may be difficult to possess. indeed, it may be that the limited knowledge of career outcomes expressed by many of these students results not from a lack of vocational purpose, but instead from their possession of a narrow focus on a specific goal (which over 70% of generalist degree students identified themselves as having). secondly, it is often assumed that generalist degrees are more likely to be chosen by students who lack confidence about their vocational potential. in direct contrast to the clear motivators ross and colleagues (2017) found, mestan (2016) found that relatively high attrition rates in bachelor of arts courses could be traced to the lack of clear purpose and specific career direction of students enrolled in such courses. mestan (2016) noted that students at the completion of their first year often still expressed high levels of uncertainty in relation to the careers linked to their degree, despite having completed one third of their undergraduate studies. the similarities between the findings of the present study and mestan (2016) cannot be ignored, and the fact that four out of five students enrolled in generalist degrees demonstrated a lack of accuracy of knowledge about career outcomes associated with their studies suggests that curriculum designers in such courses have much work to do. the findings regarding students enrolling into mixed degrees are also concerning, though for different reasons. these students demonstrated slightly greater knowledge regarding potential career outcomes than did those enrolling into generalist degrees. still, however, more than threequarters of mixed degree respondents demonstrated somewhat limited or limited knowledge of the career outcomes associated with their chosen course, which means that the accuracy of knowledge demonstrated by these students remains far lower than that of specialist course students. this is true despite the fact that mixed degrees are narrower in focus than are generalist degrees, and more similar in structure and scope to specialised courses. bates and hayes (2017) investigated the knowledge that current criminology students held and found that while most had some idea of career outcomes, the breadth of outcomes available was largely misunderstood. furthermore, kelly and lock (2019) highlight that a similar pattern is seen in psychology students, as did shally-jansen (2016) for information technology students. the findings of these papers demonstrate a similar pattern to that of the present study; that is, many students carry some knowledge about the career outcomes associated with their degree, however, this knowledge is often narrow and lacks the cross-sector breadth that is characteristic of many mixed degrees. finally, students enrolling into dual degrees, whilst demonstrating concerning levels of accuracy of knowledge regarding career outcomes, are more knowledgeable than those enrolling into either generalist or mixed degrees. interpreting this finding is not easy. on the one hand, the fact that only a little more than 30% of dual degree students expressed extensive or somewhat extensive knowledge regarding the career outcomes linked to their courses is, of course, worrying. on the other hand, the somewhat higher levels of accuracy of knowledge regarding career outcomes held by dual degree as opposed to mixed and generalist degree students is interesting given that comparatively low numbers of dual degree students identified themselves as being motivated by a clear career goal. this could be due to the fact that while uncertain, a number of dual degree students are drawn to this type of degree due to the breadth of career options available to them, as they hold the belief that they will have more choice upon graduation (russell et al., 2007). postgraduate study: expectations and knowledge as well as examining prospective students’ expectations and knowledge regarding the links between their yet-to-be-started undergraduate degrees and future employment pathways, this research also investigated students’ expectations and knowledge regarding the relevance of postgraduate qualifications to their future careers. knowledge regarding this topic is important to the extent that lock, e., & kelly, k. (2020). ignorance is risk: an exploratory investigation of australian higher education students’ perceptions of their education–employment pathways. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 11(1), 22–36. 32 it might help us to better understand how students perceive the longer-term education-employment pathways upon which they are embarking. in general, this research found that a majority of students who had a clear career goal in mind prior to commencing an undergraduate degree also intended to pursue postgraduate qualifications in order to reach their stated career goal. such findings are not surprising given the wide-held view that, due in part to the widening of access to higher education, undergraduate degrees may increasingly be regarded as a necessary-but-not-sufficient requirement for employment (clements & kamau, 2017). it is worth noting that, here again, variation in student expectations can be linked to the types of undergraduate degree into which students have chosen to enrol. students in both specialised degrees and mixed degrees reported similar levels of anticipation regarding the need for further study. in contrast, less than half of generalist degree students anticipated undertaking postgraduate qualifications, while two-thirds of dual-degree students intended to do so. these latter results are particularly interesting. on the one hand, following the logic embodied in the ‘melbourne model’ (maslen, 2006), one might expect that generalist degrees would be seen as a natural precursor to post-graduate study, wherein students start with a broad undergraduate degree before narrowing their studies through enrolment in a professional postgraduate course. on the other hand, the comparatively high proportion of dual degree students that anticipate completion of postgraduate qualifications might be interpreted as evidence that such students see the accumulation of degrees as a means to achieve employability and economic security. of greater concern, however, are the high rates of inaccurate knowledge expressed by students regarding the need for postgraduate qualifications. again, variation across course-types was evident and, again, students enrolled into specialist degrees demonstrated the most accurate knowledge regarding this matter. students enrolling into generalist, mixed and dual degrees demonstrated markedly lower levels of accuracy in terms of their knowledge regarding postgraduate qualifications. the finding that less than a third of dual degree students had accurate knowledge regarding the place of postgraduate qualifications in their pursuit of their career goals is of particular concern, especially given the tendency of such students to express an intention to extend their investment in education by following the completion of a dual undergraduate degree with enrolment in postgraduate courses. implications these findings hold important implications with regard to curriculum design and, in particular, the delivery of support within the curriculum regarding career awareness (choate, et al., 2019). if, as prior research suggests, a lack of confidence or clarity regarding career destinations impacts upon students’ academic success, well-being, and satisfaction (jackson & wilton, 2017), then knowing that, across mixed, generalist, and dual-degree cohorts, 30-40% of students lack a clear career goal presents curriculum designers in such courses an important challenge. what is even more concerning is the lack of accurate knowledge regarding where students’ already chosen degrees might take them; less than half of respondents had even somewhat extensive knowledge of the career outcomes associated with their chosen courses. any efforts to address employability within higher education must recognise the diverse needs of students from varied backgrounds, as research has shown that knowledge and expectations regarding education-employment pathways are influenced by an array of factors (including such things as parental support and socioeconomic status) (batson et al., 2002). however, existing research also suggests that there are some common features that curriculum designers ought to incorporate into their planned responses to this challenge. firstly, the development of employability skills in general, and of career awareness in particular, must be deeply connected to the regular curriculum of students if it is to be meaningful; extracurricular employability or careers advice has been shown to be of little value (jorre de st jorre & oliver, 2018). secondly, as these findings make clear, employability and career awareness are lock, e., & kelly, k. (2020). ignorance is risk: an exploratory investigation of australian higher education students’ perceptions of their education–employment pathways. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 11(1), 22–36. 33 issues that must be addressed from the very outset of a student’s undergraduate studies; no longer can they be left to the final year of study. in addition, it is clear from these findings that efforts to generate career awareness will need to be tailored to the needs of cohorts in different degree-types; curriculum designers working with each type of degree will face different challenges and different opportunities when it comes to supporting students to generate greater career awareness. curriculum designers in specialised courses appear to face a lesser burden in this regard; students in such degrees were the most likely to have a clear career goal, and most accurate in their knowledge of the career outcomes that are available to them. still, one in ten such students lacked a clear career goal, and more than one in four lacked even somewhat extensive knowledge about possible career outcomes. finding ways to support such students within specialised courses remains necessary, but this might prove challenging given that such courses are typically tightly focused and regulated by professional associations, leaving less scope for adding curricular content. course teams working in generalist programs face a far greater need to promote career awareness amongst their students: nearly half of such students held only limited knowledge of relevant career outcomes. in one sense, this challenge might be exacerbated by the broad nature of these degrees and the wide array of career outcomes to which they can lead. crucially, however, whilst the breadth of such degrees will no doubt pose a challenge, the structure of generalist degrees offers important opportunities. because such degrees ask students to make choices regarding the trajectory of their education-employment pathways, first-year curriculum designers can take advantage of the opportunity to link career and employability advice to the decisions regarding which major/s to take that students have in front of them. this could involve the explicit exploration of the knowledge and skills being acquired and of how they can be applied within a broad range of vocational sectors. a very different problem may be faced by curriculum designers in mixed degrees. such degrees have a narrower professional focus than do generalist degrees, but still, 30% of students enrolled in such courses are selecting them without a clear career goal in mind, and less than 25% of those students have at least a somewhat extensive knowledge about possible career outcomes. however, while there is a clear need to support students in such courses to develop greater career awareness, doing so may prove challenging in practice. many mixed degrees are similar to specialist degrees in that they have a narrow primary professional focus, and remain subject to accreditation rules that limit the flexibility of course designers, and implicitly emphasise to students the primacy of that central profession. under such conditions, generating awareness in students of ‘alternative’ career outcomes, that utilise their seemingly specific developed skill sets, may prove to be a complex task. perhaps the greatest challenge is faced by those seeking to support dual degree students. it is striking that students enrolling into dual degrees showed the lowest likelihood of having clear career goals, and while the accuracy of their knowledge regarding career outcomes was a little higher than that of generalist and mixed degree students, it remained low. however, while there is a clear need to support the enhancement of career awareness in dual degree students, doing so may prove tricky. responsibility for the delivery of such courses is often distributed across organisational units, and opportunities for offering first-year employability teaching that is tailored to the distinct needs of dual degree students may be limited. often, such degrees are built through the combination of units from standalone degrees, the result being that even if each part of a dual degree is designed to support employability teaching for ‘their’ students, the distinct needs of dual degree students may remain unmet. finally, the findings of this research regarding students’ expectations regarding and knowledge of the place of postgraduate qualifications within their education-employment pathways reinforces the need for curriculum designers to support students to develop greater career awareness early during their undergraduate studies. this research strongly suggests that students are entering undergraduate study with important gaps in their knowledge about how both their current lock, e., & kelly, k. (2020). ignorance is risk: an exploratory investigation of australian higher education students’ perceptions of their education–employment pathways. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 11(1), 22–36. 34 undergraduate study and anticipated postgraduate study might be linked to their attainment of career outcomes. student choices regarding university study are linked to heavy investments of time, money and effort, and heis have an obligation to ensure that students, as early as is possible, develop a clear understanding of the education-employment pathways that they embark upon and how the skills and knowledge they acquire at university can be applied and contextualised within the workplace. furthermore, supporting students to develop career awareness has been shown to promote improved student retention, success, and satisfaction, thus suggesting that by addressing the knowledge gaps detailed above will serve the interests of heps, as well as helping them to meet their obligation to students. limitations and future research this exploratory study has identified key patterns of perceptions in prospective students across australia, and while these findings are promising they are not without limitations. firstly, quantitative data is inherently limited as it provides numerical descriptions as opposed to a detailed narrative. the descriptions provided by the data gathered in the present study should not be undervalued; instead future research should seek to unpack the patterns of beliefs identified and undertake a more detailed investigation into the relationship between course type and the expectations of students. secondly, the present study surveyed only prospective university students. the findings highlight that some students are commencing their courses with uncertainty about how their degree connects to future employment. it is the responsibility of heps to address this uncertainty, however, the findings are unable to indicate if this is occurring within existing undergraduate courses. further research should seek to determine whether or not this uncertainty is being addressed during students’ undergraduate degrees. furthermore, a deeper understanding of students’ decision-making processes in relation to their education-employment pathways would be useful for heps and, more specifically, for curriculum designers. methodologically it should be noted that while the sample was large and generally representative of the commencing student cohort there are some aspects that should encourage some caution in the interpretation of the results. most obviously, 75% of the sample identified as female. while it is unknown specifically what impact this may have had, future research should aim to recruit a balance of gender that is representative of the general population. there was also a slight age skew. 74% of the present sample were under the age of 25. this is higher than the national average which states 58% of undergraduate university students are under the age of 25 (edwards & van der brugge, 2018). this could have been due to the fact that all advertising was conducted through social media which may have attracted a younger sample. finally, this research investigates the expectations and perceptions of students within an australian context only; comparative research across multiple higher education systems could also be warranted. heps occupy a position of great importance with regard to the shaping of the education– employment pathways that their students pursue. while it is exploratory in nature, by highlighting the uncertainty that commencing students bring with them regarding these pathways, this research serves to clarify the need for heps to enhance the career awareness of their students, and to do so in ways that respond to the distinct characteristics of different degree-types. references artess, j., hooley, t., & mellors-bourne, r. 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(2019). alternative careers. department of psychology, camden college of arts and sciences: new jersey. about the authors edward lock, ba (hons), phd, is a lecturer at victoria university, melbourne. he teaches employability, research, and communication units in the first year college. his research interests relate to employability, curriculum design, and organisational change. kate kelly, bpsych (hons), phd, is an academic teaching scholar at victoria university in melbourne australia. she teaches first year psychology, career planning and communication units to psychology, social work, nutrition and outdoor education students. she has a strong interest in curriculum design and preparing students for life after university. bowles, m., ghosh, s., & thomas, l. (2020). future-proofing accounting professionals: ensuring graduate employability and future readiness. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 11(1), 1–21. 1 the journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability issn: 1838-3815 (online) journal homepage: https://ojs.deakin.edu.au/index.php/jtlge/ future-proofing accounting professionals: ensuring graduate employability and future readiness marcus bowles1, samrat ghosh1, lisa thomas2 corresponding author: marcus bowles (marc.bowles@utas.edu.au) 1 university of tasmania, 2 chartered accountants australia & new zealand abstract key international and australasian bodies have reported research suggesting the accounting profession is one of the most vulnerable to disruption through automation and changed business models. but research discussed in this paper confirms that while component parts of an accounting ‘job’ will be replaced by technology, the capabilities required to perform remaining accounting and finance activities would not only endure, they would spread across many non-accounting roles. c this report presents the findings from the final stage of a validation process that was conducted by chartered accountants australia and new zealand (ca anz) across australia and new zealand. the report confirms 24 capabilities, including six considered essential requirements for every professional seeking to work in accounting, finance, and related work roles. the findings provide evidence that these capabilities, in contrast to recent reports suggesting employment opportunities for accounting graduates are in decline, can create opportunities for sustainable careers. the validation project and survey results provide unexpected insight into the capabilities of different age groups and professionals at different career stages that are considered important. the research outlined in this paper will not only inform continuing professional education for members but also help refine the design of post-graduate curriculum and continuing professional development. keywords: capabilities, professional capability standards, employability, graduate attributes, soft skills introduction chartered accountants australia and new zealand (ca anz) has been confronting the problem faced by large professional bodies seeking to meet the challenges of automation and workforce transformation. how do they best ensure graduates choosing a professional career that the skills from accounting education would not only secure a job but also create a sustainable career pathway (hancock et al., 2010)? it is not a new idea to suggest professional bodies play a vital role in helping employers, students, and educational providers identify the capabilities required to succeed in the accounting profession (big eight, 1989; siegel & sorensen, 1994). however, the future of the accounting profession has been subject to so much hyperbole and conflicting insights derived from data that ca anz (2017b) knew its future strategy would need to address a fundamental question (2nd road, 2017): how can we create relevance and value for our members and the community so that we can build a sustainable future for our profession? https://ojs.deakin.edu.au/index.php/jtlge/ mailto:marc.bowles@utas.edu.au bowles, m., ghosh, s., & thomas, l. (2020). future-proofing accounting professionals: ensuring graduate employability and future readiness. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 11(1), 1–21. 2 the most prominent contention seems to suggest that, while technology disruption is driving employment demand in the profession in some western countries over the short term, automation will most seriously challenge employment growth in accounting and finance more than almost any other profession (association of chartered certified accountants [acca], 2016, pp. 11-12). reinforcing this underlying anxiety, the world economic forum (wef) predicted in 2018 that the effect of automation and robotic technologies would see professional accountants and auditors and the associated clerical roles in accounting, bookkeeping, and payroll effectively lose over 40% of the current employment numbers within five years, effectively becoming a redundant occupation across the globe by 2028 (wef, 2018, p. 9). moreover, research confirms that this decline would be seen across all major industry sectors (wef, 2018, pp. 43-65) and make the accounting occupation most at risk for job loss caused by automation in regional australia and new zealand (regional australia institute [rai], 2018, p. 9; new zealand institute of economic research [nzier], 2015, pp. 24, 26). by way of contrast to this pessimistic backdrop, the demand for accountants seems to be growing. experienced accountants remained in high demand in 2018 and 2019 in australia and new zealand. whereas the para-professional or associate accounting roles, such as accounting clerks, remained in general decline, the average net profit of accounting firms continued to grow, albeit slower compared to the overall economy (the benchmarking group, 2019). preparing students for the changes likely to affect accountants is not something unexpected. there has been over a decade of criticism of universities failing to teach accounting graduates generic skills or prepare them for the emerging world of work in australasia or other countries (albrecht & sack, 2000; smith, maguire, & han, 2018). in 2016, the australian business deans council (abdc, 2016) adopted the australian learning and teaching council’s recommended threshold learning outcomes for accounting degrees (hancock et al., 2010). these learning standards prescribe five interrelated graduate attributes for undergraduate bachelor’s and master’s degree accounting students. the learning standards include judgement, knowledge and critical analysis, problem-solving skills, communication, teamwork, and self-management (abdc, 2016). for over a decade, confusion has continued to reign over vital questions regarding how these categories of generic skills or graduate outcomes were to be implemented, for instance:  should the graduate attributes be embedded in the existing curriculum or assessed in isolation (mcguigan & kern, 2010)?  are the attributes separate or related skills? answers to this varied, and a myriad of different ways emerged to bundle or co-assess different attributes (e.g., could communication be assessed with teamwork or with collaborative problem solving?) (hancock et al., 2009).  can the universities continue to adapt and ensure graduates are equipped to complete everchanging work roles (kavanagh & drennan, 2008; albrecht & sack, 2000)?  how can students and employers be assured that the non-technical skills were being given as much emphasis as technical skills and assessed relevant to the needs of various future employment contexts (tempone, et al., 2011; hancock, et al., 2010; hancock, et al. 2016; deloitte, 2017)?  how could institutions assure employers that all the attributes were assessed to the same standard of employability (jackling & de lange, 2009; wells, gerbic, kranenburg, & bygrave, 2009; towers-clark, 2016)? as both the professional body and partner or assurer that professional accounting degrees meet national and global standards ca anz, since its formation in late 2014 when the institute of chartered accountants australia and the new zealand institute of chartered accountants merged, has viewed supporting reforms to curriculum and professional skills development as one of its top priorities (ca anz, 2017b). more effort was required to ensure new graduates and chartered accountants were better equipped to undertake generic technical and professional tasks and had the mindset and emotional resilience necessary to succeed in the future workplace. bowles, m., ghosh, s., & thomas, l. (2020). future-proofing accounting professionals: ensuring graduate employability and future readiness. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 11(1), 1–21. 3 disruption: opportunity or threat? prior to undertaking the capability research, ca anz commissioned a white paper into the future accountant (bowles, 2018). the aim was to uncover how the accounting activities and tasks would be organised and how the role of an accountant would evolve over the coming decade. a secondary aim was to test and report the likely exposure of accounting activities to automation. research has uncovered that technology is not only changing the accountant’s work activities and role in the economy, but is also altering how clients interact with accountants. in the face of a booming financial technology (fintech) industry in australia and new zealand, the provision of accounting services, such as auditing of accounting records, preparing financial statements, preparing tax returns, and bookkeeping, have all been subject to radical innovation (the benchmarking group, 2019). for instance, online and cloud accounting platforms (e.g., myob and xero) are capturing and shaping the relationship between the accountant and clients. the highscalability, personalisation, and global reach of these platforms continue to reshape accountants in every industry and region of australia and new zealand. emerging developments in platforms and digital currency were also noted as having profound regional and global implications. digital platforms and solutions, such as blockchain and cryptocurrency, hold enormous promise for new practices while being a threat to established accounting systems. they not only aggregate demand and provide a focal point for automation and opportunities to reduce labour intensive tasks but also improve efficiency and reduce the cost to clients, thus challenging the very nature of how accounting is undertaken (deloitte, 2016). as accounting platforms continue to evolve, as with uber, airbnb, and similar models, disintermediation of the professional-client relationship will occur. this will give rise to alternative accounting services that will predominantly be delivered through digital and mobile channels directly to the client (bowles, 2018, p. 15). despite this seemingly negative insight, the future accountant research confirmed significant opportunities for the accounting profession (bowles, 2018). disruption will also create new jobs. across all industries, the end-customer, client, or business relationships are increasingly being conducted online. as disruption and new business models affect businesses, accountants will undertake essential activities, such as strategy formation, feasibility studies, business cases, compliance audits, financial risk analysis, and ongoing evaluation of transformation programs (bowles, 2018; deloitte, 2016). many of these critical accounting activities and related capability requirements will, nonetheless, diffuse across new or emerging roles outside traditional accounting jobs and pathways, for instance, in work with emergent titles, such as sustainability analyst, systems accountant, agile manager, system transformation auditor, project finances coordinator, confidence assurance, and financial data analyst/scientist. we can already see capabilities of accountants and auditors matching the need for corporations desperately looking for skilled staff to fill recruitment needs in business intelligence, cybersecurity, crypto/digital currency, and blockchain roles (tingeyholyoak & burritt, 2012). analysis of the reshaped future accounting role raised the question as to how a professional body such as ca anz could best equip and support members transitioning to a new service environment, and for members to support clients who will be early adopters and initiators of change? just as the accounting industry must enhance its ability to adapt and evolve, its greatest opportunity will also come with roles associated with assisting clients and employers to transform and become more agile. earlier research the formation of the chartered accountants australia and new zealand capability model (cacm) was not a greenfield exercise. extensive research and data were drawn from four existing sources. the first source of data was global frameworks. as part of the global accounting alliance (gaa), ca anz has an obligation to align with the agreed curriculum and competency-related principles bowles, m., ghosh, s., & thomas, l. (2020). future-proofing accounting professionals: ensuring graduate employability and future readiness. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 11(1), 1–21. 4 established for global accounting professionals. the global framework and the research and competency frameworks developed by member institutions provided a rich foundation for defining the skills, knowledge, and behavioural requirements. in particular, the work by the canadian, scottish, irish, english, welsh, and south african members of the gaa provided invaluable comparative taxonomies and competency dictionaries. several guidance documents were also identified that set the rules and scope for any capability model, including the following: • accounting professional ethics & standards board, apes 110 (apesb, 2018); • requirements set by the international federation of accountants (ifac) and international accounting education standards board and distilled into the gaa (2019a, 2019b) competency framework and principles; • the accounting learning standards developed through the australian government office for learning and teaching (formerly australian learning and teaching council) covering bachelor, entry and advanced coursework master degrees in accounting; • gaa accountant of the future project (oliver, 2018); and • the cpa canada chartered professional accountant competencies (cpac, 2019). second, ca anz had just finalised a major research project to delimit the success profiles and behavioural competencies required by a professional accountant at each of three stages in their career: early career (new graduate), leader, and executive (ca anz, 2017a). the global and australian work on defining professional capabilities required in the future workplace provided a third, very rich field of insight (deakinco, 2017; det, 2015; gekara et al., 2019; queensland tertiary admissions centre [qtac], 2019). this research complemented and, through semantic and comparative analysis (bowles, 2016), reinforced global research that also sought to isolate the core skills or capabilities that would enhance employability in the 21st century (frey, osborne, & holmes, 2016; wef, 2018; organisation for economic co-operation and development [oecd], 2015). research also offered insight into where accounting employment and vulnerability of jobs to automation were unclear if analysis simply used existing occupational and workforce classifications, such as the australian and new zealand standard classification of occupations (australian bureau of statistics [abs], 2013) or the u.s. department of labor’s o*net analysis (national center for o*net development, 2019). by unbundling accounting jobs from the activity and task level, a far more reliable insight was gained. it showed where component parts of a ‘job’ would be replaced by technology, but the capabilities required to perform remaining accounting and finance activities would endure. in this sense, the capability model became a more reliable way to predict future employment than looking at jobs that were a backward examination of industrial age terminologies and boundaries. the fourth and final source of information was the parallel project to redevelop the chartered accountants program (ca program). the redevelopment of the graduate diploma course involved broad and extensive consultation and co-design with ca anz members, academics, industry, and relevant global bodies. the new ca program is being designed to maximise existing core strengths while developing new, highly effective areas that build the essential professional technical and nontechnical capabilities required by graduating chartered accountants seeking future ready, employable skills (ca anz, 2019c). the ca anz professional capability standards the cacm is a sensemaking model (see figure 1 below). it is a strategic, overarching approach to promote more accurate forecasting and planning for the emerging needs of the ca anz members and the accounting workforce. the cacm is intended to augment and support the better integration of solutions that ca anz has already invested in researching, designing, and testing with its members and other stakeholders. the cacm is structured around four domains: business (business context), leadership (people and bowles, m., ghosh, s., & thomas, l. (2020). future-proofing accounting professionals: ensuring graduate employability and future readiness. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 11(1), 1–21. 5 future), personal (mindset and intellect), and technical (professional expertise). these domains emerged from a comparative analysis of existing research (ca anz, 2017b; acca, 2016; gaa educational directors, 2018; bowles, 2019). the review of the global research confirmed the requirement of the following four domains that best represent the aspects of developing a future accountant:  personal – who i am  business – how i operate  leadership – what i grow  technical – what i bring the capabilities in the resulting ca anz model underpin the capacity of an organisation, industry, community, or professional workforce for action (scott, coates, & anderson, 2008). they delineate the ability or potential for the workforce and individuals to be flexible, innovative, adaptive, and responsive with agility and to maintain resilience in the face of challenges (bowles & schoenheimer, 2009, pp. 27-28; mccann & selsky, 2012; hamel, 2003). capabilities exist to emphasise and encompass more than occupational or vocational skill, knowledge or competencies. a capability framework is constructed to support strategic, systemlevel outcomes. it deliberately extends competency models (behavioural, technical, or vocational) to develop and assess dimensions, such as emotions and cognitive factors that enhance the deeper human capital value residing in the organisational culture and collaborative purpose (teece, 2007; bersin, stempel, & van der vyver, 2014). professional capability frameworks grow current job competence and develop a person’s future potential. this means they are built to provide a higher-level insight into the skills, knowledge, personal attributes, and mindsets that underpin the professional capacity required in the emerging workforce, not just for performance in a job. capability is compatible, but not interchangeable, with definitions of behavioural competence or a vocational competency, as instituted for accounting occupations under the australian and new zealand national training systems. however, many jurisdictions within the gaa, including ca anz, have previously promoted the idea that the capability was a sub-set or component of competence. this is misleading. many competencies or related descriptors can co-exist under a capability framework. but capabilities do not need to be as granular in detail nor have assessment tied to behavioural attributes or vocational outcomes. this is wholly the domain of the competencies already used in the ca anz success profiles and competency frameworks developed by many gaa members. bowles, m., ghosh, s., & thomas, l. (2020). future-proofing accounting professionals: ensuring graduate employability and future readiness. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 11(1), 1–21. 6 ^ these are the six non-technical capabilities considered essential for future employability of a professional accountant irrespective of their level of work, career stage, location or job role. the other non-technical capabilities, while critical, will vary in importance according to the job role. figure 1: chartered accountants anz capability model human capabilities, soft skills, graduate attributes, and employability just as the relationship between capabilities and competencies may be blurred, so can the relationship with frameworks seeking to define employability skills, soft skills, enterprise skills, or human capabilities relating to work in the fourth industrial age (moore & morton, 2017; crisp & oliver, 2019). as the concepts of a ‘job’, occupation, and how tasks are organised into work are changing, professional bodies, educators, and governments need to better identify the skills that will increase employability (benbow & hora, 2018; alphabeta, 2019). the preliminary research by ca anz confirmed that, while several tasks and activities performed by accounting and finance professionals will certainly be automated or significantly altered using new technologies, other activities will become more important (bowles, 2018). supporting earlier research by the association of international certified professional accountants (farrar, 2018), it was found that accounting and related disciplinary roles were transforming. perpetuating a narrow focus on accountants as a processor of ‘accounting’ information or documents had a limited short-term benefit. the focus instead needed to shift to the role and activities of the accountant as a business partner. the more physical and repetitive the activity, the easier it was to automate or remove the human element through robotic process automation. the quadrant model below was developed to assess where certain activities and tasks could be clustered, and the effect of automation was predicted (bowles, 2018, p. 34). more physical, hands bowles, m., ghosh, s., & thomas, l. (2020). future-proofing accounting professionals: ensuring graduate employability and future readiness. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 11(1), 1–21. 7 on activities were likely to be automated (the processor quadrant or, to a less immediate extent, the steward quadrant). nevertheless, areas of growing demand seemed to involve human capabilities, such as offering conformance advice that drew on experience and was situated in exchanges with a client (advisor quadrant) or informed decision making associated with innovation and strategic agility (transformer quadrant). this shapes not only capability development but also career planning and skill strategies that emphasise technical accounting skills and knowledge at the expense of the human skills centred on the heart and mind (deloitte, 2019). figure 2: reconceptualising accounting roles and activities (bowles, 2018, p. 34) researchers have suggested that personal, human relationships and trust built between the technically competent, professional accountant and the small business clients in australia stimulated the decade-long growth in demand for accounting services after the global financial crisis (national australia bank [nab], 2018, p. 4; the benchmark group, 2019). human skills have been confirmed as forming over 70% of the skills listed on job profiles (deloitte access economics, 2017), and these allow professionals to attract a wage premium of up to 10% more than their peers (deloitte access economics, 2019, p. iii). the importance of non-technical skills that some call ‘soft skills’, and ca anz have titled ‘professional skills’, must complement the development of technically competent graduates. the aim is to ensure graduates entering a professional career as a chartered accountant are employable. the tendency in the past has been for many university and professional post-graduate courses to emphasise technical knowledge and theory over other non-technical and personal attributes and intelligences. graduate attributes are also a regulatory requirement of higher education providers in australia, who must define the qualities the graduates of their courses will hold. the research confirms that current efforts to reform curriculum must continue to ensure graduate attributes or graduate learning outcomes set the skills, knowledge, and attributes that extend beyond disciplinespecific curricula and are continuously developed within every program of study. the cacm defines levels of proficiency that follow three levels of career and membership progress (figure 3). it includes criteria at each of three levels—early career, leader, and executive—that offer indicators of proficiency. these can guide curriculum design, assessment, evidence gathering, and other membership services. bowles, m., ghosh, s., & thomas, l. (2020). future-proofing accounting professionals: ensuring graduate employability and future readiness. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 11(1), 1–21. 8 ethics and integrity description acts with integrity and consistently models and promotes ethical practices in conformance with ifac code of ethics, professional standards behaviour and relevant compliance requirements. proficiency levels early career could be demonstrated by the ability to:  act ethically and comply with fundamental principles of the international federation of accountants (ifac) code of ethics.  assess alternative courses of action and determine ethical consequences of choice or decisions  identify threats to fundamental principles and seek guidance or apply internal resolution procedures  apply fundamental ethical principles of integrity, objectivity, professional standards and due care, confidentiality and judgment to ethical dilemmas  recognise and avoids potential conflicts of interest leader could be demonstrated by the ability to:  ensure work team behave ethically and comply with principles of the ifac code of ethics  maintain an acute awareness of personal integrity and the underpinning values, beliefs, motivations and attitudes guiding decisions  advocate for satisfaction of community and legal obligations  act with integrity and proactively resolve dilemmas or issues that may threaten ethical behaviour  consistently model ethical and professional standards of integrity  recognise and manage potential breaches of confidentiality, privacy or conflicts of interest executive could be demonstrated by the ability to:  establish and communicate a clear set of requirements for moral, ethical, and professional standards, regulations, and organisational policies  champion effort to ensure the organisational values and behaviours promote what is right and meet moral, ethical and legal obligations  assure a consistent and compliant approach to ethical decision making in the organisation  promote the transparency of personal, professional and organisational ethical decision making  seek feedback from staff and stakeholders on the organisation’s adherence to ethical standards and ways to improve practice figure 3: capability structure and levels by defining and isolating professional capabilities, ca anz is offering better support and significant guidance into how post-graduate accountancy and related courses should be designed to better reflect both the technical and human capabilities that chartered accountants and employers will need in the future. moreover, the progression is linked to the ca program and continuing professional development (cpd) that will reinforce the lifelong journey a ca anz members will undertake. the development of a set of technical and non-technical capabilities for the profession will enhance the alignment of all stakeholders regarding the expectations of what graduate and chartered accountants can do at different stages of their careers. this is particularly important for new graduates. stakeholders often have very inconsistent expectations regarding what graduates can do and their level of employability (oliver, whelan, hunt, & hammer, 2011). the cacm is the framework that defines employability by setting the skills, knowledge, and personal attributes at different stages of career progress. progress that can span from new graduate with less than three to five years of experience, then to the intermediate leader level, and the executive with over 10 years of experience. the stages of career development broadly align to australian qualifications framework levels, 7, 8 and 9 respectively. these form standards an accounting professional will need strive to achieve when contributing to their work, community, or the economy (yorke, 2006, p. 21). data collection and methodology much of the higher education research into graduate attributes in accounting tends to focus on the internal educational process. views on which capabilities or skills are required by graduates therefore come from the input side of the education-employment process, including from students (jackling & de lange, 2009; oliver et al., 2011; smith et al., 2018; mcguigan & kern, 2010; wells et al., 2009), and educators (hancock et al., 2009; tempone et al., 2011; zaharim et al., 2010). however, ca anz, as the professional body in australia and new zealand, sought to ensure its focus capability title. colour indicates this is in the personal domain. there are three levels of proficiency. each level grows performance, career or professional outcomes indicators are used at each level as examples of demonstrated proficiency that a person should evidence. indicators are neither exhaustive nor contextualised. however, they indicate what evidence or capability assessment should target. bowles, m., ghosh, s., & thomas, l. (2020). future-proofing accounting professionals: ensuring graduate employability and future readiness. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 11(1), 1–21. 9 was on how the standards being set reflect what is required by both their major employer stakeholders and the accounting profession. the by-product of identifying what accountants require in order to be technically competent and responsive to changes in the future labour market was an evidence-based set of standards that tertiary education providers can reference to ensure their graduates acquire skills that are employable in the future. despite arguments suggesting employers believe it is the responsibility of universities to develop the enduring skills post-graduate accounting degree students will require to be employable, evidence suggests that all stakeholders respond more positively when the professional body provides informed guidance (maxwell, scott, macfarlane, & williamson, 2010; tempone et al., 2011; nagarajan & edwards, 2015). this guidance is even more effective when linked to international professional competency or curriculum frameworks that ensure students gain portable skills and that companies can access global talent (edmondson et al., 2012). the focus of the validation research was, therefore, to confirm the priority capabilities that accounting professions at all levels of employment from early career graduates to senior executives across australia and new zealand viewed as most important. research questions ca anz sought to confirm: 1. which non-technical capabilities are most relevant to the current work and are important to develop for future work roles? 2. which capabilities are perceived to be the highest priority for ca anz members to hold or develop? 3. which capabilities should ca anz focus on to build a sustainable future for the accounting profession? method a modified occupational analysis process was used to establish and classify the capabilities for the future accounting profession. following the established methodologies for professional jobs (cunningham, 1988; fleishman, 1967; mccormick, 1979; brannick & levine, 2002), the following actions were required: 1. set the parameters: classify the professionals (occupations and roles) being studied; 2. define the tasks and activities required in the roles; 3. define the outputs: define the capabilities describing the professional tasks and aggregated domains of related activities or functions at a level of proficiency; 4. validate the capabilities through the following: a. review by a subject matter expert (sme) to check or rate each capability according to its application or relevance to the professional requirements in the workforce; b. survey a wide array of job incumbents or knowledgeable smes who can rate the importance or relevance of each capability across a comprehensive range of employment contexts and required locations. the first three steps had been completed prior to this validation research project. the smes were sourced from a list of 3,000 self-nominated and invited ca anz members and stakeholders formed to provide a balanced sample across all regions, levels of work and specialisms within the accounting field. the current jobs classified as existing under the profession held to the australian and new zealand standard classification of occupations [anzsco] descriptions (abs, 2013). the existing representative common accounting position profiles (ca anz, 2019b), anzsco task descriptors (abs, bowles, m., ghosh, s., & thomas, l. (2020). future-proofing accounting professionals: ensuring graduate employability and future readiness. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 11(1), 1–21. 10 2013), and o*net (national center for o*net development [ncod], 2019) were used to define task or job activity inventories pertinent to accounting professions. unlike traditional occupational or job analysis approaches, the focus was not on validating tasks and competencies for a job (a skill set or cluster of tasks), but on validating the capabilities and then ensuring the capabilities could be aggregated into a cluster or stack for any job or occupational area within the accounting and related professions. unlike traditional computer processing of such data (i.e., common online data analysis platform [codap]), an analysis was undertaken not to present a set of competencies tied to a ‘job’ or a level of work (an anzsco classification or sub-classification) that was later validated by smes. rather, a comparative analysis was undertaken on the capabilities themselves using the latent dirichlet allocation to compare the capabilities to other professional frameworks deployed by gaa members. the aim was to ensure that the organising scheme for classifying and describing accounting technical and non-technical capabilities provided a robust and consistent perspective without overlaps or major gaps in terms of coverage of common accounting activities (bowles, bowes, & wilson, 2019). consistent with occupational analysis processes, the validated capabilities could still be sorted and used to form role descriptions, career ladders, performance and development frameworks, job design, learning and development solutions, workforce plans, and succession plans (boyce & gould, 1999). moreover, as jobs change, the clusters of capability can be resorted to consistently ensure that professionals are recruited or developed for the new roles. focusing on the capabilities required for tasks and activities across the professional workforce, rather than for a job, provides a more flexible, reliable, and effective way to undertake workforce planning and cope with changing modes of work. figure 4: ca anz consultation and validation of the draft cacm in step 4, validation (the focus of this paper) occurred through the following two investigations: 1. consultation and request for input from regional councils and stakeholder smes; and 2. using a modified occupational analysis approach, the draft cacm descriptors were constructed into an inventory and a survey conducted with a sample (2,129 respondents) of ca anz smes, stakeholders, and members who had self-nominated to provide independent input into any major research project involving all regions and areas of practice. findings respondents the target audience for this research project was ca anz members. out of the 3,000 survey invitations sent out to members willing to be involved in the research via ca anz’s member insights panel, 2,129 valid responses were received from accountants currently employed in organisations (corporate, practice, government, not-for-profit, and education). moreover, 65% of respondents bowles, m., ghosh, s., & thomas, l. (2020). future-proofing accounting professionals: ensuring graduate employability and future readiness. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 11(1), 1–21. 11 belonged to australia, and the remaining 35% were from new zealand. in addition, 57% of the respondents were male, and 42% were female. the remaining 1% opted to not declare their gender. whereas 80% of the respondents were working in an accounting or finance role, the remaining 20% of the respondents were working in another type of role (not specified) and belonged to various industries, such as manufacturing, financial and insurance services, education and training, and many others. furthermore, 19% of the respondents identified themselves as early career employees, 42% as leaders who managed teams, functions, divisions, or business units, and the remaining 40% as experienced leaders responsible for the governance of an organisation. the majority (15%) of the respondents belonged to the age range between 50 and 54 years old and the other respondents identified themselves as being between the ages of 45 and 49 (14%), 35 and 39 (14%), 40 and 44 (13%), 30 and 34 (12%), 55 and 59 (12%), 25 and 29 (9%), 60 and 64 (6%), 65 and 69 (3%), 18 and 24 (2%), and 70 and 74 (1%). results the aim of this research was to validate the capabilities that are considered important to accountants in the current roles and those that will emerge in the future. the results in this section have been organised by the following:  importance of capabilities for each domain (personal, business, and leadership);  importance of capability for each domain in each country (australia and new zealand); and  overall importance of capabilities (by removing domains and countries). the importance of each capability is presented with descending ranking (mean score: high to low; minimum 0 and maximum 10) with importance to current and future roles of accountants. importance of capabilities by domain domain: personal in this domain, the respondents ranked the capabilities in a similar order of importance for both current and future roles as accountants (summarised in table 1). the capability of ‘ethics and integrity’ was ranked as the most important, closely followed by the capabilities of ‘critical thinking and judgement’, ‘adaptive mindset’, and ‘self-management and learning’. the low values of the standard deviation (ranging from 1.11 to 1.73 for current and 1.06 to 1.56 for future) and variance (ranging from 1.55 to 2.05 for current and 1.52 to 2.14 for future) indicated consistency in the perception of the importance of the capabilities. the capability of ‘global citizenship’ was ranked the lowest in terms of importance. however, the comparatively higher standard deviation (2.28 for current and 2.22 for future) and variance (5.19 for current and 4.92 for future) in data towards ranking the capability of ‘global citizenship’ indicated that the perception towards its importance may have varied due to the variables (e.g., age, gender, and organisation type). for example, the capability of ‘global citizenship’ may have been considered very important by respondents working in a non-profit organisation but less important by respondents working in a corporate organisation. table 1: ranking of capabilities by domain (personal) ranking of capability’s importance important to current role importance to future role 1 (highest) ethics and integrity ethics and integrity 2 critical thinking and judgement critical thinking and judgement 3 adaptive mindset adaptive mindset 4 self-management and learning self-management and learning 5 (lowest) global citizenship global citizenship bowles, m., ghosh, s., & thomas, l. (2020). future-proofing accounting professionals: ensuring graduate employability and future readiness. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 11(1), 1–21. 12 the capabilities ranked similarly for both current and future roles when isolated and analysed based on the seniority (early career, leader, and executive) of the respondents in the organisation. domain: business in this domain, the capability of ‘communication’ was ranked the most important for both current and future roles followed by the capabilities of ‘problem solving and decision making’, ‘collaboration and relationships’, ‘customer focus’, and ‘digital acumen’ for current roles (for the future role, the ranking was similar except ‘collaboration and relationships’ was ranked higher than ‘problem solving and decision making’). the ranking of the capabilities for this domain is summarised in table 2. the low values of standard deviation (ranging from 1.11 to 1.73 for current and 1.06 to 1.56 for future) and variance (ranging from 1.55 to 2.05 for current and 1.52 to 2.14 for future) indicated the consistency in the perception of the importance of the capabilities. the capability of ‘business and data analysis’ ranked the lowest in terms of importance for both current and future roles. however, the comparatively higher standard deviation (1.94 for current and 1.76 for future) and variance (3.76 for current and 3.10 for future) in data towards ranking the capability of ‘business and data analysis’ indicated that the perception towards its importance may have varied due to variables (e.g., age, gender, and type of organisation). for example, ‘business and data analysis’ is a specific capability that may have been appealing to respondents working in leadership and executive roles and not to the respondents in the early stages of their career. table 2: ranking of capabilities by domain (business) ranking of capability’s importance important to current role importance to future role 1 (highest) communication communication 2 problem-solving and decision making collaboration and relationships 3 collaboration and relationships problem-solving and decision making 4 customer focus customer focus 5 digital acumen digital acumen 6 (lowest) business and data analysis business and data analysis the capabilities ranked similarly for both current and future roles when isolated and analysed based on the seniority of the respondents in the organisation. domain: leadership in this domain, the respondents ranked the capability of ‘agility and change’ as the most important followed by ‘drive for results’, ‘future focus’, ‘risk and governance’, and ‘leading and developing others’ for the current roles. in comparison to the current roles, the capabilities ranked most important for future roles were ‘future focus’ followed by ‘agility and change’, ‘drive for results’, ‘leading and developing others’, and ‘risk and governance’. the inconsistency in ranking for current and future roles may be attributed to the relative similarity in the values of standard deviation and variance for all the ranked capabilities (i.e., the respondents perceived the importance of the listed capabilities for leadership roles differently based on their age, gender, type of organisation they worked in, and other variables). however, the capability of ‘innovation and creativity’ ranked the lowest for both current and future roles. bowles, m., ghosh, s., & thomas, l. (2020). future-proofing accounting professionals: ensuring graduate employability and future readiness. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 11(1), 1–21. 13 table 3: ranking of capabilities by domain (leadership). ranking of capability’s importance important to current role importance to future role 1 (highest) agility and change future focus 2 drive for results agility and change 3 future focus drive for results 4 risk and governance leading and developing others 5 leading and developing others risk and governance 6 (lowest) innovation and creativity innovation and creativity the capabilities ranked similarly for both current and future roles when isolated and analysed based on the seniority of the respondents in the organisation. nevertheless, stage of career did influence the overall ranking for some of the capabilities considered least important. as depicted below, the importance of capabilities in current role were considered significantly less important for many new graduates. figure 5: capability rating by career stage (current vs. future roles) importance of capabilities by each domain in each country country: australia (domain: personal, business, and leadership) the ranking of capabilities by the australian respondents in the domains matched the ranking of the capabilities when isolated for the respective domain (as discussed above). hence, the capabilities (global citizenship, business and data analysis, and innovation and creativity) that ranked lowest in the individual domain did the same for the australian respondents. considering that most respondents (65%) were australian, this finding was anticipated. however, the data analysis revealed a thought-provoking fact about the capability of ‘ethics and integrity’. although all the capabilities received a higher mean score for future roles as compared to current roles, it was only the capability of ‘ethics and integrity’ that received a marginally higher mean score for current roles when compared to future roles. this finding indicated that the australian respondents considered the capability an important part of their professional behaviour throughout their careers. table 4: ranking of capabilities by each domain in australia ranking of capabilities domain important to current role importance to future role most important personal ethics and integrity ethics and integrity least important personal global citizenship global citizenship bowles, m., ghosh, s., & thomas, l. (2020). future-proofing accounting professionals: ensuring graduate employability and future readiness. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 11(1), 1–21. 14 most important business communication communication least important business business and data analysis business and data analysis most important leadership agility and change future focus least important leadership innovation and creativity innovation and creativity country: new zealand (domain: personal, business, and leadership) the ranking of capabilities by the new zealander respondents in the domains matched the ranking when the responses were isolated for the respective domain and those provided by their australian counterparts (as discussed above). for the domain of ‘leadership’, however, the only difference from previous rankings was that the capability of ‘risk and governance’ (and not ‘innovation and creativity’) was ranked the lowest for future roles. similar to their australian counterparts, the new zealander respondents also provided a higher mean score for all the capabilities for future roles except for the capability of ‘ethics and integrity’, which received a marginally higher score for current roles compared to the future roles. hence, it may be implied that ethical behaviour and conduct are considered essential for the profession throughout the careers of the accountants in new zealand. table 5: ranking of capabilities by each domain in new zealand ranking of capabilities domain important to current role importance to future role most important personal ethics and integrity ethics and integrity least important personal global citizenship global citizenship most important business communication communication least important business business and data analysis business and data analysis most important leadership agility and change future focus least important leadership innovation and creativity risk and governance overall importance of capabilities (removing domains and countries) the ranking of the capabilities and their overall importance to the current and future roles was also studied by removing the domains and countries of the respondents (summarised in figure 5). the results revealed that the capabilities of ‘ethics and integrity’ and ‘communication’ ranked the most important for current and future roles, respectively. the capability of ‘global citizenship’ ranked the lowest for both current and future roles. it was also noted that the top seven capabilities ranked for both current and future roles belonged to the domains of ‘personal’ and ‘business’, which indicated that the respondents perceived the ‘leadership’ capabilities secondary to the other two domains for their professional roles as accountants. statistically, the overall results suggest that a general belief remains that capabilities considered important today are still considered important in the future. at this stage, the research does not suggest that any capability or set of capabilities has a short shelf life. the results of the survey were in no way consistent with the expectations or earlier sme feedback. bowles, m., ghosh, s., & thomas, l. (2020). future-proofing accounting professionals: ensuring graduate employability and future readiness. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 11(1), 1–21. 15 this research clarifies which capabilities are considered most important today and into the future. it confirms that all professional accountants, irrespective of role, level of employment, experience, location, or stage of career considered the following six capabilities of the highest importance to current and future work: 1. communication (business domain) 2. ethics and integrity (personal domain) 3. problem solving and decision making (business domain) 4. critical thinking and judgement (personal domain) 5. adaptive mindset (personal domain) 6. collaboration and relationships (business domain) the most profound of the results were the six capabilities rated as the lowest of all 17 capabilities in terms of current and future importance for current or future accounting work (from the lowest rating):  digital acumen (business domain)  business and data analysis (business domain)  risk and governance (leadership domain)  innovation and creativity (leadership domain)  global citizenship (personal domain)  leading and developing others (leadership domain) figure 6: capability rankings – summary results bowles, m., ghosh, s., & thomas, l. (2020). future-proofing accounting professionals: ensuring graduate employability and future readiness. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 11(1), 1–21. 16 it should be clear that the ranking of the bottom capabilities does not make them redundant or irrelevant for current or future roles. the capabilities were ranked mainly based on their mean score, but the difference in scores between the capabilities should not be considered very significant. however, the bottom six capabilities did indicate a high variance and standard deviation, which further indicated an inconsistency among respondents on the capabilities they considered least important. the high variance scores indicate that many respondents may have considered the bottom-ranked capabilities to be as important as the top-ranked capabilities (and hence the relative difference in mean score is not significantly different), but the percentage of the respondents who perceived their lower importance was higher than other capabilities. for example, it may be implied that the high percentage of the respondents belonging to leadership and executive roles (81%) may have dictated the ranking of the top six capabilities, and although the early career respondents considered the bottom six capabilities to be equally important, due to their low percentage (19%), the capabilities could not achieve statistical significance in terms of ranking. the above results do confound the general feedback from those consulted in the earlier rounds of validation. equally, benchmarking with the research being conducted against gaa member frameworks suggests that the transformation of the profession into the future will rely on working with the following:  technology-enhanced roles (digital, data and analysis);  a global market and regulatory context (governance and risk); and  new and creative ways to add value to a business (innovation and creativity). the results were taken to the reviewing project committee and a final sme workshop comprising globally rated experts from australia and new zealand. the results and technical debate resulted in the sme final workshop suggesting revisions to the actual capability model (ca anz, 2019a). global citizenship was oriented away from a globalised business context to more tightly address its inclusion under the personal domain and was retitled regard for others. with the inclusion of creativity in innovation and creativity, experts believed it was ambiguous as a professional accounting capability. it was restructured to focus on how innovation was conducted (action) as part of the leadership domain. editing also ensured creativity was covered in the existing adaptive mindset capability. creativity, with the emphasis on how people think, was removed from the criteria, and the title was adjusted to innovation. the digital acumen capability had only small edits. it was noted that consideration and future research were required to further determine whether new graduates saw calls by leaders and executives for greater digital and technology skills as not applying to them because they may feel they already had acquired such skills. risk and governance was reframed to governance and risk. small edits were made, but the importance of the capability was confirmed. the primary emphasis should have been on governance, not risk. business and data analysis was felt to be too broad and lacked the desired emphasis on the future role of an accountant. the capability was also considered less relevant to the public sector and non-profit organisations. it was recast to move the capability from how a business consumes data, to emphasise how data can be used by accountants (or others in associated accounting roles) to add value to decision making. the way forward the ca anz is now focused on using the cacm to drive value for members by assisting individuals and organisations to develop the capabilities needed for the future workforce (figure 6). the cacm provides a strategic framework that ca anz can use as an organising principle for all of ca anz products and services. as the implementation of the cacm progresses, this will include alignment of bowles, m., ghosh, s., & thomas, l. (2020). future-proofing accounting professionals: ensuring graduate employability and future readiness. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 11(1), 1–21. 17 cpd solutions and education offerings, thought leadership activities and research focus areas, and public programs and events offered by ca anz. several such implementation initiatives in planning will assist in delivering on this value objective by bringing the cacm to life in various ways. figure 7: from capability framework to professional services the first of the cacm applications for ca anz is the direct alignment of the core capabilities to the graduate attributes that have been confirmed in a refresh of the design of ca anz’s core ca program. the six professional capabilities isolated in the research (‘communication’, ‘collaboration and relationships’, ‘problem solving and decision making’, ‘ethics and integrity’, ‘critical thinking and judgement’, and ‘adaptive mindset’) have shaped the core graduate attributes and skills, knowledge, and personal attributes that graduates of the revised post-graduate ca program will hold (as shown in figure 8). another key initiative in planning by ca anz is the provision of a self-assessment tool to support continued relevance and career success for members and enhanced capacity for strategic workforce development for organisations. the cacm will be used as the foundation for an integrated online diagnostic solution that combines competency assessment with personalised guidance around professional development opportunities aimed at both individuals and organisations. the solution will allow individuals and organisations to assess their capability against the model and compare this to the capability requirements of key common industry roles. based on the individual capability assessment, the tool will diagnose key areas for development and provide personalised recommendations for relevant cpd activities that can be accessed directly through the platform to assist the development of those key capability areas. to further support organisations with capability insights to guide strategic workforce development efforts, the solution will provide organisational leaders with a team view of capability across a cohort of individuals enabling common capability gaps to be identified, and cohort-relevant, targeted cpd activities to be suggested. the personalisation of the capability gap analysis will enable ca anz to grow its portfolio of offerings, incorporating learning solutions that are increasingly flexible in delivery and that target capabilities and career level needs in “high demand”. finally, the cacm provides the ideal framework to enable the awarding of micro-credentials across a range of cpd offerings and other areas within the service offerings for members. online diagnostic diagnostic tool determines individual capability gaps and maps to future desired job roles to highlight individual development needs. ca program design provide baseline capability approach that drives the content design for ca program cpd alignment model forms the base organising principle for all cpd offerings across organisation. employers employer profile within diagnostic tool for cohort view of capabilities to support workforce planning, skills audits and development of learning and talent plans with rich data and insights. microcredentials model becomes the basis upon which microcredentials are awarded/ recognised. bowles, m., ghosh, s., & thomas, l. 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(2010). the comparison on priority engineering employability skills. international journal of engineering and technology, 7(2), 61–74. about:blank about:blank about:blank about:blank about:blank about:blank about:blank about:blank about:blank about:blank about:blank about:blank lan, m.t.q (2020). graduate generic competences from the perspective of vnu employers. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 11(1), 131–145. 131 the journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability issn: 1838-3815 (online) journal homepage: https://ojs.deakin.edu.au/index.php/jtlge/ graduate generic competences from the perspective of vnu employers mai thi quynh lan1 corresponding author: mai thi quynh lan (lanmtq@vnu.edu.vn) 1 vietnam national university hanoi (vnu) http://orcid.org/0000-0002-1508-330x abstract the covid-19 pandemic has accelerated a shift to new ways of working, prompting companies to reimagine how, where and by whom work gets done (world economic forum & watson, 2020). this shift was already under way with the technological changes of the fourth industrial revolution. employers are looking for workers who are able to learn new knowledge and skills, adapt to the workplace, be sufficiently flexible to move jobs, and expand on the knowledge learnt at university. applying the theory of generic competences and the model of thirteen generic competences for university graduates of the tuning asia south east project (tase), this research investigates the perspectives of vnu stakeholders about the generic competences of vnu graduates. in particular, this paper discusses the employers’ perspective of vnu graduates’ generic competences. although employers rate all generic competences as important, they evaluated graduates’ achievement of seven generic competences as being at a less than satisfactory level. the findings of the research point to the need for the university to focus more on developing generic competences throughout the delivery of programs. keywords employer perspective, graduates, generic competences, vietnam national university hanoi (vnu) introduction in the context of the significant development of information technology, artificial intelligence (ai) and industry 4.0, the emergence and rapid replacement of technologies is leading to the appearance of non-traditional types of careers. the covid-19 pandemic has accelerated a shift to new ways of working, prompting companies to reimagine how, where and by whom work gets done (world economic forum & watson, 2020). this shift was already under way with the technological changes of the fourth industrial revolution. employers are looking for workers who are able to learn new knowledge and skills, adapt to their workplace, be sufficiently flexible to move jobs, and expand on the knowledge learnt at university (yorke & harvey, 2005). 'new-generation manufacturing' depends not only on new information technology, but also on new kinds of expertise. therefore, knowledge creation has expanded from the university to the field of application (tynjälä et al., 2006). https://ojs.deakin.edu.au/index.php/jtlge/ mailto:lanmtq@vnu.edu.vn lan, m.t.q (2020). graduate generic competences from the perspective of vnu employers. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 11(1), 131–145. 132 universities have been under considerable pressure to clarify the nature of the education they offer to their students. traditionally universities have been recognised as providers of basic scientific knowledge for local agricultural and manufacturing sectors and through their research and related activities, to produce, perpetuate and to disseminate knowledge (gunasekara, 2006). in responding to the current changes in society, institutions of higher education now need to encourage the synthesis and integration of different types of knowledge and to enhance the application of knowledge to social change (stephens et al., 2008, p. 320). the world we live in is 'super complex' where not only knowledge is uncertain, but also how we seek to understand such complexity. therefore, the role of higher education is to help students and the wider society to cope with that complexity (barnett, 2000). employers’ perceptions play a key role in the definition of the required skills for graduates (suleman, 2016). they look for graduates who are proactive, can use higher level skills including analysis, critique, synthesis and multi layered communication to facilitate innovative teamwork in catalyzing the transformation of their organisation (lowden, hall, elliot, & lewin, 2011, p. 4). they are also looking for interpersonal skills, intellect, problem solving, analytic skills, willingness to learn and continue learning, flexibility and adaptability and risk-taking. companies require workers with flexible skills, trainability, persuasive skills and teamwork skills (maclean & ordonez, 2007). they look for graduates who are able to work in teams and relate with co-workers, clients, and collaborators (crosling & ward, 2002; suleman, 2016), skills that, in many cases, prove to be more important than their technical knowledge (hernández-march, peso, & leguey, 2009). these skills, the so-called ‘soft skills’, complement disciplinary knowledge (suleman, 2016, 2018). the skills individual graduates develop are both constrained and enabled by work circumstances (bennett, dunne, & carré, 2000). contemporary vietnam is experiencing such rapid economic growth that the graduates of university training programs do not have the skills to meet the requirements of the labour market and do not connect well with employers and students (world bank, 2013; bodewig & badiani-magnusson, 2014). this is especially concerning at a time when measures adopted to confront the covid-19 pandemic in and across the world are affecting the country’s economic performance (ilo, 2020). the low rate of satisfaction with the knowledge and skills taught at the universities by employers suggests there is a serious gap between the job market and the education provided in the institutions. this paper discusses the employers’ perspective of the generic competences of graduates from vietnam national university hanoi (vnu). by understanding this gap it might be possible to find a way to make graduates more employable through improving their generic competences. this paper reports results from broader research on the perspectives of stakeholders on the general competences of graduates from vnu. literature review: generic competences most employers are looking for graduates who are proactive, can use higher level skills which include analysis, critique, synthesis and multi layered communication to facilitate innovative teamwork in supporting the transformation of their organisation. barrie (2006a) conceptualised these as the generic skills, knowledge and abilities of university graduates. these generic attributes are applicable in a range of contexts and are acquired as a result of completing any undergraduate degree (barrie, 2006a). barrie posits that these desirable attributes are often independent of the degree discipline but allow graduates to acquire necessary skills, to satisfy the requirements of the new workplace, to transfer abstract cognitive skills, to work with others, to lead and to solve problems. many different terms have been used in the higher education literature to describe the generic skills of graduates and these commonly include the following terms: graduate attributes, competencies, lan, m.t.q (2020). graduate generic competences from the perspective of vnu employers. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 11(1), 131–145. 133 qualities or outcomes; generic attributes; transferable, employability or soft skills; and core capabilities (barrie, 2006a, 2006b). graduate attributes are conceptualised as the qualities, skills and understandings a university community agrees its students should develop during their time with the institution (barrie, 2006a). these attributes include but go beyond the disciplinary expertise or technical knowledge that has traditionally formed the core of most university courses. they are qualities that also prepare graduates as agents of social good in an unknown future (bowden et al., 2000, cited in barrie, 2006b, p. 217). generic competences are understood to be those which identify shared attributes which could be general to any degree, such as the capacity to learn, decision making capacity, project design and management skills, etc. which are common to all or most of the degrees (gonzález & wanegaar, 2003, p. 27). in the same vein, hager, holland and beckett (2002) define 'generic skills' as a range of qualities and capacities that are increasingly viewed as important in higher education. these include thinking skills such as logical and analytical reasoning, problem solving and, intellectual curiosity; effective communication skills, teamwork skills, and capacities to identify, access and manage knowledge and information; personal attributes such as imagination, creativity and intellectual rigour; and values such as ethical practice, persistence, integrity and tolerance (hager et al., 2002, p. 3). amilburu and ruiz-corbella (2011) confirm that generic competences include adaptive and competitive abilities and the capacity for lifelong learning that people need to master to become active members of a flexible professional world. a common conceptualisation by the european parliament and european council defines graduate competence as ‘the proven ability to use knowledge, skills and personal, social and/or methodological abilities, in work or study situations and in professional and personal development’ (2008, c111/01). competences are developed in all course units and assessed at different stages of a programme. in general, competence is the synthesis of knowledge, capacities, attitudes and personal traits involved in effectively carrying out a given activity (amilburu & ruiz-corbella, 2011). some competences are subject-area related (specific to a field of study), others are generic (common to any degree course) (ects users’ guide, 2015). amilburu and ruiz-corbella (2011) posit that it is not easy to define the concept of ‘competence’. even for a single competence, for example, critical thinking, there exist many definitions, mostly about the ability related to assessing, judging, or evaluating a given problem or topic, as well as evaluating your own reasoning (dewaelsche, 2015; siegal, 2010). elder and paul (2010) identified critical thinking as the process of analysing and assessing thinking with a view to improving it (p. 38). there seems to be a basic consensus about the four main features that delineate it: complex notion, active-orientation, work-context oriented, and knowledge of what to do (elder & paul, 2010). the term ‘competences’ are often used interchangeably with ‘generic skills’, ‘generic graduate attributes’, ‘skills’, and, to some degree overlap in meaning (beneitone & bartolomé, 2014, p. 304; fallows & steven, 2000; hager & holland, 2007). they all relate to the person and to what he/she is able to achieve, but also have more specific meanings (beneitone & bartolomé, 2014). among these terms, ‘skill’ is probably the most frequently used term, with the meaning of being able, capable or skilful. ‘transferable skills’ and ‘generic competencies’ may be considered as having the same meaning. however, there was no single definitive set of generic competences derived at the time young and chapman (2010) conducted a historical overview of the generic competency frameworks. these authors generated a list of 58 competences through their literature review, and grouped them into six clusters: basic skills, conceptual skills, personal skills, people skills, business skills, and others. researchers argue that generic competences are the skills and attributes beyond disciplinary content knowledge (barrie, 2006b, yorke & harvey, 2005), which are applicable in a range of contexts and are acquired as a result of completing any undergraduate degree (barrie, 2006b). jones lan, m.t.q (2020). graduate generic competences from the perspective of vnu employers. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 11(1), 131–145. 134 posits that the idea of generic skills is founded upon an assumption that it is possible to learn a skill in one discipline and then transfer it to another, or to quite different forms of work (2006, p.6) hager et al. (2002) define 'generic skills' as a range of qualities and capacities that are increasingly viewed as important in higher education. these include thinking skills such as logical and analytical reasoning, problem solving and, intellectual curiosity; effective communication skills, teamwork skills, and capacities to identify, access and manage knowledge and information; personal attributes such as imagination, creativity and intellectual rigour; and values such as ethical practice, persistence, integrity and tolerance (hager et al., 2002, p. 3). hager et al. (2002) argue that generic competences are distinguished from the discipline-specific knowledge and associated technical skills that traditionally are associated with higher education. while some of the 'skills' have significant physical components, e.g. body language in interpersonal communication, others are mainly intellectual. still others are, strictly speaking, not so much skills as attitudes and dispositions (hager et al., 2002, p. 3; hager & holland, 2007, p. 3). in the view of hager and holland (2007, p. 7), the development of generic attributes by learners and teaching and learning methods are closely linked because they have features such as:  adult learning principles;  holistic approaches to learning;  problem-based learning;  lifelong learning skills;  learning how, why and exploring what if …, not just learning received facts;  learner reflection, evaluation and articulation on learning experiences as a critical aspect of the learning process;  active, learner-centred approaches in which integrated thinking and action occurs on tasks that are relevant and meaningful to leaners; and  the teacher assuming multiple roles, such as mentor, coach, facilitator, evaluator, that include demonstrating/modelling the generic attributes to the learners. barrie (2006a) distinguishes generic attributes that include personal attributes, cognitive abilities and skills in application, from knowledge of a discipline and categorises these skills and abilities into the five key clusters: research and inquiry; information literacy; personal and intellectual autonomy; ethical, social and professional understanding; and communication (p. 159). barrie (2006b) also argues that generic attributes, which are the learning outcomes that graduates possess, enable graduates to make use of, or apply disciplinary knowledge, potentially changing and transforming knowledge through its application. in barrie’s (2006a) framework, the two most complex conceptions of generic attributes include the ‘enabling’ and ‘translation’ conceptions. barrie contends that three important learning outcomes of university education, such as scholarship, global citizenship and lifelong learning, are generic attributes analogous to the ‘enabling’ conception. these include interwoven skills, abilities and attributes at the heart of disciplinary knowledge and human capability. scholarship is an attitude or stance towards knowledge. meanwhile, global citizenship is an attitude or stance towards the world and lifelong learning is an attitude or stance of students towards themselves. included on the translation level are clusters of linked personal attributes, cognitive abilities and skills in application which are the learning outcomes that graduates possess, together with knowledge of a discipline. transferable skills include personal skills such as the ability to work well with others (bennett, 2002; fallows & steven, 2000; haigh & kilmartin, 1999; gimenez, 2012), the ability to organise (bennett, 2002; gimenez, 2012), self-motivation (bennett, 2002), a basic capability to use information lan, m.t.q (2020). graduate generic competences from the perspective of vnu employers. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 11(1), 131–145. 135 technology (bennett, 2002; fallows & steven, 2000), communication skills, initiative, creativity and the capacity to solve problems (bennett, 2002; fallows & steven, 2000; gimenez, 2012), leadership (bennett, 2002), and learning skills (stephenson, 1998). gimenez (2012) categorised transferable skills into four groups: intellectual skills (e.g. being critical, using evidence, argument and analysis, problem solving), communication skills (e.g. oral, written and non-verbal communication), interpersonal skills (e.g. teamwork and leadership), and organisational skills (e.g. time management). capable people have confidence in their ability to take effective, appropriate action, explain what they are seeking to achieve, live and work effectively with others, and continue to learn from their experience, both as individuals and in association with others, in a diverse and changing society (stephenson, 1998). young and chapman’s (2010) six-clusters-classification is similar to barrie’s (2006a) four-level framework. many of young and chapman’s 58 generic competences are similar to 36 generic competences of the study on higher education and graduate employment in europe (schornburg & teichler, 2007), led by the universität gesamthochschule kassel in germany. schornburg and teichler (2007) conducted the study from 1998-2000 in nine countries in the european union, norway, czech republic, and japan to assess graduate competences. the research team developed 36 competences out of the body of literature on the subject and generated a questionnaire for graduates to evaluate work requirements and their achievements at graduation. over 40,000 graduates from institutions of higher education responded. the survey results indicated that graduates believed that requirements on the job demanded more of them than were afforded by the competences acquired before graduation. a comparison of the perceived individual job requirements and acquired competences shows that graduates considered themselves fully qualified or even overqualified in the following five competences:  field-specific theoretical knowledge,  broad general knowledge,  foreign language proficiency,  learning abilities, and  manual skills. in an effort to renew the higher education system in europe, the tuning project of the tuning academy at duesto university in spain looks at the concept of competences as capacities of a dynamic combination of attributes that permit a competent performance or as a part of a final product of an educational process. in the tuning project, competences and skills are understood as including knowing and understanding (theoretical knowledge of an academic field, the capacity to know and understand), knowing how to act (practical and operational application of knowledge to certain situations), and knowing how to be (values as an integral element of the way of perceiving and living with others and in a social context). under the grant of the european council, the tuning academy conducted a series of research projects to identify competences that the workplace requires from employees which were then classified into three main groups: (i) instrumental competences or competences that function as a means to an end and require a combination of manual skills and cognitive capacities needed for professional competence; (ii) interpersonal competences include personal and relational abilities, which refer to capacity, ability or skill in expressing one’s feelings and emotions in the most appropriate way and accepting the feelings of others, making it possible to work together toward common objectives; and (iii) systematic competences which involve skills and abilities related to an entire system, requiring a combination of imagination, sensibility and ability, and enabling one to see how the parts of a whole are conjoined and related (sánchez & ruiz, 2008). based on the agreed competences they developed meta profiles for university programs. the tuning project’s model of lan, m.t.q (2020). graduate generic competences from the perspective of vnu employers. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 11(1), 131–145. 136 competences was tested in five degree courses organised according to the european credit transfer system. it was then expanded to other universities in four regions. the list of 16 global generic competences found in common in the four regions in tuning projects, included: problem solving, creativity, oral and written communication, interpersonal skills, critical and self-critical abilities, capacity to learn actively, information management skills, commitment to the consideration of the environment, capacity for abstract thinking, analysis and synthesis, decision making, concern for quality, ethical commitment, teamwork, ability to work autonomously, computing skills, and the ability to apply knowledge in practice. these global generic competences were then organized around factors that respond to regional logic (beneitone & bartolomé, 2014). the tuning project in south east asia supported universities of 10 asean countries (including three vietnamese universities) and the asean university network (aun) to develop generic and specific competences for programs in medicine, education, and civil engineering. the tuning project for the south east asia region consulted academics and managers of universities in south east asia and some universities in europe to develop thirteen generic competences for university graduates in the region and specific competences for each of three programs: civil engineering, teacher training, and medicine. participants came to a consensus on the 13 generic competences for the region, which are consistent with the 16 global competences (tuning, 2017a, 2017b). the thirteen generic competences of tuning asia south east project (tase) are: gc1. ability to work collaboratively and effectively in diverse contexts. gc2. ability to use information and communication technology purposefully and responsibly. gc3. ability to uphold professional, moral and ethical values. gc4. ability to demonstrate responsibility and accountability towards the society and environment. gc5. ability to communicate clearly and effectively. gc6. ability to think critically, reflectively and innovatively. gc7. ability to understand, value, and respect diversity and multiculturalism. gc8. ability to carry out lifelong learning and continuous professional development. gc9. demonstrate problem solving abilities. gc10. ability to initiate, plan, organise, implement and evaluate course of actions gc11. ability to conduct research. gc12. ability to demonstrate leadership attributes. gc13. ability to apply knowledge into practice. these generic competences can be seen in the list of skills that students need for the 21st century (world economic forum, 2015), including: foundational literacies (literacy, numeracy, scientific literacy, ict literacy, financial literacy, cultural and civic literacy), competences how students approach complex challenges (critical thinking, problem-solving, creativity, communication, collaboration), and character qualities (curiosity, initiative, persistance/grit, adaptability, leadership, social and cultural awareness). in vietnam, the economic shock from the direct and indirect impact of covid-19 was visible in vietnam’s economic performance at the end of the first quarter of 2020 (ilo, 2020). factories across key manufacturing sectors in the countries that are vietnam’s principal import and export partners have stalled their production. specific sectors especially hit by the collapse in economic activity include wholesale and retail trade, transport, storage and communication, accommodation and food services, tourism, and several segments of the manufacturing sector (ilo, 2020). applying two scenarios, the ilo estimates that by the end of the second quarter of 2020 the crisis could affect the livelihood of 4.6 to 10.3 million workers, whether through a decline in working hours and wages, or lan, m.t.q (2020). graduate generic competences from the perspective of vnu employers. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 11(1), 131–145. 137 ultimately, job losses. there is a strong need to educate students for a new complex future and prepare them for the uncertain, the unknown, the unforeseen, rather than for what is already known based on the knowledge gathered over the years (barbato, moscati & turri, 2019, p. 98; nowotny, 2016). the research method though vnu was not involved in tase, it is a member of the asean university network, thus enabling the benchmarking of vnu graduates’ achievement of the general competences to those of tase project. this research drew on theories of graduate employability and transferable skills, and in particular from the tase project’s 13 graduate competences model (tase, 2017a, 2017b), to explore the evaluations of the various stakeholders of vnu, of the degree to which vnu graduates have acquired general competences. the questionnaire applying the methodology of the tuning project (tase) (2017a), this research used the 13 generic competences of the tase project to develop the questionnaire. the questionnaire measured three categories, including perceived ‘importance’, ‘achievement’, and ‘priority’ of the generic competences, using four variables ‘none’, ‘weak’, ‘considerable’ and ‘strong’. the questionnaire also included some questions related to the demographic profile of the participants, including: name (optional), age, gender, education, occupation, position (if any), telephone and email address. the questionnaire also asked for general information about the organisation: name, address, telephone, email address; type of organisation: government, enterprise, institution, non-governmental organisation, number of employees, and majors required at the organisation (see the questionnaire in the appendix). the survey was conducted between february 2018 and march 2019. 818 participants agreed to participate, including 152 alumni, 189 recent graduates in 2018 and about to graduate, 51 lecturers, rectors and deans, 258 current students and 168 employers of graduates of vnu. they were graduates from seven vnu members: vnu university of science, vnu university of social sciences and humanities, vnu university of languages and international studies, vnu university of engineering and technology, vnu university of education, and the vnu school of law. the employers of vnu graduates and stakeholders were approached mainly through the contact person at the quality assurance unit of the vnu member university or school. each member university established and maintained contacts with employers of its graduates. they set up regular meetings with employers to discuss their professional requirements of the course, seek employers’ comments on the curriculum, expected learning outcomes, and opportunities to have student placements at their organisations. the researchers were granted permission to attend the meetings/workshop/seminars to explain the purpose of the research project, to meet the participants and to seek their consent to participate. the questionnaire took approximately 15 minutes to complete. participants were asked to evaluate the importance of general competences for graduates and their judgement on graduates’ achievement of the general competences. a likert scale of 4 levels including 1 = none, 2 = weak, 3 = considerable, 4 = strong (similar to the tase likert scale) was used to measure each variable (tase, 2017a, p. 29). they were also asked to rank the five most prioritised generic competences from highest priority (1) to lowest priority (5). the information collected was entered into an excel file and analysed using spss software version 16.0. the data analysis was conducted under the technical support of the research team of the tuning academy at the university of deusto, spain. the employers’ evaluation of the importance of the competences, and employers’ judgment on graduates’ achievement of the competences were computed using one way anova analysis. lan, m.t.q (2020). graduate generic competences from the perspective of vnu employers. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 11(1), 131–145. 138 findings the participants table 1: participants group total participants sex missing value total valid male female employer 168 76 77 15 153 alumni 152 30 121 1 151 recent graduates and students about to graduate 189 37 144 8 181 lecturers, rectors, deans 51 32 19 0 51 current students 258 25 199 34 224 total 818 818 560 58 760 from february 2018 to march 2019, 818 participants agreed to participate, including 168 employers of graduates of vnu. all employers agreed that vnu bachelor programs are necessary. among the employers, 49.7% were male and 50.3% female. their ages ranged from 22 to 64 years old, with 70% in the 30-40 age group. their work positions varied with 53% holding different management roles. table 2: number of employees in the organisation frequency percent valid percent cumulative percent valid <30 31 18.5 21.7 21.7 30-100 48 28.6 33.6 55.2 100-300 26 15.5 18.2 73.4 >300 38 22.6 26.6 100.0 total 143 85.1 100.0 missing 99 4 2.4 system 21 12.5 total 25 14.9 total 168 100.0 27.5% of the organisations employed two to three vnu graduates, 29.4% employed between five and 10 vnu graduates, 21.4% employed more than 20 vnu graduates, while 78.3% of the organisations have more than 30 employees. of particular note were two organisations: one which employed 70 vnu graduates, while the employed 101 vnu graduates. employers of vnu graduates shared similar expectations with employers over the world. they wanted their new graduate employees to be competent in the generic competences soon after graduation. they ranked the group of five most prioritised generic competences of vnu graduates including: lan, m.t.q (2020). graduate generic competences from the perspective of vnu employers. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 11(1), 131–145. 139 gc1 ability to work collaboratively and effectively in diverse contexts gc3 ability to uphold professional, moral and ethical values gc5 ability to communicate clearly and effectively gc9 demonstrate problem solving abilities gc13 ability to apply knowledge into practice employers’ evaluation of the importance of generic competencies in the employers’ evaluation of the importance of these 13 generic competences, the highest ranked were gc3 ‘ability to uphold professional, moral and ethical values’, gc13 ‘ability to apply knowledge into practice’, gc5 ‘ability to communicate clearly and effectively’, and gc9 ‘demonstrate problem solving abilities’ (see table 3). table 3: employers’ rating of the importance of generic competences description employers’ rating of the importance of generic competences mean median std. deviation gc3 ability to uphold professional, moral and ethical values 3.69 4.00 .489 gc13 ability to apply knowledge into practice 3.66 4.00 .536 gc5 ability to communicate clearly and effectively 3.61 4.00 .538 gc9 demonstrate problem solving abilities 3.60 4.00 .528 gc6 ability to think critically, reflectively and innovatively 3.54 4.00 .537 gc2 ability to use information and communication technology purposefully and responsibly 3.53 4.00 .537 gc8 ability to carry out lifelong learning and continuous professional development 3.52 4.00 .571 gc1 ability to work collaboratively and effectively in diverse contexts 3.46 3.00 .512 gc12 ability to demonstrate leadership attributes 3.39 3.00 .593 gc4 ability to demonstrate responsibility and accountability towards the society and environment 3.33 3.00 .642 gc10 ability to initiate, plan, organise, implement and evaluate course of actions 3.31 3.00 .616 gc11 ability to conduct research 3.19 3.00 .657 gc7 ability to understand, value, and respect diversity and multiculturalism 3.19 3.00 .665 likert scale of 4 levels including 1 = none, 2 = weak, 3 = considerable, 4 = strong the data in table 3 shows that in the evaluation of the employers, the importance of all generic competences was rated better than considerable (all mean values range from 3.19 – 3.69. lan, m.t.q (2020). graduate generic competences from the perspective of vnu employers. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 11(1), 131–145. 140 however, employers rated graduates’ achievement of gc7, gc5, gc4, gc12, gc11, gc6, cg10 generic competences lower than considerable (tase, 2017a, p. 29) (mean values were lower than 3.00). the lowest was the achievement of gc10 ‘ability to initiate, plan, organise, implement and evaluate course of actions’ (mean value = 2.84). employers’ rating of vnu graduates’ achievement of generic competences table 4: employers’ rating of vnu graduates’ achievement of generic competences description employers rating vnu graduates’ achievement of generic competences mean median std. deviation gc3 ability to uphold professional, moral and ethical values 3.27 3.00 .498 gc8 ability to carry out lifelong learning and continuous professional development 3.10 3.00 .665 gc2 ability to use information and communication technology purposefully and responsibly 3.07 3.00 .580 gc1 ability to work collaboratively and effectively in diverse contexts 3.06 3.00 .542 gc13 ability to apply knowledge into practice 3.01 3.00 .648 gc9 demonstrate problem solving abilities 3.00 3.00 .592 gc7 ability to understand, value, and respect diversity and multiculturalism 2.99 3.00 .574 gc5 ability to communicate clearly and effectively 2.99 3.00 .598 gc4 ability to demonstrate responsibility and accountability towards the society and environment 2.99 3.00 .629 gc12 ability to demonstrate leadership attributes 2.95 3.00 .642 gc11 ability to conduct research 2.91 3.00 .751 gc6 ability to think critically, reflectively and innovatively 2.88 3.00 .750 gc10 ability to initiate, plan, organise, implement and evaluate course of actions 2.84 3.00 .728 the best achievement of vnu graduates was on gc3 ‘ability to uphold professional, moral and ethical values’ (mean = 3.27). the second to the highest was lifelong learning competence, gc8 ‘ability to carry out lifelong learning and continuous professional development’ (mean = 3.10). communication, problem solving, and critical thinking competences were judged to be at a lower achievement level as indicated by the means for gc5 ‘ability to communicate clearly and effectively’ (mean = 2.99), gc9 ‘demonstrate problem solving abilities’ (mean = 3.00), gc6 ‘ability to think critically, reflectively and innovatively’ (mean = 2.88). the lowest achievement was for gc10 ‘ability to initiate, plan, organise, implement and evaluate course of actions’ (mean = 2.84). lan, m.t.q (2020). graduate generic competences from the perspective of vnu employers. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 11(1), 131–145. 141 discussion overall all generic competences are rated at high importance by the employers. employers of vnu graduates give the highest priority to five generic competences including the ability to work collaboratively and effectively in diverse contexts; the ability to uphold professional, moral and ethical values; the ability to communicate clearly and effectively; the ability to demonstrate problem solving abilities, and the ability to apply knowledge into practice. graduates’ achievement of general competences however, employers rate graduates’ achievement of more than half of these generic competences below a ‘considerable’ level. these include: gc7 ‘ability to understand, value, and respect diversity and multiculturalism’; gc5 ‘ability to communicate clearly and effectively’; gc4 ‘ability to demonstrate responsibility and accountability towards the society and environment’; gc12 ‘ability to demonstrate leadership attributes’; gc11 ‘ability to conduct research’; gc6 ‘ability to think critically, reflectively and innovatively’; and gc10 ‘ability to initiate, plan, organise, implement and evaluate course of actions’. the lowest achievement was gc10. this is similar to the finding in schomburg and teichler’s (2007) research that even four years after graduation graduates still seem to feel inadequate in most competences, including negotiating, planning and co-ordinating and organising. although employers of vnu graduates believe lifelong learning competence is good, they rate it low in graduate achievement. lifelong learning competence is the most sought-after graduate competence when communication technology, internet of things (iot), and artificial intelligence (ai) are having impacts across nearly all industries and shortening the shelf life of workers’ skill sets (world economic forum, 2017). transferable competences generic attributes are transferable, transcending disciplinary boundaries, even though they are initially developed within disciplinary contexts (barrie, 2006b). they provide the building blocks for knowledge in a discipline, but are more long-lasting and important than the disciplinary knowledge they support. once developed, these graduate attributes are perceived to provide a reusable framework that enables students/graduates to acquire and shape new knowledge as required – even in the context of other disciplines (barrie, 2006b). when a person applies knowledge or skills acquired in one context in a new context, transfer of learning occurs. the ways graduates use their knowledge are influenced by the particular circumstances, from directly applying specific skills (near transfer) to strategically thinking about application of more abstract knowledge (far transfer) (bennett et al., 2000, p. 16). abilities that let graduates make use of, or apply, disciplinary knowledge, thus potentially changing and transforming disciplinary knowledge through its application include linked personal attributes, cognitive abilities and skills of application (barrie, 2006b). teaching-learning for fostering transferable competences to activate the transfer process, learning should take place in a social context, which fosters the generation of principles and explanations. transfer improves when learning is delivered through cooperative methods, and the learners receive feedback on performance with training examples. transfer is promoted if learners are shown how problems resemble each other, how to apply skills in different contexts, how to recognise the underlying goal structure of comparable problems, if examples are varied and are accompanied by rules or principles (especially if discovered by the lan, m.t.q (2020). graduate generic competences from the perspective of vnu employers. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 11(1), 131–145. 142 learners), and if learners’ self-explanations are stimulated (billing, 2007). this transferable characteristic of generic competences is necessary for graduates to navigate through the work market, as changes in employment patterns have allegedly increased the demand for graduates with ‘an ability learnt in one context, which can be applied in another’ (gimenez, 2012, p. 403). jones (2006) argues that generic skills (or more accurately attributes) are part of disciplinary epistemologies. the idea of generic skills is founded upon an assumption that it is possible to learn a skill in one discipline and then transfer it to another, or to quite different forms of work. (p.6). indeed, the development of the generic skills is inseparable from the discipline knowledge and skills (jones, 2006). these generic competences are introduced and refined in a subject-related context. disciplines are integral to the ways laboratories and clinics are organised and the ways teaching is organised through lectures, tutorials, seminars and practical classes (jones, 2006). the disciplinary culture is present in and reproduced by curriculum content and structure, assessment practices, attitudes to teaching, the ways in which research is structured, individual departmental cultures and the professional persona (jones 2006, pp. 222-223). discipline specific skills are necessary to perform at work which is specific to certain occupation or fields. meanwhile generic skills are those necessary to performance at work which is transferable to multiple work situations, e.g. working with technology, written and verbal communication (bridgstock, 2009). although bridgstock separates discipline specific skills from generic skills and adds other categories such as self-management skills, career building skills, and underpinning traits and dispositions, yet, in her analysis of these skills and traits, there exist an inter-linked between them, without a clear border. generic skills can be developed through the curriculum as an integrated part of the discipline teaching and learning activities, where the higher order generic skills such as analysis, problem solving and critical thinking are interconnected and interdependent. to be able to analyse means to think critically, and to solve problems (jones, 2006). critical thinking is developed through learning of principles and concepts that facilitates transfer to dissimilar problems, as it creates more flexible mental representations (billing, 2007). training in reasoning and critical thinking is only effective for transfer, when abstract principles and rules are coupled with examples. high-order questions (analyse, evaluate, and create questions) develop students’ critical thinking skills (dewaelsche, 2015) which involves two distinct components: (a) skills or abilities of reason assessment and (b) the dispositions to engage in and be guided by such assessments (siegal, 2010, p. 141). engaging in research can foster critical thinking and communication skills for the students. to prepare and present at the conference, students are mindful of the communication skills needed to not only convey their key messages clearly to a diverse audience, but also to keep the audience interested and engaged. for critical thinking skills, students are acutely aware of the need to revisit their research, to think critically about its content, and to re-purpose it for a multi-disciplinary external context. for personal and intellectual autonomy, the students explicitly evidence selfregulation in their preparation for the university. they demonstrate a process of preparation, rehearsal, solicitation of feedback, and subsequent development of their poster and paper presentations (hill & walkington, 2016, p. 6). by fostering students’ experiences as researchers, higher education can help students cope with the complexity in the work places (barnett, 2000). teachers and university study can develop generic competences of students. deardorff (2020) argues that if graduate attributes are acquired with the help of a teacher, there is an option for the teacher to embed the learning process within a broader of educational philosophy. to develop intercultural competences, for example, it is essential to start with individuals (deardorff, 2020). deardorff’s approach of story circles for developing intercultural competences is an example of how the university can develop general competence. by talking circles or peacemaking circles people are lan, m.t.q (2020). graduate generic competences from the perspective of vnu employers. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 11(1), 131–145. 143 brought together into a situation of community where everyone is respected and is considered equal and where participants are able to share more about themselves. this sharing of personal experience validates not only the perspective of each individual but also generates new understandings and insights (deardoff, 2020, p. 15). conclusion the research reported in this paper contributes to the body of literature on graduate competences with significant findings of employers’ perspectives on graduate generic competences and the need for improving graduates’ employability through improved generic competences. the effective development of generic skills and attributes can only obtained through the process of teaching and learning within disciplines. to study a discipline means to develop a form of social practice with particular forms of knowledge creation, verification and transmission which are integrated into laboratories and clinical instruction and teaching through lectures, tutorials, seminars and practical classes (jones, 2006). that is students develop generic skills through their manner of study. knowledge and cognitive processes are built not through deposits made by the teacher to the students, but by active student interaction (freire, 2005). it is essential to unite disciplinary knowledge and skills with generic competencies that enable mindful application of subject-specific expertise in academic and societal contexts (hill, walkington, & france, 2016). the development of quality graduate attributes occurs through students developing personal graduate attributes in a self-directed and genuinely engaged manner (su, 2014). the findings of the research point to the need for universities to focus more on developing generic competences throughout the delivery of programs. a limitation of this study is that it approached only employers of vnu graduates and it might therefore not be possible to generalise the research findings to the demand of 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(2020). employability of iranian engineering graduates: influential factors, consequences and strategies journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 11(1), 110-130. 110 the journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability issn: 1838-3815 (online) journal homepage: https://ojs.deakin.edu.au/index.php/jtlge/ employability of iranian engineering graduates: influential factors, consequences and strategies hamid farhadi rad1, abdollah parsa1, elahe rajabi1 corresponding author: hamid farhadi rad (h.farhadirad@scu.ac.ir) 1shahid chamran university of ahvaz abstract university education is a significant factor in the socio-economic development of a nation and as such is expected to improve the employability capacity of the graduates. achieving this goal, however, depends on various factors. the present study investigated the factors affecting the employability of engineering graduates of iranian universities. to analyse this issue, a systematic grounded theory (gt) approach, drawing on in-depth interviews with academic and industry experts, was used. the participants were selected using a purposive strategy. the data analyses showed that employability is a context-oriented issue, and in addition to the university and its internal mechanisms, external factors are also involved. based on the data, a model is presented and analysed to explain the employability of engineering graduates. keywords employability, engineering graduates, universityindustry relations, skill training, grounded theory introduction the employability of university graduates is an expectation of all stakeholders and is emphasised in national documents and government policies in iran. therefore, individuals and governments invest in universities as one of the basic mechanisms in creating and enhancing job opportunities for graduates. in iran, evidence such as the unemployment rate of graduates and its increasing trend (statistical center of iran, 2018), graduates’ lack of practical skills, the large gap between their abilities and the market requirements (entezari, 2016), and the poor link between the university, industry and the society (sohrabi, ebrahimi, & joukar, 2016), all show that higher education is facing serious challenges. according to the statistical center of iran and based on the unemployment definition given by this center1, the unemployment rate of graduates of higher education comprised 37% of the whole rate of unemployment in 2017; this reached 40.5% in 2018 (statistical center of iran, 2018). this is higher than the unemployment rate of graduates in south korea (3.2%), denmark (6.3%), australia (7%), germany (8.5%), and turkey (9.3%) (oedc, 2018). studies on the employment of graduates by iranian researchers (e.g., aghapour, movahed, & alam beigi, 2014; memarian, 2011; parand, niroumand, farajiarmaki, alizadeh, & ahadieh, 2011) show that multiple factors, including 1 the definition of unemployment by the statistical centre of iran is a person who incorporates all the three following conditions; having no job, seeking a job, and ready for doing a job. therefore, those graduates who are doing a job related to their field of study are not counted as unemployed. https://ojs.deakin.edu.au/index.php/jtlge/ mailto:h.farhadirad@scu.ac.ir farhadi rad, h., parsa, a., & rajabi, e. (2020). employability of iranian engineering graduates: influential factors, consequences and strategies journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 11(1), 110-130. 111 the increased number of universities, outdated curricula of universities, and the severe incongruence between the disciplines and market needs, have contributed to this situation. thus, the issue of graduates’ employability is an important construct in higher education policymaking in iran (aghapour et al., 2014). also, the elimination of barriers to unemployment for graduates has always been one of the main goals of governments in iran (khoshnevisan, nasr, neyestani, & sharif, 2016). given the focus on the importance of graduates’ employability in iran, the question which remains is, have the universities contributed to this undesirable situation? literature review given that engineering graduates, compared to other professions, have more impact on the national welfare structure, developing skills and using acquired knowledge is particularly significant in this field (rahdari, nasr, nili, & turkladani, 2015). accordingly, the engineering room has always been one of the requirements and priorities of higher education in iran since the establishment of dar ulfunun in 1982 (frasatkhah, 2017). iranian society expects engineers to be technically expert and socially responsible and innovative. the presence of individuals with high levels of expertise and social skills is essential to enable efficiency, entrepreneurship, and optimum enhancement of a context that is based on complicated technical and static systems. as such, quality instruction through the higher education sector is required to prepare future engineers (yaghoubi & motahharenejad, 2011). however, the graduates of engineering faculties reflect a lack of correlation between society and workplace expectations (feyz, 2010). according to studies by the national academy of engineering (nae) (1995), a large number of students are graduated from the higher education institutions and universities, but in general, most of them neither meet the necessary skills needed to be active in the industry nor are they responsive to the current and future demands of this area (aghapour et al., 2014). some of these inefficiencies are evident in other studies. for example, gharba, rahimi & dehbashi (2018) reported on the lack of relevance between the content of courses and the requirements of jobs, while rahmani and nazari (2003) revealed the gap between the training processes for engineering students and the skills and abilities required in the workplace. similarly, other studies have shown that instruction is not in line with market and industry demands (momeni mahmoei, shariatmadari, & naderi, 2008) and that graduates do not acquire adequate practical experience while studying (barabadi, mohammadi, & asadi, 2009). a study by memarian (2011) revealed that the focus is on knowledge acquisition rather than on the skills and attitudes relevant to the working professional. other research has shown that university training does not play any significant role in the students’ employment in iran (nozari & karimi, 2017). the result of these reported deficiencies in the university system has been an increasing rate of unemployment of university graduates from four to 20% from 1996 to 2016 (mohseni-cheraghlou, 2017). within this context, the situation for engineering graduates is worse, with unemployment rates within the various fields of engineering of 41.4% (computer sciences), 37.6% (environment protection), 27.7% (construction), and 25.6% (industry and processing) (statistical center of iran, 2018). one the reasons for the high unemployment rate of engineering graduates, is the strong interest of students in this field of knowledge. such a trend has led to an extensive rise in the number of universities and courses in engineering in iran. according to the statistics presented by the institute for research and planning in higher education (2017), the total number of students in iran is approximately more than four million from among which 28.8 % are students of engineering. according to the information in table 1, this number constitutes a high proportion in comparison to other countries2. many studies have investigated the reasons why students are attracted to engineering. some of these reasons include financial issues (motabari, 1999), finding a better job, achieving a more prestigious social status, pressure from family and friends (national youth organisation, 2001), 2 reference: higher education statistics, extracted from the institute for research and planning in higher education (iran, 2017). farhadi rad, h., parsa, a., & rajabi, e. (2020). employability of iranian engineering graduates: influential factors, consequences and strategies journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 11(1), 110-130. 112 income (enayati novinfar, darani, & karamdoust, 2013), direct interest, indirect interest, training costs and demographic changes (farhadi rad, mehralizade, & hassanvand, 2017). on the other hand, other studies show that the industry has been unable to benefit from the university programs due to policy-making and the economic situation (gholami, arasteh, naveh ebrahim, & zeinabadi, 2018) and that the industry should approach the universities to mediate this (moghadas noudeh, 2019). table 1: student enrolment in engineering, manufacturing, and construction country denmark korea australia turkey germany iran3 level 5: short-cycle 4120 181775 37758 357828 73 297628 level 6: bachelor 18943 481665 81792 468627 439879 654808 level 7: master 7448 29840 28655 83186 153717 199643 level 8: ph.d 2142 17964 9094 20689 36500 24651 total: engineering 32653 711244 157300 930330 630169 1176730 % engineering student 10% 23% 9% 13% 20% 28.8% gender m 23286 593092 121452 705833 492187 905265 % 71.3% 83.4% 77.2% 75.9% 78.1% 77% f 9367 118152 35848 224497 137982 271465 % 28.7% 16.6% 22.8% 24.1% 21.9% 23% total: all field 312379 3136395 1774852 7198987 3091694 4073827 gender m 136123 1828963 752638 3886107 1871596 2202231 % 44% 58% 42% 54% 52% 54% f 176256 1307432 1022214 3312880 1499669 1871596 % 56% 42% 58% 46% 48% 46% reference: oecd, 2017 theoretical foundations the employability construct was first used by the english economist beveridge in 1909 and then was extended to the united states. the primary concept of employability referred to workers with high physical stamina; hence differentiating unemployed individuals who were unable to work from those who were able and in search of job opportunities (grip, loo, & sanders, 2004). gazier (1998a as cited in lindsay, 2009) explains the evolution of the employability concept within three different waves. the first wave of employability was during 1900-1940. because individuals were divided into the two groups of employable and unemployable in this period, it was known as the 'dichotomic employability' approach. in the 1950s forrier and sels (2003) believe that one’s working attitude and self-concept were the most important variables for defining employability. the second wave, from the beginning of the 1960s, focused on the measurement of the individuals’ characteristics and the demands of the marketplace. the third wave, which began in 1980 and continued into the 1990s, included the triple concept of result-oriented, innovative, and interactive employability (lindsay, 2009). in the 1970s, however, the approach was redirected from attitudes towards knowledge and 3-institute for research and planning in higher education (iran, 2017) farhadi rad, h., parsa, a., & rajabi, e. (2020). employability of iranian engineering graduates: influential factors, consequences and strategies journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 11(1), 110-130. 113 skills as the requirement for employability. in the 1980s, the organisation was emphasised instead of the individual. employability was considered as the function of an individuals’ flexibility within the organisation. in the 1990s, employability was perceived as a ‘psychological contract’ between the employee and the employer and the ability to find a job in the labour market. amiron, latib and subari (2019) suggest that in the fourth industrial revolution, the concept of employability has more complexity and includes different skills such as negotiation skills, cognitive skills, a service-orientation, team-work, emotional intelligence, shared decision-making, critical thinking ability, and complex problem-solving abilities. briefly, the employability skills in the fourth generation of the industrial revolution include: basic skills for the preparation of the workforce such as self-introduction and time-management abilities; soft skills which include creativity, solving complicated problems, communicative skills and emotional intelligence; technical skills which refer to the ability to create and promote job opportunities with an eye on the employability strategies and selection of goal-oriented instructions; and finally, the skills of creating entrepreneurship opportunities. considering the existing innovative ways of providing financial support, creating a teamwork atmosphere, international communications and the availability of software platforms to enhance the benefits of decentralisation, it is probable that entrepreneurship opens up new windows for the youth around the world to overcome the traditional barriers to employability (renjen & brown, 2018). within the last century, the concept of employability most commonly used by economists has changed from a unidimensional construct focusing on the physical stamina, to a complicated construct. the scope of this concept went beyond the field of economics and a simple linear relationship between the individual and the job. it included the compatibility of the individual and organisation, multiple communications, the individual intelligence in interacting with the environment and creating and benefiting from special entrepreneurship opportunities. therefore, the definition of employability has changed and new dimensions added in each period. for example, hillage and pollard (1998) defined it as having some basic capabilities to find a job. since then other dimensions have been added such as, the graduates’ ability to find a satisfactory job (harvey, 2001), acquiring knowledge, skills, and attitudes, especially those which are expected by the employers (brooks & youngson, 2015), and above all, understanding the needs and job abilities in the fourth generation of the industry (azmi, kamin, noordin, & nasir, 2018). when the economics of employment is framed within the context of the formation and expansion of higher education, the views of human resource theories’ proponents are relevant. this theory insists on education as the fundamental element of economic empowerment (bridgstock, 2009). as cited in emadzadeh, (2015, pp, 18-26) the early advocates of human resource theory like adam smith (1776) appreciated an educated person as an invaluable machine while alfred marshal (1950s) investigated the cost-benefit analysis of education. schultz, danison, and baker (1960s) also evaluated the role of education in the economic growth. generally, the intellectuals of this field believed that education increases the potential of employability via fostering the general and professional skills of working, improving the possibility of using the technology, changing the routines of task accomplishment, and enhancing the graduates’ expertise ( . human development theory explores the relationship between employability and education and asserts that education develops abilities such as knowledge generation, professional preparation, and cultural knowledge (sharif, et al., 2017). based on the economics of education theories, different models were proposed to increase the potential of students’ employability. in these models, the relationship between the university and workforce market needs was emphasised more than before. for instance, one of the recent patterns, which encourages the culture of entrepreneurship and its promotion inside and outside the institution, is the entrepreneurship university of barton clark (clark, 2001). during 1998-2008, barton clark attempted to introduce a market-oriented, independent, and responsive pattern for the university by identifying entrepreneurship components. this notion is supported by unesco, which defined modern universities as places where entrepreneurship skills enhance the graduates’ abilities and increase job opportunities (azizi & shafiezadeh, 2013). an example of this is the annual one-day student workshop in victoria, australia, which enables graduates and craftsmen to interact. farhadi rad, h., parsa, a., & rajabi, e. (2020). employability of iranian engineering graduates: influential factors, consequences and strategies journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 11(1), 110-130. 114 in this workshop, students get acquainted with industry leaders and peers to gain useful insights for working in the real world, exchanging views and visiting real workplaces (lock & kelly, 2020). this example shows the importance of universities incorporating entrepreneurship into the curriculum to enable their graduates to better fit the current concepts of employability (azmi, et al., 2018). the preliminary review of the theoretical literature highlights the importance of attending to the socialeconomic role of the society in developing the students’ employability. therefore, the research questions underpinning this study are:  what factors affect the employability of engineering students?  what are the benefits of their employment for the country?  how can we improve the employability capacity for engineering graduates? methodology since the issue of engineering graduates’ employability is a context-oriented issue, a qualitative research model based on strauss and corbin’s (1998) grounded theory (systemic approach) was used in this study. using this approach, the researcher can assign meaning to the data through thorough analysis and then present a framework for explaining the phenomena (sando, 2018). in this method, the researcher is actively and directly involved and by constant comparison of data and conscious and goal-oriented selection of the best participants, investigates the hidden aspects of a phenomenon and proposes a theory without relying on the existing theories (bazargan, 2018). as discussed in the theoretical foundation section of the present study, the phenomenon of making students employable is not a simple and unidimensional issue. therefore, the model used to explain the employment complexities of engineering graduates required comprehensive and detailed attention to the phenomenon in the real context. the use of grounded theory enabled the researcher to draw a better picture of the reality through constant comparison of the data. participants in the purposive sampling technique, the researcher defines the intended features a priori and then finds the right participants accordingly (johnson & christensen, 2016). in this case, the participants were recruited purposefully among the expert curriculum and education designers of the higher education, employees, university lecturers, and graduates of different engineering disciplines. the snowball technique was used in identifying the participants who were contacted by phone. the participants were informed that their details would remain confidential and that technical notes would be referred back to them before analysis. the office staff of the university or company where the participants were located assisted in the negotiation of an appropriate time and place for the interview to be conducted. initially researchers contacted 43 people and subsequently 15 participated in the in-depth interview. the participants are described in table 2. interviews usually lasted between 45 minutes and 2 hours with the average duration being 65 minutes. in all cases, the interviewees' consent to save the audio file, and time and place of the interview were obtained4. 4this research has the code of ethics (ee/98.24.3.58242/scu.ac.ir) from shahid chamran university of ahvaz. farhadi rad, h., parsa, a., & rajabi, e. (2020). employability of iranian engineering graduates: influential factors, consequences and strategies journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 11(1), 110-130. 115 table 2: description of participants no. interview code participation competencies 1 ped1 university professor, educational planning specialist, organizational consultant of training, improvement and development, employment and productivity consultant, having diverse publications related to employment and entrepreneurship of the graduates 2 pen1 the faculty member of mechanical engineering, university graduate, top inventor, the office manager of the industry and university relations, entrepreneur, experienced in directing industrial projects, and the manager of a knowledge-based company 3 ped2 university professor, planning and curriculum designing specialist, director of the university educational planning, students’ internship supervisor in industry and labor market, designer of students’ professional skills 4 pes the faculty member of geological engineering, former director of the growth-center and knowledge-based companies, students’ employment consultant, petroleum and energy activist, and the manager of a knowledge-based company 5 ps the faculty member of chemistry science, former director of the science and technology park and growth-center of the province, member of employment council 6 pen2 the faculty member of architecture, member of the engineering system organization and the educational and research council of the engineering system organization, having the experience of research work in the industry, member of employment council 7 pen3 the faculty member of civil engineering, having the experience of working in the industry in the form of research projects, vice chancellor for university planning, head of civil engineering department, students’ internship supervisor 8 m1 employee, phd holder of bio-system engineering, owner of a knowledge-based company, private-section activist, and provincial entrepreneur 9 m2 employee, phd holder of mineral technology, top entrepreneur, member of the board of directors of the engineering system organization, former director of the engineering system organization, member of the board of directors of the industry house of khuzestan province 10 pen4 the faculty member of the civil engineering, former consulting engineer in designing structures and supervising the execution of industrial projects, internship and entrepreneurship consultant, director of knowledge-based company 11 pen5 the faculty member of civil engineering, the private-section activist, manager of a construction company, consultant of construction projects 12 pen6 the faculty member of mechanics, having the experience of working in industrial research projects, director of knowledge-based company 13 m3 employee, former head of education, research and technology department of industry, mining and trade organization 14 m4 employee, having the experience of working with the growth-center of the jahad university, former head of business and employment office of jahad university, entrepreneurship institution consultant, entrepreneurship commission member of chamber of commerce 15 pen7 the faculty member of the materials engineering, former director of industrial relation of the university, former member of university policy commission, private-section activist farhadi rad, h., parsa, a., & rajabi, e. (2020). employability of iranian engineering graduates: influential factors, consequences and strategies journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 11(1), 110-130. 116 data collection (interview protocols) a semi-structured interview was used for the data collection. the main aim of the interviews was to gather data surrounding the issue of the employability of students which could then be used to propose a theoretical model. the interviews were administered based on the following schedule. pre-interview initially the participants were contacted by phone and during this conversation the researchers explained the purpose of the study, outlined the process of recording the interviews, answered participant’s questions and set the time and place for the appointments which were then confirmed through the office of the organisation. also important at this stage was the development of rapport and trust between the interviewer and participants. the interview questions, which were developed from the theoretical literature on employability and previous relevant research were presented in 2 parts: semi structured questions and open discussion. the semi structured section included questions such as:  what causal factors affect the employability of graduate engineers?  what are the contextual factors which affect the employability of graduate engineers?  what intervention factors might affect the employability of engineering students?  what strategies do you think would affect the employability of engineering students?  what are the consequences of the difficulties faced by engineering students regarding their employability? the open section of the interview was expected to be a free discussion of the issues which arose during the semi structured section. for example, arising from the question on contextual factors was a discussion of how sanctions have affected the employment of iranian engineering students. interview the interviews began with the researcher introducing the purpose and the stages of the study, followed by a short review of the abilities and weaknesses of the graduates, and other problems related to their employment. the semi structured questions were then presented with participants having an opportunity to elaborate. following this, the researcher asked open-ended questions based on the introduced topics. the approximate time for each interview was 65 minutes and with the agreement of the participants all interviews were recorded5 via voice recorder. discussion during this section participant were given an opportunity to further explain their views. postinterview following the interview, the audio files were converted to word files by the researchers. technical notes based on the interviews (making the initial tags for the technical analysis) were prepared and returning to the participants to validate the data. the final version of the interviews was then prepared for coding purposes. data analysis to analyse the data, open, axial and selective coding techniques were utilised (strauss & corbins, 1998). after each interview, a report was prepared and the coding process started by the researchers (see tables 3 and 4). to validate the findings and confirm the discussions of participants’ 5 interviews were conducted by elaheh rajabi, a member of the research team farhadi rad, h., parsa, a., & rajabi, e. (2020). employability of iranian engineering graduates: influential factors, consequences and strategies journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 11(1), 110-130. 117 opinions, the reports were returned to interviewees and were also checked by the researchers who were present throughout the interview process. two doctoral students in educational administration were asked to participate as research collaborators (coders) and coded the interviews. the measure of stability (73%), was obtained based on the following formula. if the stability is greater than 60%, coding is confirmed and it can be claimed that the stability of the interview is acceptable. percentage of intersubject agreement number of agreements × 2 100 × total number of codes open coding first, each ‘meaning unit’ of the interview was selected, tagged, and named. table 3, partially shows the process of moving from the data to abstraction. in general, from 15 interviews, 360 open codes were extracted, some examples of which are presented in table 3. table 3: a sample of open coding (extracted from an interview) open codes (tags) sentences (extracted meaning units) no. reviewing the syllabus of engineering courses in the engineering disciplines reviewing the syllabus is an essence. 1 identifying the needs of market universities are unaware of the needs and expertise required by the labor market. 2 university-based instructions universities act based on their own abilities and the plans of the ministry of education 3 the congruency between theoretical and practical instructions the relation between theoretical instructions and practical instructions is not logical and needs revision 4 enhancing the students’ hope and motivation the first step in increasing the employability of the students is to give hope 5 … … ... axial coding to use concepts that better explain the employment phenomenon of engineering graduates, open codes, which are more semantically similar, were categorised in the form of axial codes. the axial codes are abstract concepts derived from the real data that pave the way for the development of the theory. table 4 depicts a sample of the extracted axial codes from the related open codes. in total, 360 open codes were converted to 37 axial codes. farhadi rad, h., parsa, a., & rajabi, e. (2020). employability of iranian engineering graduates: influential factors, consequences and strategies journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 11(1), 110-130. 118 table 4: how to make connections between open and axial codes (extracted from an interview) axial codes the sample of open codes number of open codes inadequacy of industry visits inadequate cooperation of university and industry, lack of serious attention to the extracurricular courses, industry visits without the presence of the professor 4 regulating the curriculum with the labor market needs the congruence of the graduates with the needs of the market, needs analysis of the required professions of the country, providing needs-based instructions, employing professors based on real needs, including practical skills as a requirement of employment for university professors 5 ... ... ... selective coding selective coding means choosing a general category that covers all the axial codes. the analyses in the current investigation revealed that students’ employability is under the influence of the socioeconomic state of society. as shown in figure 1 and described in the conclusion section, many national and international factors impact on engineering graduates’ employability in iran and most of them are not able to be influenced by the university system. therefore, it is not possible to explain it via internal-university processes. employability as an ‘over-university’ phenomenon was chosen as the selective code. refining the codes and constant analysis of the theory are all based on the researcher’s theoretical saturation, i.e., a stage in which no new insights and ideas are generated (mohammadpour, 2013). findings to report the findings of the study two methods were adopted. the first was the inductive method in which the researcher first presents all the axial codes separately and then, through reasoning and discussion, explains their importance in the final model. the second method was the deductive method in which the researcher first presents the finalised pattern that is the theory extracted from the data, then gives the explanations and discussions for each axial code. in the present study, the second method was utilised for representing the findings. therefore, in the first part, a paradigm structure is given (figure 1) and then, the influential factors on the students’ employability are analysed and explained. as can be seen in this structure, all the axial codes extracted from the data are classified based on five main axes (causal, context, intervening conditions, strategies, and consequences). farhadi rad, h., parsa, a., & rajabi, e. (2020). employability of iranian engineering graduates: influential factors, consequences and strategies journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 11(1), 110-130. 119 figure 1: final model from the research discussion since the overall aim of the current study was to provide a model for the explanation of engineering students’ employability, in this section the influential factors, consequences and strategies are analysed. the influential elements occur at different levels; some have direct effects that are called causal factors and are divided into two groups of university internal and university external factors. some provide the context for employability, such as economic conditions which are difficult to change, but can be kept in mind while planning. other factors are unexpected, such as the sanctions which cause differences suddenly via intervening with other factors and affecting the students’ employability. influential factors university internal factors  lack of financial independence an inherent problem from an intra-system perspective is that in iran, the universities have not been very successful in decreasing their financial dependence on the government. this is not surprising given that the financial dependence of the universities on the government is a major and historical policy in iran. that is, in iran, the government is the main finance supplier of the university sector. the prerequisite for granting credits to universities is based on the number of students entering universities. this situation has affected the students’ employability in different ways. accepting students with low standards can be used as a tool for convincing government officials to grant more credits. however, if providing quality instruction, and enhancing research and social services are only achieved by bargaining for more financial resources, these may not be achieved, particularly if farhadi rad, h., parsa, a., & rajabi, e. (2020). employability of iranian engineering graduates: influential factors, consequences and strategies journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 11(1), 110-130. 120 improving the quality instruction is not valued by the state stakeholders. indeed, university standards and internal relations might be a low priority to stakeholders. as a result, not only employment but also other university missions may be marginalised as indicated in the following comments. unfortunately, our state universities are supported by the petroleum incomes. that is why, because of their dependence on the government, other things are not of significance to them (pes). the biggest problem now is that a great part of industry and employment is controlled by the state. it is a state university, too. both industry and university are fed by the government; that means the existence of university and industry is not connected (pen5). since the university is a state organisation and the government supplies the entire budget, any discipline taught in the university would receive the budget based on the number of students and the educational grade (pen3).  curriculum an important part of the problem of employability is related to the engineering curriculum. the curriculum is the content and the official plan from which the learners receive instruction, engage in learning strategies, acquire different skills or develop their views and values. today, the industry is experiencing its fourth generation, thus preparing the workforce with an eye to its criteria requires an overhaul of the syllabuses to make them appropriate and up-to-date. the lack of up-to-date educational content leads to the development of graduates who are not very efficient in the labour market as indicated by the following comments from participants. unfortunately, the problem is that teaching or not teaching these subjects we already do in the university does not make a difference; just like in high school and college (pen2). we, as the faculty members of the engineering faculty, have the responsibility to teach subjects which are dictated to us by the ministry. even the syllabus is given to us and as teachers, we have to follow the framework (pen7). conditions are different in different fields of engineering. for example, in the computer sciences, the changes happen so fast, so the teacher needs to be much updated to be able to teach the skills in line with the recent changes (pen3).  lack of work related context universities have not been very successful in providing engineering students with appropriate ‘skills training’. the real labour market needs graduates who have examined and practiced their knowledge at least in a laboratory. it is not inclined to recruit students who have only collected scientific information. although providing opportunities to develop knowledge in practical situations is expensive, if universities invest in skills training alongside the theoretical development, the graduates would be more prepared to enter the labour market. following are comments related to this. …the number of modern, strong and practical labs, and good workshops and atelier are few, and there are only some ineffective theoretical courses which suffer from weak instruction skills (pen2). the engineering workshops do not present skills adequately, and the equipment is not enough and matched to today’s industrial needs (ped1). to adequately relate to the industry and labour market, and to enhance the quality of instruction, ‘academic tours’ in industrial centres were proposed and defined as a useful tool which would increase the employability of engineering students. the real life experiences of the participants in these tours suggests that the number of academic tours in the engineering disciplines is not sufficient, and industrial centres do not warmly welcome the visitors. hence, these tours which open farhadi rad, h., parsa, a., & rajabi, e. (2020). employability of iranian engineering graduates: influential factors, consequences and strategies journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 11(1), 110-130. 121 up a window for the students to be acquainted with the real challenges and activities in the workplace are conducted with little attention to a quality experience. one participant commented as follows. the academic tours should be planned in a way that for each course in each term, students visit three to four companies and get familiar with the latest technology and industrial issues. however, as a faculty member, i am responsible to manage these tours, the transportation, and make all the things prepared (pen7). the external environment of the university is complex, unstable, problematic, and unpredictable, and it is possible to have only very limited impact over it (mirkamali & farhadirad, 2013). industrial centres have diverse and variable needs and considering technological advancements, the needs are short-term and change quickly; therefore, engineering graduates should acquire abilities and competencies that are in congruence with the variable needs of the environment. however, due to the ‘inflexible structure of the university’ it has not been possible to devise an efficient and flexible relationship with the labour market. in the bureaucratic system of the university, incorporating a ‘professional needs analysis’ in planning is rarely considered. the structure of the university is not dynamic. neither are the principles flexible enough. the university is behaving very strictly. we claim that the industry is connected through the university. unfortunately, i think this connection is broken now (pen2). the force of law, policy-making, and planning is now on universities to strengthen the ties of relation with labour market and industry (pen6).  student quality ‘quantitative expansion of universities’, especially applied science and technology universities, and non-profit and islamic azad universities, has increased the number of engineering graduates with the lowest standards of education and research. the consequence of such an uncontrollable supply is the inability of the private and state organisations to absorb graduates who entered engineering fields to increase their employability chances, which in turn leads to their frustration and demotivation. this frustration causes students not to participate seriously in academic learning. when a person does not have the necessary interest, talent, and motivation, he says to himself, what is the use of these courses in my life? naturally, this person cannot be effective (m4). …there is no hope among engineering students for future employment. so, the student thinks he/she is doing a useless job to study and loses his/her motivation and attempt (pes). acquiring general skills, especially learning english as the international language is one of the preferences that exerts an important influence on the graduates’ employability in the country or abroad. in addition to the access to the scientific resources, having mastery over english would enable the students to read machine brochures, access the websites of manufacturers, and benefit from other online and offline instructions. for the reasons mentioned earlier, such as the quantitative expansion of universities, engineering students are far from being competent in general skills. general skills like english language fluency can be very helpful for the employability of the students based on our current economic conditions (pen5). students are weak in learning english, and we have few multilingual students who can work abroad (pen2).  teaching practices university professors as practical models have a significant role in influencing students’ attitudes. however a tendency toward theoretical instruction and ‘avoiding educational activities in industry and society’ or practical application has emphasised the theoretical subjects, with no logical relationship between theory and practice being formed by the students. farhadi rad, h., parsa, a., & rajabi, e. (2020). employability of iranian engineering graduates: influential factors, consequences and strategies journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 11(1), 110-130. 122 …different factors including the difficulty and lack of transportation facilities to the industrial centres, as well as the inherent difference between working in the field and the official bureaucracy, have made the university professors reluctant to appear in the real context of the job (m4). university external factors  bias in the marketplace though no one would deny the significant influence of the university internal factors on the employability of engineering graduates, there are also external factors to consider. one of these is the existing bias in the marketplace which encourages students to spend their energy and motivation on activities other than learning the skills and the requirements of working to win the job opportunities. this bias includes the biased assignment of industrial projects and biased relationships. therefore, the students might think university training cannot qualify them enough for employment. in iran, projects are given to individuals, not teams. what seems more important than expertise is the relational closeness of the individual to the functionary (ped1). we have the issue of ethnic groups which has permeated all walks of life. when you enter an office, you will be treated differently if you are from a specific ethnic group (pen1).  relationship between industry and universities the industry sector, as the most important area of practice for engineering graduates, is a place where scientific advancements should be applied. it seems that the number and the quality of the relationships between industry and university are indicative of the success or failure of graduates’ plans for individual development. the lack of trust between these two organisations has caused many problems beyond the scope of the current study. however, the ‘reciprocal relationship’ between university and society needs to be redefined to include the employability of students. also, inadequate development of knowledge-based companies and weak support of start-ups do not enable talented and innovative students to try their abilities and skills. …the industry believes that the university instructions are not in line with the industry needs. there are several requirements and skill which a student should develop via internship after receiving instructions from the university (pes). …the industry we are working with now goes back to three or four decades ago in europe. research and development centres should be created, which are absent now (m3). …there are not enough big knowledge-based companies to employ workforce when i am graduated (pen7).  recruitment strategies one of the university external factors that is very important for graduates’ employability is the way the industry looks at the workforce and selects in the recruitment process. today, industry in iran, relies greatly on the ‘cost management strategy’. in the cost management strategy, the industry seeks to use individuals who can produce and be profitable at the lowest cost and in the shortest possible time. the current industries are not welcoming or valuing education and do not seek highly qualified graduates. …the industries we have do not need education and science. they don’t need an educated workforce (ps). …industry needs a technician or an engineer who can work with the machines; any person with some amount of instruction would be able to do that (pen3). farhadi rad, h., parsa, a., & rajabi, e. (2020). employability of iranian engineering graduates: influential factors, consequences and strategies journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 11(1), 110-130. 123 contextual conditions  the perceived role of universities the theoretical basis of university activities is evident both in policy and practice. in most disciplines, more than 80% of the syllabus is theoretical and a brief review of the syllabus of the engineering discipline would confirm this. this means that theoretical instructions are the top priority for policymakers. moreover, the high cost of teaching practical skills, of supplying materials and equipment, of conducting workshops, and the difficulty of connecting with the world outside the university have all led the universities to prefer theoretical instructions. there is also a strong view that the student can develop practical skills outside the university and that the university is not responsible for the employment skills; it is a place for dealing with deep scientific challenges. …at the university, we spend most of our time on theories, even worse, we spend our time on things that the student must have learned at school like basic mathematics (pen7). …some subjects were included in the syllabus of the engineering discipline before which could be useful, but during the recent decades, these subjects are removed from the syllabus and were substituted by more theories. this can severely damage the practical skills of engineering students (pen4). the skills can be learned from other sources for example from the institutions which are skilloriented. however, i think, the university should deepen the students’ understanding of the field. we should not expect universities to increase the employability (ped2). in the universities in iran, the supportive and motivational endorsement of professors and students for doing industry related activities is rare. in some cases, the professors have been criticised for their external activities. real-life context is required, for example, if a professor decides to instruct the students based on the project-oriented pbl. but it is not possible because the facilities are not available (ped2). …field projects are difficult, but the university doesn’t provide any support. even doing the rudimentary tasks of preparation for outside the field activities most of the time faces major difficulties (pen7).  lack of strategic planning the issues around the employment of engineering graduates are made worse by the fact that universities and industry are not cooperating in considering scenarios for the future and investigating probable needs for the future. neither the university nor the engineering industry has a coherent strategic plan that everyone is committed to. weak strategic plans of university and industry causes confusion for students when considering their future. the university should have strategic plans, and create scenarios. the university should prospect for different conditions in the future. but these plans are scare, and if any, they do not play a key role (ped2). …we need to deploy futures studies in the industry however, we don’t. even if there is any plan, it is under great influence of political and social issues to the extent that it loses its predictability (m2). our industry is based on old structures and technical criteria with no future studies. this is the problem (pes).  lack of innovation the dominance of the ‘assembly’ industry on other industries is another fundamental factor that affects the employability of engineering graduates. normally, with the emergence of industrial revolutions, the needs of the labour market and the nature of university disciplines would change and the educational standards would be refined based on these changes. however, industry in iran is imported and its relationship to education is at a low level. it is not productive, dynamic, and farhadi rad, h., parsa, a., & rajabi, e. (2020). employability of iranian engineering graduates: influential factors, consequences and strategies journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 11(1), 110-130. 124 dependent on innovative graduates. therefore, even if the universities provide high-quality education, the engineering industry does not have enough potential to absorb them. ours is not a real industry, but only companies. when we say industry we mean it is selfinitiative and self-productive (pen3). ours is the industry of assembly. that is why our industry does not dare to change. since it is not a dynamic industry, it needs good operators, not good engineers (pes).  cultural factors the university seasonal holiday, especially during the summer, is part of the students’ lives. in this period, which is sometimes extended to three months, students’ engagement with their normal educational commitments, especially practical instruction, is impeded. for example, most of the engineering students’ internships are in the summer; but due to the university closure and the absence of the professors, there is no supervision of the students’ internships. industry and the market do not care about internships because they are not seriously monitored by the university, and they are not assigned specialised work. the professor requires an internship from the students during the summer. with no supervision, the student’s internship form would be signed by the industry certifying that the student has done 80 to 120 hours of internship, while in reality, he has only attended the field twice. then this form is signed by the student’s supervisor with no instruction being taken place (pen7). intervening conditions international sanctions the intervening factors refer to unpredictable conditions that have garnered little attention from the policymakers. the most important intervening factor affecting the industry and the labour market in iran is international sanctions. both university and industry are largely the victims of policies over which they have no control. due to the high risks caused by sanctions, international investments declined which led to a decrease in industrial projects. according to the records of the parliament research centre with the cooperation of economic organisations in iran, the international sanctions during 2012 had serious effects on graduates’ employability (khadem alizadeh, amadeh, & baghalian, 2014). labour market fluctuations and industry indecisiveness that were the consequences of the sanctions also caused students to lose their motivation. if the economic conditions of the society ameliorate and the sanctions are lifted, the labor market would seek workforce and graduates, and when students explore these job opportunities, they would improve their skills (pen4). the engineering market is largely a function of macro policies and the economy. it means any improvement in the market would flourish in the engineering market. however, there are two marketplaces, domestic and foreign. for example, our steel industry which exports products is now experiencing great difficulties due to the sanctions (pen5). most of the civil projects are pending now and no new projects are being planned, and if any, they are past unfinished projects waiting for the budget (pen4). the labor market in iran is not based on the logic of economics. most of the companies do not follow a straightforward routine of production. therefore, they need to make drastic functional changes to survive (ped1). technological development the world we live in experiences fast technological advancements in which the growth of science has caused many complexities in different fields and has led to the emergence of modern technology. the rapid technological changes require individuals with high levels of creativity and education and are able to move alongside these changes and handle unexpected circumstances. universities are farhadi rad, h., parsa, a., & rajabi, e. (2020). employability of iranian engineering graduates: influential factors, consequences and strategies journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 11(1), 110-130. 125 not as dynamic as the industry and cannot synchronize themselves with fast technological advancements. these changes have revolutionized the nature of many professions, and require the graduates to say abreast of these changes. i believe that the university is highly efficient, but drastic changes are taking place in different industrial fields, most of which have foreign sources. that is why the university should go in line with the scientific, industrial, and social changes. the university curriculum should be responsive to social expectations (ped2). …we have to keep in mind that the scientific scope expands two times each year, and the changes happen so fast that the older paradigms cannot be responsive anymore (m4). …now, you cannot find a job in which you can work for 30 years, especially if the job is technology-based because the changes occur very fast (ps). consequences of the influential factors on employability results the universities in iran are conservative and try to avoid comparisons with other national and international level universities in order to receive state financial support. to survive, they increase factors such as physical space, number of students, number of professors and staff, instead of attending to more important indices such as the fulfilment of national and regional needs, science production, and international credit. improving the engineering students’ employability potential would speed up the formation of an opportunity-making university education because employability is a complex structure that goes much beyond acquiring basic skills. when the university improves the employment potentials, instruction standards would improve, too, and the assessment system would be more criterion-based. the students’ responsibility for learning is also increased (ped2). … the least result of increasing the graduates’ employability is the popularity of the university, and this popularity can also be helpful for the university in receiving the non-state financial support (pen1). of the consequences of increasing the employability of the engineering graduates we can name motivational growth, ability enhancement, and an increase of the social trust to the university as a popular brand (pen2). improving students’ employability would pave the way for professional and qualified individuals to enter society. enabling people to be responsible for their environment in addition to professional task performance is part of the social responsibility of the university. improved employability sheds light on the expansion of knowledge into industry, strengthens the trust between industry and the university, and allows both the university and industry to flourish. therefore, knowledge-based activities of the labour market show the way of social prosperity in economic and social areas. moreover, a dynamic economy is more likely when it is based on the latest and advanced knowledge that have been acquired in constant interaction with local industries and communities. self-satisfaction is the best feeling resulted from the individual’s employability, because, satisfaction would influence the whole society (pes). the marketplace would also benefit from the improved employability when more professional workforces enter the society, the labor market, and the industry; in other words, more qualified individuals are absorbed by the marketplace and individuals would be better and more efficient citizens (ped2). increasing the number of efficient workforces would generally improve the efficiency of the industry and society. therefore, the knowledge-based economy would grow faster, individuals would become innovative and the whole system benefits from it (pen5). farhadi rad, h., parsa, a., & rajabi, e. (2020). employability of iranian engineering graduates: influential factors, consequences and strategies journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 11(1), 110-130. 126 strategies: suggestions for improving employability the universities should constantly undertake self-assessments and observe the labour market needs. this would help them be more realistic in considering issues such as the teaching and learning process, the educational content, the educational system, the professors of the engineering courses, and education and research facilities and equipment. the university should also assess its performance, and it should not be limited to the assessment of learning, the scores, average, and certification. it means that the university has to have both internal and external assessment criteria and examine whether the graduates are qualified and efficient enough to find suitable jobs (ped2). both the university and industry should assess their performance to be able to interact with each other concerning the engineering students’ employment (m4). the interdisciplinary nature of different sciences is inevitable and indicates the close relationship between similar and even different areas of inquiry. today, unidimensional proficiency would not make the graduates employable. for example, in addition to his profession, a mechanical engineer needs to have a partial mastery over computers, good communicative skills, and know about the biological sciences. on the other hand, a student cannot be omniscient. although some universities permit the study of two different majors simultaneously, this is not the main solution. therefore, the universities can strengthen the interdisciplinary communications as a key strategy for solving one aspect of the graduates’ employability issue. planning interdisciplinary courses and providing the engineering students with the possibility of studying the courses of other majors will help develop employability skills (ps). fostering skills should be multidimensional and not limited to one field of study (pen2). the university should create a deeper understanding of a scientific field and invest in the interdisciplinary and meta-disciplinary skill development and scientific and technical functions of individuals (ped2). entrepreneurship instruction is one of the strategies that mitigate the difficult conditions of iranian society today. by promoting an entrepreneurship culture and forming entrepreneurship approaches among the students and professors, organising science and technology parks, establishing growth centres, and start-ups, the conditions become more conducive to a university and society connection. under the influence of entrepreneurship, not only are economic values created, but also social, political, and cultural developments emerge. …teaching entrepreneurship to the students of engineering causes skill development during the course of studying and prepare them for creating entrepreneurial ideas (m1). both the students and the professors should perceive the opportunities are limited. therefore, when someone is a student, he/she should seek opportunities (ped1). the student should learn the entrepreneurship skills, perceive the professional life, and plan the ways to achievement (m4). the industry and engineering faculties cannot work separately unless being fed by an external resource (like the government). the university should be present in society, with no barriers to responding to the needs of society. industry at the heart of the decisions of the university is a sign of modern universities that improve students’ employability through presenting them with real job challenges and the realities of industry. …in addition to introducing scientific findings, different conferences and gatherings provide the opportunity to acquaint the artisans with the job applications. the week of research should not be held symbolically. it should be held as a workshop of real working context (pen7). farhadi rad, h., parsa, a., & rajabi, e. (2020). employability of iranian engineering graduates: influential factors, consequences and strategies journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 11(1), 110-130. 127 the real connection between the university and working is formed through internship workshops. standard implementation of apprenticeship and internship courses would help students acquire experience under the supervision of some experts. they can also develop responsibility, cooperation, and self-confidence needed for the real world of working. on the other hand, active participation in the society also leads to a better understanding of the needs of the society and therefore the coordination of labour supply and demand. when a field of study has a very limited market, not all cities should absorb applicants because of the cost of running the field, or the presence of relevant professors. in the internship courses the ideas is to become familiar with the labour market, and acquire the skills which are practical (pen3). if universities think rationally and realistically, then they should decrease the absorption capacities of the courses that are already saturated in the market and consider the students’ employment (pen3). another strategic factor affecting the employment capacity of engineering students is the formation of employment counselling centres at the school of engineering. establishing employment counselling centres can familiarise students with the current and future job market, show the students their skills and interests, introduce them to job opportunities related to each field, and guide them in their pursuits. some centres should be established in the universities to enable students to find and develop their interests there. for example, in the materials department, some of the professors have the experience of industrial work; make an industrial counselling centre for the students of metallurgy to receive guidance before graduation (pen7). one of the biggest problems for engineering graduates, according to the statistical center of iran, is finding a job appropriate to their skills and expertise. the consequences of unemployment are serious for the graduates who have spent a lot of time and money to study at a university with the expectation of employment at the end. society also expects universities to educate skilful and professional human resources after receiving financial support. one of the intra-organisational weaknesses of higher education in iran is that the engineering educational plans in universities are not systematically evaluated. engineering is, in fact, a world system, and teaching engineering should prepare engineers in accredited instruction and systems of education. despite the recruitment of students at all levels (undergraduate, master, and doctoral), and the endeavour for high-quality instruction based on a combination of cdio, abte, eur-ace criteria in universities of iran, the engineering education programs in iran are not independently evaluated as is the case in the world. (memarian, 2011). the results of the current study show that the employability of engineering graduates’ is affected by a multitude of factors which can be classified into the three categories of personal skills, university internal plans, and university external factors. most of the factors identified by the current study are in line with the results of other studies, for example, personal skills, attitudes and professional training (nguyen, yanagawa, & miyazaki, 2005), soft skills and personal attitudes (nillson, 2010), cultural backgrounds (gribble, 2014), the collaboration of university and industry (gabureanu & serbanescu, 2017), necessities of the workplace (oecd, 2010), and employers’ attitudes towards the engineering graduates’ skills (harun et al., 2017). one of the issues that have greatly affected the engineering graduates’ employability is international sanctions. these sanctions have caused a decrease in the import rate of capital goods (ezati & salmani, 2014) which constitute the infrastructure of the industries in iran. technological sanctions, limitations of financial transfers, sanctions of the central bank and oil and gas sales, the prohibition of exchanges of precious metals and gold, and blocking funds are among the issues that directly and indirectly affect higher education and the market place in iran. another issue in this regard is the mechanism of student recruitment at the higher education level. according to table 1, 28.8% of iranian students are studying one of the engineering majors. therefore, based on the higher education policies in iran, farhadi rad, h., parsa, a., & rajabi, e. (2020). employability of iranian engineering graduates: influential factors, consequences and strategies journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 11(1), 110-130. 128 more than 99% of these are recruited from the local students of iran who probably seek their occupational future in this country. conclusion according to the results of the present study, then, one can conclude that the employability of engineering graduates in iran is not merely a function of university internal factors, but that other factors are also involved. while some factors are related to the university and its internal mechanisms, others are related to the university's external factors. the most signifiant problem is that by being fed from state financial resources, the universities are dependent on the social, economic, and political changes and these i turn have an impact on the education of engineers. engineers, regardless of their abilities, skills, and attitudes, have a limited job market. therefore, curriculum reform, continuous evaluation of the needs of the labour market by the university, training of skills appropriate to the fourth generation of industry and appointing professors who include academic development and modern skills in their programs, will not be very successful without intelligent interaction between the universities and society. influenced by national and international factors, the employment market is not looking for the needs of its human resources among the qualified graduates of universities. the industries that reluctantly accept students to take practical courses, the false social demand for higher education, the inappropriate policy of higher education for the quantitative expansion of universities, the spread of the culture of credentialing, and other related issues have a significant influence on students’ employability. therefore, it can be said that the employability of engineering graduates is influenced by factors external to the universities, and the solution of this persistent problem can be found partly in improving the social basis for education and redefining the universitysociety connection. references aghapour, s., movahed m, s., & alambeigi, a. 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(2020). an integrative literature review of the implementation of micro-credentials in higher education: implications for practice in australasia. journal of teaching and learning for gradate employability, 12(1), p. 1–17 1 the journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability issn: 1838-3815 (online) journal homepage: https://ojs.deakin.edu.au/index.php/jtlge/ an integrative literature review of the implementation of microcredentials in higher education: implications for practice in australasia ratna malar selvaratnam1 and michael david sankey2 corresponding author: ratna selvaratnam (r.selvaratnam@ecu.edu.au ) 1edith cowan university 2griffith university abstract micro-credentials research, which includes digital badges, is a relatively new field of study that seeks to inform the implementation, portability and sustainability of the ecology of meaningful delivery. this paper reviews literature relevant to understanding connections between universities’ intent to offer micro-credentials and the environment that is needed to do so. from this integrated study, the paper distils a number of core concerns and identifies some gaps in the literature. one of its primary goals is to clear the ground for the construction of a technical model of micro-credentialing implementation that can be used by the various stakeholders involved in the design and evaluation of new micro-awards. a closely related goal is to help those participating in micro-credentialing research to locate and understand each other’s contributions, as fragmentation in research related to micro-credentials makes progress in the field slow. hence, this review draws together research in the field to identify research foci and gaps, and then also capture some work by micro-credentialing researchers that directly attempts to model the main relationships in the field. the paper ends with a summary of implications for practice, especially for the australasian higher education context. keywords microcredentials, digital badges, higher education introduction the australian higher education sector is on the cusp of recognising what has long been a body of work related to the micro-credentialing space. more broadly, while there is a long history of short courses used for professional development by many professional bodies and more recently the advent of moocs, it seems that the sector is still in the seminal stages of agreeing on a common framework for credit, and that there is much to learn about common good practices (dyjur & lindstrom, 2017), thus it is important that this topic be broadly debated and benchmarked. to help further stimulate this process, this paper will set the context of this work with some key constructs present, so far, in the literature. the field of micro-credentials and how these equate to fuller forms of credentialing is still emerging in the australian higher education sector (department of education and training, 2018). in the context of this paper, micro-credentials include nano-credentials, digital and open badges. however, to date, general academic literature in this field is limited and even more so in relation to the https://ojs.deakin.edu.au/index.php/jtlge/ mailto:r.selvaratnam@ecu.edu.au selvaratnam, r.m., & sankey, m.d. (2020). an integrative literature review of the implementation of micro-credentials in higher education: implications for practice in australasia. journal of teaching and learning for gradate employability, 12(1), p. 1–17 2 implementation of these credential types, although some lessons can be learned from their antecedents, such as the work being undertaken by deakin university (oliver, 2016) and rmit university (rossiter & tynan, 2019). this paper seeks to provide an analysis of gaps in the current literature globally, through an integrated literature review of micro-credentials. it will then focus on the next steps of implementation in the australian higher education landscape. it should be noted that the australian federal government, more recently, announced (june 2020) that they will spend some $4.3 million to build and run a one-stop-shop for microcredentials to help students identify educational opportunities (tehan & cash, 2020). initial indications are that it is intended that an estimated 54 providers will be offering some 344 short online courses on this national platform (chanthadavong, 2020). at this stage the implications of this are not clear, as the site has not been built yet (at the time of writing), but as a representative form universities australia highlights anything which helps to provide people with qualification and skills for the economic recovery is a good thing (visontay, 2020). several key developments in the field frame the current thinking around micro-credentials in this paper. a recent review of the australian qualifications framework (aqf) was completed in 2019 (noonan, 2019, also known as the noonan review). the findings stress the importance of the aqf being more flexible and responsive to societal needs. in particular, the review highlighted the growing adoption of micro-credentials and how they could allow hei providers to deliver new programs and courses that may better suit prospective student needs. one recommendation reads: the aqf pathways policy is revised to broaden guidelines for credit recognition across aqf qualifications and to define and provide for recognition of shorter form credentials, including micro-credentials, towards aqf qualifications (p. 9). this follows the implementation of a similar approach in the new zealand qualifications framework (nzqf) in 2019. establishing similar (not necessarily the same) guidelines for micro-credentials within the aqf will provide a platform towards assuring a level of quality and commonality that is required for australian institutions. secondly, emeritus professor beverley oliver from deakin university, provides a poignant discussion on micro-credentials in the report ‘making micro-credentials work for learners, employers and providers’ (2019a) which preceded the aqf review report by 2 months. in it oliver foreshadowed having the opportunity to have formal qualifications systems which could recognise different forms of credentials. in this report she defines micro-credentials as follows: …a micro-credential is a certification of assessed learning that is additional, alternate, complementary to or a formal component of a formal qualification (oliver, 2019b, p. i) she makes the case for more granular, certified learning which builds trust, adds value and is sustainable through a national credit framework, recognising prior learning for mature learners and implementing lifelong learning accounts through digital systems. the third document framing the thinking for this paper, that preceded the above, is unesco’s 2018 report on ‘digital credentialing: implications for the recognition of learning across borders’. it proposes a global reference for recognising and negotiating credentials across digital systems. learning and technology standards are recognised as critical areas to be addressed for credibility in this endeavour. hence, contemporary national frameworks, such as those proposed in the aqf review, are important quality assurance systems. this of course raises many issues for autonomous national regulatory agencies, but should not be viewed any differently to the way in which other fuller forms of credentials are mediated across borders. aims within the context of the aqf review, the work by oliver and the unesco report, this paper seeks to survey the literature in the field with three key questions. this is done with recognition that the selvaratnam, r.m., & sankey, m.d. (2020). an integrative literature review of the implementation of micro-credentials in higher education: implications for practice in australasia. journal of teaching and learning for gradate employability, 12(1), p. 1–17 3 field of micro-credentials is relatively new, with an emerging body of literature. having this in mind, the research questions which this paper seeks to address are: 1. to what extent is there significant literature on micro-credentials generally and on the technical implementation particularly? 2. how can the existing literature on micro-credentials be synthesised to inform the development of a model for the technical ecosystem for the implementation of microcredentials? 3. what are the implications of this model for future practice, particularly in australasian higher education? practical and theoretical rationale for this paper a rapidly evolving higher education landscape is an opportunity for australian universities to reconsider how they offer education (fawcett, 2018). in a time where knowledge and skills need to be updated constantly, a threeor four-year degree may not suit the currency required in many jobs and other forms of paid and unpaid work. a student’s employability and entrepreneurship abilities need to be contemporary and flexible. this point was picked up strongly by the federal education minister, dan tehan in a speech at the afr higher education summit, when he said, institutions are increasingly working with industry to offer micro-credentials and the development of essential capabilities – this needs to continue (tehan, 2019). he also announced the commonwealth’s support of discounted short courses which could lead up to awards to reskill the population in the covid-19 pandemic employment fallout (duffy, 2020). however, recognising them in a way that is translatable across academia and work providers is difficult. thus, the authors propose that there are two practical rationales for undertaking an integrated study of the implementation of micro-credentials. in the first instance, while employability is a key measure for australian university performance, graduates are not finding longer term work matching their awards in a timely or meaningful way as they have in the past (foundation for young australians, 2018). similarly, though not correlated, short-term graduate employability also dropped slightly in 2019 (gos national report, 2019). coupled with what is termed the fourth industrial revolution, where artificial intelligence is accelerating automation in the future of work, universities need to reconsider their current way of offering awards to meet the much discussed changing nature of employment (world economic forum, 2018) and the biggest current challenge of unemployment due to job losses from the covid19 pandemic (australian bureau of statistics, 2020). the demand for just-in-time and continuous learning is increasing from workers who seek to remain relevant in an ever-changing work environment. further, the practical rationale for this paper is to build on the work of selvaratnam and sankey (2019). their findings for the australasian council for open, distance and elearning (acode) shows the importance of micro-credentialing is growing significantly in australian higher education institutions. most institutions already have some form of presence in the space, or are planning to do so. linking this with the outcomes of the review of the aqf that recommended the recognition of micro-credentials (campus morning mail, 2019) provides an impetus for institutions to consider enabling micro-credentialing frameworks. the low-hanging fruits to establish micro-credentialing in the findings are short courses and postgraduate programs. the recommendations were that higher education institutions should first establish policies to govern this work in their institutions and to establish taxonomies to formalise how micro-credentialing might articulate to their context. the extension of the survey would be an important means to identify gaps detected in the initial findings. the theoretical rationale for this paper is the dearth of available academic research on microcredentials. although there is no shortage of opinion pieces published on the internet, many of these lack the required level of academic rigour for an integrative literature review such as this. there is a spread of work on micro-credentials, digital badges, open badges and some mention of selvaratnam, r.m., & sankey, m.d. (2020). an integrative literature review of the implementation of micro-credentials in higher education: implications for practice in australasia. journal of teaching and learning for gradate employability, 12(1), p. 1–17 4 alternative credentials such as nano-credentials. however, this field is new and maturing with key researchers suggesting areas such as digital badging may be too young for a comprehensive literature review (gibson et al., 2015). the authors believe that at this point in time, the importance of micro-credentials generally, and in the australian higher education landscape in particular, is significant enough to now warrant an attempt to pull together key work already done in this field. this will serve to inform future actions for successful implementation and sustainability. given the above stated practical and theoretical rationale, the first intention is to investigate the affordances that technology has played in this new and evolving field. to do so both research and industry literature is referred to. the authors argue that ‘thought leadership’ in the field (lewin, 2008) is important to include in the discussion. in dynamic time-sensitive fields like educational technology, where a lot of the work on micro-credentialing sits, it is equally important to refer to industry updates as it is to assess the current academic literature in the space. the second intention is to provide a cohesive view on badging including digital and open badging, which is also a new and evolving field. most micro-credentials rely on a form of recognition which can be shared in marketplaces of learners, employers and education institutions. usually badges serve this purpose of portable recognition of award. key constructs this section provides some definitions and discussion points of what is posited here as some key constructs needing to be explored when progressing future micro-credential research. these set the stage for contextualizing the work globally with some emphasis on australasian higher education. the four areas covered are learning and capability, employability, technology ecosystem, and artefacts and texts. learning and capability micro-credentials seek to fill the gap in the current practice of awarding credentials beyond that of degrees. mostly, adult learning has accelerated the drive for micro-credentials. in a changing workforce seeking to stay relevant in the fourth industrial revolution, continued upskilling and reskilling is pivotal but in chunks of time that are seen to be more manageable. one of the foundational papers in the field, within the australian sector, is by beverley oliver (2016) laying out the concept, disruption and future of micro-credentials. these are linked to 21st century skills that, she argues, are necessary for the workforce of the future, especially in australia. there are some good examples of micro-credentialing already established in australian higher education, as the following examples illustrate. in simple terms there are four main models of micro-credentials currently seen within the australasian sector. these include credentials associated with: 1. postgraduate short courses and programs based on credentialing demonstrated outcomes, or selling recognition of prior learning (rpl); 2. postgraduate courses built-up by undertaking a number of shorter courses for academic credit and stacking those credits to attain a recognised award (usually a graduate certificate); 3. undergraduate: where series of short accredited courses may be used to augment a fuller program (typically x4 = 1), that may replace one or two courses (units) in a 24 course (unit) program. these are typically skill based; 4. undergraduate: non-accredited, or co-curricular courses to demonstrate experience and enhance a student’s portfolio with the view to enhancing employability prospects. (sankey, 2019) this leads to the current trend in the sector that is seeking to try and chorale this at a national policy level, one that would formally recognise micro-credentials. countries such as new zealand already selvaratnam, r.m., & sankey, m.d. (2020). an integrative literature review of the implementation of micro-credentials in higher education: implications for practice in australasia. journal of teaching and learning for gradate employability, 12(1), p. 1–17 5 recognise micro-credentials (education new zealand, 2018). the new zealand qualifications authority (nzqa) will quality assure the learning included in each micro-credential, having incorporated micro-credentials into the overall quality assurance framework. however, in the case of australia this will need to be aligned in some way with the aqf (australian qualifications framework), which is structured differently to the new zealand model. this was flagged by teqsa in their ‘guidance note: technology-enhanced learning, version 1.2’, released on 11 april 2019, where they specifically called out the granting of credit for new forms of prior learning in the tel (technology enhanced learning) environment, such as completion of a mooc or micro-credential (teqsa, 2019). figure 1 shows gallagher’s (2016) depiction of the emerging markets that though currently distinct, are converging especially around the micro-credentials space and the current short offerings which are not credentialed. research has shown that this convergence is easier accomplished by universities than trying to unbundle traditional awards (selvaratnam & sankey, 2019). it also crucially affords university partnerships especially those that leverage on employment opportunities for graduates. figure 1: the credential landscape: market size and orientation and credential duration (gallagher, 2016) employability the second construct is employability. australia has a strong emphasis on the employability of university graduates with government funding now formally tied to this measurement. the metric is clear in terms of when a graduate is expected to be actively employed and the type of employment contract (department of education, skill and employment, 2019). governments have recognized the need for adult learners to stay relevant through upskilling and reskilling for the workforce and have taken steps to regulate and provide opportunities for adult learners to meet this need. more selvaratnam, r.m., & sankey, m.d. (2020). an integrative literature review of the implementation of micro-credentials in higher education: implications for practice in australasia. journal of teaching and learning for gradate employability, 12(1), p. 1–17 6 specifically, the education minister dan tehan specifically called this out, in reference to the recent aqf review, when he said: the review has been looking at recognition of micro-credentials and better alignment of higher education and vocational training skills, changes to volume of learning, possible credit point systems, and clearer alignment between learning and occupational outcomes. (tehan, 2019) an example, or hint as to how some state based tertiary admissions centres are handling this can be seen with the work of qtac (queensland tertiary admissions centre), in their submission to the aqf review. in their submission they write: at qtac we engage daily with prospective students who are anxious about the future and their ability to compete in a changing workforce. over the last two decades qtac has seen a profound shift: where there was confidence about the power of tertiary education to ensure gainful employment and swift advancement, there is now uncertainty about whether it offers a return on investment for the learner. those of us within the sector understand the many practical and personal benefits of higher education, but we are sympathetic to those who struggle to determine the value when media points to the underemployment of graduates from all disciplines…the change is most evident in the rise of non-formal and informal corporate training, particularly ‘micro’ credentials. much of the training that is undertaken by working australians today is not recognised within the aqf, a distinct shift from the time when corporate australia would sponsor its future leaders through formal qualifications. the rise of microcredentials reflects the corporate need for targeted, short and inexpensive skill and knowledge development, as well as the motivation of individuals to future-proof themselves against change. (griffiths university, 2019) the perspective presented in this work is not insignificant and is leading to a number of practical outcomes in universities within queensland, not the least of which was the development of a taxonomy of credential types and definitions at griffith university (griffith university, 2018). many governments in oecd countries have also initiated improvements to the governance of adult learning systems (oecd, 2019). in addition to manageable learning chunks with reference to time, the skills on offer are also important for learners. relevance to industry is also highlighted as an important factor to ensure the success of shorter form credentials (saray & ponte, 2019), as learners are likely to take up what they perceive as important to their work roles. the agreed premise is that badges, which are one of the artefacts signifying the completion of a micro-credential, are only valuable to employers as the skills they evidence through mastery rather than participation (carey & stefaniak, 2018). this is a separate discussion to what a learner may take for leisure, where evidencing their learning may not be a priority. other countries have set up national systems for continued learning and capture of the evidence of an individual’s accomplishments that can be shared, especially with future and current employers. examples of countries with portable lifelong learning credit banks include singapore (skillsfuture, 2019) and the current work in sweden on a national strategy for validation (valideringsdelegationen, 2019). there are several regional qualifications frameworks encouraging portability and recognitions between member countries including the association of southeast asian nations qualifications reference framework, the caribbean community qualifications framework, the economic community of west african states qualifications systems, the european qualifications framework, the pacific qualifications framework, the southern african development community qualifications framework: building trust for better mobility, and the transnational qualifications framework for the virtual university for the small states of the commonwealth (cedefop, 2019). these regional frameworks are significant as they cross borders and carefully consider employability and meaningful contribution to the collective economic health of the region. selvaratnam, r.m., & sankey, m.d. (2020). an integrative literature review of the implementation of micro-credentials in higher education: implications for practice in australasia. journal of teaching and learning for gradate employability, 12(1), p. 1–17 7 technology ecosystem the third key construct of this paper is the technology ecosystem that enables the learning and delivery of micro-credentials. there are a variety of methods to offer micro-credentialing. universities can adopt unbundled learning pathways to maximise opportunities in the sector. unbundling is the process of disaggregating educational provision into its granular component parts. with suitable and flexible modes of credentialing, this provides ease of movement, portability, and mobility (czerniewicz, 2019). however, there needs to be a meaningful way to understand what these varieties of credentials mean for stakeholders such as employers. one way to do that as suggested in educause (2018) is using the credential transparency description language (ctdl) where common terms are used that are recognised by search engines and credential publishers. while there are several means to offer micro-credentials, there continues to be the debate on how best to verify these credentials, especially if they are to be portable between institutions and sectors. mcarthur (2018) suggests blockchain technology, which is generally defined as ‘distributed digital ledgers’, to be one solution to this. blockchain technology is regarded as a disruption to the way education is now offered (jirgensons & kapenieks, 2018), primarily certified by the institution which offers the award. for example, in australia and new zealand, certified digital documents are already offered by all universities in a central repository called equals (2019), however this does not include micro-credentials as yet. the other discussion worth noting is within digital credentialing. in the ‘next american economy’s learning series’, the roosevelt institute (2016) offers guiding principles to navigate this increasingly digital space affording credentialing. ifenthaler, bellin-mularski, and mah (2016) explore digital badging specifically focusing on its technical elements in all levels of learning. open badges are also a form of digital badging awarded at completion of learning. this is another discussion on badging, usually linked to learning management systems (liyanagunawardena, scalzavara, & williams, 2017). open badges are open source products which can be accessed by a wide range of institutions. edsurge (2018) which curates digital badge offerings, mainly on north america, includes the work edx is doing on their ‘microbachelors’ program. edx is a key massive open online course (mooc) provider. other platforms to consider in the micro-credential technology ecosystem include the ims global consortium (2019) which offers open badges (bbv2). these are verifiable micro-credentials that fill the gap in traditional transcripts and resumes. also, the lumina foundation’s credential engine (2019) is a not for profit enterprise trying to fill the gap for a common descriptive language for credentialing that is searchable in a common marketplace. west and lockley (2016) emphasise the investment in key infrastructure in technology, in addition to curriculum, policy, processes and training. the technology ecosystem needs to be robust enough to reduce manual work for both issuers and learners, ensure quality and authenticity, and facilitate visibility and compatibility of need for employers (markowitz, 2018). in the short courses market the buyer would be employers (callaghan, 2019), and these are generally the easiest to convert to micro-credentials (selvaratnam & sankey, 2019). however, employers need to be assured of quality and this remains a challenge (krupnick, 2019, jagger, 2019). some successful badges are co-created between the potential employer and the university (leaser & gallagher, 2017), thus ensuring the quality for the possible future employer from the beginning. artefacts and texts the fourth construct is of the available artefacts and texts on micro-credentials. this is best evidenced by the current work in sample universities. there are three examples in australia which are relevant. the rmit university approaches micro-credentialing as a means of certifying smaller attainments of learning than that of a full degree. this insight includes stackable credit, general recognition of prior learning, evidence of graduate attributes and standards-based competencies selvaratnam, r.m., & sankey, m.d. (2020). an integrative literature review of the implementation of micro-credentials in higher education: implications for practice in australasia. journal of teaching and learning for gradate employability, 12(1), p. 1–17 8 associated with professional practice. rmit creds (2019) is available to all enrolled students. they are generally online and self-paced. students are awarded a digital badge upon completion. another example is deakinco (2019), a fully owned private subsidiary of deakin university that works in the recognition of prior learning space which translates into, what they term, professional practice credentials and awards. these are higher education pathways to deakin university but also providing vocational education and training. they brand themselves as ‘workplace learning and recognition specialists’. other institutions, such as griffith university (2019) already have a microcredentialing policy and a taxonomy of practice that aligns levels of activity with a multilayered schema of credentials, ranging from, ‘for academic credit’ to ‘recognition of attainment’. in europe, the research by microhe (2019) is a significant piece of work currently in development. it aims to provide the most comprehensive analysis yet conducted of the impact of modularization, unbundling and micro-credentialing in european higher education. as another example, educause (2019) provides a space for higher education practitioners to organically collaborate and interact on the work on micro-credentials and digital badges, including research, design and implementation. this is for global participants but tends to have more north american participation. in the u.s., the state university of new york (suny) (2019) have outlined the implementation of micro-credentials into four groups leading the work around transferability and portability, data reporting, policy/financial aid, and readiness, training and assessment. this work is both strategic and operational in approach and may be a good example for universities starting on the micro credentialing journey. micro-credentialing research in higher education: focal areas approach taken the aim of the paper is to provide a snapshot of the practice of micro-credentialing as discussed in the sections preceding, categorising the research work done to date in the field, then synthesise this work into a conceptual model designed to provide next steps for the conversation in implementing and sustaining the work. the method used is an integrative literature review (russell, 2005), which is a form of research that reviews, critiques, and synthesises representative literature on a topic in an integrated way such that new frameworks and perspectives on the topic are generated (torraco, 2005, p. 356). it is a distinct form of research without much guidance in the field and is useful for both mature and new fields of study, this paper being the latter. the approach taken to achieve this is outlined in the following steps. firstly, all academic literature reviewed in this paper is from 2016 onwards. while industry work is referred to in this paper for context, the scope of the integrative literature review is to identify academic papers in the main and key reports where relevant. ifenthaler et al. (2016) completed a comprehensive reference to the work on digital badging in 2016. mah’s (2016) systematic review of the literature focused on the nexus between learning analytics, digital badging and student retention, while liyanagunawardena et al. (2017) undertook a systematic review of the literature on open badges in 2017. all three provide key foundations for the discussion on micro-credentialing through the study of digital badging, but do not address micro-credentials as a focus. a lot of what is covered in this current review of literature seeks to build on the work done since these three studies, due to evolution and acceleration of policy, demand and technology. second, a search through library databases was run on ‘digital badges’ and ‘micro-credentials’ including the term ‘technical implementation of micro-credentials’. a search of ‘micro-credentials’ which is a fairly new term used by oliver (2019a) did not return meaningful results. results linked to university libraries’ use of micro-credentialing was left out of the paper as it is usually very specific to library skills and not related to academic awards. while significant, the authors wanted to focus on universities’ central efforts in providing micro-credentials. selvaratnam, r.m., & sankey, m.d. (2020). an integrative literature review of the implementation of micro-credentials in higher education: implications for practice in australasia. journal of teaching and learning for gradate employability, 12(1), p. 1–17 9 thirdly, an internet search was run on ‘micro-credentialing’ to look at industry takes on the subject. as the focus of this paper is on a new and emerging field that can fall under the educational technology umbrella, it was important to also keep abreast of the currency of innovation and implementation in the field. finally, the authors also used some citation chaining to ensure there was no relevant research missed. table 1: recent key research in the field of microcredentials key literature in micro-credentials literature type micro-credential badging (digital & open) systematic review calonge et al (2019) liyanagunawardena et al (2017) mah (2016) empirical research and conceptual papers gallagher (2016) ghasia et al (2019) jirgensons, m. and kapenieks, j. (2018) coleman (2018) newby and cheng (2019) hickey and grant (2019) abramovich (2016) morris et al (2019) tierney et al (2019) roy and clark (2019) disalvio (2016) farmer and west (2016) ifenthaler et al (2016) reports and whitepapers oliver (2016) (2019a) selvaratnam & sankey (2019) unesco (2018) spaulding and johnson (2016) table 1 shows key literature in micro-credentials. a lot of the work would be media or industry articles, mostly in education technology thought leadership pieces, rather than academic research. the former is not represented in the table but some are discussed elsewhere in this paper. three reports and whitepapers are included. the table highlights work in the micro-credentialing space and also badging which has a little work published academically. however, it is still maturing. there is currently limited literature on implementing micro-credentials. some of the key work in the area is discussed here. the seminal work in this is that of beverley oliver (2016) where she lays out the foundation of micro-credentialing in a widely quoted whitepaper. selvaratnam and sankey (2019) conducted a survey of australian universities to assess the perception of micro-credentialing. their findings detailed there was high awareness and intent or planning for micro-credentials, but low implementation at this point in time. while this review refers to moocs, calonge, shah, riggs, and connor, (2019) also refer to credentialing them to help address skills shortages and upskill employees in an australian context. ghasia, machumu, and de smet’s (2019) findings suggest the university community finds micro-credentialing a positive step forward, but needs a robust ecosystem of policy, infrastructure and skill base to ensure success. gallagher (2016) posits that while it is accepted that credentialing is central to higher education perhaps it is the credentialing mechanism that is in need of innovation and key to understanding and generating new models and greater value (p. 19). jirgensons and kapenieks’s (2018) work focuses more on the technology that ensures credentialing quality especially in assessment, suggesting blockchains would be a solution. unesco’s 2018 report proposes a global reference for recognising and negotiating credentials across digital systems. digital badging, while still a new field, has prompted more literature and studies. there has been work done to evaluate badging platforms (hamson-utley & heyman, 2016. dimitrijevic, devedzic, jovanovic, & milikic, 2016), though new platforms are constantly entering the market. mah (2016) selvaratnam, r.m., & sankey, m.d. (2020). an integrative literature review of the implementation of micro-credentials in higher education: implications for practice in australasia. journal of teaching and learning for gradate employability, 12(1), p. 1–17 10 adds to the conversation by proposing a model that synthesizes learning analytics, generic skills and digital badges to promote student retention. ifenthaler et al. (2016) explore digital badging specifically focusing on its technical elements in all levels or learning, with many authors from around the world contributing. liyanagunawardena et al., (2017) conducted a systematic review of open badges while acknowledging it was still in its infancy. spaulding and johnson (2016) directly link employment goals to badging for youth. hickey and chartrand (2019) posit that their study of 30 funded efforts to develop badges found participation badges for engaged social learning created better thriving ecosystems compared to competency badges. in addition to badging for main awards, a complementary area for badging in universities is in co-curricular activities. evidence shows that while it connects learners to their curricular journey meaningfully, the platform would ideally afford natural stimulation of intrinsic and extrinsic motivation for students to engage (coleman, 2018). newby and cheng (2019) reported in their study digital badges both afforded higher levels of perceived confidence in learners and higher performance in outcomes. further, abramovich (2016) argues some learners can benefit by badges that are also designed to be assessments. on the other side of the debate, however, morris et al. (2019) surprisingly, found no significant improvement in learning when they conducted an experiment on students to determine if badges support self-regulated learning. one way to mitigate the lack of perceived value in digital badges is for there to be a co-design process with learners on responsive badge systems (tierney, horstman, & tzou, 2019). despite the challenges, the debate continues and clearly more research is needed particularly in diverse contexts (roy & clark, 2019), digital badges remain significant (disalvio, 2016; farmer & west, 2016). the debate around digital and open badges demonstrates its importance, gaps remain in the literature. representations of micro-credentials implementation while the academic literature in the field of micro-credentials is limited, there have been several attempts to effectively model the relationship of various stakeholders together with the process and technical infrastructure necessary. oliver’s (2019a) model in figure 2 charts a distinct role for employers in the ecosystem. as discussed earlier, credentials are usually successful if they are relevant for current and future employers. importantly, she suggests third party providers partner with industry to offer credentials. employers themselves can offer credentials in-house or in partnership with other organisations. this is where oliver seems to suggest that universities or higher education providers can become the partner of choice with employers and other credentialing providers, be they public or private. this would require universities to rethink how they do business going forward as they are not the sole credentials provider but potentially have a wider reach through partnerships to offer access to learners who want qualifications beyond traditional awards or degrees. the design of the credential also becomes more relevant as it would be a backward design models from what is needed in the world of work to the type of digital credentials that are suitable which in turn informs module design (rossiter & tynan, 2019). selvaratnam, r.m., & sankey, m.d. (2020). an integrative literature review of the implementation of micro-credentials in higher education: implications for practice in australasia. journal of teaching and learning for gradate employability, 12(1), p. 1–17 11 figure 2: today’s evolving micro-credential ecosystem with major employers and more private providers offering micro-credentials (oliver, 2019b) while oliver’s (2019a) model depicts the delivery of micro-credentials, rossiter and tynan (2019) suggest what the learner’s journey would look like in figure 3. figure 3: the learner-and-earner micro-credential journey (rossiter &tynan, 2019) selvaratnam, r.m., & sankey, m.d. (2020). an integrative literature review of the implementation of micro-credentials in higher education: implications for practice in australasia. journal of teaching and learning for gradate employability, 12(1), p. 1–17 12 the learner is now also an earner, stacking learning credentials as they go along their lifelong learning journey. agency is very much with the learner as they are first made aware and understand the credential on offer, then choose from the options at hand, likely from their own research. they then commit to the learning experience through the stages of prepare and commence, then qualify upon completing an authentic assessment. they then claim the badge or credential and then, most importantly, share their credential usually by publishing it in a marketplace like linkedin or a public portfolio where it will be highly visible. a model was also developed by unesco (2018) in analysing what works and what does not in a high-level digital ecosystem for credentialing. building on oliver’s model of delivery and consumption, and rossiter and tynan’s model of the learner as agent, the architectures provided begin to map out the digital dependencies of a digital ecosystem at a macro level. five architectures are identified; central repository, exchange network, hub-and-spoke, badge framework, and public blockchain. each architecture is analysed against the four areas of scope and functionality; mobility; security, trust, privacy; and participation detailing the benefits and challenges of each. while the models discussed are significant, what does this mean for a university’s technical ecosystem for micro-credentials? in figure 4 (below) the authors suggest a simple model linking the key stakeholders and their relationship in the technology continuum distilled from the preceding discussions. the journey begins with the learner who seeks to earn the credential i.e. learner-asearner. the learner would typically interact with learning technologies which would enable discovery of content, platform or direction for collaboration and access to authentic assessment; in other words, a virtual learning environment (vle), which includes an lms and associated systems such as eportfolio, lecture capture, peer learning tools, etc. this would be earned from offerings from a higher education provider who manages the administrative technologies that enable the earning of the credential. these would include student management systems (sms), including enterprise communication systems and quality assurance processes. these credentials then would be made visible for employers to access in a single subscribed or multiple marketplace common to all three stakeholders, managed by third party providers; credentialing management systems (cms) that generally include virtual backpacks to hold the digital credentials or badges earned. an example of a single marketplace would be the use of my equals in australia. multiple marketplaces would be the addition of public marketplace technologies such as linkedin. the outer ring is the employer, who is able to make hiring decisions based on the qualifications made visible in the marketplace; professional representation systems (prs). it is important to note that for a successful model for micro-credentials, all four stakeholders will already be in conversation from the beginning, hence the represented relationship. for example, the microcredential would already have been tested in the marketplace and possibly co-created with the employer to ensure relevancy. this model provides a simple technology map that can be adapted to multiple higher education scenarios based on the type of offering and access to relevant technologies. importantly, when designing for micro-credentials, institutions need to be aware of the multiple systems and how these systems need to interact with each other. for example, when choosing a credentialing engine it is important that this particular tool will faithfully represent the badge, or credential, in the systems that will be seen by potential employers, which is not always the case. this disjoint was personally experienced by one of the authors when the badges issued by the institutions credentialing engine where not viewable in the institutional eportfolio system. selvaratnam, r.m., & sankey, m.d. (2020). an integrative literature review of the implementation of micro-credentials in higher education: implications for practice in australasia. journal of teaching and learning for gradate employability, 12(1), p. 1–17 13 figure 4: micro-credentials and stakeholder engagement with relevant technologies implications for future research and practice there is a significant gap in academic research in the field of implementing and sustaining microcredentials in higher education. much of the work is done in industry thought leadership and design and also in media articles. there is some work published recently on digital badging, but less in micro-credentialing, and even these tend to be whitepapers and reports. additionally, the success of micro-credentials relies on the acceptance and need of future employers who may want to access this evidence. hence, the field of micro-credentials can benefit from wider empirical research especially integrating with employability. there also needs to be deeper research on the technical implications of successful micro-credentials rollout so that the processes that the authors suggest in figure 4 are clearly transacted. this is precisely where an agreed national framework for the recognition of micro-credential would play such an important role. not only would it help institutions fall within agreed parameters, but it would provide tertiary admission agencies clear guidance as to what is acceptable for university entrance. such a framework would also provide future researchers a base-level from which to expand their understanding as one of the limitations of this study, has been the challenge of making sense of a range of different central processes found in higher educational institutions. also while some works in co-curricular micro-awards are mentioned, this has not been explored in-depth. conclusion this paper has looked at the overall implications for theory and practice of micro-credentialing implementation while emphasizing the australasian landscape. it is noted that an understanding of micro-credentialing is growing significantly in australasian higher education institutions and many selvaratnam, r.m., & sankey, m.d. (2020). an integrative literature review of the implementation of micro-credentials in higher education: implications for practice in australasia. journal of teaching and learning for gradate employability, 12(1), p. 1–17 14 institutions already have presence in the space, or are planning to do so very soon (selvaratnam & sankey, 2019). at a very practical level, the recent review of the australian qualifications framework recommends the recognition of micro-credentials and presumably it is only a matter of time before the government moves to implement this recommendation. this provides the additional impetus for institutions to consider micro-credentialing. as has been suggested, the low-hanging fruits would be short courses and postgraduate programs that could be the first offerings in a university to be micro-credentialed. an area for higher education institutions to work on would be to have policies and associated taxonomies to govern this work in their institutions and to formalise the place for micro-credentialing in their offerings. given the above were also the findings from selvaratnam and sankey (2019)’s research, there is a need to extend the research formally to inform institutions on meeting the recommendations in the aqf review around micro-credentialing and the global trends in this space. this survey was undertaken by representatives for member institutions within the acode network, however, there is a small number of institutions (four) in australasia that are not a part of this council. furthermore, there is a small number of acode member institutions that did not completed this survey. it would also be good to extend this survey to these institutions and to gain more qualitative data to provide a deeper level of understanding as to the directions these institutions are anticipating this will play out for them. this will provide an even more robust picture of the current state of microcredentialing in the australasian sector. the implications for practice will be providing institutions with a broader understanding of the learning experience across the sector in relation to the practice of implementing micro-credentialing. references abramovich, s. 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(2021). employability readiness for aboriginal and torres strait islander students: yarning circles as a methodological approach to illuminate student voice. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(2), 1–18. 1 the journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability issn: 1838-3815 (online) journal homepage: https://ojs.deakin.edu.au/index.php/jtlge/ employability readiness for aboriginal and torres strait islander students: yarning circles as a methodological approach to illuminate student voice michelle j. eady1 and joel keen1 corresponding author: michelle j. eady (meady@uow.edu.au) 1university of wollongong, australia abstract this paper describes the current situation for aboriginal and torres strait islander graduates entering the workforce and compares this with personal reflections from current indigenous students engaged in the tertiary setting. the purpose is twofold: first, to promote aboriginal and torres strait islander student voice; and second, to provide an avenue for this voice to contribute to and influence the design of employability programs in higher education. this study examines how the use of indigenous research methods, such as yarning/yarning circles, can effectively and ethically collect data to amplify and promote the student voice in ways that conventional western research methods currently fail to do. this amplified voice can create a platform for researchers and practitioners to understand students’ views and implement informed and tailored approaches to planning programs and delivering curriculum; in this case, employability-readiness skill sets for aboriginal and torres strait islander students in higher education. the findings are analysed thematically, and recommendations presented for higher-education institutions to consider when creating pedagogical approaches for the employability readiness of aboriginal and torres strait islander graduates. keywords: yarning circles, employability readiness, aboriginal and torres strait islander students, workintegrated learning, methodological approach introduction employability readiness in the tertiary sector has been a focal area for reform within higher education (jackson, 2018; small, shacklock, & marchant, 2018). indigenous australian graduates have historically had a distinct trajectory and reduced rate of employment compared to their nonindigenous counterparts (behrendt, larkin, griew, & kelly, 2012; social research centre, 2018). however, there are distinct characteristics and a common disconnect from westernised conventions in the way that indigenous australian students are enabled to voice their perspectives on this issue. this study aims to understand aboriginal and torres strait islander student perspectives of employability readiness through a case study undertaken at the university of wollongong (uow), in partnership with the woolyungah indigenous centre (wic) and using the methodology that incorporates a traditional indigenous method of sharing of ideas and information, called yarning circles (bessarab & ng’andu, 2010; fletcher et al., 2011; lin et al., 2014; mooney, riley, & blacklock, 2018). this methodological approach provided an opportunity for the participating aboriginal and torres strait islander students to exercise their voice, and be heard and validated amongst their https://ojs.deakin.edu.au/index.php/jtlge/ mailto:meady@uow.edu.au eady, m j., & keen, j. (2021). employability readiness for aboriginal and torres strait islander students: yarning circles as a methodological approach to illuminate student voice. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(2), 1–18. 2 peers and the research team. the data collected and analysed for this study will also be used to inform the planning of future course content. in this case, the focus of interest was students’ perceptions of their employability-readiness skill sets for aboriginal and torres strait islander students within higher education. literature review historical comparisons of employability outcomes there is a recorded and ongoing comparison between indigenous and non-indigenous students’ education and related employment outcomes. according to behrendt, larkin, griew and kelly (2012), the scale of differences between the two populations in these areas are disheartening. the australian government (2020) has reported that indigenous university students have an attrition rate of 47%, compared to 74% for non-indigenous students, and a bachelor’s degree completion rate of 45.5%, compared to 72.6% for non-indigenous students (department of education, 2014b), despite a clear increase in indigenous australian students’ rate of participation in tertiary education. over time, the issue of attrition has affected the rate of indigenous employment in the workplace (rigney, 2011). as 2018 statistics show, 49% of indigenous australian graduates were employed full time, compared to 75% of non-indigenous graduates (australian government, 2020, p. 65). in comparison to the australian population as a whole, indigenous young people enrol in higher education or training less frequently, and are less likely to be fully employed or to engage in education at all (australian government, 2020). these ongoing statistics compound a preconceived impression that indigenous students are at a higher risk of not completing their university studies (australian council for educational research, 2017; wellington, 2019). indigenous australian students are not only seen as disadvantaged, but also increasingly marginalised, as they are rarely invited to participate in decision-making processes in institutions, which actively impedes the student voice (gore, 2017; mansouri, jenkins, morgan, & taouk, 2009; wierenga & wyn, 2011). work-integrated learning and student voice work-integrated learning (wil) pedagogy in tertiary-education settings is becoming more prevalent (jackson, 2018; martin et al., 2019). many institutions have shifted their focus towards developing students’ graduate employability skills (clarke, 2017; jackson, 2018; oliver, 2015). wil is defined at the university of wollongong as activities that incorporate work practices within an academic institution/university setting; this can include activities on campus or in an actual workplace (dean et al., 2018). more broadly, wil aims to prepare students for employment by helping them gain graduate employability skills in their chosen field. wil aims to catalyse opportunities for the entire student body; inclusivity is central to effective wil practice. inclusivity in wil aims to: 1. enable all students to have access to quality wil; 2. encourage awareness, respect and valuing of diversity; 3. be practicable, workable and sustainable in different stakeholder contexts; 4. take a holistic view of students’ lives including their wil experiences; and 5. be proactive and collaborative (winchester-seeto et al., 2015, p. 2). globally, higher-education institutions have seen a shift towards fostering cultural competency within graduate outcomes (foronda et al., 2018; jackson, 2018). an example of this is the university of sydney in australia, which now includes ‘cultural competence’ in their graduate qualities (harvey & russell-mundine, 2019). the university adopted a system developed by the centre for australian, new zealand and pacific studies (canzps) at georgetown university, applying their definition: cultural competence is a set of congruent behaviours, attitudes and policies that come together in a system, agency or among professions’ enabling that system, agency or those professionals to work eady, m j., & keen, j. (2021). employability readiness for aboriginal and torres strait islander students: yarning circles as a methodological approach to illuminate student voice. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(2), 1–18. 3 effectively in cross-cultural situations (cross, bazron, dennis, & isaacs, 1989, p. 28). the implementation of this strategy ensures the inclusion of relationships and collaborations with aboriginal and torres strait islander students, agencies and communities. for example, [o]ne of these relationships has been with an indigenous regional assembly in nsw that developed an engagement model setting out principles guiding the ways in which the relationship between the assembly and the university should be conducted (harvey & russell-mundine, 2019, p. 795). in turn, these collaborations have provided university students with wil opportunities to both apply their critical-thinking skills and strengthen their disciplinary knowledge (harvey & russell-mundine, 2019). this presents a useful insight regarding the enhancement of indigenous graduates’ employability. instead of viewing cultural competencies as a separate graduate quality or as integrated in separate subjects, it can become intrinsic to the process; variously interconnected between service-learning opportunities and the deconstruction of case studies with critical thinking, problem-solving and reflective practices (lucas, 2017). these opportunities can assist students to extend their ways of knowing, being and doing (martin, 2008). the reflection process involved with wil opportunities is not only valuable for the tertiary student but can also expand the knowledge of academics who develop wil pedagogy. participating in ongoing reflection can encourage academics to broaden their knowledge in the area of wil and hear from their students directly (martin, 2016, 2008). student voice can help educators become aware of varied perspectives, values, opinions and beliefs that can be important factors in employability in a multicultural setting (st. john & briel, 2017). research indicates that students who believe that they have a voice in their institution are seven times more likely to be motivated to undergo challenges than those who feel their voice is diminished (st. john & briel, 2017; toshalis & nakkula, 2012). the issue of voice is particularly pertinent amongst indigenous students in australia, and it is essential that culturally appropriate data collection be particularly emphasised during any research that uses the student voice as empirical data (denzin, lincoln, & smith, 2008; eady, 2010). fredericks et al. (2017) state that cultural competency would ensure indigenous involvement in university governance, management, teaching and learning, and research and a greater presence of indigenous staff in the academy (p. 7). therefore, normalising culturally competent methodologies inevitably shifts social research in a more ethical direction (christians, 2000) and potentially allows for the indigenous australian student voice to provide a wealth of input for the benefit of tertiary academic contexts (denzin, lincoln, & smith, 2008). according to walsh, black, zyngier and fernandes (2019), ‘harnessing the student voice’ has the power to transform the higher-education sector. it is well documented that the student voice can manifest in a number of ways. it has been proven to strengthen students’ self-efficacy, and eventually encourage and give them the skills to make a difference in their education and communities (lac & mansfield, 2018; mitra, 2009, 2008, 2006; mitra & mccormick, 2017; parker & neuharth-pritchett, 2009). indigenous and mainstream australian ways of producing and enabling student voice often differ intrinsically (donovan, 2015). to lessen the impact of these differences, a culturally appropriate data-collection method is imperative to quality research. yarning – a way of embedding knowledge and perspectives a way of ethically enabling student voice within an indigenous culture is through the method of yarning. yarning is an indigenous australian method of in-depth group discussions to understand lived experiences and stories. it allows for a culturally safe method of engagement (bessarab & ng’andu, 2010, p. 37) and facilitates a deeply respectful autonomous space (carlson & frazer, 2018) where everyone involved can embark on a journey together through discussion. yarning is a way for indigenous people to make sense of lived experiences, and to express who they are, where they are from and how they are connected (geia, hayes, & usher, 2013; kovach, 2010; martin et al., 2019). it can be used for many different purposes, such as informal discussions and formal meetings (carlson & frazer, 2018), but more traditionally is used for sharing stories, histories, advice, laughter and tears (imtoual, kameniar, & bradley, 2009, p. 27). yarning is useful for researchers to gain a deeper eady, m j., & keen, j. (2021). employability readiness for aboriginal and torres strait islander students: yarning circles as a methodological approach to illuminate student voice. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(2), 1–18. 4 insight and understanding of how indigenous culture can foster a place where mutual respect between indigenous and non-indigenous australians can occur (mooney, riley, & blacklock, 2018). yarning as a research method can take various forms. bessarab and ng’andu (2010, p. 40) described four yarning methods: 1. social yarning: a relaxed, informal conversation where humour, advice and gossip are welcomed. the research topic is not introduced this early, and in this stage, trust must be built between the researcher and participants. 2. research topic yarning: purposeful conversation in which the research topic is outlined. the researcher gains information related to their question through relaxed conversations. 3. collaborative yarning: conversation in which two or more participants talk about a topic related to the research question and/or discuss ideas about a research project. 4. therapeutic yarning: a conversation with the researcher where the participant discloses sensitive or personal information. this type of yarn gives voice to the participant; the researcher does not intervene, but actively listens. similarly, lin et al. (2014) write that, according to data provided by aboriginal participants, yarning as a research method provides an accurate and critical portrayal of the participants’ inputs. it can help to alleviate any perception of the participants feeling questioned, as the topic is introduced in a deliberately open manner, and the yarning participants can then take that topic and respond as they see fit (fletcher et al., 2011, p. 93). mooney, riley and blacklock (2018) studied research using yarning circles. the indigenous participants spoke about their successes in the tertiary arena and the challenges that they faced. consequently, unique insight was produced, allowing for new knowledge on indigenous success to be generated. these types of results have immense future implications for both researchers and participants. when indigenous voices are heard in a culturally appropriate and familiar method, the benefit extends well beyond the immediate research. methodology yarning circles were used as the primary method of qualitative data collection. employability yarning circles approved through the uow human research ethics committee (hrec 2019/255) took place on the 10th and 17th of september in 2018 at wic, uow. potential participants were identified through their engagement with wic and existing employability initiatives being conducted in collaboration with wic. the main eligibility criterion was enrolled students’ identification as indigenous australian, as recorded within the various uow data-management systems. eligibility was further refined by location, prioritising those students enrolled on the wollongong campus. a total of 373 students fell into the eligible category. study participants were recruited via a blanket email sent to wollongong students self-identified as indigenous australian. additionally, students who regularly engaged with wic were encouraged in person by wic staff members to participate, and verbally accepted or rejected the opportunity. all those students who accepted the offer to participate were included in the yarns. participation was undertaken voluntarily by a total of 22 students across two yarning sessions: 10 students in yarn 1 and the remaining 12 in yarn 2. finalised sample groups consisted entirely of uow aboriginal and torres strait islander students of various ages, ranging from 18-year-old high-school leavers transitioning to university study to non-schoolleaver students aged 50+. given this range, participants’ prior paid work experience and employment goals varied vastly, with each of the two yarn groups including participants looking to consolidate their past professional experience, those looking to commence pursuing a career upon completion of their studies and those engaged in up-skilling to facilitate a change in careers. participants represented all stages of higher education offered at uow, including college diploma, undergraduate and post-graduate degrees. firstand second-year undergraduate students provided the largest portion of sample group participants, with a total of 10. the remaining participants eady, m j., & keen, j. (2021). employability readiness for aboriginal and torres strait islander students: yarning circles as a methodological approach to illuminate student voice. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(2), 1–18. 5 contained a relatively even distribution of those in college courses, thirdand fourth-year undergraduates, master’s students and phd students relatively evenly. arts and humanities degrees were most heavily represented, with six participants, followed by commerce and business and education with three participants each; other disclosed areas of study were law, science, politics, philosophy and public health. to acknowledge the intersectional constitution of discrimination and align research findings with progressive notions undermining bias inherent in normative gender binary constructions, thus ensuring an inherent equality in service delivery, participants’ gender was deliberately omitted from both the research design and subsequent analyses. students were offered a $10 university store voucher as a thank-you gesture for participation. yarning-circle discussion was facilitated by an external local aboriginal organisation and conducted by an indigenous australian post-graduate uow student employed by that organisation. both yarning-circle sessions were conducted face-to-face and lasted approximately 160 minutes in total. both were audio-recorded and transcribed. beyond introducing the discussion topics, the facilitator assumed the role of a regular discussion participant, ensuring the negation of unbalanced power dynamics within the conversation. within the yarning circle, students were asked to introduce themselves. introductions included the participants’ degree and current stage of study. after the casual introductory period, yarning was allowed to progress organically when possible. at the stalling of conversation, topics derived from the overarching employability research topic were introduced to produce qualitative data. students were prompted to discuss their lived experiences, what available services they were aware of at uow and wic; which, if any, of those services they had used and contemplation on their future beyond university; and asked to identify ways that wic could develop and foster employability skills for uow aboriginal and torres strait islander students in preparation for graduation and employment. yarning topics emphasised reflection on participants’ experiences, imagination and expectations, thus producing unique insight into vital inclusions into future employability program designs. a purpose of this study was to allow students the opportunity to influence the design of a sustainable informed employability model. this was particularly prioritised in the way that yarning was conducted. to emphasise this influence and adhere to a standard of ethics aligning with indigenous research methodologies, the researchers and authors took special care to ensure that the student voice within discussion was not manipulated or re-contextualised, and that researchers’ opinions were not imposed on the students’ intended meanings. this method ensured studentcentredness, fostered and developed learning and supported cultural appropriateness in data collection and analyses. although the large variance in participants’ age, area and stage of study, prior work experience and intended career was considered advantageous for this research project, the generality of the data extracted may also be considered a limitation. future research intending to build on the findings of this study and contribute to the body of literature promoting yarning circles and indigenous research methodologies may benefit from added specificity. targeting specific demographics will allow further research to have a representative quality beyond that of the generalised aboriginal and torres strait islander students’ category. discussion the abundance, depth and richness of qualitative data gathered during these yarning circles clearly demonstrates the benefits of using yarning as a data-collection technique. the informal structure of yarning-circle discussion allows for the collection of qualitative data, not simply from direct discussion topics but also from associated issues perceived by participants. throughout the exploration of employability issues, researchers were able to identify a range of perceived barriers to student success not anticipated in the research-design process. this richness and range of qualitative data not only helps to inform current student perspective, but also offers vital insight into future directions for associated research projects and program development and identifies gaps in the current knowledge base. moreover, the benefits of yarning as a research method are not limited to eady, m j., & keen, j. (2021). employability readiness for aboriginal and torres strait islander students: yarning circles as a methodological approach to illuminate student voice. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(2), 1–18. 6 the type of data produced. as with other critical indigenous research methods and methodologies (denzin, lincoln, & smith, 2008), yarning is endowed with internalised notions of ethics that challenge normative westernised notions of ethics (christians, 2000) as an externally validated element of the research process (uow, 2020). this increased emphasis on embodied ethics manifests in the context of transparency and genuine democracy inherent within the yarning process, including the allowance and amplification of students’ voices. by engaging in yarning as a data-collection method, a particular emphasis is placed on the validity of the indigenous input and perspective. the lack of indigenous input into the design and establishment of the social, political and economic institutions that constitute australian society is well established academically (gore, 2017; mansouri, jenkins, morgan, & taouk, 2009). when indigenous students, in an educational context, are given a voice it results in a sort of liberation (freire, 2000), and creates an example of genuine democracy (chomsky, 2003; englund, 2000) alongside a promise of sustainable empowerment. although this study focuses on an indigenous australian sample group, it is important to contextualise increasingly ethical and sustainable research as beneficial to the entire population. the results produced, the amplification of ‘ground-up’ input – or laypersons’ expertise – in the form of the student voice; institutional transparency and the subsequent notions of genuine democracy that it promotes, all potentially stand to benefit non-indigenous students and staff members as well as the indigenous student cohort. the insight provided through discussion and the collective indigenous voice that was identifiable within thematic analysis presents a foundational plinth upon which reimagined, and more balanced, social structures can be built. in this case, the data was collected with the aim of improving the currently prolific wil ambitions at uow. as the results show, a wealth of information on how to improve the current approach, as the student perceives it, was obtained through the yarning-circle method. however, alongside this directly applicable data is a comprehensive body of less directly related data in neutral, positive and negative contexts that can potentially evoke a wide range of future research. if learning institutions are genuinely invested in producing comprehensively improved wil and other employability-related programs that benefit all students equitably, it is important that they begin to prioritise the internalisation of ethics and sustainability that critical indigenous research methodology, such as yarning circles, enables. beyond the individualistic benefits experienced by students through the prioritisation of the student voice discussed earlier, making a concerted effort not only to give students a voice but to listen to and give purchase to that voice has the potential to affect the trustworthiness of institutional structures. consequently, this effort stands to benefit not only the students allowed a voice but all those students of the future who engage in wil employability initiatives. results students needed little encouragement to contribute to conversation. in this way, the yarning circles afforded a rich and meaningful discussion with the potential to contribute and influence employability program design. concurrently, yarning’s efficacy as a research tool was emphasised. despite the wide range of experience covered by the sample group, attitudes towards employment and employability, particularly within tertiary education, proved to be surprisingly similar, and often resulted in consensus. the following section includes excerpts from yarning-circle discourse, contextualised with a brief descriptive discussion. beyond university understanding students’ thoughts about how they imagine their careers after university produced thoughtful discussion, with yarns providing a mixed response of what students imagined for themselves relating to employment after graduation. this yarning topic was informative in establishing what a suitably ethical and sustainable employability model for indigenous australian graduates might entail. some students expressed a clear vision of what they were going to do and eady, m j., & keen, j. (2021). employability readiness for aboriginal and torres strait islander students: yarning circles as a methodological approach to illuminate student voice. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(2), 1–18. 7 where they wanted to be employed. other students expressed that they were unsure of a clear career path to pursue and displayed uncertainty towards where their current paths might lead. this uncertainty also related to students considering a change in their degree or in fear of failing to complete their tertiary studies. the following excerpts accentuate the inconsistency of certainty expressed regarding employment after university. participants’ areas of study have been listed where possible; all degrees are bachelor’s level unless otherwise specified. i’m actually really unsure about my career in the future (participant 1: law). i don’t know what i’m doing...i want to be a successful writer (participant 2: undisclosed). i kind of want to go into secondary teaching, teaching english and indigenous studies...yeah so far, it could change (participant 16: arts). i can’t really picture afterwards because it really depends on what degree i get in afterwards, because i want masters clinical but i don’t know if i’ll get there (participant 11: psychology). fourteen of the 22 participants’ responses were consistent with the quotes above. the scope of student discussion ranged from possessing a clear idea relating to their employment after graduation to complete confusion as to future employment prospects. external career trackers internship support service a yarning topic was introduced to produce discussion on both external and internal employability supports that participants experienced while studying at uow. the primary external support mechanism identified was career trackers (ct), a non-profit organisation that operates nation-wide, aiming to improve future employment outcomes by creating pathways and support systems for indigenous young adults to attend and graduate from university (career trackers, 2020). ct aspires to maintain a student-centred focus to facilitate workplace experience as a complementary addition to the knowledge gained through obtaining a university degree. the interpretation of the data collected in this study revealed that almost universally, these participants were concerned about the direction that the service pushed them in and that it was not aligned with their interests, ambitions, area of study or career paths. the following excerpts highlight the feelings of the students who participated in the career tracker program: [t]hey wanted me to go to different way of...like i don’t want to...don’t want to go to...i just don’t like being pushed into somewhere i [don’t] want to go.... so i had to walk out… (participant 14: arts). career tracker people got an opportunity for me to work, i mean it’s not really around what i want to do because they’re sort of a real estate, i guess an opportunity for me to work on a project (participant 7: science education). they sat me down and talked to me, and they’re like, ‘oh, yeah, you want to do that, but how about this?’(participant 2: undisclosed). i’d like other opportunities too, you know (participant 6: arts)? yarning-circle consensus was that ct could successfully facilitate internships for students. however, the participants primarily expressed criticism for various aspects of the ct approach. career consultants discussion revealed similar themes of a lack of awareness and trust, particularly with respect to outsourcing the operation of internal support mechanisms. the following are direct excerpts from yarning transcripts: eady, m j., & keen, j. (2021). employability readiness for aboriginal and torres strait islander students: yarning circles as a methodological approach to illuminate student voice. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(2), 1–18. 8 you know from experience...from our experience, it’s all right saying yeah, we have some kind-hearted person down here say, ‘we’re going to talk to indigenous students’. but at the end of the day, we’re not a priority, unless we get somebody [indigenous person] in there...to really push the issue, and they need to be a, quite blunt, it needs to be a black fella, black person, sorry (participant 6: arts). the extended discussion surrounding the current careers consultants produced primarily critical feedback. generally, students perceived these services as inherently futile. additionally, most did not know that faculty career consultant services existed to help them find suitable internships and develop employability skills while studying. internal computer skills internally, students identified several services related to employability that they had experienced, or had had the opportunity to access, throughout their university study. highlighting the necessity for holistic understanding in relation to optimising student support, these services are not explicitly designed to increase employability skills. the first internal service discussed as support that wic received was in relation to developing computer skills. participant 14, a bachelor of arts student, explained how he did not know how to type, nor use a computer, but was able to find support at the centre. this student went on to express a deep appreciation for the wic staff who had taken the time to help him learn how to switch on a computer, use a printer, type etc. participant 4, studying public health, also supported this notion, noting that they [wic] helped me in every way possible to try and get me through...even from getting on my computer. these skills, fundamental for education, are also transferrable to employment in multiple applications. this was not a major discussion point; however, it proved fruitful in illuminating the holistic application of support needed to benefit employability across the entire student cohort. in addition to basic computer skills, student discussion focused primarily on internships offered internally at uow. internship subjects in discussing internships undertaken as an element of study, students exposed inequity within the current internal processes and related benefits. this inequity manifested in a range of cultural imbalances, from a general lack of cultural safety due to mainstream unconscious bias against indigenous australian cultures to overt racism that was fuelled by the ongoing reliance on the myth of the inherent superiority of western ways of knowing. expressing both positive outcomes from and negative feelings toward their internship experiences, the students consolidated the issues of relevance discussed above by highlighting a cultural imbalance underpinning the current approaches. without the widespread adoption of a strength-based understanding of indigenous australian cultures, correcting this imbalance will continue to remain relatively unacknowledged and to impede indigenous intern satisfaction. the lack of educational value was a particular sore point requiring further inquiry and discussion. addressing this issue, one participant reflected on their experience: [i]t devastated me because i learnt nothing, absolutely nothing, it didn’t show me how an organisation operation works and...and i thought to myself, ‘well, i really want to go into the aboriginal community anyway but at the end of the day i could’ve incorporated what i’ve learnt here.’ …i learnt nothing from it. whereas...the non-indigenous students that got to go to the aboriginal organisation come back full of, like, ‘we got taught this, we got taught that’ (participant 17: arts). another participant advised that they had informed the relevant faculty of their negative experience but felt that not enough had been done to help correct the issue. rather than presenting the student eady, m j., & keen, j. (2021). employability readiness for aboriginal and torres strait islander students: yarning circles as a methodological approach to illuminate student voice. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(2), 1–18. 9 with a direct course of action, the faculty supplied advice that the student saw as a rationalisation of the implicit cultural bias that still exists within educational and occupational structures in australia. further discussion uncovered that the certification received for the internship came from the faculty and not from the employer, making the student feel that their efforts ticked an educational box but were undervalued by the employer. during discussion, participants spoke of the importance of culturally safe spaces and being treated fairly in the workplace. this notion was supported by further yarning-circle consensus, where experiences of a lack of support in the workplace were expressed. these experiences led to a feeling that the internship process was designed to get aboriginal people in where they’re set up to fail without the appropriate support (participant 5: arts). again, the participants heavily emphasised an almost invisible, yet ubiquitous, cultural imbalance within mainstream structures and practices. coand extra-curricular employment programs further discussions of services offered at uow showed that participants tended to be unaware of mainstream support mechanisms. the university has a prominent employability initiative that offers post-graduation recognition of coand extra-curricular activities, including voluntary employment, in which students engage during their studies. this was addressed in only one instance. participant 9, a phd student, stated, i got offered, or asked to be a volunteer demonstrator for some of the subjects...and that goes on my, like, the [program] record. yarning-circle dialogue emphasised a lack of awareness not just of the possible benefits of such programs but of the programs themselves. another yarning-circle participant shared that they had personally sought out and undertaken volunteer work at the local courthouse. the student was subsequently advised by fellow yarningcircle participants that, through the program, volunteer work and employability skills would appear on their academic transcript, and that this might assist in gaining future employment. upon confirmation from the session facilitator that this advice was correct, the student replied, yeah, but i don’t want these people to know, like i don’t...i don’t ask the system (participant 14: arts). the yarning facilitator prompted discussion of the program in more detail to further gauge student familiarity with the university services. common responses from students indicated that the majority had not been aware of this service. as a direct result, students did not enter into detailed discussion on this topic. the discussion then progressed to other student experiences at the university, revealing similarly low awareness. participant sentiment was captured by the following statement: do we have...i’m pretty sure we have an indigenous liaison or indigenous recruitment office on board don’t we? on campus? is there? no? (participant 6: arts). this statement reinforces the level of confusion that students experience in regard to the types of support available to them. volunteering and networking workshop a generally more positive discussion relating to uow employability initiatives was generated in relation to other university support mechanisms. one particular participant who spoke of their experience broached volunteering and networking workshops, feeling that the support they had received had facilitated the development of the necessary skills to engage with employers in a networking context: i’m pretty lucky because with the [program], they teach us these skills. they found that like... because i’m a very shy person, i don’t normally talk, i had people recommend me doing volunteering, so i started volunteering in [faculty], and then someone recommended me to do the networking workshop that was just recently done. and that kind of helped me learn how to talk professionally to people, and if you want to get a job, this is how you should act and what you should say (participant 18: uow college diploma). eady, m j., & keen, j. (2021). employability readiness for aboriginal and torres strait islander students: yarning circles as a methodological approach to illuminate student voice. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(2), 1–18. 10 no other students spoke of being engaged in a networking workshop at the university. however, this topic universally sparked curiosity amongst the group members. the yarning participants all displayed surprise and were intrigued about this contribution. findings employability: supportive ways for consideration as a result of the shared interest, the discussion evolved to the creation of a list of suggestions from the yarning-circle participants. the participants brainstormed ideas, suggesting ‘supportive ways’ that wic could assist aboriginal and torres strait islander students to be ‘employability ready’. this list is presented below with an accompanying short outline of key topics. 1. long-term planning the majority of the yarning sessions focused on wic providing long-term planning approaches towards enhancing employability skills. the students suggested that planning approaches should extend for the entire duration of a degree. the following are excerpts from the yarns, providing evidence of a student preference for increased long-term planning support: i don’t think there’s a lot of conversation around how to be competitive, within our degrees. so we don’t find this stuff out until the end…. should we be doing volunteer stuff during our degree…demonstrating subjects…because i know [my degree] is a super highly competitive industry.... so, i don’t know whose responsibility that would be in the university but to talk to us about things we should be doing throughout our entire degree…to give us the edge when we graduate, when it comes to apply for jobs…rather than trying to get everything in that last year when you’re [sic] already, you know, got a lot on (participant 13: nutrition science). another topic considered was to ensure that faculties prescribe mandatory ‘internship’ subjects in different years of tertiary study; or that certain elements of employability-geared subjects be made compulsory. like just a day where maybe the faculty organises something within those subjects for all those students to attend, maybe it’ll be all first-years, and then have another one for all second-years, whatever it may be, but just teaching those [employability] skills (participant 12: commerce). 2. check-in each year in the discussion, students suggested an individualised ‘check-in’ each year that would be geared to keep students on track with the employability-related elements of their learning experience. students expressed concerns relating to time-management barriers and the perceived rush to gain employment towards the completion of their degree. these were shared concerns, and time was identified as a major barrier to managing an internship subject. in addition, students expressed that they did not feel that they had been scaffolded with the necessary skills to succeed in the workforce. it was suggested that career pathways be mapped out in the first year of tertiary study and repeat engagement undertaken for the duration of a degree. these excerpts from the yarning participants expressed the desire for a more constant supply of employability-related support: ....to talk about where you’re at, if you’re still on the right path (participant 13: nutrition science). ...we all need to help each other to get through...and network it for everybody to help make us all employable in the end (participant 12: commerce). eady, m j., & keen, j. (2021). employability readiness for aboriginal and torres strait islander students: yarning circles as a methodological approach to illuminate student voice. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(2), 1–18. 11 3. networking events and industry panels students were intrigued by the idea of a networking event and a wic-hosted industry panel. there was abundant discussion surrounding this topic, and numerous ideas to benefit students were proposed. many students added their support to the idea of an employer networking opportunity. in particular, discussion emphasised wic’s ability to improve its networks with potential employers from both mainstream and indigenous community organisations: i think it would be cool if wic could maybe help arrange industry panels...having people from specific industry that we can do a q&a with them or similar to a networking (participant 18: uow college diploma). 4. developing employability skills in-depth conversation during the yarning was generated around the perceived need to build employability skills throughout tertiary study. participants felt they needed more highly developed skills, but were unsure how to obtain them. yarning participants raised and discussed ideas amongst themselves, theorising on how wic could possibly provide additional opportunities to build employability skills: …wic to have availability of funds to sponsor students to attend like writing retreats or, you know, professional development type conferences within your specific faculty area (participant 5: arts); …if we had a person that’s going to sit down with us as students to talk about our degrees and where we want to go to before placing us into an internship or whatever it might be, actually talking to us about what we want to do and making sure that we’re the right fit for that particular organisation or that particular placement (participant 5: arts). 5. wellbeing hub the idea of students creating a ‘wic wellbeing hub’ became a talking point during discussion. students expressed that a wellbeing hub could be universally beneficial amongst the indigenous student cohort. it was suggested that students from all areas of study could maintain the wellbeing hub, using knowledge gained from their degree to learn, practice and develop employability skills. this was not a finely detailed discussion; however, students were excited about the idea and contributed enthusiastically: maybe indigenous students stepping up and creating a wellbeing hub (participant 22: philosophy). our own little wellbeing centre here (participant 21: undisclosed). 6. indigenous employment specialist after unpacking the idea of a wic wellbeing hub, discussion turned towards the topic of a wic ‘employment consultant’ and making outreach the norm. this discussion coincided with many yarning-circle participants learning about the career consultant service through discussion, and that the career consultant was not an indigenous person. participants’ comments express their relevant perceived needs related to employability opportunities: why can’t we have a specific identified position on campus, that does all that stuff (participant 6: arts)? working with students, not on students (participant 5: arts). eady, m j., & keen, j. (2021). employability readiness for aboriginal and torres strait islander students: yarning circles as a methodological approach to illuminate student voice. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(2), 1–18. 12 recommendations without deliberately being made a direct point of discussion, improved cultural safety was clearly the most prominent theme identified within the yarning circles. often a sub-theme of what this paper has labelled as cultural imbalance, the issue of improved cultural safety as a facilitator to increased indigenous engagement was framed within discussion as vital, even by those participants unable or unwilling to articulate that point in an explicit fashion. as a direct result, additional themes identified were deemed relevant to be included in the recommendations section of discussion due to their association to cultural safety. recommendations address the additional themes of indigenous support worker recruitment; building relationships and networking; relevant support; planning and mapping pathways; increasing awareness; and addressing uncertainty. holistically, these recommendations address a large portion of the issue of cultural safety. the following is a list of recommendations derived from yarning-circle discussions and subsequent data analysis. recommendations are accompanied by brief discussion to provide additional context. it is intended that tertiary institutions adopt these recommendations for their own research and localised practice purposes. these recommendations are drawn from thematic analysis of discussion transcriptions, including those student suggestions arising from the discussions outlined above. in adhering to the structure of the yarning-circle discussion, points 2 through to 8 in the following list are underpinned by point 1: cultural safety. 1. create culturally safe workplaces to better support aboriginal and torres strait islander graduates. within organisations, the creation of culturally safe workplaces is a significant factor in any genuine attempt to support indigenous australian workers. in 2017, a longitudinal quantitative study that focused on labour-force transitions concluded that positive employment outcomes are more likely if organisations provide a culturally safe environment (hunter & grey, 2017). this principle can be applied to students engaging in internships in the work environment. aligned with the findings of hunter and grey (2017), hutchins, frances and saggers (2009) produced a qualitative study concluding that improvements in indigenous worker representation increase indigenous employees’ perceptions of safety in work environments. the proposed wellbeing hub and indigenous employment specialist mentioned above emphasise students’ concerns for their own wellbeing and the desire to ‘work with’ indigenous employment staff, rather than have nonindigenous ‘experts’ impart knowledge. both of these themes strongly emphasise the need for students to feel culturally safe. delivering cultural safety is not simply adjusting workplace practices and cultures to individual employees; it requires the ‘embedding of the value and importance of cultural differences (hutchins, frances, & saggers, 2009, p. 7) within day-to-day workplace operations and protocols. the following recommendations align with this notion, providing practical examples of what some of these ‘values and differences’ are, and how relevant mainstream understandings of cultural safety can be progressed. participants supported all these recommendations during the discussion, and explicitly aligned almost all of them with the overarching notion of improving cultural safety for indigenous australians. 2. recruit an indigenous employment consultant to assist aboriginal and torres strait islander students obtain employability skills while studying. the results of the study clearly showed that the ability for non-indigenous career consultants to associate with indigenous australian students’ needs improvement. this improvement would be assisted greatly by including a reframed and collaborative, rather than paternalistic, dynamic between indigenous and non-indigenous australians. participants agreed amongst themselves that an indigenous employment specialist or careers-related staff member was preferred. they commonly expressed that employability engagement would increase with an indigenous person employed in the relevant position. this would directly improve notions of cultural safety and improve service relevance by prioritising an indigenous perspective (st. john & briel, 2017). arnold eady, m j., & keen, j. (2021). employability readiness for aboriginal and torres strait islander students: yarning circles as a methodological approach to illuminate student voice. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(2), 1–18. 13 (2018) identifies that those administering support services assisting university students to transition into careers lack training in providing emotional support and offering advice for personal issues (p. 8). this issue is compounded when dealing with aboriginal and torres strait islander students, given manifestation of complex traumas resulting from colonisation, alongside recognised inherent inequities within current national educational and employment frameworks. student discussion strongly supported these notions. 3. build direct relationships between support centres and organisations to create employment opportunities. the participants expressed that establishing, maintaining and strengthening networks between potential employers and higher-learning support centres, such as wic, serves to benefit them in various ways. industry panels and other such initiatives, such as career expos, that attract an increasingly diverse array of employers necessarily appeal to a wider demographic amongst indigenous australian students. they also provide universities with an opportunity to use existing networking workshop structures to embed similar initiatives into university degrees, and to build on existing relationships to contribute to – and participate in – more external networking workshops. this addresses the suggestions raised during yarning-circle discussion that a networking workshop has the potential benefit of improving current employability models, and adds to the validity of the data collected. feeding information back to the employers in this scenario offers them increased exposure to and understanding of indigenous australian cultures and associated protocols. when used competently and respectfully, this improved understanding potentially manifests as normalised cultural safety within the workplace. simmons (2019), villalobos et al. (2016) and downey et al. (2015) identify this normalisation as essential in reducing racialised, unconscious bias and improving institutional trustworthiness and employee engagement, as well as a range of improved additional outcomes for both employees and clients of culturally competent and inclusive workplaces. the prioritisation of cultural safety was emphasised throughout discussion, strongly supporting this notion of normalisation. 4. support students to engage in meaningful internships that are directly related to their area of study. insights from the yarning circles indicate that internship facilitators are currently unable to provide meaningful support in securing internships equally suitable to both to the student and the industry partner. binder, baguley, crook and miller (2015) identify that students engaged in suitable internships experience a positive impact on future career development. a number of studies discuss this, and how it is seen to allow these students to apply and obtain for these jobs more easily, as well as increase the satisfaction of the internship and any potential future job (binder, baguley, crook & miller, 2015; conrad, 2020; jackson, 2018). it is recognised that internships related to students’ fields of study are the most attractive for job applicants (schnoes et al., 2018). the yarning circle discussions supported these notions, identifying student engagement in suitably relevant, culturally safe internships as optimal for bolstering graduate employability. suggestions of ‘longterm planning’ and regular ‘check-ins’ proposed in the discussions acknowledge the dynamism needed to ensure that ongoing engagement in employability initiatives remains relevant and meaningful. additionally, processes should be implemented to ensure that concerns and complaints are addressed in ways that are meaningful to the student and prevent future students from experiencing the same concerns. 5. engage external aboriginal employment services where appropriate. in regards to external services, participants discussed ct exclusively. this illuminates the importance of amplifying the indigenous australian student voice to inform and improve ct approaches to supporting indigenous student employability. the yarning-circle discussions showed that improving ct’s ethical and relevant engagement of indigenous australian tertiary students not only stands to eady, m j., & keen, j. (2021). employability readiness for aboriginal and torres strait islander students: yarning circles as a methodological approach to illuminate student voice. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(2), 1–18. 14 benefit those indigenous students already associated with ct initiatives, but also to improve ct’s ability to engage indigenous australian students in the future. students’ suggestions illuminated that they understood the importance of developing employability skills while engaged in tertiary study, and indicated that a more holistic approach based in indigenous methodologies of respectful, responsible and reciprocal story-sharing may improve employment services’ efficacy in helping students become more employable (kennedy et al., 2018). 6. implement a planning and mapping process for each aboriginal and torres strait islander student from the commencement of a degree. ensure that this planning process includes checking in regularly with the student (a minimum of once per semester) and that it identifies the employability skills each student needs to develop. calls within the discussions for a more individualised method of support for employability align with progressive notions of tertiary student support. additionally, discussion participants explicitly called for this type of support to be provided in a long-term context. behrendt, larkin, griew and kelly (2012) identify personalised support in practice as content, delivered in culturally appropriate ways (p. 189). put simply, increased individualisation in student support directly relates to an increase in culturally competent practice. this notion is strongly supported in the particularly pertinent context of online learning applications, where only an individualised approach ensures that students’ needs [are] met in the most appropriate and effective ways (stone, 2017, p. 6). the recommendation to introduce this personalised support in the context of employability also overtly reinforces the need for an aboriginal employment support person, as previously recommended. as an integral element of the long-term and holistic support strategies best shaped to support indigenous students, a role focused solely on employability allows for the yarning circles’ ideas of ‘mapping’, ‘checking in’ and ‘employability skills development’ to be implemented in ways that embody cultural competence, acceptance and relevance. 7. increase awareness of coand extra-curricular programs to allow for more opportunities for students to gain recognition for volunteer work. the yarning-circle discussions revealed a distinct lack of awareness of coand extra-curricular activities available to students at uow. in fact, even when individual awareness of these mechanisms was adequate, issues of institutional mistrust persisted as obstacles to indigenous australian students’ willingness to engage with them. the confusion that the majority of yarningcircle participants expressed about how, when and why these programs exist and operate reinforces the need for increased student awareness levels of the practical benefits of mainstream uow employability services, programs and supports. without addressing this issue, we hypothesise that mainstream services will continue to struggle to achieve increased indigenous engagement. however, without a concurrent effort to improve awareness of the rich diversity of indigenous australian cultures within these mechanisms, improvements in individual awareness of their existence will not necessarily translate to increased engagement (lac & mansfield, 2018). 8. address issues of uncertainty about employability early in the tertiary education process. addressing uncertainty about employability will be essential for any initiative intended to improve graduate employability. improved articulation of the relevance of specific course content to future careers early in the employability skill-building process should be a prominent feature of any new graduate employability initiative. additionally, existing initiatives should be improved to increase student certainty about the relevance of their degree to their intended professions. currently, graduate employability initiatives and supports are falling short of addressing the issue of relevance in a way that adequately informs and promotes their participants’ success. it is testament to the yarning process as an intrinsically ‘safe’ research method that participants were comfortable about expressing the feeling that they were not treated fairly and equitably. the discussions also revealed that due to this summation, participants had overwhelmingly felt that they eady, m j., & keen, j. (2021). employability readiness for aboriginal and torres strait islander students: yarning circles as a methodological approach to illuminate student voice. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(2), 1–18. 15 had missed a great opportunity to learn. in improving the efficacy of graduate employability initiatives, it is vital to understand the full complexity of the issues raised in the yarning circle. these issues should be the subject of further research carried out through critical indigenous methodologies. the deconstruction of identified obstacles to success, and the problematisation of any initiatives, particularly one seen as an ‘easy fix’, are necessary in ensuring that current inequities are not allowed to continue. conclusion yarning circles conducted during the research project produced a wealth of data, much of which was unforeseen in research design. subsequently, the documented potential of yarning circles as an effective, progressive data-extraction tool was not only achieved but was surpassed in many aspects. the semi-structured, yet intrinsically dynamic, constitution of yarning circles allowed participants to digress from the direct discussion of employability whilst exploring other relevant topics relating to the student experience. as a direct result, an exponentially more complex picture of those aspects of student life pertaining to employment and employability was achieved. alongside the possible future benefits for students exposed to employability programs and initiatives informed by this data – the genuine student voice – a complementary immediate benefit is the opportunity for marginalised students to feel heard. particularly within issues of employability relevant to higher education, the student perspective is considered paramount in achieving success. this identified current benefit establishes a foundation upon which the immediate benefits should be consolidated, as participants see recommendations derived from their input come to fruition within future employability programs and initiatives. these benefits, both immediate and potential, are positively influenced by the use of indigenous research methodology, as input, analysis and outcomes are inherently contextualised within a culturally appropriate, ethical and strength-based framework that has historically been under-used within australian approaches to research and structural reform. to complement the empowerment achieved through indigenous data-collection methods, this paper has been carefully authored with the highest priority being placed on amplifying the student voice without manipulating its intended meaning. in this context, genuinely enabling the indigenous student voice advocates an essential increase in cultural safety on a societal level. beyond the research process, using the student voice to develop new, progressive policy and change at all levels is needed to ensure the manifestation of culturally safe institutions (connell, 2019; donovan, 2015) as an inherent element of australian society. references arnold, w. w. 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(2021). exploring the use of self-assessment to facilitate health students’ generic skills development. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(2), 65–81. 65 the journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability issn: 1838-3815 (online) journal homepage: https://ojs.deakin.edu.au/index.php/jtlge/ exploring the use of self-assessment to facilitate health students’ generic skills development mahbub sarkar1, simone gibson1, nazmul karim1, dakota rhys-jones1 and dragan ilic1 corresponding author: mahbub sarkar (mahbub.sarkar@monash.edu) 1monash university, australia abstract employability skills for health graduates, and many disciplines within higher education, are considered vital to maximising their capacity to cope with the rapidly changing, uncertain and highly competitive labour market. despite the increasing importance of developing generic skills for employability, there is a dearth of knowledge about how to support health students to develop generic skills as part of their formal education. the main objective of this two-phase study was to engage health students in the process of self-assessment of their generic skills and explore the potential of this process to facilitate their generic skills development. the first phase of this study engaged students in completing a selfassessment questionnaire, incorporating a validated set of industry-demanded skills with associated behaviours. in the second phase a subsection of respondents participated in focus group interviews that explored their perception of the self-assessment process in generic skills development. students viewed themselves as having some capabilities to perform the generic skills, as well as their university studies contributing to the development of these skills. the qualitative data found that the selfassessment process prompted students to reflect on their abilities and further engage with developing these skills. this study supports the evidence for contextualising and embedding a process of self-assessment of generic skills into the formal curricula to help better prepare health students for their future work. keywords: generic skills, selfassessment, employability, health education, work readiness introduction the labour market has undergone substantial changes due to technological advancement and globalisation. technological advancement has created new opportunities and redefined existing roles. this has challenged graduates to recognise and adapt to frequently changing career opportunities and distinguish themselves from other competitors in this globalised world (evans-greenwood, o'leary, & williams, 2015; oliver, 2015). aligning with this trend, employment sectors for health graduates have also gone through significant changes as a result of advances in medical science, healthcare and financial reforms, and globalisation (biesma et al., 2008). employability for health graduates, like other disciplines, has therefore been considered a vital agenda to maximise their capacity to cope with this rapidly changing, uncertain and highly competitive labour market (biesma et al., 2008; messum, wilkes, jackson, & peters, 2016; murdoch‐eaton & whittle, 2011). https://ojs.deakin.edu.au/index.php/jtlge/ sarkar, m., gibson, s., karim, n., rhys-jones, d., & ilic, d. (2021). exploring the use of self-assessment to facilitate health students’ generic skills development. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(2), 65–81. 66 drawing on yorke’s (2006) widely-accepted notion of employability, employability skills are those that graduates require in order to obtain employment, maintain it and progress successfully in their career. as bridgstock (2009) outlined, employability skills comprise a combination of generic skills, disciplinespecific skills and career management skills. generic skills, also termed as ‘transferable skills’, ‘core skills’, ‘soft skills’, ‘key competencies’ (mayer, 1992), are the key skills and capabilities transferable to a wide range of tasks and contexts beyond the education setting (gilbert, balatti, turner, & whitehouse, 2004; hinchliffe, 2006). such skills include communication, collaboration, problemsolving, critical thinking, initiative and enterprise. given the global call for promoting graduate employability (boden & nedeva, 2010), generic skills have been an area of increasing focus for development and implementation within the higher education sector over the last two decades. the importance of generic skills for graduate employability is generally well-reported in the literature—including perspectives of policymakers (dodd, 2016), employers (lowden, hall, elliot, & lewin, 2011) and graduates (sarkar, overton, thompson, & rayner, 2016). future labour markets, in the advances in artificial intelligence and automation will still require many generic skills that are difficult to automate, for example, creative and critical thinking, communication, leadership, professionalism, and abstract problem-solving (acemoglu & restrepo, 2018). in health education, the importance of generic skills has been explored in both professional health courses, such as medicine (murdoch-eaton et al., 2012; rimmer, 2015) and dietetics (matters, 2004), and non-professional health courses, such as health sciences (biesma, pavlova, van merode, & groot, 2007). the employability of graduates of health sciences and other science degrees is uncertain as there is no specific profession post-graduation (choate et al., 2016; palermo et al., 2019); instead, health science graduates may have to explore less structured career pathways for which generic skills are essential. for example, employers in europe valued generic skills relatively higher than discipline-specific competencies while recruiting public health graduates (biesma et al., 2008). similarly in australia, the increasing importance of generic skills was perceived by both employers and graduates in the health services management sector (messum, wilkes, & jackson, 2015; messum et al., 2016). from the learning perspective, promoting generic skills has been considered an essential factor for meeting the learning needs of diverse student cohorts who come from the globalised world and will work within an equally diverse, dynamic and globalised health care system (frenk et al., 2010). given the vital importance of generic skills for graduate employability and learning, higher education institutions have taken initiatives to identify ways of incorporating these skills in higher education curricula. these responses include embedding work-integrated learning (jackson & wilton, 2016; rowe & zegwaard, 2017) and developing independent study units and programs focusing on key generic skills (jackson, 2014; sarkar et al., 2017). despite widespread initiatives in higher education, gaps between employer satisfaction and graduate performance in the workplace persist, with employers criticising the ability of graduates to contribute effectively to the workplace primarily for their limited capacity to demonstrate a range of generic skills (lowden et al., 2011; prinsley & baranyai, 2015). as employability comprises a process of learning for life, many graduates may lack a well-developed set of skills required by their potential employers (sarkar, overton, thompson, & rayner, 2020). to enhance generic skill development, students need to be aware of their strengths and limitations, and able to reflect with an attitude towards continue learning and progressing these skills (hill, overton, & thompson, 2019; hinchliffe, 2006). a self-assessment tool and mapping development against the skills is an approach to generate student self-awareness (marais & perkins, 2012). self-assessment, also termed as ‘self-rating’, ‘self-audit’, ‘self-report’, and ‘self-perception’, refers to a method for the evaluation of personal attributes and abilities against perceived norms (colthart et al., 2008). the process of self-assessment engages students in evaluating and monitoring their own capacity to perform the generic skills, enhancing their awareness of individual strengths and any developmental needs, providing stimulus to take appropriate action to address the needs (jackson, 2014). continual monitoring of, and reflecting on, their own performance of generic skills may help students to take responsibility for their own skill development as well as developing their ability to transfer these skills sarkar, m., gibson, s., karim, n., rhys-jones, d., & ilic, d. (2021). exploring the use of self-assessment to facilitate health students’ generic skills development. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(2), 65–81. 67 in education and future careers (murdoch‐eaton & whittle, 2011). self-assessment, therefore, engages students in a process of structured reflection which may contribute to improving their thinking and action capabilities (moon, 2006). this notion aligns with the need for developing a propensity for lifelong learning (hinchliffe, 2006), which is critically important in the rapidly changing world of work and therefore potentially impacts on student experience and outcomes (murdoch‐ eaton & whittle, 2011). despite the increasing importance of developing generic skills in health education, there is a dearth of knowledge about how to support health students to develop generic skills as part of their formal education. the key objective of this study is to engage health students in the process of selfassessment of their generic skills using a self-assessment tool and explore the potential of this process to facilitate their generic skills development. this paper, specifically, discusses how health students: a) self-assess their ability to perform targeted generic skills and view the development of these skills in their university study, and b) perceive any value of the process of self-assessment to complement and enhance their generic skills development. while reliability of self-assessment can be questioned (eva & regehr, 2007), aligning with previous research (e.g. pop & khampirat, 2019), this study uses self-assessment with an aim to generate student reflection upon their own competence that supports them in identifying both strengths and areas for further development. the study then focuses on evaluating the effectiveness of selfassessment from student perspectives. research design and methods this study was underpinned by pragmatism (leech & onwuegbuzie, 2009), and a two-phase design was adopted to utilise the power of quantitative and qualitative methods for different research questions within a research study (creswell & plano clark, 2018; leech & onwuegbuzie, 2009). phase 1 addressed the first research question employing quantitative methods, while the second question was explored qualitatively in the second phase. in the first phase, students across a range of healthrelated degrees completed a self-assessment questionnaire focused on a set of generic skills. participating students were provided with a copy of their responses and encouraged to retain the copy so that they could reflect on it at a later stage of their degree and discern any changes and developmental needs in these skills. this process was designed to prompt students to self-reflect on their capabilities and further engage with developing these skills. in the second phase, a subsection of respondents participated in focus group interviews that explored their perception of the selfassessment process in generic skills development. this research was approved by the human research ethics committee of monash university (number 17138). participants students studying undergraduate and postgraduate courses at different year levels in public health, health science, nutrition science, and dietetics courses at, monash university in australia, participated in this study. students in these disciplines were invited using an announcement on the learning management system (moodle) and during their lecture/tutorial to complete the self-assessment questionnaire online, via qualtrics. a total of 202 participants out of 221 who opened the qualtrics link voluntarily completed the questionnaire (completion rate 91%). participants’ median age was 20 years (iqr 19–23). the majority of the participants were female (87.1%), local/domestic students (79.2%) studying undergraduate courses (77.7%), engaged in part-time paid employment (59.4%), and english as their first language (70.8%). of the 202 participants, 68 (33.7%) represented the discipline of health science, whereas 54 sarkar, m., gibson, s., karim, n., rhys-jones, d., & ilic, d. (2021). exploring the use of self-assessment to facilitate health students’ generic skills development. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(2), 65–81. 68 (26.7%), 53 (26.2%) and 27 (13.4%) students came from the disciplines of nutrition science, public health and dietetics respectively. the questionnaire respondents who voluntarily provided their contact were invited via email to participate in the focus group interviews. given the similarities between disciplines and convenience to conduct interviews, we formed groups considering two categories. one category comprises students from public health and health science courses, whereas the other one includes nutrition science and dietetics courses. four group interviews were conducted—two from each of the categories—with a total of 22 participants (>10% of the questionnaire respondents). phase 1: self-assessment questionnaire the self-assessment questionnaire incorporated a validated framework of an industry-demanded skills set comprising ten skills and 40 associated behaviours (jackson & chapman, 2011). table 1 presents the target skills set and the number of behavioural items associated with each of the skill. table 1: the target skills set and number of behavioural items for each skill skill number of behavioural items working effectively with others 6 communicating effectively 5 self-awareness 3 thinking critically 2 analysing data and using technology 3 problem-solving 3 developing initiative and enterprise 4 self-management 4 social responsibility and accountability 4 professionalism 6 figure 1 shows an example of the set of behaviours associated with the skill ‘working effectively with others’, as provided in the questionnaire.  complete group tasks through collaborative communication, problem-solving, discussion and planning  operate within, and contribute to, a respectful, supportive and cooperative group climate  acknowledge the complex emotions and viewpoints of others and respond sensitively and appropriately  work productively with people from diverse cultures, races, ages, gender, religions and lifestyles  defend and assert your rights, interests and needs and convince others of the validity of your point of view  address and resolve contentious issues with key stakeholders figure 1: behaviours associated with the skill ‘working effectively with others’ given that students often struggle to articulate generic skills (hill et al., 2018), a description of behaviours constituted to a particular skill may help students to build an awareness of what behaviours are expected from them to demonstrate their capability to perform the skill. while the framework of the industry-demanded skills set used in our study was used previously in the context of business education, the skills are generic in nature and are expected from any graduates irrespective of their discipline. denise jackson, a developer of this framework, affirmed the potential applicability of this framework in the context of health education due to its generic nature (personal sarkar, m., gibson, s., karim, n., rhys-jones, d., & ilic, d. (2021). exploring the use of self-assessment to facilitate health students’ generic skills development. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(2), 65–81. 69 communication, may 14, 2018). also, the skills targeted in this framework are aligned with the health graduate capabilities at monash university, characterising health graduates as collaborative teamworkers, effective communicators, committed to lifelong learning, able to generate evidence-based practice and being professional. cronbach’s alpha values for the target skills set ranged between .832 and .901, confirming the internal consistency of the items (devellis, 2012). to answer the first research question, students were asked to assess (a) their current capabilities in performing each of the behaviours and (b) how well these behaviours are developed in their university study. a scale, ranging from zero to 10, was used in self-assessment because of its benefits of increased sensitivity and closer to interval level of scaling and normality (leung, 2011). for the capability question, a rating of zero equated to students considered themselves unable to perform the behaviour and 10 was defined as being an expert and able to teach others. for the development question, a rating of zero was defined as no development at all and 10 identified as developed very well. analysis of self-assessment (quantitative) data spss (version 25) was used for statistical analysis of the data. after screening and cleaning of the data, descriptive statistics were generated to report participants’ demographic characteristics (e.g. age, gender, year of study, degree type and discipline). based on students’ responses to the skill-associated behaviours, two mean scores were calculated for each of the skills—one score demonstrates their overall capacity to perform the skill, and the other reflects their development of this skill in the study. for each skill, the minimum and maximum mean ratings were zero and 10, respectively, for both capability and development. mean scores for each of the skills were compared across study disciplines using anova. the relationship between students’ perceived development of their targeted skills in the university study and perceived capability to perform those skills was first analysed using pearson correlation coefficient, and then examined using multivariable linear regression adjusting for gender, degree level and discipline of study. phase 2: focus group interview focus group interviews were conducted to stimulate discussion and elicit students’ views on the value of the process of self-assessment for generic skills development (stalmeijer, mcnaughton, & van mook, 2014). a semi-structured interview protocol was used with necessary probes and prompts allowing the interviewer to explore participants’ answers to gain deeper insights and seek clarification to ensure the research question was addressed (newing et al., 2011). the interviews lasted between 41 and 57 minutes (mean 48 minutes), and were digitally recorded and transcribed for analysis. analysis of focus group (qualitative) data a thematic analysis procedure was used in analysing the group interview data (miles, huberman, & saldana, 2014). commonly recurring themes were identified using an inductive approach. based on the recurring themes and any connection between them, a thematic framework was constructed that was grounded in the data. interpretation of this thematic framework in the lights of existing selfassessment and generic skills development literature was made in consultation of the research team. the lead author of this paper first did the coding and identified themes in the qualitative data. the second author independently coded a subset of the data. codes and themes were cross-checked and discussed with the research team for further refinement and resolving any ambiguity in coding and theme identification. this approach helped to maximise the rigour of the analysis. nvivotm was used to support the analysis. sarkar, m., gibson, s., karim, n., rhys-jones, d., & ilic, d. (2021). exploring the use of self-assessment to facilitate health students’ generic skills development. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(2), 65–81. 70 results phase 1 data: perceived capability to perform the skills and skill development figure 2 illustrates students’ perceived capability to perform the skills sets and their perceived development in the university study. overall, students viewed having some capabilities to perform the skills, as well as developing skills to a certain extent within their studies. however, when comparing the extent of their capability and development, students perceived the development of these skills in their university study as lower than their perceived capability to perform across all ten skills. for students’ perceived capability, nine of the ten skills received a mean score higher than seven. the only skill which received a mean score below seven was ‘analysing data and using technology’, whereas ‘social responsibility and accountability’ received the highest mean score. conversely, with respect to students’ perceived development of the skills, the only skill to receive a mean score higher than seven was ‘professionalism’, whereas ‘self-management’ received the lowest score indicating the least development of this skill. figure 2: a comparison between students’ perceived capability to perform the skills and their development within the study table 2 presents a comparison between the perceived capability to perform and development across disciplines. concerning the capability data, statistically significant differences across disciplines were found for four skills — ‘working effectively with others’, ‘communicating effectively’, ‘social responsibility and accountability’, and ‘professionalism’. of these four skills, on average, the capability to ‘working effectively with others’ was seen highest in health science students, whereas capabilities to ‘communicating effectively’, ‘social responsibility and accountability’ and ‘professionalism’ were found highest in public health students. regarding the development data, no statistically significant difference was found for any of the skills across disciplines. as figure 3(a) shows, students’ perceived capability to perform most of the skills remains similar across study levels. the second-year undergraduate students viewed higher development for most of the skills within their study. in contrast, the first-year postgraduate students saw poor development in most of the skills [figure 3(b)]. 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 analysing data and using technology developing initiative and enterprise problem solving self-awareness thinking critically self-management communicating effectively working effectively with others professionalism social responsibility and accountability mean score capability to perform development within study sarkar, m., gibson, s., karim, n., rhys-jones, d., & ilic, d. (2021). exploring the use of self-assessment to facilitate health students’ generic skills development. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(2), 65–81. 71 table 2: capability to perform the skills and their development across disciplines health science (n=68) nutrition science (n=54) public health (n=53) dietetics (n=27) p-value* mean ± sd mean ± sd mean ± sd mean ± sd capability to perform working effectively with others 8.0 ± 1.1 7.5 ± 1.0 7.7 ± 1.1 7.2 ± 1.4 0.017 communicating effectively 7.7 ± 1.3 7.0 ± 1.5 7.8 ± 1.1 7.0 ± 1.6 0.002 self-awareness 7.4 ± 1.6 7.4 ± 1.6 7.5 ± 1.1 6.7 ± 1.6 0.157 thinking critically 7.6 ± 1.2 7.1 ± 1.5 7.5 ± 1.4 7.0 ± 1.8 0.097 analysing data and using technology 7.0 ± 1.8 6.8 ± 1.9 7.0 ± 1.5 6.8 ± 1.4 0.889 problem-solving 7.1 ± 1.6 7.2 ± 1.5 7.3 ± 1.5 7.0 ± 1.5 0.889 developing initiative and enterprise 7.5 ± 1.2 6.9 ± 1.3 7.0 ± 1.4 7.0 ± 1.7 0.058 self-management 7.6 ± 1.3 7.3 ± 1.4 7.4 ± 1.7 6.7 ± 2.0 0.124 social responsibility and accountability 8.0 ± 1.5 8.1 ± 1.3 8.5 ± 1.3 7.4 ± 1.9 0.032 professionalism 7.6 ± 1.4 8.0 ± 1.2 8.1 ± 1.4 7.3 ± 1.6 0.030 development within study working effectively with others 7.0 ± 2.6 6.5 ± 2.3 6.5 ± 2.6 6.6 ± 1.9 0.599 communicating effectively 7.2 ± 2.3 6.6 ± 2.4 6.4 ± 2.3 7.2 ± 1.7 0.218 self-awareness 6.6 ± 2.8 6.4 ± 2.5 6.4 ± 2.2 6.9 ± 2.0 0.874 thinking critically 7.1 ± 2.0 6.5 ± 2.5 7.0 ± 2.3 6.9 ± 2.0 0.381 analysing data and using technology 6.6 ± 2.7 6.3 ± 2.5 6.6 ± 1.8 6.0 ± 3.2 0.765 problem-solving 6.8 ± 2.2 6.7 ± 2.5 6.7 ± 2.0 7.1 ± 2.1 0.912 developing initiative and enterprise 7.0 ± 2.3 6.5 ± 2.4 6.5 ± 2.1 6.3 ± 2.6 0.526 self-management 6.7 ± 2.6 6.4 ± 2.6 5.9 ± 2.6 5.5 ± 2.8 0.133 social responsibility and accountability 7.2 ± 2.8 6.9 ± 2.8 6.6 ± 3.0 6.6 ± 2.3 0.633 professionalism 7.3 ± 2.3 7.0 ± 2.8 6.8 ± 2.5 7.3 ± 2.2 0.740 *p-value generated employing anova. sarkar, m., gibson, s., karim, n., rhys-jones, d., & ilic, d. (2021). exploring the use of self-assessment to facilitate health students’ generic skills development. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(2), 65–81. 72 figure 3(a): capability to perform across degree type and year level figure 3(b): development across degree type and year level 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 working effectively with others communicating effectively self-awareness thinking critically analysing data and using technology problem solving developing initiative and enterprise self-management social responsibility and accountability professionalism undergraduate year 1 undergraduate year 2 undergraduate year 3 postgraduate year 1 postgraduate year 2 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 working effectively with others communicating effectively self-awareness thinking critically analysing data and using technology problem solving developing initiative and enterprise self-management social responsibility and accountability professionalism undergraduate year 1 undergraduate year 2 undergraduate year 3 postgraduate year 1 postgraduate year 2 sarkar, m., gibson, s., karim, n., rhys-jones, d., & ilic, d. (2021). exploring the use of self-assessment to facilitate health students’ generic skills development. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(2), 65–81. 73 table 3: relationship between perceived capability to perform and development within study skill set capability to perform development within study r adjusted β coefficient# standard error adjusted r2 mean sd mean sd working effectively with others 7.66 1.13 6.68 2.42 0.22* 0.44* 0.147 0.101 communicating effectively 7.44 1.38 6.83 2.27 0.259* 0.42* 0.110 0.101 social responsibility and accountability 8.05 1.47 6.87 2.80 0.272* 0.61* 0.109 0.140 problem solving 7.15 1.53 6.77 2.21 0.32* 0.615* 0.105 0.158 professionalism 7.83 1.4 7.08 2.46 0.341* 0.554* 0.098 0.141 self-awareness 7.31 1.48 6.55 2.46 0.367* 0.457* 0.097 0.099 analysing data and using technology 6.88 1.69 6.44 2.52 0.372* 0.794* 0.108 0.213 thinking critically 7.33 1.39 6.89 2.23 0.393* 0.827* 0.105 0.276 developing initiative and enterprise 7.10 1.36 6.62 2.31 0.433* 0.434* 0.128 0.125 self-management 7.33 1.53 6.28 2.65 0.507* 0.557* 0.119 0.124 # β coefficients were generated employing multivariable linear regression adjusted for gender, degree level and discipline *statistically significant (p<0.01) sarkar, m., gibson, s., karim, n., rhys-jones, d., & ilic, d. (2021). exploring the use of self-assessment to facilitate health students’ generic skills development. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(2), 65-81. 74 the relationship between the two variables—perceived capability and perceived development—was first assessed through univariate correlation using pearson correlation coefficient (r). overall, there was a moderate positive correlation between the two variables, with high levels of perceived capabilities with high levels of perceived development. the magnitude of correlation across ten skills ranges from 0.220 to 0.506, and all correlations were determined to be statistically significant (p<0.01) (table 3). the association between the two variables was further assessed employing multivariable linear regression adjusted for gender, degree level and discipline of study. as table 3 shows, for all of the skills, student’ perceived capability is positively associated with their perceived development. the higher impact was seen for ‘self-management’, ‘developing initiative and enterprise’, ‘thinking critically’ and ‘self-awareness’. phase 2: students’ perspectives on the value of the process of self-assessment and the self-assessment tool there were four focus group interviews with a total of 22 participants. a thematic framework was constructed based on the recurring themes arising from the focus group data (figure 4) visualising students’ perspectives on the value of the process of self-assessment and the self-assessment tool. we explain this framework in the following sub-sections with a set of relevant quotes from public health and health science students (phs) and nutrition science and dietetics students (nsd). figure 4: thematic framework reflecting students’ perspectives of the value of the process of self-assessment and the self-assessment tool self-assessment self-assessment tool repeated use explicit the purpose and value of generic skills and self-assessment self-awareness of ability systematic and structured subjective measures lift up confidence complement formal assessment decision-making of suitable work find weakness and plan to improve improved visibility of skills track skill development support reflective practice underestimated ability inflated ability long and wordy sarkar, m., gibson, s., karim, n., rhys-jones, d., & ilic, d. (2021). exploring the use of self-assessment to facilitate health students’ generic skills development. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(2), 65-81. 75 students’ perspectives on the self-assessment process self-assessment generates self-awareness of one’s ability students viewed the role of self-assessment in generating increased awareness of one’s strengths and weaknesses concerning particular generic skills. through your self-assessment, you can see how you’re going with these skills and see how you could develop further if you want to, and in which aspects you’re lacking and which aspect you’re capable more of (phs1p2). this process promoted positive self-development and students felt encouraged to build on their areas of strength as well as working on the areas where further improvements required. student-perceived benefits of self-awareness included improved confidence and feelings of empowerment, understanding of weaknesses for future development and reflections on potential job suitability (table 4) with illustrative quotes. table 4: student-perceived benefits of self-awareness benefit illustrative quote boost confidence of the strengths one has sometimes people just underestimate their strengths, i would say. and a tool like that would actually make them feel empowered maybe and actually realise how good you are (phs1p4). help identify the areas of weakness and develop an action plan to address those areas it just reminds me of what is my weakness? i will reflect on what opportunity that i have missed to improve those skills. it can help me to make a plan to improve or develop some of these deficient areas (nsd1p3). make informed decisions about one’s suitability of a particular job it’s important to know your strengths and weaknesses and have a better idea of if you could actually do it, because you really need to sit back and think like what are my skills? does this job suit me? do i suit them? (phs1p1). self-assessment helped define the purpose and value of generic skills and self-assessment students recognised that in order to be engaged in the process of self-assessment of generic skills, it is important that the curricula explicitly define the roles of generic skills and self-assessment, and how these relate to career development. students reported they required support in the contextualisation and development of these skills through their learning activities and assessment: assignments should specify which generic skills are expected to be demonstrated (phs2p2); … how the skills are linked to their employability (phs2p4). students recognised the hidden nature of generic skills in formal curricula as these skills are not visibly assessed. they believed the role of generic skill self-assessment increased their visibility and could complement their formal assessment. these [skills] are not assessed, so you may not see them. you’re asked to self-rate them, now you can see them. it can go with the actual assessment (nsd1p1). repeated use of self-assessment students viewed that self-assessing at different time points would help them see any development of the skills over time. they saw that the more an individual engages in self-assessing their skills, the more improvement they may make in their previously identified suboptimal skill areas. sarkar, m., gibson, s., karim, n., rhys-jones, d., & ilic, d. (2021). exploring the use of self-assessment to facilitate health students’ generic skills development. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(2), 65-81. 76 it’s good to compare in the long run as well, to see if you thought if you’ve improved. it can also help with building your skills. so, a continuous self-assessment, you can see that the more you do this, the more improve with this skill and then something that you previously saw as a weakness could become a strength (nsd2p3). students’ perspectives on the self-assessment tool a systematic and structured approach to support reflection students viewed that the self-assessment tool gave them a systematic way to look at their strengths and weaknesses of the skills that enhanced the process of reflection. the process engaged them in consciously looking and thinking about their capabilities and experiences, and analysing them in a structured manner. for me, sometimes i’ll have some ideas floating around behind my brain. but this is more like a systematic and structured way for me to really analyse and gather all my thoughts together, to see which part am i better at, which part to improve on, so it helps me how to reflect better (nsd2p5). students valued how the self-assessment tool broke down a skill area into several behavioural categories to demonstrate what specific behaviours they are expected to perform that eventually support the reflection process. because it kind of has all the different sections and specific skills, that i think kind of breaks it down into smaller kind of areas [behaviours], i guess. so, it’s just you might even have strengths just in communication when working in smaller groups, but not larger groups or that sort of thing. and this gives you the details what specific you’re reflecting on. so, yeah, i think it’s beneficial (nsd2p2). the tool was viewed to help students understand their ability to perform specific behaviours in particular skill areas. students recognised the specificity and breadth of the tool to support reflection. however, this breadth made the tool ‘too wordy’ and ‘too long’ which was a criticism of the tool. self-assessed scores are variable and subjective. students perceived subjectivity in the self-assessment measures and questioned its reliability viewing many variables (e.g. timing, mental condition) affecting the scores. i think it’s not an accurate representation of it because it really depends on what time, what condition you do it in. because sometimes if you’ve experienced something bad during the week you might mark yourself really low compared to a good week (phs1p4). students also recognised the possibility of individual bias in self-assessment and found it a difficult task. rating their abilities on a scale of 0–10 posed difficulties and students were concerned they over or underestimated their abilities. they also sought input from their peers to help determine their ratings: maybe i’m actually four, but i’m thinking, mmm i am six (nsd2p5); i’m really harsh on myself, so i might give myself a four but people be like, no, you’re a six (nsd2p1). discussion this paper reports on health students’ perspectives on their self-assessed capability to perform a set of industry-demanded generic skills and how they perceived their development during their university study. it also identified the value of the process of self-assessment to complement and enhance their generic skills development. the self-assessment data indicated that with some variations across study levels and disciplines, students viewed having some capabilities to perform the generic skills as well as their university studies partly contributing to the development of these skills. data also suggested that students’ perceived capability to perform most of the skills remained similar across study levels. this seems to sarkar, m., gibson, s., karim, n., rhys-jones, d., & ilic, d. (2021). exploring the use of self-assessment to facilitate health students’ generic skills development. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(2), 65-81. 77 cast doubt on the university’s contribution to generic skills development, suggesting little improvement in perceived capability in generic skills as students’ progress in their university studies. not surprisingly, a positive relationship was found between the perceived development and capability data, meaning that the more the university study contributed to skills development, the more students would feel capable of performing those skills. given the importance of generic skills for work readiness, this finding suggests a need for not only a greater focus on the development of generic skills within the university studies, but to be explicit when teaching and assessing these skills to better prepare students for future work. this aligns with industry and student expectations of universities to promote generic skills as part of the curricula (boden & nedeva, 2010). strong university–industry partnerships may promote a shared understanding of generic skill development needs to ensure relevant and responsive academic curricula to meet the industry expectations (gibson & molloy, 2012). many educational approaches are used to help promote the development of generic skills including group projects and assignments which utilise interpersonal, team-working and problem-solving skills. whilst explicit embedding of generic skills in formal assessments provides students with convincing evidence of the importance of these skills (murdoch‐eaton & whittle, 2011), students in our focus group, pointed to the hidden nature of these skills in curricula due to the fact that these skills are rarely assessed. when generic skills are not exclusively assessed, students may not prioritise these for learning (boud & falchikov, 2007). educators need to make the skills explicit for students so that they are aware of the skills they are expected to develop for their employability and career purposes (gibson & molloy, 2012; jorre de st jorre & oliver, 2018). self-assessment activities focusing on generic skills, as suggested in the focus group data, were seen as raising the profile of generic skills. self-assessment data are self-reported, rather than a measure of how capable students actually are in the skills described or how well the skills are developed within their university studies. while some students might overestimate their ability, more capable and reflective students could be harsher on themselves (panadero, brown, & strijbos, 2016). students were aware of the limited objectivity and reliability and recognised the variables affecting the measure (e.g. timing, mental condition, individual bias). students’ overestimation of their ability to perform skills-associated behaviours can be seen as problematic from the skills development perspective and students’ self-assessed scores tend to be higher than their teachers when self-assessed scores are counted in student grades (tejeiro et al., 2012). in the present study, we engaged students in the process of self-assessment, as an exercise with a learning-oriented purpose rather than a formal assessment. concurring with previous research (e.g. barney, et al., 2011; leach, 2012), we believe that for the purpose of our use, students’ selfassessments might be relatively consistent with their teachers and fairly reflective of their ability. students, as leach (2012) commented, would need to be clearly informed of the purpose of the selfassessment and the benefits of engaging in it. whilst there may be some subjectivity in the measures, students recognised that being aware of their strong skill areas, through the process of self-assessment, may potentially improve their confidence. drawing on the self-efficacy literature (bandura, 1982, 1997), students’ beliefs in their abilities to perform the skills-associated behaviours can be seen as important. a high sense of self-efficacy encourages individuals to set more challenging goals with stronger commitment and persistence to achieving the goals even when challenges occur (bandura, 1997; gist, 1987; zimmerman, 2000). this also means that a high sense of self-efficacy can act as a motivator for student learning and help them to regulate their own approach to learning (zimmerman, 2000). as murdoch‐eaton and whittle (2011) pointed out, effective self-regulation, through the process of self-assessment, helps students develop the skills to make a realistic reflection on their cognition, actions and behaviours—all of these underpin the continued professional development and act as a propensity of lifelong learning. students valued how the self-assessment tool provided them with a structured and systematic way to look at their skills along with its specificity and thoroughness that provided a clear structure of what to reflect on. they viewed that these features together can potentially contribute to enhancing the process of reflection. developing students’ capacity in reflection has importance from both the sarkar, m., gibson, s., karim, n., rhys-jones, d., & ilic, d. (2021). exploring the use of self-assessment to facilitate health students’ generic skills development. journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(2), 65-81. 78 learning and employability perspectives (di stefano, gino, pisano, & staats, 2016; ryan, 2013). engaging students in the reflection process potentially can influence their self-efficacy and task understanding with a result of productive learning experiences (di stefano et al., 2016). to improve employability potential, students need to identify what their strengths and weaknesses are regarding the key employability skills they need to develop expertise, focus on those skills they find weaker and articulate a plan of action to improve them (darce pool & sewell, 2007). further, reflective processes underpin the career management skills graduates will need to master as part of their lifelong learning for the utmost utilisation of their capabilities and to contribute to society (bridgstock, 2009). given that scaffolded reflection can contribute in this process by improving students’ thinking and action capabilities (moon, 2006), it seems important for educators to actively guide students through the reflective practice to get most out of the self-assessment process. conclusion this paper has important implications for health students preparing for their careers. dietetics graduates are increasingly embarking upon self-employment and private practice, while health promotion is a common vocational outcome of public health, health science and nutrition courses. engaging in projects and practices with academics, policy makers, clinicians and community requires the skillsets explored in this paper. furthermore, it provides students in non-vocational programs with a clear suite of skills directly applicable across the healthcare sector. in today’s dynamic employment landscape, graduates may not be employed in industries or roles that are directly related to their studies. they need to be able to articulate, appreciate and demonstrate their skillsets beyond traditional competency standards to consider, and be considered for, emerging and novel employment. limitations of this study include the cross-sectional design with a relatively smaller sample that could not explain any causality which occurred (jackson & tomlinson, 2020). the voluntary nature of student focus groups might have had a more positive view on the use of the self-assessment tool. given students’ qualitative responses were fairly uniform across disciplines, there appears to be some merit in considering the notion of self-assessment for facilitating health students’ generic skills development. this suggests the need for contextualising and embedding self-assessment in formal curricula for the development of generic skills as part of better preparation for health students for their future work. this will need educators to actively promote the benefits of self-assessment to engage students in the self-assessment process and to nurture their confidence and understanding of the process. the self-assessed data can be used to generate a dialogue between students and educators to gauge learning towards their development. future research may explore the accuracy of student self-assessment as compared with their educator observation along with investigating the reasons for any mismatch. future research may also include educators’ perspectives, across more health disciplines, on the value of the self-assessment tool and how the tool can be contextualised and implemented to enrich health curricula. acknowledgements we wish to acknowledge all study participants for their contribution. we also express our gratitude to the monash education academy for funding this study. disclosure statement no potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors. references acemoglu, d., & restrepo, p. 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(2021). ‘...having people that will help you, that know the ropes and have walked that road before you’: how does first in family status impact graduates in the employment field? journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(2), 36–50. 36 the journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability issn: 1838-3815 (online) journal homepage: https://ojs.deakin.edu.au/index.php/jtlge/ ‘...having people that will help you, that know the ropes and have walked that road before you’: how does first in family status impact graduates in the employment field? sarah o’shea1, olivia groves2 and janine delahunty3 corresponding author: sarah o’shea (sarah.oshea@curtin.edu.au) 1curtin university, australia: http://orcid.org/0000-0002-8988-6674 2curtin university, australia 3university of wollongong, australia abstract increasing competitiveness in the graduate employment field combined with growing numbers of degree bearing applicants means that gaining employment after completing university studies can be a lengthy and complex undertaking. this is even more the case for students who do not have ready access to the social or family capital often required for successful employment, such as those who are first in their family to attend university. this article reveals hidden tensions within the post-graduation employment market when this is negotiated without the benefit of necessary capitals required to do so successfully. drawing on interview and survey data from recent first in family graduates and alumni in australia, the ways in which they negotiated employment was explored. this exposed an alternative perspective on graduate employment that highlights the somewhat ‘hidden’ inequities and unfair expectations within a hyper competitive job market. participants’ written and spoken reflections reveal the ways in which the graduate landscape is far from being an ‘even playing field’. the perspectives presented contribute to broader understanding about the difficulties of moving towards desired employment goals or social mobility particularly when intangible relational and personal capitals are needed. such insights are needed to inform both policy and practice globally, particularly as nation states come to terms with the repercussions of the current health crisis. keywords: graduate employment, first in family students, social theory, bourdieu introduction this paper reports on research conducted in australia which drew upon the experiences of alumni and graduating students navigating the post-graduation employment landscape. globally, there has been a significant increase in the number of students undertaking university study and graduating with a degree qualification (marginson, 2016; oecd, 2001). undoubtedly, this increase in formal university qualifications has led to a greater diversity of students attending university and also has clear implications for graduate employment. for example, the rise in student numbers has not been matched by employer demand, resulting in an oversupply of graduates and intensified competition for employment across the world, including in europe, north america, china and india (allen et al., 2013; purcell et al., 2013; roulin & bangerter, 2013). within australia, the sheer volume of students graduating and their increased diversity has not been addressed in directed or targeted policy or https://ojs.deakin.edu.au/index.php/jtlge/ mailto:sarah.oshea@curtin.edu.au http://orcid.org/0000-0002-8988-6674 o’shea, s., groves, o., & delahunty, j. (2021). ‘...having people that will help you, that know the ropes and have walked that road before you’: how does first in family status impact graduates in the employment field? journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(2), 36–50. 37 practices. hence, this study sought to consider qualitatively the postgraduate experiences of one such diverse cohort namely those students who are the first in their families to attend university. an existing and comprehensive body of literature and research articulates the university experiences of students who are the first member of their family, and in some cases their community, to attend university. the term ‘first in family’ (fif) is being used in this paper to refer to those students who are the first in their immediate family, including parents, partners, children and siblings, to undertake a higher-education qualification. the fif student group is a growing cohort in university populations globally and are regarded as collectively encountering additional and often invisible obstacles as they move through university (longwell-grice et al., 2016; o'shea et al., 2017). even a superficial review of the existing literature points to how this student population is generally problematised as somehow disadvantaged compared to other higher education participants (luzeckyj et al., 2011; mehta, newbold, & o’rourke, 2011; spiegler & bednarek, 2013). within australia, the statistical data relating to the fif cohort is somewhat flawed, largely due to variances in data collection and issues around how fif status is defined. currently, australian higher education institutions collect this data at enrolment by requesting the highest educational level of students’ parents. anecdotally students, particularly older students, have reported that this question is left unanswered as it is deemed to be unrelated to an individual’s educational pursuits. such ambiguity has led to a call for this status to be more explicitly extrapolated in equity data (patfield, gore, & weaver, 2020). what we do know is that approximately half the university student population in australia (51%) are derived from fif backgrounds (defined by parental educational levels) which is close to the oecd mean average of 53% (spiegler & bednarek, 2013). yet enrolments at individual universities, particularly those in regional locations, often exceed this percentage with some institutions anecdotally reporting up to 70% of their student population as the first in their families to attend. the large numbers of fif students means that this population merits close research attention, particularly in terms of their educational outcomes and employment destinations. while the literature indicates the ways in which fif students have a differentiated experience during transition into and through studies, compared to their second or third generation peers (pascarella et al., 2004; spiegler & bednarek, 2013) it is less clear what happens once this cohort leaves university and enters the graduate job market. the research outlined in this paper was designed to provide insights from the perspectives of two groups: those who were near completion or graduates anticipating future employment; and fif alumni reflecting upon their transition into the work environment. drawing upon interviews and surveys, this unique combination of perspectives provides a ‘close-up’ analysis of the ‘hidden tensions’ that participants reflected upon. based upon students’ richly descriptive insights, some recommendations are offered which are particularly pertinent in this pandemic period with anticipated high rates of unemployment and underemployment, combined with potentially greater levels of university participation. to contextualise the data that follow, the next sections consider the characteristics of the employment landscape with specific reference to the experiences of students from more diverse backgrounds. context the contemporary graduate marketplace the graduate employment market has become increasingly competitive both within australia and on a more global scale due to massification of higher education and the changed world of work (roulin & bangerter, 2013). national graduate surveys conducted across a range of countries indicate significant numbers of graduates remain unemployed in the short and medium term; that is, they are available for employment but unable to find full-time, part-time or casual employment (qilt, 2018). for example, in the uk, approximately 5.1% of graduate survey respondents (n=412,300) were unable to find paid work (hesa, 2017), while in australia this figure was 13% of respondents (n=120,564), or a total of 15,673 graduates (qilt, 2018). positively, most of these people do manage o’shea, s., groves, o., & delahunty, j. (2021). ‘...having people that will help you, that know the ropes and have walked that road before you’: how does first in family status impact graduates in the employment field? journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(2), 36–50. 38 to find employment within 3-5 years with unemployment rates for graduates in the medium term much lower in nz (3%), the us (3%) and australia (3.6%) (nces, 2018a, 2018b; qilt, 2018; universities new zealand, 2018). despite eventually obtaining employment, evidence suggests that many graduates are not fully utilising their knowledge, experience, skills and university qualifications in post-graduation employment. high numbers of employed graduates in australia report that they are not being employed in occupations requiring ‘a level of skill commensurate with a bachelor degree or higher’ (qilt, 2019, p. 23). this situation is echoed in the uk, where 15% of graduates did not obtain a professional job in the medium term; instead graduates are over represented in sales and customerservice occupations (hesa, 2017). a reasonably high proportion of australian students also report that their qualification was ‘not at all important’ (22.6%) or ‘not that important’ (14.5%) for their employment (qilt, 2019). similarly, in the uk, the importance of graduates’ qualification in gaining their current employment was ranked as ‘not very important’ (21.2%) or ‘not important’ (15.5%) (hesa, 2018). while these statistics provide some insight into the contemporary job market, such surveys do not provide detail of who these people are or why they did not obtain degree relevant work straight after their studies. navigating the postgraduate landscape is a complex venture, arguably exacerbated for those students who experience cumulative or multiple forms of disadvantage and are impacted by material or social factors. within australia, the likelihood of unemployment increases when a graduate is from multiple equity groups1. such multiplicity informs the characteristics of employment, including sector, type of employer, role, contract and means of finding work (richardson, bennett, & roberts, 2016). specifically, graduates from the top three socio-economic (ses) quartiles are estimated to be 1.2 times more likely to be employed than those from the bottom socio-economic quartile, with the latter also experiencing more tenuous work situations (richardson et al., 2016). indeed, the australian study by richardson and colleagues points to how graduates from many disadvantaged groups are generally clustered within the sub-fields of broad disciplines that are arguably regarded as lower-status occupations, most of which attract lower remuneration. without doubt, employment is a key reason for students to enter higher education: gaining a productive or rewarding job after graduation is an important outcome of completion. within australia and beyond, the call to ‘widen participation’ in the higher education sector and the associated participation targets, has resulted in a more diverse population of students encouraged to apply for university studies (bradley et al., 2008). yet, this focus on access has not necessarily been matched by a rigorous assessment of how these students fare post-graduation (pitman et al., 2019). whilst countries such as australia, the uk and the us have all engaged in strategies designed to increase student participation rates, the focus on post-graduation targets, particularly for equity students, has lacked sustained or deep analysis. the research detailed in this paper sought to investigate this graduate experience from the perspective of the actual learners. there is little research that focuses explicitly on the narratives of graduating students and alumni who are first in their families to attend university and as such, enter the post-graduate employment market. by providing details of this transition into employment, this paper contributes to the ways in which we prepare students from more diverse backgrounds for employment post-graduation. university and beyond: first in family equity student experiences to understand how fif students experience the graduate landscape, it is necessary to first consider the ways in which university participation may have been experienced for this cohort. this is not to 1 there are six identified equity groups: students from low socio-economic backgrounds; students with a disability, aboriginal and torres strait islander students, non-english speaking background students, rural and remote students and women studying in non-traditional areas o’shea, s., groves, o., & delahunty, j. (2021). ‘...having people that will help you, that know the ropes and have walked that road before you’: how does first in family status impact graduates in the employment field? journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(2), 36–50. 39 say that all fif students have similar experiences or contexts, but rather to acknowledge that this cohort may have differentiated experiences compared to their second or third generation peers. one way this difference is manifested is through sense of belonging, which may be less developed compared to learners who have a previous familial connection with the university. ball, davies, david and reay (2002) explain that transgenerational family scripts or ‘inheritance codes’ (p. 57) play into a greater sense of entitlement to be a university student. when such educational memories are not present within the family, students may struggle to understand the inner workings of the institution. in previous research (o’shea, 2016), this mismatch in belonging was described by commencing fif as a form of uncertainty related to university language, expectations and protocols of behaviour (p. 62). such variances may make the fif cohort particularly vulnerable to attrition and disengagement from the university setting as attendance requires additional effort to understand the somewhat ‘hidden’ rules of engagement. the shared rules and relationships that govern different social spaces or ‘fields’ can only be translated if an individual has access to particular forms of capital, which can be economic or cultural, the latter defined by family or social position (bourdieu, 1986). the concept of capital has been rigorously applied to understandings of power and domination, and the social theorist, pierre bourdieu (1930-2002) has identified various forms, which include social, cultural and symbolic capital; with the latter generated though manifestations of prestige. understanding how the university setting is constructed as a social space reveals how social reproduction can be played out in subtle and taken for granted ways. drawing on the qualitative experiences of students who are from a greater diversity of backgrounds can then provide insights into how these institutions may act as a type of ‘sorting machine’ that selects students according to an implicit social classification and reproduces the same students according to an explicit academic classification (naidoo, 2004, p. 459). one example of this ‘sorting machine’ in action relates to participation in extracurricular activities whilst at university (moreau & leathwood, 2006; pollard, 2018). the uptake and selection of internships is reported as being lower for students from more financially disadvantaged backgrounds (ashley et al., 2015). a key inhibitor to participating in these opportunities is the high economic cost of undertaking an internship, as many do not attract any remuneration (montacute, 2018). within australia, approximately 87% of internships are unpaid (interns australia, 2018). yet undertaking these types of work experience is increasingly recognised as a key resource for boosting employability and obtaining post-graduation employment (fya, 2018). undoubtedly, employers seek out employees who have had experience relevant to the professional field. however, the cost of participating in these activities makes them largely inaccessible to those with ongoing financial commitments, such as students with part-time work responsibilities or student-carers. simply, learners from more affluent or financially stable backgrounds enjoy a greater choice of placements because they have greater resources to draw upon (allen et al., 2013). however, financial reasons are not the only rationale for individuals electing not to participate in these opportunities. learners from more diverse backgrounds may not take advantage of internships as a result of inadvertently playing the degree ‘game’ according to outdated rules. bathmaker, ingram and waller (2013) draw upon bourdieu’s concept of ‘having a feel for the game’ and relate this to post-graduate employability. to ‘play the game’ effectively within the employment field, learners increasingly require additional skills and knowledges beyond those provided solely through degree content. these are often ‘soft skills’ acquired through participating in additional extracurricular opportunities including internships and work placements. however, when students have limited exposure to the higher education field this may cause some to believe that success in employment is wholly dictated by their degree results, with sole focus on the degree at the expense of other opportunities to develop skills and knowledge. in other words, for students who may be the first in their families or from lower ses backgrounds, achieving high grades in the degree program may be considered to be the key ingredient to attaining future employability (bathmaker et al., 2013). this perspective overlooks the volatility and expansion of the market, suggesting a fundamental mismatch between these learners’ expectations and the realities of the graduate job market. o’shea, s., groves, o., & delahunty, j. (2021). ‘...having people that will help you, that know the ropes and have walked that road before you’: how does first in family status impact graduates in the employment field? journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(2), 36–50. 40 overall, the twenty-first century job market is both diverse and competitive with new and unanticipated work roles emerging all the time. however, in the most immediate period, an unforeseen disruption has occurred which further delineates and impacts upon this environment. the onset of the covid-19 pandemic heralded transformations both in the capacity for people to actually work and the availability of jobs. the next section reflects upon the emerging trends in postgraduate employment as we navigate the current health crisis. graduate employment in the age of pandemic covid-19 has impacted every facet of life including the employment market, which is witnessing a massive global decline in the availability of work, resulting in escalating unemployment rates. this is a worldwide crisis and as a result, students at all stages of their education are experiencing some form of disadvantage, exacerbated by forced school closures, community lockdowns and also, ongoing economic uncertainty (drane, vernon & o’shea, 2020). however, in the midst of this pandemic it is the higher education sector that is recognised as providing possible routes during and beyond covid, characterised as the ‘engine rooms of prosperity’ which provide the ‘new ideas, new skills and new jobs to power the economic and social recovery’ (universities australia, 2020, paragraph 11). unfortunately, this is likely to be a long road back to recovery with three quarters of graduate employment in fields likely to be impacted by this crisis (norton, 2020). akkermans, richardson and kraimer (2020) refer to covid-19 as instigating a ‘career shock’ which is defined as a hugely disruptive or extraordinary event that causes long-term consequences to choices and planning related to careers. while the immediate repercussions of this event have been somewhat buffeted by the introduction of government support payments in many countries (e.g. uk, australia, canada), this type of funding is simply a ‘band aid’ solution to address the most urgent events caused by mass unemployment. while still in the midst of this event, what we do know is that it is people aged 20-29 years that have borne the brunt of covid, with reports that between march 14 and june 27 there was an 8% loss in payroll jobs for this age cohort (fya, 2020, p. 24). overall, the health dilemma has thrown into sharp relief how fragile work can be for many workers, across a large number of industries (fya, 2020, p. 31). covid-19 had immediate impacts on the higher education system, commencing with changes to how employers engaged with students and the recruitment processes linked to graduate employment (reidy, 2020). with the mass move to online learning, many universities have had to adapt, offering virtual internships and also, more expansive career advice including mental and health assistance. undoubtedly it is those students with limited material, financial and familial resources that will be hardest hit by this epidemic. covid-19 has exposed some of the most pervasive and underlying inequities in the education system (drane et al., 2020). those students who rely on casual part-time work to engage in their studies have felt the most immediate impact, but repercussions will also be apparent for graduates at all stages of their career. while the research outlined in this paper occurred prior to covid-19, the areas of analysis may be usefully applied to this health crisis. the focus on how students qualitatively manage the transition to work and the ways in which their fif status and additional equity demographics impact on this transition provides deeply descriptive insights into the nature of this trajectory. purposely moving away from statistical evidence and instead focussing on student narrative provides unique understanding of what needs to change to improve graduate outcomes for equity learners generally. methodology the research outlined in this paper was designed to specifically consider whether patterns of disadvantage persist after graduation (richardson et al., 2016, p. 8). research indicates how choices related to education including what to study and where to enrol, are highly differentiated (edwards & mcmillan, 2015; reay, 2016). these choices have been linked to class and social demarcations, with students from more disadvantaged backgrounds frequently choosing institutions which they o’shea, s., groves, o., & delahunty, j. (2021). ‘...having people that will help you, that know the ropes and have walked that road before you’: how does first in family status impact graduates in the employment field? journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(2), 36–50. 41 feel are closer geographically and socially (reay, david, & ball, 2001) and, similarly choosing career focus based on familiarity rather than aspirational fit (shergold et al., 2020). if educational choices can be linked to students’ access to economic and cultural resources, the question this research sought to explore was the ways in which demographic factors, such as first in family status, influence or impact graduate outcomes for certain student cohorts. this australian study occurred in 2019 and engaged with recent graduates, alumni and also key stakeholders to consider the ways in which graduate employment was considered (current students and stakeholders) and critically reflected upon (alumni). this article focuses on the data collected with students and alumni (n=257), all of whom were first in their families to attend university, and addresses the overarching research questions: how do learners from intersecting equity categories enter the employment market, and how is this ‘entry to employment’ experienced at an individual qualitative level? this was a convenience sample with participants recruited through email sent via peak bodies, universities and student equity and support services. this approach to recruitment may have had implications for the participants who elected to be involved, targeting a cohort perhaps more highly engaged with their institution compared to others who may have disengaged due to disillusionment or disappointment in their student and postgraduate experience. a total of 225 fif alumni completed a survey with questions ranging from seeking details about work experiences post-graduation through to perceived usefulness of the degree, personal changes since graduation and feelings of preparedness after completing their study. in addition to these open questions (n=20) the survey also included 20 closed questions all of which included text boxes for additional details. the opportunity to include descriptive detail meant that the alumni surveys were very rich and detailed, including respondents from across age groups and also, disciplines as table 1 demonstrates. table 1: alumni – distribution by age/gender and discipline area (n=2042) age / gender bus3 eis hass science law educ (hass) nurs (science) phd multi totals 21 to 25 female 2 6 3 1 1 13 male 1 1 1 1 1 5 26 to 30 female 6 1 20 6 4 1 1 3 42 male 3 4 3 2 1 4 2 19 31 to 40 female 6 1 13 7 3 3 2 2 37 male 3 9 6 5 1 1 1 26 not stated 1 1 41 to 50 female 4 1 4 2 4 1 2 18 male 6 1 2 1 2 12 over 51 female 7 6 2 3 6 2 26 male 1 1 1 1 1 5 totals 36 17 60 32 4 19 12 15 9 204 aside from all being the first in their family to attend university, participants were also invited to identify additional demographic data. in both surveys and interviews, participants could indicate membership of the following groups: 2 only the 204 who gave their age and gender are included in this table 3 legend: bus – business, eis – engineering/information systems, hass – humanities, arts, social sciences, education (separated from hass), nursing (separated from sciences), multi – across 2 or more discipline areas o’shea, s., groves, o., & delahunty, j. (2021). ‘...having people that will help you, that know the ropes and have walked that road before you’: how does first in family status impact graduates in the employment field? journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(2), 36–50. 42  student who identifies as aboriginal or torres strait islander (atsi)  student with a disability (dis)  student from a low socio-economic background (lses)  student from a rural or isolated area (rr)  student from a non-english speaking background (nesb)  student from a refugee background (ref)  student from a working-class background (wc) respondents could elect more than one category and responses indicated the diversity of this cohort, with many identifying multiple categories. for example, just over 45.5% identified as being from working class backgrounds, whilst 14% regarded themselves from a low-socio economic environment and just over 9% were derived from regional, rural and remote areas, as detailed in figure 1. figure 1: diverse backgrounds as identified by participants (who could identify more than one category) the survey and interviews were de identified, and all data, including interview transcripts and survey responses were imported into nvivo12, where line-by-line coding was conducted across all sources. common themes were identified, and these emergent nodes were carefully investigated using the nvivo query function, which allowed the data to be ‘sliced’ according to participant, mode of response and key demographics. the queries run on the project included matrix coding, wordfrequency counts and compound coding searches. interrogating the data according to different items and perspectives provided a much deeper understanding of the broad field of graduate employment experiences, which was further grounded in the theoretical lens adopted for this study. the rigour of this project was assured by member checking of all interview transcripts, regular investigator meetings to ensure triangulation of data, as well as a detailed audit trail housed in the nvivo12 file that recorded field notes, investigator reflections, codes and themes. theoretically, this project drew upon the work of bourdieusian social theory, focussing on the concept of capital in recognition that the social world is not simply based upon economic wealth, but a complex interplay between non-economic assets, termed cultural capital, for how social groups o’shea, s., groves, o., & delahunty, j. (2021). ‘...having people that will help you, that know the ropes and have walked that road before you’: how does first in family status impact graduates in the employment field? journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(2), 36–50. 43 acquire status and indulge in practices of domination and exclusion (prieur, rosenlund, & skjottlarsen, 2008, p. 46). importantly, bourdieu’s work recognises that individuals have different capital packages and that different capitals have diverse values depending on the field in which the individual is operating. certain types of capital result in different forms of advantage so even whilst these participants had achieved the symbolic capital associated with obtaining a degree, it was necessary for them to know how to convert this type of capital successfully within the graduate employment field (hart, 2012). this research was specifically interested in analysing the ways in which participants both considered the capitals required within the graduate employment field and the ways in which various capitals were drawn upon in the pursuit of employment. the next sections consider this rich data in relation to three broad themes that emerged from analysis, as follows:  unspoken differences in the post-graduate job field.  being the ‘first’ and post-university options.  achieving success in the post-graduate field. to further contextualise the findings and the participants, each quote is followed by brief demographic details of the respondent as indicated in the survey or interview. all quotes from interviews are identified with pseudonyms whilst surveys are identified with a survey number. findings and discussion unspoken differences in the post-graduate job field both alumni and recent graduates reflected at length about the various issues and negotiations they encountered when moving from the university sector into graduate employment. these issues were both external and internal to participants; the former largely relating to financial issues and geography. most respondents experienced some level of economic distress and as a result needed to work to support their academic pursuits. however, this restricted access to material resources impacted not only their experiences within the degree but also the choices they had after graduation: lack of finances, difficulties finding employment. moving 16 hours away to a remote rural town just to obtain employment in my area of study. solved the finances and employment problem, caused many others including isolation, depression, insomnia and anxiety (female, 21-25, nursing, wc, graduated 5yrs, #694). many graduates also experienced geographic limitations. being willing to move for work was a requirement for a number of the alumni and graduates, and often this movement was expressed in terms of loss, a necessary but somewhat unwelcome decision, the following quote speaks to these challenges: the painful truth is that living in a regional area means that my qualifications are not directly relevant to the work that is available here…so the only way to achieve any type of career progression…is to relocate to a metropolitan area — something i am unwilling to do while my children are in school. it is a difficult thing to reconcile at times (female, 31-40, arts, rr, wc, lses, graduated 2yrs, #87). both the financial and geographic restrictions faced by graduates from equity backgrounds has been considered in the literature (burke, et al., 2017; cardak et al., 2017; o’shea & delahunty, 2018; pollard, 2018) but what is less considered are the invisible or ‘unspoken’ issues graduates from more diverse backgrounds may encounter in the employment field. the respondents in this study 4 all surveys were anonymous but each was allocated a number to which demographic data and responses are attached. o’shea, s., groves, o., & delahunty, j. (2021). ‘...having people that will help you, that know the ropes and have walked that road before you’: how does first in family status impact graduates in the employment field? journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(2), 36–50. 44 reflected upon a number of issues that were experienced at a more personal or embodied level. despite the diversity of participants, commonality of experience was noted. one of the key areas identified was a lower sense of belonging that both impacted on seeking employment in the field and workplace experiences. lower levels of belonging have been noted in relation to fif students during the transition into, and initial movement through, university (longwell-grice, et al., 2016; longwell-grice & longwell-grice, 2008; martin, 2015) but little is known about how these impact on outcomes after graduating. the graduates and alumni reflected upon a pervasive ‘imposter syndrome’, often discussing how this affected employment outcomes or even perceived opportunities. aleisha, for example, spoke at length about perceived but unspoken ‘differences’ to those around her. aleisha had returned to university studies later in life, had a young family and described herself as not very worldly and from a background that didn’t include broad cultural things. in the final stages of a post-graduate teaching degree she described her experiences of working within schools, recognising these perceived limitations keenly in her current employment, explaining: sometimes now where i’m working, listening to teachers that maybe came from more affluent kinds of families – they’re talking about when they did overseas study trips or that they holidayed in sweden, just all these things where they have that global experience i suppose. i don’t really have anything to connect with that and … i think that’s something that i am lacking (aleisha, 40, education, nesb). this theme of feeling like an imposter also occurred across a range of responses in the alumni survey. such perceptions appeared to be an inherent constraint that did not necessarily diminish even after gaining employment. there was a sense of shame in some of the descriptions, in that perceptions of difference were almost something that needed to be hidden, or internalised and never spoken about. this is summed up by one survey respondent who explained that the imposter syndrome was persistently internalised as a fear of being exposed as a fraud (female, +51, business, wc, graduated 1yr, #130). another described feeling like i cheated my way in and that i don't really have the smarts to be here (female, 31-40, business, graduated 12 yrs, #208). such low levels of belonging did not necessarily diminish after gaining a degree. one respondent described feeling like an outsider if you do not have the right background and then goes onto explain that i cannot magically summon an acceptable backstory and a supportive environment just by graduating those pressures remain and take a toll (female, 41-50, science, dis, wc, graduated 17yrs, #70). undoubtedly, educational history and family background played into this sense of difference or not belonging. the next section explores in more depth what participants perceived as being the impacts of their fif status on their choices and opportunities after graduation. being the ‘first’ and post-university options as previously mentioned, participants in this study self-identified as being the first in their immediate family to attend university. this status impacted individuals in different ways but one key theme that emerged was in relation to access or understanding of certain knowledges or capitals, referred to as ‘insider knowledges’. we use the term ‘insider knowledge’ to convey understanding or familiarity about certain ways of behaving that are often regarded as being accepted or taken for granted, and these assumptions are rarely made explicit. not having this type of knowledge can lead to levels of inequity, impacting individual’s success or achievement within different domains (crozier, reay, clayton, colliander, & grinstead, 2008; o’shea, 2020). in this study, the term (insider knowledge) is used to refer to implicit knowledge capitals that may influence the experiences of fif students within the graduate employment market. focussing on the alumni surveys, comments included reflecting on not having a ‘knowledgeable other’ to ask questions of or obtain advice from. this was a recurrent theme as many lamented the limited guidance they received, particularly as they moved from university study and attempted to break into the employment market. the knowledges (or lack thereof) varied from not having applied o’shea, s., groves, o., & delahunty, j. (2021). ‘...having people that will help you, that know the ropes and have walked that road before you’: how does first in family status impact graduates in the employment field? journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(2), 36–50. 45 skills such as preparing for an interview or writing a resume right through to having limited understanding about the inner workings of graduate recruitment, including the hyper competitive nature of this environment. for these alumni, such knowledges were perceived as being primarily sourced or derived from family members rather than the university itself. being the first to attend university translated into a gap or lack which was regarded as disadvantaging the individual learner: i think had someone else from my family followed the path to completion i may have had a better insight into what going to uni means, rather than subscribing on the uni business model of 'a pathway to success' (male, 31-40, science, wc, graduated 2 yrs, #101). i had no family members who could help advise or explain the landscape. i had very little understanding of how the corporate world worked. i was very much trying to piece together this information on my own (female, 31-40, arts, wc, graduated 10 yrs, #193). for the alumni in particular, many of whom had spent significant time navigating and negotiating the graduate landscape, their status of being the ‘first’ had clear repercussions for the character and nature of their job-seeking experiences. without a suitable ‘guide on the side’, individuals floundered initially, requiring additional time and effort to develop necessary understandings of a somewhat alien environment. interestingly, not having this knowledge was regarded as being a personal limitation, rather than reflecting university practices or the degree content. in many of the responses, it was clear that the responsibility for understanding what came next was regarded as being an individual rather than an institutional one: i was very ignorant in what came after (female, 26-30, business, wc, graduated 6 yrs, #150). in my world i literally never met anyone who had a degree (female, 51, education, nesb, wc, graduated 20 yrs, #239). importantly, not all of the participants perceived such gaps in knowledge or limited belonging in negative terms, with some regarding this as being an incentive to work harder and to persist in a competitive graduate market. the next section provides detail of how success was both conceptualised and enacted in the field, with specific reference to what was regarded as assisting this process. achieving success in the post-graduate field not everyone perceived ‘being the first’ in negative terms. there was also recognition that this status could positively impact on the ways in which employability was enacted. while recognising that the access to necessary insider knowledge might be curtailed, respondents also indicated that fif status could provide additional traits or capitals that assisted in securing work. this was, however, often recognised retrospectively. wade (22, science, graduated 2yrs) explained that as the first in his family, he had been required to kind of carve your own way through and find the answers to your questions without any guiding hands perhaps. for wade, this was ultimately a positive experience as he reflected how it’s made me a more self-sufficient person and i’m grateful for it. in a similar vein, sophie explained that as a first in family student she had to go that extra mile to get your leg in the door. again this additional effort was regarded as affirming and positive as she explained, once you do get your leg in the door, you’re a much more competitive candidate and because you’ve worked for it, you kind of value it more, i guess (sophie, 20, science, final year). success for these fif participants was not an inevitable outcome of university study. instead, being successful often seemed to require something more than what was expected of their second or third-generation peers. molly (39, social work) perceived her success in the field as being derived from her ‘resilience’ and ‘competitiveness’ that she had acquired through life experience, also echoed by some survey respondents: o’shea, s., groves, o., & delahunty, j. (2021). ‘...having people that will help you, that know the ropes and have walked that road before you’: how does first in family status impact graduates in the employment field? journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(2), 36–50. 46 being first in family and from low [socio-economic status], i had limited financial and family support. i am stronger, more resilient and competitive in the field as i have life experience (molly, 39, social work, lses, graduated 1yr). being poor — straight out of university i worked minimumor low-wage jobs at first. thus, i had to continue living in shared housing and be quite creative…it took me a while to see that my variety of experiences [was] giving me valuable skills (female, 31-40, science/education, nesb, graduated 5yrs, #153). data presented in these sections indicates that being the first in the family to attend university had complex and far reaching repercussions. this fif status was perceived in duality: providing capitals that both limited and assisted individuals within the employment field. importantly, these findings show that this status is recognised as something which clearly impacts on educational and employment outcomes, yet our understandings of this population remains limited across the student life cycle. the final part of this paper will consider these findings in more depth, particularly considering the ways in which educational institutions might do things differently and thereby ensure a more equitable post-graduate environment. conclusions and recommendations the findings indicate how the australian post-graduation landscape remains a highly differentiated one: experiences of this field vary according to educational and biographical background. while this paper offers a ‘snapshot’ of this environment and is explicitly focused on those who were the first in their family to attend university, it clearly articulates the differences and delineations in expectations and knowledge of the employment field compared to what might be assumed or expected. we know that australia is not unique in having such differences or delineations in knowledge levels, with experiences of diverse cohorts similarly differentiated internationally (bathmaker, 2021; lehmann, 2021). many of the alumni and recent graduates reflected upon perceived ‘gaps’ in their knowledge which led many to feeling a sense of being ‘different’ to their peers. like the working-class participants in bathmaker’s uk study, there were references to an implicit ‘social capital advantage’ that pervaded this employment field (bathmaker et al., 2013, p. 737). bourdieu (1986) identifies how economic and non-economic criteria can work together to create distinct social status and hierarchies. for these fif participants there seemed to be certain knowledges or ‘ways of being’ that were implicit in the graduate market place; such forms of knowledge or ‘being’ regarded as more legitimate than others (bourdieu, 1986). this leads to the first recommendation from this study which is the need to explicitly unpack the codified knowledge of the graduate work environment and the implicit practices of job seeking. this deliberate unpacking should also be accompanied by policy that clearly articulates how students, particularly equity learners, will be supported during transition out of university and as they navigate the employment field. given the global employment and economic climate, the responsibility of universities can no longer cease once students achieve their qualification, instead this role must be expanded to include support and advice beyond graduation. the stratified nature of the employment market as identified by participants is perhaps unsurprising, as we know that the higher education environment is equally delineated. reay (2016) refers to both the process of getting into university and the experiences of different cohorts within the higher education realm as powerfully classed (p. 4). similarly, naidoo explains: the higher education system … reproduces the principles of social class and other forms of domination under the cloak of academic neutrality…in this way, universities contribute to the ‘misrecognition’ and therefore ‘naturalization’ of structures of domination (naidoo, 2004, p. 460). however, the data in this study explicitly articulates how such differentiation travels with equity bearing students beyond graduation. clearly employment choice for a number of these graduates o’shea, s., groves, o., & delahunty, j. (2021). ‘...having people that will help you, that know the ropes and have walked that road before you’: how does first in family status impact graduates in the employment field? journal of teaching and learning for graduate employability, 12(2), 36–50. 47 was, similar to the university students in reay’s uk study (2016), better described as an uncertain process of finding out what you cannot have, what is not open for negotiation, and then looking at the few options left (p. 11). these limitations, however, did not necessarily preclude certain employment options but rather necessitated either a reassessment of desired outcomes or a capacity to put in additional, often symbolic, work, into achieving these goals. importantly, this additional work was not always perceived negatively; instead the ways in which these fif learners reflected upon extra effort was also characterised by a sense of pride. we are not, however, suggesting that this additional work should be welcomed nor represent the necessary ‘deserving’ nature of this population. instead, this study points to the qualities that these participants reflected upon determination, resilience and fortitude – as being rarely acknowledged or valued across university settings. many fif students, particularly those who are older, may arrive at the institution replete with a rich variety of experiences or ‘experiential capital’ that they can draw upon during and after studies (o’shea, 2018). however, these types of capital are clearly not in the ‘currency’ that is valued and celebrated within most higher education settings, not only in australia but in other countries as well. hence, the second recommendation is the need to reaffirm the strengths that learners arrive with by embedding these within university policy and practices. importantly, the value of these existing capitals needs to be made explicit to employers, how such capitals translate into an employability framing should be clearly communicated across all stakeholders in the university to work transition. finally, the data presents some key learnings for the global employment landscape that continues to be buffeted by the repercussions of the covid pandemic. the participants in this study clearly articulated how unprepared they were for the lengthy and difficult route to work in their field of study, and as the statistics indicate, underemployment amongst graduates is rife. to ensure that students are making informed decisions and are equally avoiding assumptions about university as the pathway to success (as one respondent described), the need for unbiased and clear communication of future job prospects is required. we propose that independent university peak bodies provide realistic and rigorous cost-benefit analyses for different fields of study that are accessible to all individuals considering university studies. in the coming years more than ever, future students will need to make informed choices about the qualifications pursued including the longitudinal ‘opportunity costs’ of gaining a degree. acknowledgement the authors gratefully acknowledge that this study was funded by the national centre for student equity in higher education (ncsehe). further details and fellowship report are available at: https://www.ncsehe.edu.au/publications/post-graduation-outcomes-first-family-university/ references akkermans, j., richardson, j., & kraimer, m. 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